English Dub Review: If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die “Do You Like Me?”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Eripiyo tries WAY too hard just to impress Maina. All Maina wants is genuine affection and love that doesn’t have to be superficial, like dressing funny, or buying all the merch. Just a simple fan-idol connection would be enough for her, Not sure if Eripiyo understands that yet. During an Idol train event, Eripiyo discovers that news about another fan named Rena who is quieter and reserved as opposed to Eripiyo’s loud nature.

Our Take

In response to the last episode, I cannot believe that staff didn’t even tell Maina what happened let alone apologize to her and Eripiyo for it, Pretty dick move on their part… In any case, I do kinda understand the unfortunate tension (if you can call it that) between the two. Both want to be closer to each other, but both also understand that there is an Entertainer/Fan barrier that socially probably shouldn’t be crossed. I think that’s properly spotlighted for Eripiyo more than for Maina, honestly. From a rational perspective, I think that is absolutely reasonable. There’s also the age barrier to consider. Eripiyo must be, what 6-10 years older than this young Idol-singer?

I also do like that at least Maina finally has another fan in the form of another person named Rena who is somewhat making Eripiyo re-evaluate how she does things a little, particularly with respect to buying all of Maina’s tickets at the Meet & Greets. Jealousy aside, Eripyo’s finally reached the conclusion that buying all her tickets to monopolize Maina’s time actually comes off as being counter-productive to her desire to see Maina’s fanbase grow. Though it was interesting to see how Maina seemed pretty sad when Eripiyo said she only had 1 ticket instead of her unusually excessive amount.

Overall, episode 3 was a slow-burn in pacing due to the focus for character development, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going too fast. And generally, the comedy works in places, I struggle with sitting through this show sometimes not just due of the bizarre subject matter of Japan’s Idol culture, but partially because it feels like two separate shows forcibly mashed together as they try to make us see things from both the fan and star’s perspective.

Hopefully, the later episodes will give us a better balance of both…