Pavane for Princess Mizuki

Why do the nations so furiously rage over Mizuki Fukumura’s new photobook?

If you haven’t seen the contents, then surely you’ve already seen the arguments over its contents. It’s the same words and logic that are thrown about whenever a young idol shoots her first photobook: Hmm yummy!, I’ve never seen this side of her before, It’s not right for her to do “those kinds” of poses, She entirely has the right to do whatever kinds of poses she likes, Now she’s just a busty sex object, Well maybe YOU should stop treating her like an object, etc. etc. etc. For further reference please open up any Morning Musume discussion forum and prepare to have your brain melted.

Actually, it’s her hotness that is melting my brain.

But the real issue, I think, lies deeper than simply dredging up buzzwords like “Japanese standards” or “the wota audience” or “age appropriateness” or even (puts on Social Justice Defensive Forcefield) “slut shaming.” People love to argue about high-minded talking points like these, to make themselves sound important and look smart. But there is a unifying principle behind all this:

What are idols, and celebrities in general, for?

That is to say, what is their purpose in life? In YOUR life?

Why shouldn’t (should) Morning Musume keep doing the same thing over and over?

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – some famous dude

The last year-and-a-bit* has seen Morning Musume shift into the “Electro Musume” [nobody actually uses this nickname] era, with their latest songs being defined by heavy synthesizer riffs, dance-club beats, and more vocal manipulation than the Tuvan throat singers of Siberia. People love it. People hate it. Lasped fans and newcomers are showing up. Longtime fans (definition of LONGTIME: “I remember the beginning of the Platinum era!”) are turning away. Still, the fact that Morning Musume’s new sound is sparking controversy is more important than whether it’s “good” or not. I mean, what is “good” anyway? Everyone has different criteria by which they judge what kind of music they like. But people are talking about it! And talk, positive or negative, is good. Better than being ignored and irrelevant.

*Observant listeners will realize that the seeds of this were actually planted even before that, with random acts of dubstep in “Only You” and “Renai Hunter” that foreshadowed the changes to come.

Aika Mitsui graduated for your sins

Morning Musume’s 8th Generation may go down in history as the “Cursed Generation.” These were the girls who had to preside over the group’s bleakest era, a time of creative bankruptcy when bubbly, energetic charm gave way to boringly “mature” songs and unnecessary glitter and synth-strings and 3 1/2 years straight of minor-keyed singles. THREE AND A HALF YEARS. I counted. If you wanted to find anything more musically monotonous than that, you’d have to go to that organ piece that’s supposed to last 600 years and the last time they changed a note was in 2009 or something.

The curse began with the selection of Aika Mitsui, who was nobody’s (okay, hardly anybody’s) favorite in the Happy 8 Auditions, who had to deal with mean-spirited jokes about her weird face and weird voice, who could only watch as sales continued to decline and a bunch of nobodies called AKB48 began their long climb up, who had to watch as other former 8th Gen auditionees would go on to be gravure queens (Yuki Kashiwagi) and multi-genre soloists (Yuu Kikkawa) and adorable potato-faced hamsters (Sumire Sat0rrrr). She would never live up to the single-member generation that came before her; Koharu became an anime icon and a morning show co-host and left the group as an aspiring fashion model, while Aika is leaving the group limping on her bad foot.

The End of the End and the Beginning of the Beginning

An anonymous stupid ass wota once said that Morning Musume went down the hole in popularity because the lineup became stagnant sometime around 2007. That is a hilarious LIE. If anything, the group’s decline—not just in sales but also in pop-culture relevance—began much earlier than that. As early as 2003 you would see manga or TV show punchlines along the lines of “I can’t remember who’s in Morning Musume anymore because all the members changed.” In other words, the general public’s problem was not the lineup always being the same, but the lineup changing too much. It was a dynamic, unusual way to run a idol group—but it also confused the hell out of people. (It also led to condescending, English-speaking J-entertainment writers making unfortunate comparisons to Menudo.)

IN REALITY, if I were to list the causes of Momusu’s current trajectory in the Japanese pop culture landscape, it would go something like this:

1) the natural showbiz cycle
2) everyone’s original favorites left
3) Tsunku ran out of great song hooks and the producers ran out of good arrangements
4) Poor marketing management
5) AKB48

HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!11 about that last one, btw.

The hardest goodbye

It is almost too daunting to answer the question, “What does The Great Ai Takahashi Graduation of 2011 mean to Morning Musume?” You have to go back to basic principles and answer things like, “What is Morning Musume about? Who are they? WHAT are they?”

Life and Death and Kago-chan

In the immediate media firestorm after Ai Kago’s suicide attempt, I found myself freaking out at 3 in the morning because that was the time IN AMERICA when the news broke.

After collecting my senses and stopping myself from flipping a table (I think I would’ve been too sleepy anyway), I scoured the state of the internet to see what was going on. Sadly, I learned what the kanji for “suicide attempt” was. And it was also in that 3 a.m. daze that, for the first time on Japan’s Twitter trending topics, a [former] Hello! Project artist was more important than whatever-and-ever-48. For all the wrong reasons.

But what struck me—more than the obvious sensationalism and the re-tweeting of news links—was the outpouring of concern from the Japanese internettes. From what little kanji I could skim, most of it was feelings of worry (“shinpai” 心配) and sympathy towards a celebrity who, in many eyes, had fallen even below the D-list. Ex-Morning Musume. Got caught smoking underage. Dated significantly older men. Got caught again. House arrest. Foreign exile. Attempted comeback. And now, a boyfriend accused of yakuza dealings and other criminal shenanigans. Wouldn’t you feel like you had nothing else to live for? Yet, if this were IN AMERICA, Kago would have been laughed off with a lot of sanctimonious tut-tutting and “I-told-you-so”.

(Admittedly, there was a fair share of shit-talking in the wake of the suicide attempt, but that’s a subject to piss me off for another time.)

Instead, many of the tweets rolling in during those first few hours were full of support. Even Harajuku darling Kyary took a break from her PON-ing and WEI-ing to express concern for an artist that she had admired since her grade-school days. It was in that moment that people from all walks of life—from the J-pop idol hardcores to the casual observers of Japanese culture—banded together to commiserate over a life in crisis. No one should ever be driven to the point where they want to end their life, and for goodness sakes we all hope she comes out okay.

What also struck me was that one of the trending words was “Kago-chan,” a form of address that one might use in casual, friendly conversation. I realized then that, even though it had been practically a decade since her heyday, she was still an idol in everyone’s hearts. Critics can talk crap about their fake personalities and short career lifespans, but something about that bond between fan and performer outlasts the bright lights of media attention. It was more than just “oh dear look at what happened to this famous person,” but as if a close friend were in serious trouble.

I think this is something unique about the perception of the Japanese idol, that has no analogue in any other pop culture. Her ability as a singer, dancer, or actress is secondary to the charisma that pours out of her, that likability and accessibility as a human being. We care about Kago not just because she is a sorta-famous person in deep distress, but because she is a sister, a classmate, a cousin, a best friend, who lit up our hearts when life got us down. And now, in this moment of unspeakable darkness, it is the least we can do to shine that light back at her.