Dear Everyone Watching If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die (streaming on Funimation.com),
You have not had to sit through a Hirao Auri series before, so you have hope that what you are seeing in If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, will resolve in some fashion.
Let me assure you that there is no hope.
***
Eripyo is the only fan of a minor member of an “underground” pop idol group. While the management is clearly pushing the “top three,” ChamJam member Maina is always in the background. But Eripyo is determined to contribute to Maina’s success…and would totally tell her, if everything in the world didn’t conspire to keep them apart.
I’m not trying to be a downer. I have been following this creator for about a decade, beginning with Manga no Tsukurikata, a “Yuri manga” with little to no Yuri. I have been following this manga series, Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, since it debuted in 2016. I recommend you read my reviews, because they detail exactly why this series is not a comedy, it is a tragedy, dressed in a clown nose and funny wig. This story is a brutal look at the pop idol industry from the point of view of the fans who are willingly manipulated by it. It’s harsh. It’s hopeless. And yet, because Eripyo and Maina could love one another, if they could ever manage to speak to one another, it strings you along, like Eripyo herself, with unfounded, idealistic hope.
Yuri is complicated in this series. Eripyo is clearly besotted, and she and Maina might, in some other reality, be able to fall for one another. In some ways, the more interesting relationship is hinted at between Maki and Yumeri (although I thought it was Yumeri and Yuka in the manga. Maki is one of the few characters I can actually recognize in the manga, where everyone’s hair looks similar.) In any case, Yumeri is the queer girl in the mix. Since Maina’s story is not within the group itself, it isn’t really something they discuss. There’s the group’s collective internal life, which has it’s own drama, and Maina’s little issue, which is droll and unrelated.)
The animation here is not terrible. I was super pleased that ChamJam got an actual song to sing for the first episode and the animated dancing looked pretty much like the kind of minimal choreography one might actually expect from a group like this. The voice acting is very decent, Ai Faoruz is doing a genuinely fantastic job as Eripyo. In fact, all the voices are spot on. It’s just that I have no hope that there can be a happy ending. Certainly not for the anime, as the manga is ongoing. If you’re really enjoying it, hang on, because one of the next few episodes is breathtakingly horrible and once past that, it settles down into an low-level existential dread-filled hope/disappointment cycle. This is a direct quote from my review of Volume 5: “Their eyes meet, they have a conversation, no plants fall and Eri doesn’t end up injured. They are practically married.”
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – I don’t know what to say
Character – 8
Yuri – 10 and 0 as only Hirao-sensei can manage it.
Service – Because animators can’t just not.
Overall – I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Just leave me alone and let me sulk.
Watching this series is even worse for my blood pressure than reading it. I’ve had to stop joking about strangling the author in a comedic fashion, because it’s no longer funny.
Thanks for the review! I have not watched this series yet, but as I noticed, some viewers referred to it as “explicit yuri romance”. Personally, I expect more yuri-ish comedy from this show than actual yuri romance.
Thank you for the review, it put very eloquently into words what I was thinking myself about this series. At this point, I’ve decided to treat it as an animated mockumentary on the underground idol scene rather than a yuri series. I’d had only a passing interest in the idol scene, but what little I’d seen of the hardcore fans seems to match up with what is portrayed in the anime. Eripiyo is never going to get together with Maina because the show’s central conundrum is that they both are hindered by rules and boundaries they willingly observe. Eripiyo is the ‘model’ idol otaku – non-threathening, doesn’t overstep, shows her appreciation primarily with her wallet – and as long as she keeps doing that, she’s only going to dig deeper into the idol otaku fantasy romance that’s completely disconnected from an actual relationship.
I’d hesitate to call it a tragedy though, since both sides seem to be at least somehwat self-aware of the fakeness of the whole thing. After all, if Eri was so desperate to talk with Maina, she could have approached her on the train back in the first episode, right?
Agreed that Maki and Yumeri make a much more interesting couple than our two leads too – not just because their relationship actually has potential to go somewhere. They’ve got that sports manga angle to them in that they’re confidantes but also rivals, how they motivate each other etc.
Thank you! Yes, “mockumentary” is a great description. It hasn’t had a chance to be tragic yet. The lengths to which is will go to put up barriers between Eri and Maina will wear you down.
I wonder whats the point of Auri’s stuff. I kinda liked the feel and atmosphere of Manga no Tsukurikata, but it simply progressed nowhere and only baited at Yuri. It would have been sweet had there been progression in the romance or anything else at all. This one is apparently the same… So what’s Auri trying to do??
That is a very good question. I don’t have an answer. ^_^
Damn, I really have a love hate relationship with Hirao Auri. I hate Manga no Tsukurikata with a passion yet I still read a good portion of her one shots and short stories, and I think I will likely pick up this series too.
So many of Hirao’s stories have the potentials to be good, only for in the end for her to find a way to frustrate me, and it’s not just the yuri… It’s not like her characters are bad. Like I absolutely detest the sempai in Manga no Tsukurikata, and still I kept coming back to it because I see many shades of myself in her. Her characters, somehow, always felt human to me. However, it also felt like they had no agency and simply just kept going with the flow of their life. They saw the problems of their way of living or the things around them, yet they made no effort to remedy it and just always picked the most convenient option. Yes, some people are like that in real life, but those people also don’t make for good stories at all because as readers I think instinctively we all desire to see our characters to be able to do better.
I really don’t understand what game Aori is trying to play with her readers, but then I also don’t understand why I keep coming back to her series either. Maybe you can enlighten me.
Nope. ^_^ But I’m with you. I keep hoping.
i looked up many things about this series when i first got into it (which was the day the second episode aired), and because it has such a small fanbase, i barely found anything. what i did find was a couple reviews of the first episode, its almost bare bones wikipedia page, some other almost desolate pages on the series, and this.
this is the only one that’s been haunting me.
as you can see, i’ve been sitting on this webpage for about a month and some change now, and budokan is now nine episodes in. each time i watch a new episode, i think about what you said.
by which, i mean this: “if you’re really enjoying it, hang on, because one of the next few episodes is breathtakingly horrible and once past that, it settles down into an low-level existential dread-filled hope/disappointment cycle.”
because, i am really enjoying it, it’s my favourite anime of this season. because i am enjoying it so much, this comment truly has me spooked. i don’t know what to do. each episode that airs fills me dread, because what if that episode is the one? i don’t want any of the characters hurt, or otherwise (except for motoi, i don’t like him very much, which seems to be something most can agree on), but what you said is so ominous. truly fills me with fear like no other.
tldr: i have no idea what i’ve gotten myself into, i’m not sure when the episode of dread is gonna hit, and i think about what you said so often that i almost can’t enjoy the episodes while watching them. genuinely terrified, i am.
but i’d just like to know, are you still watching the show? is it like the manga? (where do you read the manga, anyway? i haven’t done much research, but it seems like it hasn’t been translated at all. shucks.) do you have any idea how close the episode of destruction is? should i be worried, or am i just too invested in the show?
gah. i just want to be prepared. this show is really sticking with me for some reason, when for others, it’s shows like keep your hands off eizouken! or toilet bound hanako kun (which are both very good, to be frank. i’m watching them too, haha). but gosh, i wish i was like others. this show isn’t very popular, and i can’t intentionally spoil myself because of it’s undergroundness. makes it hard to be prepared.
anyway, i’m sorry this is so long. i’m really passionate about this show, despite the fact that i don’t know as much as i wish i did. thank you for reading this silly comment, haha. have a nice one!
Hi, I’m sorry to have spooked you. They actually skipped the bit that I was referring to. Instead Eri was attacked by a boar which still wasn’t funny, but which was not as awful as a convoluted Rube Goldberg escapade that was how she broke her leg in the manga.
I read the manga in Japanese. On Okazu, we do not support scanlations of any kind. You can read all my reviews of the first 5 volumes here. I’m reading Volume 6 now.
Yep, I’m still watching the anime. I don’t know why, but I don’t know why I’m reading the manga, either. Nothing gonna happen. ^_^
Thanks for writing in, and I’m really sorry to have caused you any concern. I have a complicated relationship with Hirao-sensei’s work and my musings are pretty deeply rooted in my negative feelings about the idol industry’s dysfunction and the creator’s tendency to torture their characters and string along the readers.
Hello,
It’s been a really long time since you uploaded this review, but I am really curious to know if the manga has progressed (or if the anime will get a season 2). I don’t know any Japanese, that’s why I can’t read the manga, so I have only watched the anime series. The ending was pretty frustrating, so I’d really like to know if Eripiyo and Maina have more “moments” in the manga. The anime was very repetitive, and almost boring at some point. It’s the first time I’m hearing about this author and read some comments that said she’s yuri-baiting. So I would really appreciate it if you could tell me if they actually end up together, or if at least that the story is progressing (I know it’s still ongoing).
Thank you for your time^-^
Hi Debbie – The manga is up to Volume 6 and that review is available here. I don’t know for sure about the anime, but I sincerely doubt it. Anime like this is usually meant to get people to read the manga.
If you read my reviews of the manga, you’ll see that this creator favors stories that do nothing and go nowhere. ^_^;