There are some days where I question how much of a fan I truly am of idols. Today is one of those days. It has been roughly one year since the Hello!Project, and thus, idol career of Ai Kago came to an end. It was a bitter end - at the time there was hope and promise for a revitalization of her career that had been previously suspended for a year. However, Ai did not want to play the by the frivolous and petty rules rules of being an idol.

And this makes me not want to play by the rules of idol worship.

So there are some days that I look at Kanna Arihara, and others, and think:

“We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds.”

Before I get going, I need to point out that the majority of my idol watching is without any hindrance whatsoever. On certain days though, I will take a break from my enjoyment. An existentialist crisis is most likely going to happen exclusively to people in developed countries and not in countries where people first need to worry about living to the next day. It is a terrible analogy, I’m aware, but I have my fill and means to obtain materials to watch idols. I am not starving for idols. Furthermore, I’ve been following H!P and other idol agencies for years now, so I’m long past that initial shock and enjoyment of the entire process. I think the thought process in this entry could only come from somebody who A) has seen way too much idol entertainment and B) has way too much time on their hands.

When I said that I don’t want to play by the rules of idol worship, perhaps I was overstating the reality a bit. There are no official rules to watching idols. However, my viewpoint of idols is different from the wota that go to the concerts. I am much more selfish about the ordeal than they are. This is a culture clash - the American individualist way of thinking that surrounds me is in stark contrast than the group mentality that idols personify. My interest isn’t based on loyalty to Morning Musume or Berryz Koubou. Instead of wishing the girls to simply try their best, it is the desire for the moments in which I’m left in awe and amazement that keeps me going. If it were any other way, I’d probably love every single idol that was presented in front of me. Trying hard is important and is to be appreciated - especially in something like sports - but there comes a point in all fields where proficiency reigns supreme.

We can’t go on together

As stated, I can still watch the performances and listen to the music without any issues. However, there are those days of self-analysis and trying to determine why idols are so entertaining and appealing. There are many aspects of the business that interest people. Do I like their music? Do I like how they look? Do I like their dancing? Why do I like their dancing? Is it good or bad? I won’t drag on the line of questioning that followed. These questions can only solve pieces of the puzzle. There must be one question that I can ask myself that can truly define the core of my interest. Eventually, I came upon this question, and in my mind it is at the basis of all our situations.

“Do I love them?”

For me, the answer wasn’t pleasant, since it was “no.”

With suspicious minds

At 22 years old, I cannot define love. Love is something we constantly define and redefine in our lives. So my thoughts on love today won’t necessarily hold true when I am 32 - just like my thoughts on love when I was 16 aren’t true today. Furthermore, there are different types of love.

But what kind of love is most relevant to idols? Right now, I think the two biggest pieces of a relationship are trust and communication. Without communicating, you can’t trust someone. And without trust, the communication is meaningless.

Trust is something that can be broken but I don’t feel as there is a finality to trust - if it is broken, it can be rebuilt. Ai Kago broke the “trust” between idol and fan, but was given a chance to rebuild it.

However, the idea that there has to be trust between an idol and a fan doesn’t sit well with me. More specifically, I don’t agree with what the industry dictates the level of trust between idol and fan should be. I would suggest that many fans (overseas and domestic) feel as though the idol can’t do “non-idol” activities in real life. These activities will be discussed later, but things like dating and smoking cannot be done by idols without damaging their careers. However, they are human and have urges and will make mistakes. The trust that I have for the idols to follow the rules and for the wota to be understanding when idols don’t is at an absolute bare minimum.

If you want to read a piece about love and idols, go to Ray Mescallado’s A Unified Theory of SweetS: Introduction. The choice quote, as related to my entry here, is:

“It’s possible to dream of Haruna the Jpop persona and still know that Haruna the flesh-and-blood girl is nothing like that in reality.”

For me, this holds both true and false at the same time.

On the positive side, it can make me want 15-year old Aika Mitsui’s photobook to be released ASAP without any guilt. This is the fantasy.

On the negative, I have to be reminded that there is a real life girl behind the idol persona. This is the reality.

I would prefer the fantasy separate from the reality.

The fantasy is an act. It is a story played out in front our eyes. Some of the characters progress and some regress. In this fantasy, everyone has perfect skin and want the best for each other. The root each other on and have hope for the future.

It is ruined by those who want the fantasy to be a reality.

And we can’t build our dreams

Polling the fans of idols on who would make an ideal girlfriend/spouse is very common. The last one that I can remember is posted on HNPH. If anything, it is the strongest attempt to make an idol real - thinking of someone as your significant other implies that they’d be with you in the flesh. You’d be spending time with this idol where it is just two alone. It’s strange since the sheer enormity of people that participate in the polls should imply that having an idol for yourself is an impossible situation, yet these polls happen all the time.

This isn’t realistic at all. How can you say that your favorite idol would make an ideal significant other when the most you know about them is their favorite color? I think that the logic underlining the poll is that an idol would make the “perfect” significant other. Many male fans want to look at this always smiling, sweet woman to be their spouse. Remember that Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode where Will has a dream sequence of his perfect spouse and kids? It ended up as a nightmare as they were “too perfect.” That would be the outcome here. Maybe this can only come from somebody who isn’t married, but it’d be boring to have a perfect marriage. I’d prefer a challenge every now and then. If anything, the bad times would make the good times even more meaningful. Maybe this explains why I liked Miki Fujimoto so much.

Why should the idol persona not being real matter? Well, quite frankly, it SHOULDN’T. However, an idol is advertised on a much more intimate and personal level than a character in a movie. We watch characters in movies from a distance. But since idols are characters in the flesh-and-blood, for some reason this act has to be validated as “real.” It is a double-edged sword. In making the idols seem believable, it does make the character and the audience’s relation to the character more powerful. The audience can easily relate to something like being annoyed at high school exams. However, by being “real,” they can’t do some of the things that the audience can do - like going out on a date.

Thus, the realization that the idol I am watching and the girl playing it are not one in the same does cause a backlash. Fans are encouraged to think that their favorite idols as someone they could interact with in their everyday lives, but reality provides no evidence as such. The idol tells the fan that they are friends and wish the best for each other. The idol seems very approachable. Yet if one of these fans followed one of these idols around all the time, they’d be arrested for stalking. Similarly, by following an idol around, the fan will see the reality of the situation - that these girls have lives of their own. This can explain the downfall of Megumi Murakami. A fan was so dismayed by the reality that Megu could have a boyfriend that they felt utterly betrayed. This type of fan doesn’t actively recognize the different between fantasy and reality. These idols are that are always smiling and being pretty and sweet can only exist in a fantasy land such as show business, and that’s where they should remain.

Unfortunately, the fantasy and reality don’t always play well together. This has created a situation in the idol world that many of us dread - the scandal. The scandal is a terrible thing as it, more often than not, leads to periods of decrease, or worse zero, activity. If the fantasy could be separated from the reality, then idols could date, smoke, drink or screw whatever they want. They could live their real lives like human beings and play an act for the cameras as their job. Oh, how I wish it was like this.

But it’s not. Instead, because of how they are advertised and fan reactions, scandals will ruin careers. They have to remain that sweet, innocent, untouched and single persona in reality otherwise the fantasy is shattered. Having been through some of my favorites going down the drain due to such scandals, I’ve developed a lack of trust for my current favorites. As a defense mechanism so that I am not hit by shock and anger, I am always waiting for the next scandal to occur. This is why I can’t say that I love any of the idols. How can you have love without trust? And if I can’t trust any of the idols, how can I love them?

Ai Kago was definitely an early favorite of mine. She worked well with Nozomi Tsuji but I had always felt that Ai Kago was the real star of the show. It’s well-known by now that Nozomi only passed the auditions due to her relationship with Kago. One of the hooks that keeps me interested in idols is watching their stories unfold (it is the biggest factor in why I like Perfume, but that’s for another day). With Aibon, I feel that the story was ended too early. Because we saw her change from an immature and only reach the beginnings of adulthood, the story feels incomplete.

While I am well aware that this will never happen, I’d welcome her back with open arms. If only to see where the story would go next. I’d be wary of getting too attached though. After all, I’ve got a suspicious mind.

On suspicious minds