Michelle Gunn! Michelle Gunn! Michelle Gunn!

Little doll I can’t forget. Bring happiness and everything.

Imagine life without the Spice Girls. You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?

Welcome to the world of the Japanese idol, for the large part still blissfully untouched by the ersatz feminism and sublime marketing strategy that was Girl Power.

Whatever you think of the 90’s girl group phenomenon, it produced alumni with strong enough personalities and the independence to graduate to a wide variety of roles, away from their teen sensation roots and rapacious managers. For example: rich, famous footballer’s wife; rich, has-been rocker’s wife; rich, former-cutting-edge-comedian-turned-children’s-entertainer’s paternity suit.

Wait. Let’s start again.

When the Japanese idol phenomenon began in the 70s, girls were tightly controlled by their (male) management companies. Every aspect of their lives was scripted, which was easy because fans could only really find out about their idols through magazine articles in ‘onside’ publications.

Over the years such control has been relaxed. If an idol says her favourite fruit is melon, it probably is. Some idols seem to revel in their chosen métier, having made a career out of their quirks. Yet the legacy of the manipulative manager continues. It often surfaces in dramatisations of idol life, such as in Densha Otoko and Perfect Blue.

Of course, suppressing one’s personality is part and parcel of performing. Rod Stewart spends his time away from the tedium of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll with his model railway sets. On stage, you have to give people what they want (even if they don’t know what that is). Your audience, after all, pays the bills.

An idol’s most devoted fans are aidoru otaku (idol geeks - we will look at otaku subculture in greater depth in a later post). Becoming popular with otaku is one, though by no means the only, way of achieving success. Perfume (see last post) took this route, starting off as Akiba Idols.

For otaku (and to a lesser extent the greater idol-loving demographic), idols should be:

• Cute.
• Pretty.
• Young.
• Fresh-faced & innocent (even the ones not wearing any clothes).
• Docile and implicitly subservient.
• ‘Feminine’, especially in voice, language and action. This results in a high-pitched squeak combined with the politest Japanese and anime/videogame/manga character poses/costumes.

Otaku sum up these characteristics in one word: moe (萌え, もえ, pronounced mo-é, literally ‘budding’).

Yet for all the provocative clothing idols wear and pinup cachet, idols often project relatively desexualised personas. There is a ‘little sister’ effect.

The age ranges of fan and idol usually match up to place the fan in the role of ‘older brother’ (兄さん, にいさん, niisan) to the idol’s ‘little sister’ (妹, いもうと, imōto). Remember that Japanese porn you ‘stumbled upon’ one day? The one where the protagonists were meant to be family? Make (a little more) sense now?

Mr. Otaku is placed in a role of supposed power and stewardship over his idol - a relationship dynamic he is probably unable to form in real life. It is combined with his sexual urges.

And therein lies the crux. For the most part, idols provide an outlet for their fan’s emotions. For female fans, they might present a paragon of femininity to be emulated (as in the case of Ebihara Yuri).

Idols offer, as so many Japanese leisure pursuits do, an insulated world away from the pressures of everyday life. It is an arena which whole-heartedly welcomes those who are willing to accept and play by its rules and idiosyncrasies. For those who are not, it can seem a strange and foreign place.

However, idols and their companies are first and foremost a business. Like all entertainers, if an idol can make the jump into the mainstream, the rewards are much greater.

It is a delicate process. An idol runs the risk of losing her core fans by trying to popularise her act. At the same time she may flounder in the wider seas of J-pop.

Perfume have managed this successfully. Miss Élysées went to see them this weekend. She was dismayed and a little distressed to find herself in a crowd of sweaty male geeks. I like to think that the otaku probably found her - a real woman - even scarier.

. . .

Part I here.

. . .

Kill Yr. Idols