This Week in Anime

Things Get Awkward in the Idol Romcom Oshibudo

Steve
Nick, there have been a lot of confusing and contradictory messages flying around this pandemic, but luckily I've stumbled across one clear and concise piece of useful advice we can all take to heart: don't be like Eripiyo.

At least Maina's got the right idea.

And that, if nothing else, is a good place to segue into a deep dive of Oshibudo's themes and the unique way it explores the interesting divide between idols and wotas, and how one affects the other (and vice versa) in this weird symbiotic 21st century relationship facsimile between two disaster lesbians.

Yeah it's a super thorny set of topics, but I really liked seeing an anime directly concerned with this (pretty large) facet of idol culture that a lot of idol shows just gloss over. While Oshibudo clearly comes from a jokey, self-deprecating place, it comes from a really honest place too. At the very least, it's definitely not like any other idol show I've seen, and I think that ends up being a really good thing!

The lav mic representation is so important.
It also sets itself apart because the main character isn't even a member of the subject idol group. Instead, we get to follow around this delightful weirdo, who ushers us into the wide world of wotagei.

And what a world it is.

Trash begets trash, but trash also befriends trash.

Hoo boy yeah, fandom friendships are their own weird thing, and you could probably write an equally compelling and problematic anime about the intersections of certain circles of anitwitter. But that's the existence we have right now! We're all in this garbage heap together, but thankfully that doesn't preclude finding people you genuinely connect with.

I like too that Kumasa ends up being just as layered a character as Eripiyo. You'd expect someone like him, in a comedy, to be a stereotypical otaku punching bag, but he gets to both wax poetic and be an obsessive weirdo just as much as Eripiyo does.

Yeah you know, after I typed that, I realized that I was being unfair to Kumasa: he's a lot more well-adjusted than Eripiyo.

And meanwhile I'm going to choose to avoid talking much about Motoi for the sake of being as nice as possible.

He definitely ends up coming across the least sympathetic of the three, since he falls most definitively into the kind of creepy, possessive mindset that I imagine most non-wotas think of when they think of wotas. And I don't think that's a fault on Oshibudo's part: that element is absolutely part of the culture. You gotta address it.

And that acknowledgment, exploration, and poking of the boundary between idol and fan is where Oshibudo is most interesting to me. You could say this entire subculture is defined by that boundary, but the way that boundary is defined is fraught and nebulous.

You can tell it comes from a very genuine place on the author's part, and that's its ace in the hole. I don't foresee myself ever dipping my toes into this kind of hardcore idol "buys 50 copies of the same CD" lifestyle, but I did appreciate the olive branch extended towards those of us with crushes of the 2D variety

I will tolerate no bullying of Yuka, thank you very much.

Haha yeahhhh so the other half of Oshibudo actually does follow the ins and outs of being a small local idol group called ChamJam, and they all end up being pretty great characters in their own right. But Eripiyo's object of affection is the least popular member Maina, and, to put it kindly, they're a pretty perfect pair.

Despite Oshibudo largely anchoring itself in reality, this is as good a point as any to make the distinction that even realistic fiction is still fiction. Nevertheless, this ends up being a pretty big hurdle both in terms of real events and even in terms of Oshibudo's own narrative. But if you can bear those points, Maina and Eripiyo's relationship is a cringeworthy and fascinating thematic distillation of that idol/fan divide I was referencing earlier.

Basically, they never would have met if not for this whole idol business, but the idol business also explicitly prevents them from growing closer and properly communicating by literally commodifying the back-and-forth of their relationship.

Because anime is a visual medium, I should also note that this theme is communicated beautifully via Eripiyo's prized hoverhanding polaroids.

Some of it is for sure romcom-caliber wackiness, but the root of it is this institutionally-and-culturally-ingrained wall of separation. That's what makes it so good! One of the best scenes happens when Eripiyo runs into Maina randomly on the subway, and neither one of them knows what to do. There's a sense of safety that comes with the rigid structure of idoldom, so removing that means we're back to scary regular human interaction.

And of course we can extrapolate that fear and rationale into all sorts of aspects and innovations of modern communication. These are universal anxieties not confined to big idol nerds.

Granted, they've still got a long way to go, but progress is progress!

Be the distinguished lesbian couple your lovable neophyte idiot band member can look up to.

Being A-ya is suffering.

Bless the Nicos of the world. And speaking of drawn on, I'd be remiss not to mention that Oshibudo tends to look quite good! I was consistently in love with the painterly backgrounds and pastel color composition.

On the whole, I was genuinely surprised by how Oshibudo ended up being one of my favorite picks from this season! A comedy with this thorny of a premise had a lot of ways to go wrong, but it kept itself held together and turned into something thoughtful, funny, and heartwarming overall. I'd definitely love to see more.

And hey, if we don't get a second season, Eripiyo's got things covered.