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If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die / 推しが武道館いってくれたら死ぬ

If at first glance OshiBudo might look like an idol show, beware — it's not. Yes, the show features a (fictional) idol group, ChamJam, but its main focus is not on the group, but on a group of its obsessive fans.

Right in the first minutes of the first episode we encounter Eripiyo (えりぴよ), a normal, twenty-something young woman living (it seems) a normal life — smartly dressed, probably successful in her job. In a park in full spring bloom she runs into two wanna-be idols, Maina and Reo, who hand out leaflets for a concert that their group ChamJam want to stage later in the afternoon.

ChamJam performs on a small stage — the type of open-air stage you find in many small-town parks — to a fistful of spectators. At the end of the concert Maina waves goodbye to the audience, but Eripiyo feels as if she had waved only to her. She's as if struck by lightning.

When we next meet her, the well-dressed professional is history. Eripiyo has quit her work, roams the streets in a salmon-coloured jogging, hangs out with a couple of other full-time Otaku, and survives on part-time jobs. She lives only to be Maina's personal (and only) fan. All the little money she earns, she spends on tickets for ChamJam concert in small clubs, Maina salmon-coloured merchandise and CDs, and a slot in the queue to shake her idol's hand at VIP events.

The anime tells a story of obsessions — first and foremost Eripiyo's, but also of her Otaku friends who are equally obsessed with other group members. It also shows the other side of the coin — the daily lives and struggles of ChamJam's seven members who may dream of a big career, but have to survive on the little that their small gigs earn them and cope the bitter internal competition that their manager imposes on them.

OshiBudo doesn't hesitate to paint these realities in all their ugliness, but also in their hidden beauty. The show does not sugarcoat Eripiyo's existence as a social outcast — she throws her life away for a fiction. There's no doubt to me that if she were a real person, she would need help. The anime also does not paint the “VIP events” as anything else than what they are — cringe-worthy sale of pseudo-affection to affection-hungry fans, a situation that debases both idols and fans.

However, OshiBudo also does not hide the hidden beauty of Eripiyo's obsession, which is ultimately an obsession with art and beauty. This obsession gives her and her friends direction, however misguided, and a sense in life that on one level is admirable, though surely not healthy.

For me, one of the weak points of OshiBudo is the love-story that it slowly spins between Eripiyo and Maina — a love story that doesn't advance much, but nevertheless becomes more and more obvious. The link between Eripiyo and Maina is not — and in this setting cannot be — that of a sincere relationship between two young women. It is the commercialised and fictionalised link between a fan and her idol. Eripiyo projects her own fantasies on her salmon-coloured idol rather than interact with a real woman — hardly the basis for a working relationship. Nonetheless, I hope for a second season of this challenging anime to see how Eripiyo's and Maina's story continues.

Official Website (in Japanese)

Review on Okazu

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