English Dub Review: If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die “I Always Want to Love You the Most”

The episode begins when Eripiyo hears about a “Wota” (pronounced Ota) fashion-walk event going on within her town involving the possibility of her favorite Idol Maina making it. For those of you who don’t know, a Wota is what you call a fan of idols or idol groups. In Japan, the idol-scene plays a large part in their entertainment industry and gives a sense of community by cultivating a huge fan base from admirers of both Genders. With Wotas in Japan being the most devoted and supportive, often expressing their love with everything from glow-sticks of a certain color to crazy outfits and fan-mail but thankfully nowhere as creepy as the previous episode.

Upon hearing this news it takes Eripiyo a while to eventually say yes, and although it takes a while, Maina finally makes it to the stage and much to her shock, she remains somewhat grateful people were there for her, but later on made a social media message admitting that she wasn’t sure if fans would come to see her, to begin with. During another event where the Idol’s are responding to fan-mail live on stage, Eripiyo gives a letter to the staff to deliver to Maina at her behest, which seems harmless at first, but the episode ends on a messed up note when a Rat within the staff’s office does something unthinkable that leads to a chain-reaction of misfortune for both Eripiyo and Maina in the process…

Our Take

This was a chore to sit through… It’s certainly new in how it makes me cringe with the Idol/Wota dedications but at the same time still pretty relatable & analogous to other non-idol related things. In life, we go through the struggles of liking something less popular, for one, but at the same time still had enjoyable moments regarding the more wholesome aspects of it such as the sense of community between fans and how we can encourage one another to be happy and revel in their fandom to a certain degree. There weren’t many punctuated gags, but everything that happens is low-key in terms of humor, while at the same time being serious enough to be invested and feels like a miles-above improvement for the show.

Overall, while this was a slight-improvement, I didn’t like the ending. Mainly because it’s so contrived and artificial for the sake of forced-Drama. It seems like the director is going out of his way to hurt Eripiyo and Maina. I mean what are the chances a fucking Rat will show up just then, run to the staff who do this to the people they work for?

Hopefully, episode three will try to further redeem this show.