Fandom Work is Life and Death
‘Oshi’ (idol) culture in Japan and reading 'Idol, Burning' by Rin Usami.
Fandoms can be community spaces that often produce a sense of connectedness and belonging but for high-schooler Akari — the protagonist of Rin Usami’s short novel Idol, Burning, translated from Japanese to English by Asa Yoneda —
“Oshi [idol] work is life and death.”
Akari worships her oshi, J-pop star Masaki Ueno, but when rumours of them hitting a woman fan start spreading, Akari’s relationship with her idol — and her sense of identity, hinged on being a ‘superfan’ — becomes complicated.
The novel sent me down the rabbit hole of theoretical studies on idols and fandoms in Japan, with concepts ranging from ‘cross-platform media ubiquity’ and ‘autopoietic system’ to consumer capitalism, obsession, and the pathologising of fans. What I assumed was a subculture of the entertainment industry, crossed over with social media, is, in fact, a much bigger, all-encompassing phenomenon.
You could read Usami’s novel based on these larger cultural inquiries, but I believe it is doing something more poignant.
Content warnings for the novel are at the end of the essay.1
Oshi Culture in the Everyday
“We all cried out our love for our oshi, and that was a part of life,” Akari says in the novel.
In Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture, Patrick W Galbraith and Jason G Karlin write that the word ‘idol’ is mostly associated in Japan with “young performers who sing, pose for photographs, and appear frequently in the media.”
The writers report that Japan has one the highest rates of media consumption in the world; they write that —
“Nowhere else in the world is celebrity such an integral, visible, and important part of the culture.”
Idols are also integrated into everyday life in Japan — visible and performing across platforms and genres (like drama, game shows, music, travel, and others), but also percolating through collectable merchandise.
Fans and Superfans
In the novel, Akari is, in many ways, a character study of this phenomenon’s emphatic everydayness. For instance, she has a ‘shrine’ in her room dedicated to her oshi —
“The shelves were packed with DVDs, CDs, magazines, and flyers in chronological order, stacked up in layers like geological strata.”
In ‘I collect, therefore I am’ — an essay that studies the importance of merch in the oshimen culture, the act of ‘collecting’ or specialised consumption, and identities — Sumayya Baasir writes,
“The merchandise serves the purpose as a tool to build and strengthen their identity as ‘true’ fans, separated themselves from ‘casual’ and non-fans [sic].”
These ‘true’ fans — like Akari — see themselves as ‘superfans’ who, as Baasir writes, will buy merchandise associated with their oshimen only, often calling themselves ‘supporters’, not merely fans. Alari’s ‘superfan’ identity and her ‘support’ of her oshi are also reflected in her online blog, dedicated to all things Masaki Ueno.
Identity and Identification
On identity and consumption, Galbraith and Karlin also write that —
For the ‘fan-consumer’, “the idol as an object of desire is a fantasy or ideal construct, a “mirror” reflection, which resonates with deep affective and emotional meaning.”
This is certainly true for Akari. While watching her oshi’s performance as a child actor in Peter Pan, Akari says —
“I felt that someone was telling me that it was okay to feel heavy at the prospect of growing up… I was connected with him, and, through him, I was also connected to everybody who stood on the other side.”
Akari’s relationship with her oshi and her identity as a superfan become complicated as rumours of Masaki Ueno hitting a woman fan spread. She says,
“I wasn’t sure whether I should be angry, or coming to his defense, or looking on from a distance at the people getting emotionally invested… The only thing that seemed sure was that he was still my oshi.”
Coming of Age
While Usami’s novel is about the consumption of personalities and merch and the obsessions of a teenager, the novel goes much deeper — it is a poignant coming-of-age story.
Akari — who feels a disconnect with ‘normal people’ who “fleshed out their days” and went about their lives — says,
“I couldn’t manage life the way everyone else easily seemed to, and I struggled with the messy consequences every day. But pushing my oshi was the center of my life, a given, and my one point of clarity. It was more than a core — it was my backbone.”
In a Q&A2, Usami explains her reasons for writing the book —
“To those who are not interested, the act of pursuing an idol can easily be dismissed as ‘only a hobby’ or an ‘unhealthy obsession’. But for some of those who do pursue an idol, it can become a reason to live for or even be their salvation. I felt that the extraordinary passion and intensity of those who hadn’t yet been written about (in fiction) and are not widely understood. That’s the reason why I wrote this book” (emphasis added).
Without pathologising Akari, then, it is important to note that she is hyperaware and often critical of this fandom culture. For instance, she remarks, “Fandom talk could get a little over the top.”
In a post on her blog, she writes about the ‘irrational’ act of buying a cringeworthy, useless, embarrassing, and expensive (her words) alarm clock with her oshi’s photo on it, because — “We’re easy marks, I know. But that’s merch acquisition syndrome for you.”
An Idol Burns
And what of the idol, the oshi?
Galbraith and Karlin write that idols must “project themselves as clean, healthy, and energetic.” Masaki Ueno falls short of this as the scandal progresses, but the blowing up of their story proves that idols “cannot escape their “real life” persona when they appear on the screen.”
However, even though we don’t get Masaki Ueno’s perspective in the novel, Usami tries to humanise them, too. Akari remarks,
“An idol becomes human.”
Explaining the novel’s title in the Afterword, Usami writes,
“An idol burns. I’m not talking about a celebrity physically going up in flames. It’s about someone in the public eye who commits a misdeed… and becomes the target of criticism, is scrutinized from every angle, and loses their influence.”
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