Vivi (Vicky), character design analyst and video essayist, joins the podcast to break down how fame is built, sold, and protected. After a clear-eyed look at the “next big thing” machine around actors like Mason Thames, we examine how Hollywood favors familiar, marketable faces, how race and colorism shape visibility, how listicles and PR language disguise old hierarchies as meritocracy, and why certain careers are pre-selected long before the audience thinks it has chosen.

From there, we move into fame as a system through To Be Hero X, Oshi no Ko, and My Hero Academia: trust scores and hero towers, idol factories and weaponized fandom, rankings and school pipelines that turn human beings into managed brands. We connect how these stories show image as currency, audiences as enforcement, and corporations as the final arbiter of who is celebrated, discarded, or sacrificed.

All this, plus the content creator pipeline, sponsorship logic, scandal management, selective cancellation, and what it means to live as a product in an attention economy that never switches off. This episode is direct, detailed, and unromantic about what modern fame demands—and what it quietly costs.

• 0:00 – Intro
  Show open, “I’ve Been Meaning To Watch That” intro, this week’s topic preview.

• 0:26 – Meet Vivi (Vicky)
  Vivi introduces herself, her character design work, and how she reads visual choices and tropes.

• 1:21 – Episode Overview
  Framing the three texts (To Be Hero X, Oshi no Ko, My Hero Academia) and “fame as a system.”

• 2:07 – Media Mania: Mason Thames & Manufactured Stars
  Vulture article, Mason Thames’ three #1 films, “ordinary” palatable whiteness, comparison to Jim Carrey, Daniel Kaluuya, Mahershala Ali, Caleb McLaughlin vs co-stars, listicles, casting patterns, race and colorism in who gets momentum.

• 25:00 – What Is Fame As A System?
  Defining fame beyond Hollywood: power in a name, internet volatility, person-to-product pipeline.

• 36:29 – Enter To Be Hero X (Context + Why It Hits)
  Underrated status, production, anthology structure, trust value system, Hero Tower explained.

• 40:53 – Style, Structure, and the Hero Factory
  Visual language, hero/villain PR, reality show framing, shipping, consent, system manufacturing crime and narratives.

• 51:05 – Trust vs Fear & Who Gets Protected
  Heroes as controlled assets, commission, balance of worship and terror, parallels to scandalous but untouchable figures.

• 1:12:04 – Oshi no Ko: Idol Industry and Weaponized Parasociality
  Pilot, reincarnation hook without plot spoiling, how the show dissects exploitation, image labor, fans as enforcement.

• 1:54:04 – My Hero Academia: Hero Rankings and Marketable Morality
  Series summary, school-as-industry pipeline, quirks as brandable assets, Class 1-A vs 1-B, children groomed into a hero economy.

• 2:22:15 – Endgame: Systems That Eat Their Own
  Closing on endings discourse, systemic rot, why To Be Hero X reads like Oshi no Ko + MHA pushed to its logical conclusion.

• 2:31:48 – Watchlist
  Upcoming watches: Chainsaw Man movie, My Hero Academia catch-up, other anime on the radar.