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That's Why I Pushed Her: Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita

Ai has to decide what her own dream is. She can’t just fill the hole in her heart with somebody else’s dream.

That's Why I Pushed Her: Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita

Welcome to ANIWIRE! This week we’re discussing the award-winning 2019 Japanese drama series, Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita. Before that, though, here’s some news from the past week or two.

Convention Coverage

This month I attended Otakon and Anime NYC as press. These are manga and anime conventions in Washington DC and New York City respectively. Here’s the coverage I’ve done so far:

Bookmarks

What I Wrote

AMV of the Week

Here’s “Two Credits to Start, One Credit to Continue” by JMI Productions.

Idols are a staple in Japanese anime. So many fictional young men and women are out there singing and dancing to achieve their dreams on screen. A few examples:

  • High school idols (Love Live)
  • Magical girl idols that punch holes in mountains (Symphogear)
  • Rapping idols that brainwash people with their voices (Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle)
  • Antifasist idols in space (AKB0048)
  • A doctor and a sick young girl who die and then are reborn as the children of a popular idol, only to become idols themselves so that they might avenge her murder (Oshi no Ko)

It’s no surprise that idols are so popular. Watching beautiful and talented people work hard to improve their skills can be entertaining. Add a “rise to the top” storyline that positions idols as underdogs fighting to prove themselves on stage, and it’s easy to become invested. Not to mention the joy of selecting your favorite idol from a group, arguing with a friend about whether your favorite is better than theirs, and/or writing fanfiction about the two of them.

But while there are many idol anime to choose from, there are surprisingly few anime about idol fans. Not everybody has what it takes to perform on stage. Not everybody wants to. Some are happy to admire their favorites from afar. What drives these people? It’s easy to look down on them; they are rarely as beautiful or hard-working as the idols they admire. Yet there are far more idol fans than there are idols. You might go as far as to say that everybody idolizes someone, even idols themselves.

woman looks at phone while lying down in bed

Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita is a Japanese live action drama series about a 29 year old woman named Ai Endo. Ai has everything she thinks she needs to live a good life: friends, a boyfriend, a well-paying job. Unfortunately, she also has a crippling social media addiction. Ai worries constantly about how other people think about her and how she presents herself online. It gets so bad that her boyfriend breaks up with her, convinced that she likes him not as a person but as an accessory for selfies.

Ai’s happy surface disguises a howling void. Her only goal for her whole life has been learning how best to please others. She has no ambitions or hobbies outside of what her peers say that she needs. Now, on the brink of 30, she faces existential terror.

Then Ai stumbles on the underground idol band Sunny Side Up. These idols aren’t the glamorous entertainers you see in anime productions. They’re inexperienced, underpaid and perform in basements. One of them, Hana Kurimoto, can’t even sing or dance properly. Ai is so disgusted by Hana’s awkward performance that she curses her out from the audience. But when Ai returns the next day to apologize, she falls deep into the Sunny Side Up fandom and underground idol culture.

woman is hoisted above giant crowd of fans holding yellow glowsticks

It’s no surprise that Ai sees herself in Hana Kurimoto. Hana may have a long way to go to become a great singer and dancer. But she’s still young, and is working hard to improve. Ai moves heaven and earth to ensure Hana’s success. When she discovers that another fan is abusing the system to keep Hana to himself, Ai finds a legal loophole to keep her safe. When Sunny Side Up makes its first live appearance in a trendy shopping center, Ai breaks away from her friends to support Hana. Then when Sunny Side Up joins a competition to prove their worth among the idols of Tokyo, Ai secretly works nights as a camgirl to supplement Hana’s low income.

It’s tempting to read Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita as a parable about the dangers of idol fan culture. The cinematography of the series itself leans into the surreality of all-consuming obsession. Match cuts between past and future violate continuity. Fan dinners are shot via up-close GoPro footage. The camera spins and spins around simple conversations just to add visual interest. Not to mention the show’s frame narrative: the police are interrogating Ai to determine whether or not she killed somebody as a result of her hobby. But who, and why?

gopro footage of ai and friends drinking at a table

All that said, I don’t think Dakara Watashi wa Oshimashita is a series about why idol fan culture is bad, per se. Just look at Sunny Side Up’s other fans, who Ai befriends over the course of the show. They aren’t the stereotypical maladjusted otaku you find in media for normies. One is a social scientist in college. Another is an older lawyer whose fandom has made him an expert in contract law and the entertainment industry. They are even able to grasp the idol industry’s institutional unfairness, although they refuse to let it poison their love for Sunny Side Up. These folks aren’t so unlike fans I’ve met in real life.

Ai’s friends outside of idoldom spend their time together flexing their accomplishments. We never see them talk to Ai about their dreams or other interests. While they’re better at reading the room than Ai’s otaku friends, the otaku are seemingly more at peace with themselves and each other. It’s different for Ai, though. When she becomes a camgirl to fund Hana’s rise, it’s marked as something outside the norm of otakudom: a sacrificial act of self-injury she cannot take back.

ai walks down stairs as she unzips her jacket. bystanders all look at her

Ai finds a sense of purpose and belonging in the Sunny Side Up fandom. Yet that purpose is inextricably bound to Hana and her rise. Hana is her own person, and (compared to Ai) a child. She shouldn’t have to live for Ai’s sake. By putting Hana’s life above her own, Ai hurts Hana as well as herself. Ai has to decide what her own dream is. She can’t just fill the hole in her heart with somebody else’s dream.

While I’m not a fan of idols per se, I love all kinds of other things: novels, manga, games, anime. I attended two conventions in August, Otakon and Anime NYC, as a member of the press. In the process I fulfilled a dream that I’ve had since at least 2018, a dream delayed by the Covid-19 lockdown. I even had the chance to interview folks I admire like producer Yoshihiro Watanabe and composer kensuke ushio. Yet under the surface of that dream is a familiar refrain: am I distracting myself from the hole in my heart with other people’s fantasies, just like Ai?

hana bows her head and graps ai's hands. in the background are several idols and their fans

I’d like to think that real human connection can be an escape route from solipsism. I still remember hunting for food trucks with a colleague outside the convention center; saving seats for friends at panels and exchanging slide photographs; meeting somebody in person I only ever knew from the internet. I met folks with interests I don’t necessarily share, like escape rooms, VTubers, danmei web fiction. By making conversation with people, listening to their thoughts and feelings and sharing your own, I think that fandom can be a means to connect with others rather than to further isolate yourself.

But then, that’s the difference between Ai and her otaku friends. They love themselves. Ai does not. Self-love isn’t always the answer; I’d reckon there are folks out there who love themselves too much. But if you don’t love yourself at all, that can also be a problem. It can even lead to other people around you getting hurt. So how do you learn to love yourself, for your own good? Does it ever come easily?

I still don’t know the answer to these questions. Certainly you can remind yourself that there are other people in the world who love you. But that isn’t enough. Remember: filling the hole in your heart is up to you. You can’t just fill it with somebody else’s dream.

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