Archive for the Hirao Auri Category


If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die

April 2nd, 2020

And so, If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, streaming on Funimation, has wrapped up and I thought I ought to share a few thoughts about it.

This story, of the life of an idol group fan; a fan of the least popular girl in a small, not well-known, provincial idol group was, in turns frustrating and hopeful. The anime had the advantage of being short, and extremely well-voiced. So folks who watch the anime were able to skip some of the more prolonged agony of the manga. I’m pleased for you. ^_^

I’ve written in my manga reviews about how miserable this series has made me feel about the exploitation of the idol industry on all sides. I always felt that the idols were exploited, but I never understood how exploited the fans were, as well. I find it hard to enjoy any real -life group, when I read about the sentimentality porn of “graduations” and the endless number of young women and men leaving for health reasons. There’s no other conclusion to draw but that the entire industry is a “family friendly”  form of human trafficking. And this series made me question it even further, when it uncovers the kind of obsessive indentured servitude fans are presupposed to engage in.

Surely I *cannot* be the only one in the world who thinks not being allowed to like (or let your fave know you like) more than one person or group is bat shit crazy? Fans, like whomever the fuck you want! Your oshi does not own you! You do not own them! This is not a life, it isn’t even a virtual life…it’s a job and fans are paying for the pleasure of working. That’s not healthy. The whole thing is a shared delusion and no one but their production companies win.

And, so, most of you will have watched this series with hearts in your eyes, hoping that Eri will finally be able to communicate with Maina, and that Maki and Yumeri will be happy together. I can’t tell you if they will, only that 6 volumes into this series, they haven’t yet… As the entire series is about lives in suspended animation, that seems fitting.

At least the anime left us with hope, with tears, with gambaru, and with teamwork. Because that’s what it is (supposed to be ) all about, right? We’ll keep trying hard and someday…!!!

And so we’ll keep following our faves and hoping that they make it to the Budokan. Rawr!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Shockingly positive 7
Character – Likeable 8
Yuri – 10 and 0 as only Hirao-sensei can manage it.
Service – Overall, 5 tiresome more than offensive

Overall – I still don’t know, really. If I watched the anime with no knowledge of the manga, 7, 8, maybe?

Ai Farouz deserves a fucking trophy for her portrayal of Eripyo. She was the reason I kept watching.





Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Volume 6 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ )

March 13th, 2020

In Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Volume 6 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ ), we meet another local idol group, the Starlights, when the two groups end up in a double show out in the Starlights’ home, Kagawa, across the Mizushima Gulf from Cham Jam’s home base in Okayama. The Starlights are a perfect foil for Cham Jam.

As the Cham Jam members start to do some research, they wistfully notice that the Starlights have a lot of female fans. It turns out that two of the members, Ryoka and Kana, are an apparent couple. On stage they are all love-love, but it’s an act, it’s business Yuri.

Eri bribes a coworker to attend a show with her, in response to a canned request from Maina. At the Kagawa,show  Eri pretends to be from Kagawa in order to shake Maina’s hands for free, at which point something occurred to me. A great deal of manga and anime – especially what passes for romantic comedy in anime and manga – is predicated upon the idea that two people just never have the conversation they need to have. This series is exactly like that, obviously. But it also is complicated by the fact that both Eri and Maina overthink things in oddball kind of way. It reminds me a lot of National Lampoon’s Doon.*

“Then-”
“Yes,” he said.
“So therefore-”
“Exactly, Mother.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “You cannot!” she hissed.

Every conversation sounds exactly like this to me. Maina says something banal and Eri misinterprets it, then vice versa.

That aside, this book is the closest to being a reasonable facsimile of a mockumentary about provincial idol groups. And! For the very first time, I laughed out loud at a joke in a Hirao Auri manga. The top three of the Starlights get all bent out of shape at the Momotarou connection in Okayama, and when during the post-performance Q&A Yumeri mentions that Okayama has a Momotarou festival, I actually laughed at “wtf” expressions on the faces of the Starlights top three. It’s a single panel buried way deep in the book and the page, but I laughed.

The trip to Kagawa makes everyone appreciate Okayama more. Reo is really an outstanding character. Surrounded by everyone else’s issues, she just gets more and more solid. There’s no doubt why she’s the lead.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Character – I really like Kumasa. He seems like a decent dude, Motoi is beginning to worry me. Eri is Eri.
Service – 1
Yuri – 4 Ryo-chan and Kana are “yuriple” (γ‚†γ‚Šγƒ—γƒ«)

Overall – 8

* This book is the greatest parody of all time, far surpassing its better known sibling, Bored of the Rings and if you have not read it, you will never get any of my references about “being a bicycle” and quite probably 57% of all my other references. It’s super way out of print, but if you have ever read Dune, you will howl like a hyena at Doon.

 





Yuri Anime: If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die (English)

January 26th, 2020

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.

 





Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu Manga, Volume 5 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ )

March 7th, 2019

Since this week has sort of naturally slipped into “manga that vaguely annoy/disappoint/vex me” week, I think this is a perfect time to review Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Volume 5 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ ). ^_^;

Being an otaku takes a lot of work and a lot of money, as we’ve learned in the previous 4 volumes, but it also takes a kind of compulsion, a need to be there for the singers you’ve all but adopted as yours. In Volume 5, the Cham Jam otaku follow their idols to an overnight camp, where they get to do camping chores and sit at the campfire with them and get commemorative pictures and to Tokyo for their first show in the big city.  It’s not at the Budokan, but the group does get to take a picture outside the Budokan, so that’s something.

I was going to be really snarky and say “and then a thing happened,” but as I think about it, a number of things happened, it’s just that the scale of “happen” is so small for this series. There’s always a side story within the group itself,  this time, it mostly focuses on the group in Tokyo and them trying to keep their energy up after a 10-hour van ride into the city. I’m more and more convinced that two of the group are a couple, but just not telling anyone (Yumeri and Yuuka, maybe, I have a hard time keeping them all straight. I only recognize Maki and Maina of the 7 Cham Jam members at a glance. I am a terrible otaku and Hirao’s art leans slightly more realistic than fantastic. The Cham Jam members all have hair that looks normal and is varying shades of black and gray. Maina wear twin tails, when she takes them out, I have no idea who she is.)

In the meantime, we’re still watching Eri and she’s definitely changing, albiet very slowly. We get to see her at her bakery job, which she genuinely enjoys and which gives her time later in the day to do the otakuing she needs. We also get a glorious moment when Motoi brings along his younger sister Rena, who used to be a Cham Jam otaku, too and we can see Eri in the company of another woman her age outside the otaku world. It felt very refreshing, even as, of course, Eri, Motoi and Kumasa mostly talk about the group.

Most importantly, during handshake time, Maina and Eri *finally* have a short conversation with no mishaps. It’s banal and keeps to the established territory of fan/idol interaction, but they manage a whole few minutes together.

The more I read this story, the more I desperately hope it’s meant to be a cutting commentary on the utterly brutal idol industry, and the equally brutal hobby of being an idol group otaku. Otherwise, it fills me with despair. (Yeah, I know, I know, I keep bringing it on myself.) The idea that this manga is getting an anime is already annoying, but it will probably be meant to be a comedy and I will just want the world to burn. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – I don’t even know anymore~~~~
Character – 8
Service – 1
Yuri – 2 Their eyes meet, they have a conversation, no plants fall and Eri doesn’t end up injured. They are practically married.

Overall – 7 

If the crushing awfulness of idol/otaku relations is an intentional target, I would like it so much more, but I think crushingly awful is just what the artist does.





Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu Manga, Volume 4 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ )

August 30th, 2018

Here we are at Hirao Auri’s latest attempt to drive me into an early grave. In Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Volume 4 ( ζŽ¨γ—γŒζ­¦ι“ι€¨γ„γ£γ¦γγ‚ŒγŸγ‚‰ζ­»γ¬ ) nothing happens. Nothing happens in the most dramatic and frustrating way possible, which I grudgingly admit is the creator’s style, after all. A style I named manga interruptus, in between fantasies of strangling the author while reading Manga No Tsukurikata.

On their way to Budokan (which is the end goal, as the title clearly states) the ladies of Cham Jam participate in other group idol festivals, including one in far-off Hiroshima. Tickets are hard to come by and super-fans’ lives are put on hold to make it possible for them to be there to root their special idols on. 

Cham Jam runs into a former member who now has a new act, and we spend time with a few of the idols – Maki gets a lot of page count this time – getting a better idea of their internal lives, so the author can derail his own story and delay any conclusion. Manga interruptus indeed.

Superfan Eripyo and idol Maina are all pained, intense, needy looks from about 8 feet apart, but every time they are standing face-to-face, touching hands for the prescribed number of seconds allowed per purchase, they become tongue-tied and incoherent. That happens several times this volume, so it can be more and more fun as the story creeps along. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Argh
Character – 8
Service – 1
Yuri – Argh

Overall – Argh

I never learn, do I?