Over the course of the months I’ve been blogging here on WordPress for, it seems I’ve been constantly obsessing and trying to discern the reasons some girls in Hello! Project are chosen as leads: to be in the front row of group pictures, get the most solo lines/precedence over group harmonies in songs, etc. This stems from both my fondness for girls who never take over a single or album song, or even make it into the middle row in a group photoshoot. This may come as no surprise to most of you, but I’ve realized through the handiness that is this monthly chart, that the wota basically control Hello! Project from the outside in.

Of course, that’s not all there is to it. Not one innocent wota is going to have a big effect on who goes where in this company, unless he’s like Densha Otoko, and that’s about the most unlikely thing to happen while I’m a Morning Musume fan. No, it takes thousands of wota showing their bona fide appreciation for a single idol, one who has managed to capture their hearts and minds in ways I cannot fathom in most cases, who gets the nudge forth by Up-Front Agency or whoever’s making decisions in H!P these days. Think Shibata Ayumi, Sugaya Risako, Suzuki Airi, Kusumi Koharu, Mano Erina, Ishikawa Rika, Takahashi Ai, or Tanaka Reina.

The affection of leagues of wota (the plural is the same as the singular, by the way; there is no such thing as “wotas” and I cringe whenever I see it typed that way) is unparalleled. There are no better motivating factors than fans when you’re in the entertainment business. Even now, given the reaction several of people in the English-speaking Jpop community to Kitahara Sayaka, I can’t even fathom what a riot she’s caused amongst Japanese fans and wota alike. She’s already received a big nudge by being thrown into a lame anime trio with Koharu (a big name in H!P) and Kikkawa Yuu (who has a face that’s charming like Murakami Megumi’s, an idol who was popular during her tenure and still is to this day). Actually, scratch that, I can fathom the riot she’s caused in Japan — there have been reports of the wota calling her “Sayaka-sama” a la the famous “Miki-sama” from a “Romantic Ukare Mode” wotagei. She does bear a strange likeness to Miki, and I’ll bet right now that her future is incredibly bright within H!P. All the more power to her, I couldn’t care less, personally. Though, she is hot.

But why has Sayaka come to our attention? She’s had some exposure in H!P Eggs concerts, which laid the foundation for her reputation among wota. People sharing pictures of her, commenting on her attractiveness, talking about her immense talent, and of course her Miki-type attitude which has already been proven to be a sellout by the original Fujimoto herself. She has all three things under her belt to be H!P’s next biggest star — as big as Miki ever was, which is huge. Not cosmically gargantuan like Goto Maki, who was, if we’re going by heliocentrism, the VY Canis Majoris in the place of the sun before she graduated. But still, we’re talking at least V354 Cephei in reference to Miki.

However, the problem with H!P following this “the majority loves this girl, the majority rules out, and they shall receive gifts for their championing of her that will only increase our sales, those suckers” marketing concept is that it leaves out a lot of other girls. I’m not kidding. There is currently an inordinate amount of wallpaper idols in H!P, girls who never took off and never will because management is too busy marketing the girls who did become popular instantly with more photobooks, solo lines, front-and-center covers, magazine articles, and in general more material to fuel her fans’ ridiculously needy desire to have more of her in their lives, and less money in their pockets. This is actually ingenius, as without the girls who are duds, there would be no popular ones in the first place, and the girls looming in the background still offer a way to get someone “hooked” on an idol of their choice and end up forced to purchase and listen to that group’s music, thus supporting UFA. Unfortunately, the onset of illegal downloading has created a tiny bump in this overall brilliant marketing scheme, but there’s enough people who are virtuous and would rather purchase something and support the group and “their favorite idol” than deprive them of sales, especially since H!P’s have been on the decline since early 2004, according to the Oricon charts.

But the way idols work won’t allow the people who have come to love girls who aren’t in the spotlight to just get up and remove Hello! Project from their lives permanently, either. The people become attached to the idols they love. They enjoy a one-sided emotional bond with that girl. They hold out that maybe, just maybe somebody in UFA likes them and feels benevolent today and hears their voice and will grant that girl a photobook, a prominent role in a single (“prominent role” ranges from taking over the whole single to having two solo lines and a bit part in the PV), some form of new material so that fan can also empty their pocket of money and say they’re “supporting” their favorite, or expressing their affection for her, when in reality they want more of her to dote on. I know this feeling well.

When this picture of Sudou Maasa first appeared in my line of vision, I almost had a fit. I couldn’t stop cooing about how “cute” she is, how they curled her hair, how pretty she is, how she deserves all the focus and attention in the world from UFA and from the people who aren’t currently invested in her. I don’t view my behavior as being an example of a lame, desolate shell of a human being who will never amount to anything but a bum on the street, a disgusting blemish on the flawlessly airbrushed skin of society. I view this as escapism. Maasa might as well live on the sun, she’s so far away from me right now. I don’t care. I’ll go there sometimes, to a place in my brain where it is nothing but her and only her, but I don’t build a house and live there. I wouldn’t want to live next door to Maasa, I wouldn’t want to bump into her on the street (well, okay, maaaaybe, just to strike up a conversation?), and I wouldn’t want her to show up at my doorstep unexpectedly with a box of chocolate on Valentine’s Day (definitely not this). That’s not what she is in my mind.

At her very core, she is an ideal crafted purely from the modern Japanese idol concept. She is supposed to be adored, whether she knows it or not. Anyone who wants to buy into the idol fantasy should be prepared to become at least a little attached (and also a little estranged from their real-life acquaintances in some cases, be it friends or family), but they should also know who they need to choose to be in the most comfortable position later down the line of their fandom. I fell into a trap; I picked the girls to support whom I felt the closest to, who interested me the most as to what’s underneath the surface that I could possibly relate to as a human being with a brain and a heart. Later on, I found out I was in the minority, and would have to watch those girls be shafted continuously in favor of “the majority vote”. It’s almost akin to a political election, but far less serious and more geared towards entertainment purposes, whether or not you choose to keep it that far-off. (I think it’s damn time the Democrats won an election.)

I did not fully understand what the meaning of all those fairly attractive, charming girls giving me googly eyes and singing a cute chipper tune as they do so when I first watched Morning Musume’s “Go Girl ~Koi no Victory~”. I didn’t know anything about °C-ute besides how cool “Massara Blue Jeans” was, and didn’t view the pelvic thrusting part of the choreography as being all that odd. “Piriri to Yukou!” was my first brush with idolizing one of the girls featured in the video: Maasa, shoving her face directly in my line of sight like I wish she had done all along in Berryz (maybe she would have more fans by now). Otherwise, I thought the girls of Morning Musume were endearing, the members of °C-ute kind of uniquely awesome, and Berryz was cute.

You see, another problem to add to this interestingly complex conundrum of marketing schemes and making a profit off the desires of the human psyche is that a lot of the girls in H!P are not ambitious. I bet there are some that hardly concern themselves with their careers, and meanwhile too many fans are disappointed by the lack of material of those girls who aren’t that interested in being idols. And because the girls aren’t interested in furthering their careers, be it whatever reason(s) that I’m not going to lambaste them for (thank god they have lives outside of dancing on a stage or in front of a green screen while wearing an ugly gaudy dress!), the company is not going to be interested in furthering her career because she may be uncooperative about it.

It’s so much more one-sided than I initially thought, it’s almost too sad a reality for me to comprehend. Some wota may put their heart and soul into an idol, have a room covered with nothing but her pictures, go outside only on rare occasions for concerts (with the advent of iTunes, it’s made it even more convenient for wota to just stay inside and purchase their favored groups’ new singles and albums over the computer), and the girl they adore has no inkling that she even should get to a higher status with the fan crowd. This is even lower than the girl not knowing any one specific fan’s existence, this would be her not caring. This would be outright negligence.

Whose fault is this? This is the wota’s fault. The girl deserves to have a life. And if she has enough of a brain to have a life separate from idoling duties, then that wota should have enough of a brain to have a life aside from caring about that girl when she’s an idol. It should only really matter to the wota (whether male or female) that there’s no photobook for their favorite idol yet when they are immersed in that reality. Not every waking moment of their lives.

But my point here is that there is always going to be more than one explanation for why Okai Chisato isn’t front-and-center with Yajima Maimi and Suzuki Airi. Why Sugaya Risako, young as she is, has three photobooks so far, whereas an older counterpart in Berryz, such as Shimizu Saki, has none. You have to take into account what the wota currently want from their idols. Beauty is a huge factor and incredibly demonstrative of just how shallow the idol business really is, apart from my idealistic fantasies where girls are accepted regardless of their appearance (which occurs sometimes but not enough to be very relevant to the general idea), and if she has a voice like an angel and the dancing ability to rival Maki’s, those are bonuses and exist to further her acceptance in crowds that look at talent above looks. There is a niche market for personality, but that’s with the people who want to relate to an idol, not revere her as a goddess. Chisato is not exactly gorgeous but a fantastic singer, and Shimisaki is short, scrawny thing with not much of a presence and she looks like a twelve-year-old boy, but she could probably compete head-to-head in a dance competition with Maimi. On the flipside, Sugaya is “pretty” and underage which just makes her more appealing to those with lolicon but she has almost no talent, Maimi is a teenager who looks her age with great vocals and dance moves as well as a pretty face to go with them, and Airi is cute and underage with strong enough singing ability that she could pull off a BoA song at her Kids audition.

At some point or another, those who are fans of idols not in high standing with the “majority”, the monster that influences UFA, are just going to have to be resigned to their fates. I’ll continue to parade the ones I like, whether or not I’m convincing everyone else to like them, too.

Short version: Wota know what they like in their idols, but only the majority will actually affect anything going on in H!P. It would take a magical Densha Otoko born from a minority to do much to change their minds about the background idols. People weep into their cornflakes. Also, some idols have lives so you should, too. The end.