News of the Dumb: Pop idols’ management demands Y8 million in damages after two members caught dating fans

Pop idols’ management demands Y8 million in damages after two members caught dating fans

The life of a pop idol may seem glamorous from the outside.  What it really amounts to is a kind of indentured servitude.  You're expected to give up all semblance of selfhood in order to embody a set of ideals which, to put it mildly, are complete and utter bullshit.  You're not even paid particularly well to do this. 

When they're finished with you, you "graduate."  This means you may go on to an independent career of some sort, maybe acting or singing.  But most performers, having only debatable ability outside of fitting into their group role, fade into anonymity.  This probably seems like a blessing at the end of their idol years.  At least they go through this process while they're young enough to have at least some chance to recover and rehabilitate themselves.  Every so often, a TV tracks down one of these idols and finds her living as a shufu, working at an "esthe" salon or living abroad.  No word on PTSD after years of managerial abuse, encounters with lunatic fans, being shuttled from appearance to appearance, job after job, all day, most of the night and all the while pretending to be a cartoon of yourself.  The ones we've watched interviewed-- the ones willing to be displayed again-- seem reasonably happy and healthy.  I have to wonder about the disposable others not shown.

Last year we watched a program on Mei and Kei, the two members of Pink Lady, where they were open and honest about the rampant sexual harassment and routine degradation they faced.  The show featured a recreation of one of their photo shoots where a leering photography took shocking liberties with their bodies while they tried to put on a professional front and be tough soldiers about it.  A far cry from the public image of luxury and celebrity sold to us peasants along with all the merchandise from which beloved pop idols typically receive very little-- if any-- remuneration.  I think Pink Lady made out all right, though.  For the rest of these stars, working at a 7-11 would probably be a better choice.

Anyway, can you imagine signing a contract that forbids you from dating?  That's a regular part of an idol's career.  So this news a couple of performers have gotten themselves in hot water for a breach of such a contract is no surprise.  I hope their fans rebel en masse against this kind of exploitation, but I have this cynical feeling they're going to be lambasted for not playing the game correctly.  Apologies and more humiliation to follow.  I furthermore hope all the parties involved-- the women, the fans they dated (although "fan" is difficult to prove; how does anyone really know a person's motivations for dating, and how does one prove such knowledge?) and the legal guardians who signed these asinine documents in the first place all say to the management company, "Take your threatening letters and shove them straight up your asses!"

I ain't got the faintest idea what this is: Babymetal plot world domination with Lolita rock

Babymetal plot world domination with Lolita rock

But you know, I have to pontificate on it from within my fortress of ignorance like some kind of idiot king.  I've heard stirrings about Babymetal, but until now I could just turn away.  Every morning when I hit work, I check out this stuff on Japan Today-- which seems to draw a great portion of its content from RocketNews24-- because I want to know what's happening in my adopted home country and some of the articles prove useful for our upper level English Club activities.  And the Japan Times website puts a limit on how much you can read before you have to pay for it.  Screw that.

Thanks to this little daily ritual Babymetal leaped into my consciousness this morning because Japan Today's story about them is one of the most popular right now.  So I read about Babymetal.  And I learned Babymetal is a trio of junior high girls who mesh Lolita style with heavy metal for some reason.  Their names are Su-Metal (she gets the most quotes in the article), Yuimetal and Moametal.  They have a hit single titled "Gimme Chocolate," which continues the continuity of Japanese female rockers and singers singing about food and candy, a tradition stretching as far back as Shonen Knife's early days, which then jumped the Pacific along with Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto fame, and eventually returned to Japan and mutated into Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

My first thought as I plunged into the article was these girls are some of those musical prodigies you hear about from time to time, or see in viral videos on YouTube.  You know, the 9-year-old who can play the drum parts to Rush's "Tom Sawyer," or the kid with the four-octave voice who wows the usually heartless judges on some televised talent contest in Europe.  Just some friends taking music lessons who bonded over a mutual love of heavy metal and had connections somewhere.

Actually, from what I gathered via the article and a quick visit to Wikipedia just now, Babymetal is a manufactured group concept and the three girls have been kicking around the Japanese music scene in various junior idol singing groups for a few years now.  They don't play instruments as far as I can tell.  But at least merging two apparently diametrically-opposed ideas is fresher than simply cloning AKB48 or Perfume with children and dumping some wan pop song theme from an anime series on the charts for the ten thousandth time.  It may all be a carefully orchestrated ploy by a talent agency to make a few yen, but the girls' seeming devotion to metal gods and thrill at meeting Metallica reminds me of Electric Eel Shock, a legitimate hard rocking group who have been upholding the banner of pure rock for a number of years now.  And that's not a bad thing, either.

I'm a rock person myself and if Babymetal can act as a gateway for an infusion of new fans who go on to discover the power and glory of good, honest guitar-based rock music, then I'm all for it.  Not enough to buy a CD, but from the periphery, as a casual observer.