Oshi ga Budoukan Ittekuretara Shinu

- I thought I'd make this my last visit. Sorane-chan was my hope. She was all that I had. But apparently, she doesn't need me. Then there's no point in me coming here anymore.
- Could you sum all that up in a haiku?

Stories about socially unacceptable hobbies/subcultures/lifestyles too often fall into one of the two extremes. Type 1 is a true believer’s exercise in self-celebration, saccharine feel-good tales that gloss over any negativity, which you can take as either irresponsibly naive or maliciously whitewashed (e.g. Shirobako). Type 2 is “look at these dweebs” hot takes made by an outsider with the authenticity and subtlety of a minstrel show a la The Big Bang Theory. What both these types share is having little to do with reality. The beauty of OshiBudo is in how it manages to balance itself.
OshiBudo is a show about the idol otaku culture. It’s a celebration of this culture, and it’s an exposé of this culture. It does not shy away from the fact that idol otakus are troubled maladjusted people manipulated and exploited by performers whose entire business model is bleeding dry a small group of obsessed lunatics. And yet it does not diminish the fact that idol fans do indeed find meaning, fulfillment, social fabric and, ultimately, happiness in their lifestyle, i.e. they actually pay for tangible value they wouldn’t be getting elsewhere.

This nuanced portrayal (along with some other things like the superb character writing) is what makes this show “deep”, but that alone isn’t enough to deserve the 10/10 rating. The other necessary half is being “hella fun” and what makes this series fun is its jaw-breaking humor. Because don’t let the above paragraph mislead you - OshiBudo is pure, unadulterated satirical comedy.
It’s actually worth elaborating, because going into this show with wrong expectations can easily ruin it. It’s not an idol show, a romance show, or a yuri show - while it has all these elements, they’re nothing but props to set up comedic situations. No, there won’t be any romantic progress. Yes, they will run into the face-palm inducing misunderstandings that can easily be solved with saying things out loud, but won’t ever be solved. No, they won’t show girls kissing. Why? Because it’s funnier this way, that’s why.
Likewise, it’s not the type of comedy very typical for the anime medium. No reaction faces. No setup-punchline or boke-tsukkomi structure. No easily memeable cuts. Instead, the humor is low-key and, in a way, “methodical.” It’s a constant build-up of dozens of tiny chuckle-worthy fragments that just keep and keep snowballing into the all-out hilarity. Things are funny in the context of everything that happened in the show so far, both in the same episode and in the previous ones. Plenty of gags are split-second, like jiggle physics that rival the Konosuba’s boobs - for the fat guy’s double chin. You end up unable to suppress a permanent grin without properly realizing why.
Looping back, the drama of this show also exists mainly to prop up the comedy. Take the exchange from the epigraph for example. The guy is going through a genuine heartbreak/existential crisis. His friends are being callous dicks with their reply. All of it is no laughing matter. Which is exactly why it is funny.

To sum it all up: OshiBudo offers a clever and sophisticated portrayal of the idol otaku culture, and a hilarious one at that. Incidentally, it has its idol dance sequences hand-drawn, which I've been told is a big deal.

10/10 for “tangible value you wouldn’t be getting elsewhere.”

Helpful

read more

“If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die”

That is the English title of the anime.
Somehow it sounds like a goal in your life, but certainly a weird one. I am a big idol fan myself, but I would never go that far and say this. There are "wotas" (=fans of Japanese idol singers) who would do everything for their favorite idol. They support them with everything they have and this is definitely something that should be respected. It is certainly unusual and hard to understand, especially in western culture. Nevertheless, it shows how much love the wotas give to their favorite idol.

Oshibudo (short form) is about the relationship between the wotas and their favorite idols in everyday life. It gives us a little insight into this unusual and interesting culture.

STORY:
The first imporatant thing we learn is that our idol group "ChamJam" is a "chika (underground)" idol group. Such a group is nowhere near as well-known as the "mainstream" idol groups like AKB48 (anime: AKB0048) or Momoiro Clover Z (songs in Sailor Moon, DragonBall etc). So what does this exactly mean for the daily life of our "ChamJam" idols?
Without the unconditional support of their fans, "underground" idols would have an extremely difficult time. Beside performancing, our idols also have to do side jobs because the wages are not enough.
The story is focusing on the main characters Eripiyo-san and Maina (both are girls). Eripiyo-san is a wota willing to do anything for her favorite idol Maina. She loves Maina more than anything on the world and also shows this noticeably. She supports her in every aspect she can. Since Maina is a shy girl and often doesn't dare to say the right words, it is difficult for her to show Eripiyo-san how much she appreciates her support and how much she loves her for doing this.
In addition to the relationship between our main characters, we also see other wotas showing their support for their favorite idol.

CHARACTER:
The development of the idols with the support is certainly the most exciting part. All members of "ChamJam" have a different personality and not the same amount of fans. But you have to differentiate between quality and quantity here too. A special fan in your heart can change your entire life and this case is certainly here.
The respect between the "ChamJam" members is there and no one wants to lose considering the ranking etc to the others. Nevertheless, the harmony is not so strong, even if they support each other. There is still a puzzle piece missing to become a great unit.

ART:
The art style differs significantly from the other idol animes such as Love Live! or Zombieland Saga. The girls are shown cute in a different way. Their performances are also beautiful to watch and the animations have a perfect flow.

SOUND:
The songs of "ChamJam" is nice to listen. Although this idol group does not exist in real life with live performances, it is fun to watch the animation and listen to the music. The OP "Clover Wish" is sung by all seven members and you can feel the happiness in such idol songs.
The ED song, on the other hand, is a solo by Eripiyo-san (Ai Fairouz). She is one of the winners of the category "Best New Actress" 2020 and many know her as "Hibiki" from "Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?" as well. Her voice perfectly fits with the ED song.

ENJOYMENT:
As someone who has already watched many idol animes, I had a lot of fun watching Oshibudo. I personally like the idol art style e.g in Love Live! or Re:Stage more, but this variant also has its charm. Learning more about "chika (underground)" idols was also very interesting, these things are hardly mentioned otherwise.

For erveryone who wants to discover more about the idol culture, I definitely recommend watching this anime. But this anime is also great to watch for people with little idol experience. You can see how much ONE loyal supporter can change everything.
With the relationship between the idols and their wotas, this anime has a different focus compared to others. This new aspect gives us a deeper insight into the Japanese wota culture.

Helpful

read more

Has anime gone to far? We got shows about card games, shows about cooking, sports anime, even anime about making anime, but I don’t think anyone ever thought there would be an anime about idol otaku. This show follows sweaty idol otakus on their quest to cheer for their chosen idol at every concert regardless of the personal consequences, the review below will expand on this.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Story: 5

The main character is named Eripiyo and she’s a huge idol otaku, specifically she follows a girl named Maina in an idol group known as Chamjam. Maina doesn’t have many fans and is generally overshadowed by the other 6 in the group, however Eripiyo is such a huge whale that her merch purchases are enough to keep Maina working. Eripiyo alongside some other idol otaku spend their days working hard to earn money to buy idol merch, following the idols to every performance, and engaging in extremely embarrassing behavior just to get their idols attention. The series has some yuri undertones, but it never goes all the way since the idols need to keep their image pure and Eripiyo is completely unaware that Maina actually likes her, in fact Eripiyo throughout the entire show gets the idea that Maina is actually completely disgusted by her behavior.

Overall there isn’t much to write about the story, its funny at times, but it’s a very poor story overall and outside of its originality it doesn’t leave much to write about.

Art: 7

The art style is very basic, but the dance performances are actually pretty good, they even managed to hide the amount of CGI that was used through the lighting. The dance performances are decent, I wouldn’t consider them anywhere near the level of Idolmaster or Love Live, but they aren’t to awful. The background art is essentially just the streets of Japan, its very simplistic and nothing about the character designs or background feel particularly unique or original. The girls are definitely extremely cute, so if that’s what you are interested in, this show might be for you.

The sound: 5

Disappointing that an anime about Idols has such mediocre music, terrible soundtrack, and average opening. There isn’t to much to write about, this show definitely could have used better songs, but it does reflect the fact that this idol group is niche, its not a widely popular bestselling idol group, so perhaps their music isn’t expected to be great.

Characters: 7

I can’t deny the girls in this show are adorable, they all have cute character types, and making the mc a cute girl who just happens to be an idol otaku was a great idea. The development of the characters, the yuri undertones, the overall achievement of goals set out by the idols through hard work and their fans dedication was fun to watch. Overall the characters were the highlight of the show, and that is great, because this is a very character driven show like all idol series.

Enjoyment: 6

This wasn’t a particularly good show, although the enjoyment level did not feel super low and it’s not something that was actively bad, it was certainly among the most boring shows during the season it aired, even with its fairly original idea it did not really do anything impressive.

Overall: 6

I give this show 6, it has some originality going for it, so if you are looking for a new setting that hasn’t been done before then you may enjoy this show, especially if you want to know more about the idol fandom. However, it is definitely not a show I would ever watch outside of the season it aired, its fairly boring and it likely would not be fun to watch multiple episodes of this very repetitive show back to back.

Helpful

read more

Oshi ga Budoukan scratches that need for a cute low stakes comedy romance that needs to be satisfied every so often. While making us squirm with love and adoration.

The biggest warning I can give before jumping into the deep end of this series is that you will cringe and squirm from the way our main character acts sometimes, but that isn’t a bad thing! The reason you’ll be squirming is because her love and adoration for Maina is so vast and deep that is definitely slips into obsession, knowing the feelings are rather mutual though makes it feel a lot better.

Another aspect of this show that lends itself to being an interesting show to watch is the amount of actual culture baked into this series to analyze and learn about. As someone with no experience in the Idol scene there are a lot of interesting things to learn about like the light stick things King Blades (Remember though this is anime so it is very much blown out of proportion, but there are still things you can learn.)

The music and songs in this show are also quite enjoyable which is an important aspect of an idol show like this, and most of the dances are good as well (sometimes a little bit of 3d modeling is used for a couple dance shots and it can be a little jarring, but for the dances that really matter they make sure it looks good).

The weakest part of this show would sadly be the story. It’s just not that horribly deep with a lot of the story beats being a little obvious, but while it is a bit weaker I still found a lot of enjoyment in it with little moments where I could tell what was about to obviously happen next but I still squirmed in my chair and threw my hands in the air at just the absolute sweetness of what happened. While in other idol shows we can pick our favorites and follow all of them in a way this show mostly follows the MC Maina dynamic with a couple side stories featuring some of the other Idols. I personally didn’t care much for these side tangents and would have enjoyed more screen time for a couple of the other Idols or more Maina.

Helpful

read more