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

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The pressure is on! as all of Cham Jam’s hard work, fandom and media attention has culminated to getting their foot in the door at the titular Budokan where all the Idol Groups have gathered to step their game up in an effort to achieve mainstream success as winning this will help them gain commercial fame and celebrity status. Meanwhile, Eripiyo decides to use this chance to tell her favorite Idol Maina how she feels without any kind of mishap getting in her way, for better or worse…


Our Take

From an artistic standpoint, while the animation of the well-animated dance scenes and the detailed backgrounds were easily the highlight of this superficial series, they deserved better. I could’ve enjoyed this series as a whole if at least the Idol fans themselves had any redeeming values, but no, they were terrible caricatures of the worst, as they would only live to see their unobtainable celebrity crush’s on top of a pedestal shine brighter than any other Idol, without a care in the world for their own or even personal health or hygiene. As a character throughout this whole series, Maina is probably one of the worst self-centered celebrity characters I’ve seen in pretty much any kind of fictional show. And despite her absent-minded nature which is supposed to come off as “innocent” or “pure” it’s easy to notice her lack of care or concern for her one and only fan Eripiyo as all she could think about was why did Eripyo would get only one ticket for her handshake when she could’ve had a pretty shitty day which during the course of the series has happened quite often for the sake of a cheap and unfunny punchline to a cruel joke. And the subtle LGBTQ undertones between some of these Idol girls hardly did anything for the show either.

Nonetheless, my biggest gripe with the show is Eripiyo herself being unbearably stupid. If her character was more interesting and her background more explored (what was her lifestyle before being a follower to a singing group, what kind of woman she was, anything) it would’ve been a whole different series. But we only get to see her as an extreme fan that’s supposed to be played for laughs but comes across as creepy and uncomfortable in places. And rather than show any level of maturity, it ends up being too repetitive and jarring. What’s even worse is this whole disgusting & unhealthy mentality about this rabid fandom that’s presented as a good thing. Eripiyo has gone the extra mile scaring away male fans (which if you think about it, is pretty counter-productive to helping her Maina’s success), frequently dresses in the same “Salmon Pink” jumpsuit which makes me wonder if she actually does laundry or has the same outfit all the time. And often wasting all her money from a series of shitty jobs just to purchase multiple copies of the same CD just to hold a singer’s hand for minutes at a time. And yet, She easily could be part of an idol group with her looks or if she had any sort of singing talent at all.

Contrary to the show’s title, nobody actually dies and it ends with a possible cliffhanger. But as a whole, if this show had any kind of substance, it could’ve worked better. Maybe if it was re-written as a cautionary tale about unhealthy obsessions and how they can lead you to a dark path of self-destruction and self-sabotage when you don’t have a support-system who actually cares about your well being, Or the sometimes detrimental nature of show-business and how it can affect an individual’s private life. Heck, Perfect Blue touched upon these particular themes a lot better and that was a psychological masterpiece.