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Usami Rin's novel Idol, Burning is the most insightful one I have read so far on the subject of our relationship to the beautiful, famous, or the just well-known, of people who will never have any direct impact on our lives. We cannot touch them, or speak to them directly, or see them with our own eyes. And yet we cannot do without them, maybe even for those reasons.
Some of Drama World's most interesting stories over the past five years have dealt with exactly this phenomenon. The excellent 2019 MUKAI NO BAZURU KAZOKU ("The Family Over There Goes Viral") shows what happens when the entire family gets addicted to social media. Smartly, the drama treated the idea as a comedy (if the same story happened in real life it would have had to be portrayed as a tragedy). From the same year came DAKARA WATASHI WA OSHIMASHITA ("That's Why I'm Supporting You"). Most of us are turned on by exceptional people, those who possess beauty, talent, style, or intellect that is out of all proportion to the rest of us, but this drama dealt with the underground Idol scene where the girls who aspire to be exceptional just aren't cutting it, and for that reason inspire an especially fevered devotion from their fans.
What made MUKAI NO BAZURU KAZOKU an unusually good drama is that it inhabited our world of internet use, and the new, 21st century system of ethics it inspires and promotes, and yet it was clearly written from a standpoint that stood outside that world. Usami Rin's novel features a main character who is too young to know what it is like to live freely outside the trap of media engagement, and yet who possesses a far more unique philosophy on engaging with others than that of the classmates and adults that surround her. The last person in the world to realize that she has set out upon a world of intellectual freedom is herself.
Usami Rin herself was not that far removed in age from the main character she portrayed in her novel, Yamashita Akari, a high school girl who has a fixation on a boy band Idol named Ueno Masaki (Maza Maza to his adoring fans). The obsession began when she was four, and Masaki twelve, so from these bare facts alone we can say that Usami portrays a world where the media are practically kidnapping and possessing our children from the cradle. Akari's friends and family tend to remind her that Masaki "isn't real"; ordinarily, this would be great advice, but Akari isn't interested in "the real" as most people take it to be. She will blog about Masaki within her family's presence, while out on a drive, for instance. Her sister Hikari will wonder, "But why Masaki? He is not as cute and talented as you think he is." Akari begins to isolate herself. She is the only one in her class who fails to pass the test for the Japanese national standard. This is interesting, because Akari happens to be a very good writer. I like the way that Usami portrays Akari as fixated on her Idol, but that the fandom Masaki attracts turns her off; this inspires her to dig deeper into her subject so that she doesn't end up sounding as common as they - the mark of a true intellect.
Like all obsessed fans Akari has the instincts of a completist: the more material she can gather about her subject, the better she will know it.
Once in a while, my oshi would reveal an unexpected side of himself. I’d try to make sense of it. Has something changed? Or has he always been this way? When I worked it out, I’d write it up on my blog. My theory of him would grow more complete. (Note: the word oshi means "Idol", so in this case, Akari is referring to her adored Masaki.)
Something has gone wrong with Akari spiritually, though. She begins to become disgusted by her ordinary bodily functions, and lets herself go physically, deciding not to take care of herself in a way that will do her no favors. She grows her hair long, to cover up her acne, but also to hide from the world. And yet she has a job as a waitress, which requires her to serve customers. She handles the job conscientiously, but she got it mainly to earn money to support Masaki and his career by purchasing the merchandise that is sold under his name, and so her heart isn't really into the job, just like it isn't at school.
Has Akari become a subject for the medical professionals? Does she have a disease that can be cured? Is she just another girl who has lost interest in school and so by dropping out of the Japanese educational system, has sealed her fate? Or by her obsessive focus on someone who "isn't real", are we watching, instead, a young woman who is setting out on a spiritual quest by her need to know someone she can never know personally, but of whom she can know through her imagination, even if that kind of obsessions ends up ruling her life? Usami Rin does not sort these questions out for us with ready-made explanations, which is what makes her novel an exceptional one.
It has been a few years now, and other Akutagawa Prize winning novels have been named. Now that Usami Rin has entered the national bloodstream, much is expected. Both she and her novel had made a deep impression on the culture when she first arrived. The YouTuber of Japanese literature Gentleman Saito noticed that on Twitter the adoration both Usami and her novel garnered was out of all proportion to its actual value. Ordinarily, whenever there is an unspoken prohibition on criticizing a work we can be sure that some unhealthy climate is being created that does not benefit the artist at all. But I too was taken with both. Watching the press conference when Usami received the prize, I was very impressed with her manner and style: lovely though young, hesitant yet poised, definitely green yet serious-minded. When she was asked which writers inspired her to become a writer herself, she singled out Nakagami Kenji (1946-1992). This choice tells us that we are reading a different class of writer. Nakagami is an unusual figure in the Japanese landscape (or of any of the other national literatures) for being from the lower classes; no one would ever mistake him for the fashionable, which is why Usami's choice is noteworthy, and made me want to know more about her. She also studied religion at university, and you can feel that influence at work within the fabric of her novel. The subject matter of the novel may appear frivolous on the surface, a girl's crush on an Idol not being the stuff of Tolstoy, but Usami as a writer and thinker is the opposite of frivolous.
Are media stars just using their fans for the sake of making the rich richer? It is a question every one of us ought to be asking ourselves, whether we should be spending any more of our time on earth devoting ourselves to people who do not know us, and probably would never want to know us if they ever had the chance (they're so busy, after all). Usami's Akari shows awareness that she is being used by her idol Masaki ("For all our grumbling, we’ll turn around and go buy an 8,800 yen alarm clock (!). We’re easy marks, I know. But that’s merch acquisition syndrome for you"). She will also say this about Masaki,
The idea of making direct contact with my oshi didn’t interest me. I went to shows, but only to be part of the crowd. I wanted to be inside the applause, inside the screaming, and anonymously post my thanks online afterward.
But she has contempt for the fan community that surrounds Masaki (she says that as soon as she loses interest in him, she will no longer have any interest in communicating with the fans that surround him). Why post anonymously? Why send out messages that no one will recognize as one's own? One answer to these questions is that the young woman wishes to give thanks to the life giving spirit that makes beautiful souls like Masaki's possible. She doesn't need to be recognized for her expression; she just needs to express her gratitude somewhere. And yet at great cost to her well-being and future prospects, which is a remarkable thing to do when you really think about it.
It's also fascinating that Usami's Akari refers to the strategy of having your idols remember who you are, that you can get to talk to them one-on-one if you play your cards right, that you might even get to date them, as "going over to the dark side."
I would highly recommend reading Usami Rin's novel (it has been translated into English) if we wish to understand Drama World within the social context of our highly mediated world. We are constantly being used by those in influential positions just so that they can fortify their power over us, but there are things we can do to maintain our self-respect, and Usami's novel serves as an outstanding example of showing us the way our attraction to others can transcend the power they have over us... even if at a price.
[Photograph: 164th Akutagawa Prize ceremony, January 20, 2021. Usami Rin (b. 1999) facing the media, holding her novel 推し燃ゆ (Idol, Burning) in her left hand.]