Tokyo Idols

Will spark jealousy in Western Karens and those stuck with Western Karens.

I bet people do not surmise that the director is likely a femcel who sports short hair. And I say this not even knowing her.

To hate on a whole class of talent and despise nature, natural attraction and love for the opposite sex takes some kind of a temerity and that kind of temerity manifests itself in the form of a so-called documentary here.

For the rest of us normal, natural and seeing people: The film depicts idols (Japanese pop stars) who are attractive, sport healthy body types and work on their talents and for their audiences 24x7.

The film tries on a line of attack. It fails. No montage can stand in the way of beauty.

I saw this film at a doc festival and here's what I took away in my notes....not so pleasant... The film to me was a glimpse and commentary on the Japanese pop idol culture. Alongside the performance aspect is the social engagement side...managed interaction events between the fans (mostly men) and the younger (under 20) girls. This a marketed and controlled industry with the "fans" voting in competitions for the next big thing. Borne out of recession times it gave people something to socially "cling" to. My final note was "one screwed up society". Judge for yourself.

An interesting glimpse to businesses, market, culture and a demographics by the accounts of the people on it. The documentarian is barely there, never to be heard. However the camera speaks by moving portraits of the people and the city. The comments of the executives are cold and brash compare to the hype and alacrity of the young women they work with, as well as the melancholic hope evident in the fans. Overall the documentary conveys a portrait of isolation and loneliness, a glimpse of how patriarchy and market can exploit both genders most sublimes human characteristics.

3/24/18. A disturbing look (there's no other way to put it) at the very popular Japanese cultural phenomenon -J-pop Idol Rio teen girl band. The band is not disturbing, but the fans sure are, made up mostly of mid-aged men ogling these young girls, an odd collection of male groupies who seemed to be too old for this kind of adoration. Oh, well, you have to watch this to believe it.

This documentary casts a balanced eye over a very strange phenomenon I had never even heard of, the Idol culture of Japan. This essentially amounts to teenage girls who double as pop singers and objects of idolisation for a fan-base. So far, not very strange, but the catch here is that the biggest percentage of the fans are older men, many in the 40s. It is a very strange spectacle to see older men faun over teenage girls in quite this way. Clearly, by this very fact this is by default a pretty controversial subject. In the west, such young girls would have fan-bases of even younger girls, not older men. So, there is a troubling aspect to the whole phenomenon where the motivations of many of the fans must clearly by somewhat dark in nature. While the sub-culture involving the even younger pop idols definitely seemed to be coming from a questionable place. But when watching this I couldn't help but sense a cultural gap that I could never quite bridge. I could never really understand the motivations of the men who followed these teenage girls, it remained very odd indeed and it did seem to stem from a Lolita sub-culture which is embedded in Japan in some complex way. It was partially disturbing, yet bizarrely innocent on a different level – I essentially left the theatre baffled by it all.