The Happy Idol Family

Imagine a world where all Idols co-exist in peace. Where AKB and H!P fans are united by a common love of Japanese Idols and the billion-dollar industry that they live and work in.

It's a peculiar idea, but it's one that seems to come in waves. I'm not even one hundred percent sure why this idea persists so much, perhaps just out of naiveté and wishful thinking.

But perhaps even more naive and wishful is the idea that the industry already works like this. And this idea is even more perplexing. It would be all too easy to say that this is purely a thought of the new fan, the DD who thinks that liking one member or group in Hello! Project also means you should be a fan of all of H!P. That's a state of thinking I'm sure we've all been in at some point - I know, at least, that my own attitude to H!P was a lot more across-the-board and DD, as it's known, when I first became a fan than it is today.

Perhaps that was also just a product of the times, though. Back then, YouTube was a much smaller and more niche place, with video quality that today makes me want to gouge my own eyes out. At the same time, anime and Japanese pop culture was in the middle of a massive explosion in the US and other western countries. I don't think it's any coincidence that the boom in western interest in anime of the mid-2000s coincided with the birth and similarly explosive influence of YouTube - a video sharing website which made it incredibly easy to upload, share, and find new content.

So at the time, people hungrily consumed any anime they could get their hands on more than ever before. And so when, as many of us did, people made the jump from being a fan of Japanese Anime to Japanese Idols, it brought with it that mentality of trying everything.

Of course everyone had their taste and preferences in anime. So people liked Naruto while others preferred Outlaw Star, or whatever. But most people still defined themselves as a fan of anime as an entire medium or industry, than a single show or studio. So when this group began to overlap and spawn new fans of the many Idol groups that came and vanished during the past decade then the creation of an "Idol Fan" subculture was perhaps inevitable. You liked Morning Musume and Arashi, but not C-ute? That was just your taste, you were still a fan of Idols. No-one told you it should be any different!

But, of course, whether you became an "anime fan" in the 90s or early 2000s when you took whatever you could get your hands on, or during the boom in the mid-2000s where we overstuffed on the sheer unprecedented volume of content made possible by sites like YouTube or Crunchyroll, that western anime-loving sub-culture has now matured enough that the idea of a generic anime fan is rapidly disappearing. It has diversified, and just because you watched Bleach doesn't mean you're also going to have watched Higashi no Eden. In fact, it's now more likely than ever that you haven't.

So, it seems to me that if the anime fandom has diversified this much, then it stands to reason that the western Idol fandom must also be doing the same. And now, despite anything I may have written on this blog or elsewhere in the past, I don't really feel there is any such thing as an "Idol fan".

But somewhere along the line, when a certain AKB48 was gaining in popularity, a vast number of these "Idol fans" began to support the new unit. In itself there's nothing wrong with that - it's possible to like more than a single band. But this was happening in ever larger numbers, as people started to notice their friends talking about AKB48 and followed them to see what the fuss was about. This of course created a sort of schism, with the hardcore fans of either group throwing nothing but contempt and abuse at the other camp, and many of those DD "I like Idols" fans caught in the middle. In retaliation to the increasing conflict, those trapped fans began to fall on the idea that being an Idol fan is universal and you can (and perhaps should) love all Idols.

Within the last year or two, though, I've noticed this trend continuing, and a return, even from some fairly long-time fans, to the notion that the Idol industry is all one big happy family. An idea which has been largely encouraged by the agencies themselves as AKB and H!P seem eager to showing anything but hostility towards the other party.

We've seen them appearing on shows together, doing collaborative performances with each other, and ultimately seen the members themselves professing their wotadom for the other group. So it's no wonder then that the fans are starting to believe that the two agencies are actually mutually understanding and co-operative.

But, perhaps or perhaps not a good idea, it's one which is based on a lie.

The truth is that, while Japanese fans of AKB and H!P are on the whole a lot less hostile towards one another than their western counterparts, there's very little love lost between the two either.

Of course, the agencies want to distance themselves from that hostility, simply because it's in both of their interests. There's little actual respect involved there beyond what allows them to remain competitive. UFA of course doesn't want you buying AKB merch instead of their own, they are in direct competition. But if you make the AKB fans think you are accepting of it, then they're also going to have a higher opinion of your own company and buy your products too. That's the idea anyway, and AKB is playing the exact same game for the exact same reasons.

There actually is no "happy family" when it comes to the Idol industry save perhaps for the relationship between artists in the same group or agency. It's much easier to foster a relationship between Berryz and C-ute when the only competition is internal and therefore does no real damage to Hello!Project or UFA as a whole. It's much harder to realistically be genuinely close friends when you are Morning Musume and AKB48 and competing to win the support, and ultimately limited pocket money, of the exact same demographic.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 8

We're back after having to postpone the show for a couple weeks.

Our guest, Oroboras, has a somewhat busy work schedule, so the only day we could feasibly record on was a Thursday. And when a thunderstorm caused Ren to lose all internet access a couple hours before we were about to record, it was decided that we'd have to postpone.

This is episode 8, and the second episode featuring Ren as host.

Oroboras, a regular on Konya mo TKMR, happily agreed to appear on the show, and is the second TKMR member to do so. My top-secret plan is to get enough of them on the show that the two become some form of affiliated shows! Okay, not really. But it'd be interesting.

At any rate, I've known him for a few years and is probably one of the H!P fans I'm closest to. We both have a quite similar sense of humour so I've always gotten on well with him. And so I was pretty pleased when he agreed to come on the show.

The guest topics this time include how PVs have improved or not over the last few years, as well as how fans become over-sensitive to certain topics regarding their Idols.

You can download the episode from here, or alternatively, listen to the streamable MixCloud version below.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 7

Last night we released the 7th episode of Wota-kai!?

It comes as we pass the middle of the first season, and Sazaki Ren takes up the reins as host for the coming few episodes, while I myself am relegated to co-host for the duration - though my work behind the scenes hasn't lessened by very much.

This episode proved to be the most difficult yet, that much is certain. The internet troubles and poor Skype quality that have so plagued us in previous episodes reached a new low this episode, and there were several times when at least one of us simply couldn't hear what the others were saying as the audio stream cut out. We made do and pieced sentences together with whatever words were picked up, or we waited until the call stabilised a bit and then resumed, with the role of actually playing host to the call jumping back and forth several times as someone disconnected.

Of course, thanks to the way in which the show is actually recorded, none of those Skype issues actually affect the quality of the show we release to you, as the audio quality is limited only by the grade of the microphone and audio set up each host and guest uses. But it does certainly make the recording process a bit of a nightmare sometimes.

Then, halfway through discussing the guest topics, our guest suffered a minor incident where his headset was accidentally torn from the USB cable that allows it to work, effectively rendering the headset useless. It was a dilemna. He didn't have a spare and wouldn't be able to replace it for a few days. We were faced with the option of cancelling the show for the week and attempting again the following, or continuing on for the last 20 minutes without our guest. In the end, that's what we decided on doing.

Then the third nail in the coffin was that upon receiving all the raw data to begin editing with, I noticed that a few sections in the recording were either in the wrong order, or overlapped. I managed to correct the order easily enough, but parts where the audio had overlapped were completely unusable, so I cleaned those up as best I could and re-recorded any parts that were unusable but essential.

It was definitely one trail after another, but we pulled through and managed to get the show finished. And there are a few things I learnt from it, and will hopefully better prepare for in the future.

So who was this guest who brought unbalance to the show? None other than Nao-kun, of course!

I had started looking around for potential guests to come on the show, as offers had begun to dry up, and my mind instantly went to the group of regulars in the Maasa thread, and Nao-kun happened to be the first person I asked.

Aside from perhaps myself and Gin, I believe he's one of the longest serving users still active in that thread - as much as the Maasa thread can ever hope to be described as "active", at any rate. Though technically a Momoko fan, he's also one of four people I recruited to help with the Church of Maasa - a blog with levels of activity that fluctuate even worse than the Maasa thread itself. 

The guest topics for this week, for as much as we actually got to discuss them, were on H!P overseas events and how they compare to Japanese ones, and on the various English-speaking fan communities around the internet.

The episode can be downloaded from the tracker here, alternatively, the MixCloud version is now available below.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 6

Earlier today we released the sixth episode of Wota-kai!?, the Hello! Project news and discussion podcast hosted by myself and Sazaki Ren.

This week the special guest was alita87.

It's actually the first time talking to a user whom I didn't know prior to the recording, which, as I pointed out last week, was probably the challenge I was most looking forward to having a crack at with this show.

All the previous guests I've either spoken to often enough,  as with Liamers who I have known and been good friends with since 2007, and guests like sanrio, who I hadn't actually spoken to all that much, but was still somewhat used to seeing him around the same chatrooms and on STD.

Alita, however, is a guest I had only ever really seen in the chat during the Konya mo TKMR livestream.

I feel the show actually went fairly well on my part. I'm not entirely sure why, whether it was his internet behaving badly or simple over-tiredness but Ren ended up being much more silent than I've ever heard him.

Thankfully, there were no major issues with the show, though, as we had last week. Originally Alita was scheduled to appear on episode 7, and episode 6 would feature another guest entirely. So we were originally expecting to have a report from Berryz Koubou at AnimeNEXT from that guest who attended the event, but when I contacted him to confirm his appearance this week, he informed me that he would be unable to make the recording. Thankfully, we were informed early enough that we were able to move Alita forward two weeks to replace him without any issue, however.

I do hope that guest renews his interest in appearing in the future, but for now I'm assuming that he will be indefinitely unable to do it.

The episode can be downloaded from here, or alternatively streamed using the widget below.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for the show, or would like to appear as a special guest and voice your own H!P opinions, then please contact me on H!O or on Twitter @The_Dran.

One suggestion I've had multiple times, and am looking in to, is to providing an alternate mirror for the download. Torrents of course die, and some users simply can't use them due to conflicts with their ISP or simple lack of knowledge about how torrents work. I've been looking in to a few locations, but I do plan to at some point provide either DDL links for each episode, or some other method of streaming the show. In order to ensure that the torrent does get a decent number of hits - enough that it doesn't die immediately - any official DDL or streamable alternative will probably be released a couple days later than the torrent, however. With that in mind, though, if you have any ideas for good podcast hosting services, then by all means let me know.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 5

Wota-kai!? is back for its fifth episode.

Making this episode turned out to be more complicated than any other episode we've done thus far, as on the initial recording day we were plagued by technical problems and Skype was simply not stable enough for recording a podcast to be viable.

Much of these problems persisted throughout the week and, though we managed to successfully record the following day, even that wasn't without its problems as mid-way through the show, Ren's internet suddenly imploded and we were left unsure as to whether he would return or if we'd have to simply finish the show without him for the better part of half an hour.

Anyway, without going into any more detail than I already have, for the rest of the week, many of these same technical issues, compounded with real life and schedule issues, interfered with the editing process and forced release back by almost a week longer than our usual release date.

Enough about that, however.

The special guest this week was none other than Sanrio, who used to host his own podcast, STD, which provided most of the original inspiration for this one (and previous ones I did a few years ago).

Sanrio is someone I've also known for some time, though never really spoken to him at any real length before this podcast - so aside from the strangeness of talking to someone I've spoken to a lot, but never with audio, such as it was for episode two featuring magatsu17, this one was an even bigger challenge in that I had to communicate with someone who I haven't actually spoken to all that much even on IRC or Twitter.

I look forward to the challenge of recording a show with someone I have actually never spoken to before.

Sanrio also set the bar pretty high, I feel, in terms of what a host should be like. There were definitely times, and we both agree, where it felt like he was the host rather than I. But this is to be expected when the guest served as host on his own podcast for several years and the actual host is a newbie just starting out - as I am.

Still, it really drew my attention to how much I need to improve to rival Sanrio, and drives me to surpass him, if you'll excuse the horribly clichéd thought.

This week also saw a fairly significant change in the format - as Ren and I both felt that what we had was a little too long, and that there was one glaring aspect of the format which wasn't working - the poorly named "This week I've been watching..." segment.

I'll admit, I'm not sad to see it go. In theory it was a fairly sound idea, but over the last few episodes we've realised that, in fact, the segment is little more than dead-weight as the discussion is only ever really interesting if everyone else has watched the same thing - recently or otherwise - which, it became clear, was expecting an awful lot from each other and our guests. And so, more often than not, the discussion would be fairly one-sided as one person talks about that DVD and repeat much of the same things that had been said about the previous DVD the episode before.

So, we unceremoniously cut it from the show, and the whole thing suddenly feels much stronger and coherent than it ever did.

At any rate, if you have any other feedback or suggestions for the show, or would like to be one of our special guests, do get in contact with me somehow, whether that's on H!O or on Twitter, or whatever you prefer, because correspondence and offers are always welcome.

You can download the podcast here, or listen in below.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 4

It has been 9 weeks since we released the pilot episode. Now we're releasing the 4th.

With each passing episode I feel more and more at ease with this show. I don't think anything will ever help me get over my hatred towards the sound of my own voice, and indeed, the editing process, which often lasts several times the length of the podcast itself, is something of an exercise in trying to not delete all of my own dialogue that makes me cringe.

This episode was no different. Over two and a half hours of audio was recorded, and both trying to clean up the audio and cut it down so it more closely resembles the imaginary 90-minute run-time I have in my head meant that I was still editing this 12 hours after I had started.

But despite the sheer amount of work, which will probably give me nightmares for the next two weeks until it's ready for episode 5, I feel that it's probably my favourite episode so far.

Our guest this week was Murr, currently serving as a translator for fansubbing group TPF, and was formerly one of the core contributors to International Wota. I think I've known her since I joined IntlWota's IRC channel, #wotachat, back in 08. And I'd probably be lying if I said she didn't scare me. Of course, most of the regulars in there scared me over the years - it's fascinating how Idol fandom seems to attract the most insane people.

In the chat, she's always quick (in IRC terms, anyway) to knock me down with a tsukkomi, and I probably imagine her as the most tsundere person in there. But actually talking to her proved to be really enjoyable, and my image of her has probably changed more in the four hours we spoke before and during the podcast than the rest of the four years I've been an wotachatter.

In any case, the guest topics this week were on fansubbing, and the difficulties of translation and how different approaches between different groups can cause problems, and finally on what it is like to live and work in Japan, the centre of fandom for most of us, as Murr does.

You can download the podcast here, or listen to it below.

If you have any comments or feedback, be sure to drop me a line. Also, if you'd like to appear on the show as a guest to voice your own opinions, get in contact with me, as I'm sure we'd be happy to arrange it.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 3

So the show returns for its third episode. The support from you guys, however vocal or silent, has been a huge boon to us, and I thank you.

In some ways, Aika's graduation was something of a godsend. Definitely a shocking turn of events, and tragic for her fans, and of course the dejected Gaki fans who feel that they have had something stolen from them, but with regards to this podcast, it couldn't have come at a better time. 

Last week was effectively the dictionary definition of a "slow news week", and so, right up until the day before we were due to start recording, I honestly had no idea how we were going to fill out the news corner. In the end a combination of Berryz' USB concert and the Aika graduation allowed us a pretty lengthy discussion.

This week we were also joined, as last time, by a special guest. The person we did have penciled in to appear this week had to drop out at almost the last minute, and will hopefully be back for episode 4, but that left us scrambling to find a replacement. 

Luckily, Liamers, a Risa fan I have known for nearly 5 years, had been asking to appear on this show. His schedule meant that he would have to appear on it this week, or he'd have to wait indefinitely for his own schedule to free up a little. But we had already promised the show to the afforementioned guest, so we made arrangements to have Liam back at his earliest convenience. 

This meant that when this week's slot opened up, he was available and ready to make an earlier appearance and the show went forward without a hitch.

In terms of format changes, there's not much. In the interests of time, however, we decided to tweak the way the Guest Topic corner works. Where before the guest and each host would bring an individual topic to discuss, we decided to merge the hosts' topics together. This means that the guest will have a topic to discuss, and Ren and I will have another.

On that note, this week's topics were on Hello!Project and their inability to get roles in mainstream dramas, and on fanworks such as vocal and dance covers, and whether there is any entertainment value in them for anyone other than the creator.

Episode three of Wota-kai!? can be downloaded from Hello! Online tracker here. Alternatively, you can stream it via the widget below.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 2

The show has returned after the pilot proved more successful than we could have ever imagined!

Some scheduling issues got in the way last week. We had hoped to record and have it released by Monday last week, but Ren proved to be too busy on the recording day,  and following attempts to postpone the recording by a day or two proved to be unworkable. So we had to cede defeat and resume as normal the following weekend.

We are now starting to get the hang of it though, and we hope to gradually change the format and the way things work over the next few episodes to make this into the show we had in our minds when we created it.

The biggest such change right now is the introduction of a third member to the podcast. This member is our special guest, and will change every week, as new people are invited, or ask to be on the show. This is something I wanted to do from the very beginning, to help keep the show fresh with new opinions and personality. Especailly as both Ren and myself are Berryz fans above all else, so a Morning Musume fan or a S/mileage one would do well to balance out an episode. Though Ren and I both agreed that the first episode should just be the two of us, so we could find our feet first.

This time, our guest is magatsu17. I've known him since the days when I was in ICU-Subs. He joined quite late in the group's life, and none of the several projects he had timed for them ever actually saw the light of day. So, when we formed KIDS, he seemed like a good person to have do some temp work for us. So disillusioned were we all by ICU, that he was just happy to finally see a project he had worked so hard on actually released.

Episode 2 of the podcast can be found here. Alternatively, you can now listen to it below.

This week's topics include concerts of the past, and how they differ from the concerts of more recent years; whether UP FRONT are always up front about the reasons that members graduate; and whether or not Idols are negatively influenced by the media-percieved sexualization they are subjected to as young girls.

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Wota-kai!? Episode 1

This is something that we have both been thinking of doing for quite some time. But a recent conversation with Sazaki Ren proved to be the catalyst for turning it into reality.

For whatever reason, the conversation turned to a few ideas I had floating around in my head, including a few upgrades to this blog. And I told him about my idea for a regular H!P podcast. The reply was almost instantaneous. "Lets do it." What? That was fast. "I've been wanting to do something like this for a while myself."

And so an idea which I had been rolling around in my head for weeks, but lacked the drive to actually start, suddenly started. We decided on the format, the name, the recording date. And then suddenly it was Sunday, 1st of April, and I was sitting in front of a microphone recording this podcast.

Nerves definitely kicked in, and there was at least one false start. I think you can tell when listening to it that I really don't feel as comfortable at the start as I did later on in the show, but for our pilot episode, I can tell you that we both feel pretty proud of this.

You can download the podcast, which features Hello! Project music and discourse, as well as a news segment and discussion about topics which are relevant to modern H!P fandom, here. Alternatively, you can listen to it by using the widget below.

Of course, any and all feedback, suggestions and constructive criticism is welcome, and should be directed at my Twitter account, or, if you prefer, the comments section or a PM on H!O.

I should also point out that we are looking for guests to appear on the show, so if you would like to add your voice to the discussion, please also contact me via the above methods.

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A New Captainist Era of Hello! Project?

It was announced a while ago that Niigaki Risa would be graduating from Hello! Project. Naturally this announcement was met by all the usual reactions from her fans. Though, and don't hold me too accountable for this, as I didn't give it too much attention, I don't think anyone found the news as shocking as other recent graduations.

In fact, the shocking part was that it took so long for her to graduate.

She is currently the longest-serving member in Morning Musume history, having shared that title with fellow 5th Gen member Takahashi Ai up until Ai's graduation last year.

The gokkies have always been close. Especially Ai-chan and Gaki. During the last few years, the fact that they had become the two oldest, longest-serving members together gave them both a personality that was hard to ignore. The most prominent personalities in Morning Musume since Koharu left.

So the real shock came when Ai-chan announced her own graduation and Gaki didn't follow suit. Most of us had been betting on the fact that the two would graduate together. I feel that most of use wanted that to happen. The idea of the two joining together and graduating together just seemed so right. But it didn't happen.

Gaki has revealed that she had considered it herself, however. But felt that, with two generations of new members just joining, she would be better waiting and then graduating once those new girls had gotten their feet.

But Gaki's graduation suddenly brings about an interesting new dilemna. The succession, if you will.

First off, who will be the new leader of Morning Musume? 

That's Michishige Sayumi. Which is an unusual thought, to be sure. She has built her idol career on a very particular kind of character. A character which made her popular as a member, but one which doesn't fit the "leader" image at all. So it's all too easy to imagine her not being ready to be leader.

I'm sure she'll make a good leader, though. Will she maintain her character through it? It's hard to know. But when Ai-chan became leader, I doubt anyone really thought she was ready for the responsibility either. Perhaps due to the fact that the Miki scandal changed her status in the group from being a regular member, to sub-leader and then on to being leader in only the space of a couple weeks. There are political coups less dramatic than that.

But she took to it well. And I've a feeling that Sayu will do so too.

But the thing that is a whole lot less certain is that unofficial title of "Queen of H!P". One invented by the fans, it is true, but one which UFA gave credence to during the Elder Club graduation when Nakazawa Yuko symbolically handed over the H!P leadership to Takahashi Ai.

That title has previously been based on rank of seniority, however.

According to Tanaka Reina's own interpretation, however, the Hello!Project Kids outrank 6th Gen Morning Musume in seniority. The Musume are older, but the former Kids were added to H!P several months before the rokkies.

Until now, that interpretation has only represented an interesting little quirk of Reina's personality, and her attitude towards her "senpai" in Berryz and C-ute.

But now it's reason enough that Shimizu Saki could become the leader of Hello! Project. She may be younger than several of the members of Momusu (and, indeed, Mano Erina), but as the oldest and most senior of the H!P Kids, that makes her primed to be the new leader.

And if that does happen, that make it the first time since the Elder Club graduation that the leadership of Morning Musume and Hello!Project will be seperate. And the first time ever that a non-Morning Musume member has held the title.

And then what does that mean for the issue of the "flagship" group. In the past it has always been Morning Musume. They were around longest (since before even H!P was), and had the largest fanbase. But if Berryz and C-ute are now the most senior units in H!P, then it wouldn't be completely unwarranted to ask whether or not Berryz Koubou is now the new flagship unit.

An idea compelling to many of us Beriwota. Though I doubt the Morning Musume fans reading this are quite so eager to concede that. And their arguements are valid. It has been a long time since I even paid attention to numbers like sales figures, but, unless I'm not mistaken, Morning Musume still maintains the lead on that, and as the traditional flagship group, it would be strange to transfer that accolade onto another.

But the point is that, with us now entering into a new decade, it might be interesting to see how the commonly held conceptions of the past decade hold up, and what changes we can expect to see in the coming years.

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