Nobody looks at me. Not my mom. Not my manager. They couldn't care less about me. Even my fans only see the shadow of who I used to be. "Somebody look at me." I've spent the past ten-plus years screaming those words, and yet... Say you need me. If you'll just tell me that, I'll do whatever it takes. Say "That girl's useful" and I'll be a real workhorse. Praise me for my hard work... and I'll do my best to work even harder. But even with all that... Somebody... Anybody... Tell me it's okay for me to be here.
Kana Arima「有馬 かな, Arima Kana?」 is a major supporting character in Oshi no Ko. She is a childhood acquaintance of Aqua and Ruby Hoshino and a prodigious child actress, though her popularity has waned over the years. She is also the center of the revived idol group B-Komachi.
Though talented, she eventually got fewer jobs due to being difficult to work with, causing her to change her acting style to survive in the industry. However, after meeting Aqua and Ruby again and being recruited into B-Komachi as well as through her rivalry with Akane Kurokawa, she steadily began to undo the shackles she placed on herself.
Kana is described as a cute girl having an innocent face, shoulder-length pinkish-red hair that has blunt bangs and pinkish-red eyes.
Due to her occupation and high cute fashion sense, she often wears various outfits and hats.
Personality
Initially introduced as a cocky child actress with a sharp tongue, Kana was moved to tears after witnessing Aqua Hoshino's performance. However, since then, she has matured and grown into a much kinder person, although her gruff manner of speaking still surfaces when she experiences intense emotions. She has consistently strived to become a better version of herself. Though things have cooled down for Kana toward stardom, being a great actress is still her main goal.
Kana is described as a diligent and hardworking girl who is empathetic, cheerful and confident with an impressive sense of responsibility. She can also be rude and sharp-tongued at times due to her past. She continued honing her acting even when she could not find work, as mentioned above. She also puts the quality of the product above everything else, even willing to lower her acting level and risk her reputation as an actor.
As a young child, Arima Kana was known as a child genius who had high acting skills even at such an early age. Many adults would praise her and think highly of her, therefore resulting in a egoistic and pompous personality, with a large superiority complex and a sharp tongue. She also hated being worse than other people, always overworking herself to be the best actor ever, as she was very competitive. Although she was a famous actor that was high in demand, her popularity soon dropped as her big ego made her hard to work with and her strong wants to always be the center of attention. This caused many people, including her parents, to abandon the thought of her being an amazing girl who was a child genius. Even if others did, they would only cling to her past acting and not acknowledge her new skills and acts anymore. She was not well liked anymore, and bound herself in thoughts of being inferior and worse than others - but to cope, she kept pushing out an egoistic personality from time to time. She even kept her sharp tongue and teaseful personality, always cheerful and outgoing.
However she has now become stuck with an inferiority complex, and would do anything to be liked and praised again. She has even stated that if someone loved her and admired her for her skills, she would work herself to her bones for that person, out of desperation for validation and attention. While she craves attention badly, she avoids it as she is now scared of being in the spotlight and avoids it. This connects to how instead of being an actor that was always the main focus, she has become an actor who “acts for others” and uses her acting to make others shine instead of herself. She is no longer egoistic, and instead far more selfless, even while being extremely selfish and wanting the attention for herself at the same time . However, during the stage play of Tokyo Blade, it is shown that Arima has accepted herself to be selfless and stay out of others’ ways, and instead sit back and make the others shine - until Aqua helps her regain her confidence to once again attract the viewers.
Despite the fact that she acts outgoing and talks in a teasing manner, she is actually very soft-hearted, kind and empathetic, and always cares for her friends and pushes them to be the best self they can be. She is also very emotional and sensitive as well, as she is caught crying in public from time to time. Due to her inner soft self, she is also very gullible and gets caught up in her own thoughts that drag her down from building up her self esteem again. But as she wants to still be seen as a child genius and amazing actress, she tries her best to keep pushing out fake confidence and tries not to get help from others so that she can appear to be mentally stronger than she is. Kana does not like to depend on other people or ask for help, as this makes her feel inferior to others. She has a strong mentality for herself and works hard to build up her ego and confidence again, and does not want to feel like she needed to always depend on people.
Skills & Talents
As a child, Kana already had the ability to cry at a switch but it was her natural tendency to shine as bright as the sun that made her a household name. However due to her acting often outclassing everyone else, Akane Kurokawa would describe Kana's acting style as "selfish and self-centered". This would eventually change into a more "adaptive" one as Kana slowly started losing job offers due to her standing out. To survive in this industry, she became more "easy to work with", and her acting became more adaptive towards her coworkers as she tends to work to put the spotlight on her peers.
When asked by Aqua about emotional acting, specifically how she can cry on demand, Kana explain that she was taught to do so by imagining what if her mother died and if it were a happy scene, she would recall happy memories. And when Ruby Hoshino comes to her for advice on acting, Kana advises Ruby to understand one's self. These are signs that Kana's primary acting style is that of the Stanislavski Technique. However Kana is not limited to a single technique, as shown throughout the story, Kana also has the ability to adopt to the other actors around her, indicating that she practices Meisner Technique as well.[7][8]
When Kana first attempted a music career with her first song, the Bell Pepper Exercise, Ruby thought Kana was tone deaf. Through hard work and practices, Kana has become a relatively good singer as seen by her 97 score in Karaoke.[9][10]
Kana's surname Arima means "exist" (有) (ari) and "horse" (馬) (ma).
Trivia
Kana's career of child actor turned idol bears similarities to the careers of Yuko Oshima and Mion Mukaichi. Both started acting at a young age and joined the idol group AKB48 during their teenage years. The former in particular was the Center of the group at one point but has since graduated and moved on to acting in movies and TV dramas.
Kana's career as an actress has also drawn comparisons to the careers of Mana Ashida and Ineko Arima. The former is a former child actress with a short stint in music, whose mother has a negative reputation in the entertainment industry. The latter had an affair with a director who is both married and much older than her.
Kana is famous for being the genius child actor who can cry in 10 seconds「10秒で泣ける天才子役, Jū-Byō de nakeru tensai koyaku?」 but through Japanese wordplay, she is jokingly referred as the genius child actor who licks baking soda 「重曹を舐める天才子役, Jūsō o nameru tensai koyaku?」.
This moniker was used as a gag reference in the anime's official Twitter page newsletter for April Fools, advertising her as an up-and-coming poster girl for baking soda-based cleaning solvents. This later became reality in the official site where a new line of cleaning products with the name "Jūsō-Chan" will be made in partnership with the company Kaneyo.
↑Kana's age during the filming of That Was the Start was never outright stated, but it can be inferred that she is about two or three years old from available information.
↑ 15.015.1Oshi no KoManga:
Ch. 34 (p. 17),
3 known songs title are "Full moon...!", "Bell Pepper Exercise" & "Soothing Satellite", 1 of the song is shown written "...LOVE" & the other 2 is blocked by dialogues.
