Page 4 of Idol Star System Generation: Season 1

  Chapter III – Into the Idol Star System Generation

  “Let’s get down to business, then,” Aratani began talking as soon as he managed to get to his chair. His room was only marginally less messy then the last time Naoko was there and the introduction of a censer just so the girl could stop telling the place reeked of cigarettes and alcohol – which the man still thought was a bluff – was a waste of space.

  “If you told me you’re trying to repel spirits I’d believe, but to cleanse smoke and sake smells with that? You must be joking,” Naoko previously commented. It was only tolerable because, even though the cigarette odor was very pronounced, because the same could not be said for the sake part. It was even hard to tell from what kind of drink it was – the word “sake” usually just meant any kind of alcoholic beverage, since the national name for what outsiders called the rice-fermented beverage was ‘nihonshu’, or “Japanese wine”. And it certainly smelled stronger than Japanese wine, though faintly. Maybe whiskey or similar. Naoko knew nothing about alcohol and had only secretly tasted it twice as far as she could remember (except for liquor-filled chocolates), so it wasn’t a surprise she couldn’t discern the beverages that compounded the unpleasant fragrance. Also, she only knew her producer smelled of men cologne because he’d driven her there, because on his room she couldn’t even notice it.

  The young man, turning his computer screen so Naoko could see a list in it, said:

  “Since you told me you know barely anything about idols I’ll go over the main dos and don’ts and explain you how it’ll work. I’ll give you a canvas so Naoko can put all her schedules there. I’ll try to keep away from your weekdays as much as possible since you’re required to attend school and also perform well on it. At the beginning it won’t be too hard to stay away from your Mondays, Tuesdays and so, just bear in mind that once you achieve greater status I’ll notify you for opportunities during weekdays, like interviews and special presentations. We’ll meet here on my office every Sunday morning, and for starters this will suffice. Also I’ll tell you this right now: vacations are golden times for idol business, so I apologize in advance for that, but we’ll wind up working doubled at a time students like you are supposed to be chilling out. On a positive side, it means a lot more cash for us and visibility for you, so please endure it. So far, so good?”

  Until then there was nothing Naoko didn’t already know. Also the list Aratani presented her was one in the I.S.S.G.’s official website. She’d already skimmed over it before.

  The man began explaining what an idol was expected to do or not do. The do part was pretty straightforward, like attending to appointments, dedicating herself to constantly improving, keeping relationships with fans light and good but also not too close and such. It was nothing anyone wouldn’t be expected to do in any other job. Also the majority of topics on the don’ts list were nothing more than common sense, like don’t disrespecting clients and fans, don’t dwelling in illicit or shameful activities and so on. Idols were apparently supposed to refrain from smoking, gambling and drinking, the last of which being just barely tolerable in social situations, and only in strict self-control, but again, since Naoko was sixteen it was already off-limits to her anyway. A few of the lines in the list required some attention, though.

  The most worrisome paragraph stated it was unadvised that idols were seen alone with men in situations that could be misinterpreted. Though it wasn’t a rule, and Aratani had a few exceptions of idols who actually had publicly known boyfriends or were mothers, it was a rarity. In general, the career of a girl could be tarnished or even destroyed if the public thought the idol had romantic relations with a man, and since it was only required indirect proofs for tabloids to prey down on celebs, a photo of an idol holding hands with a boy or whispering something to him was enough to start a ruckus. It obviously depended on how famous the girl was and how was her image constructed, among other things.

  “For example,” Aratani showed Naoko a pie chart and explained it in such an ironic, straight way that made it clear he thought the data was next to absurd, “a recent study on tarnished reputations showed a few interesting data on the topic of constructed images. Girls whose public images were categorized as ‘sadistic’, ‘dominatrix’ ladies took a negative impact of twenty eight percent of official fan base and forty seven percent in accrued revenue on short term, on average. Also, all of them were able to keep their careers as idols. On the other hand, girls presented as ‘cute’ and ‘pure’ took a blow of eighty one percent on fan base and ninety seven percent on revenue accrued on the subsequent year of the scandal on average, and sixty percent of them were publicly disgraced to the point where they had to abandon their careers, or whose agency decided to terminate their contracts on a just cause. Idols in categories such as ‘serious’, ‘tsundere’, ‘mature’ and ‘timid’ were found in-between the two extremes.”

  “I… don’t know what to make out of this information…” Naoko said, cringing.

  “If by ‘make out of this information’ you mean what the public’s thinking…” Aratani replied, calmly, “I think it means fans get more lenient if they think idols are whipping or trampling other people instead of kissing and expressing love and affection through other means. But then it’s a public mental health issue, not an idol industry one. If you mean you’ve no idea on how to proceed, either bring your dog lash and love for someone else’s pain to the stage, or keep the low-profile altogether when alone with boys. I’d suggest the second course, unless of course you’re the kind of…”

  “One more word and you’ll be swallowing your own teeth.” Naoko warned him.

  “Oh, Naoko-Chan really is the first type! Good, good! The public will love you.” Aratani mocked her, making the tense girl giggle and unwind. “No, seriously, Naoko-San, I can’t stress this enough: don’t ever be seen alone with a man in suspicious way. It’ll only become a concern after you’re quite famous, so we’re a long ways off, but please be careful.”

  “But then…” the girl replied, “I’ll have to evade boys from now on?”

  “Eh… no.” her producer answered, “see, the keywords here are ‘alone’ and ‘suspicious’. Try not to be alone with a boy, but if you must, don’t fret. If the situation is okay, like if you’re on a train with a schoolmate or something it’s okay. By ‘suspicious’ I really mean anything tangible that can make the dirty minds of a few fans create fantasies. Just don’t eat the same ice cream, hold hands, whisper close to his ear, hug him, kiss him or anything like that. Also don’t worry, I’m a lawyer and I can debunk anything the tabloids throw at us as long as it’s not unquestionable evidence. Also, a few points to help you out: being with female friends, even alone, is okay. Apparently you can do whatever you want with other girls and the public won’t so much as bat an eye, so feel free.”

  “Ew! Stop it!” Naoko interjected in disgust.

  Grinning for a while, Aratani kept going without replying to that:

  “Also, if you’re in a group with at least one other girl, you’re fine. If there are three or more boys following you people tend to chalk it up to invasive fans and you’re also scot-free. If you’re on your school uniform, as long as you’re not performing suspicious acts you can also pass unscathed to staying alone with another boy also wearing school uniform in public areas. You’re even allowed to eat ice cream in this case! Sure, not the same cone.”

  “Yay.” Naoko remarked on the most unexcited voice she could harbor.

  “Yeah, I know you’re beaming with happiness.” Her producer wittily stated, “Anyway, your best bet is to have a female friend with you. Second one, large groups. Third: your armor, the school uniform. Forth, don’t be suspicious around boys if you’re alone with them. Finally, if everything else fails, you can be okay as long as you can prove nothing happened. Hard?”

  “Hm… Just a little.” Naoko, thinking for a moment, replied “Alright, it’s okay. But tell me one thing: if idols are not to be seen with men as such, they
essentially can’t fall in love?”

  Scratching his nape, her producer thought for a moment before responding:

  “How can I say that in a way that won’t make you worry?”

  “Don’t mind sugarcoating your words, I’m not going to eat them,” Naoko insisted, and the man, laughing from her creative way of pressing him for the truth, said:

  “I liked your phrase, I think I’ll use it myself. Okay, Naoko-Chan wants the truth? Short answer is: no. Long answer is: it depends. Like I told you, there are a rare few who has boyfriends or are mothers. It depends on numerous factors, and I didn’t study those cases in-depth to understand how they’re able to pull this off. From what I understand, the reason the fans don’t appreciate an idol having romantic relationships is the jealousy. Idols are 2,5D in the sense that they serve as good screens for people to project their fantasies on, just like a silver screen receives the projections of a movie. So fans in general might dream that the idol they go through so much pain to support is theirs. Almost like a divine muse, untouchable in nature, even though they like to think about the ones below twenty as girls-next-door. I think that’s why they feel betrayed if the girl is seen having a romance with another person. But note that this mostly applies to men. I don’t know if that’s the case, but maybe those idols with boyfriends appeal mainly to a female audience who thinks them more as how they wanted to be than anything else. Another assumption is that these idols either appeal to a broader audience that don’t really care much for the fantasy part, or they somehow manage to keep their songs as the main attraction, prompting people to see them more like regular songstress than anything else. I don’t really know. Also it’s important to see who their boyfriends or husbands are and if their agencies have any special connections to the media so that tabloids paint their relationships in a good way. Every now and then there are a few trends like that too. There’s so much that can influence it that it’s hard to precise. So yes, it’s technically possible, but it’s so rare nowadays it’s almost non-existent, and this should act as a warning for Naoko. Why the question? Do you have anything on your mind?”

  Relieved about hearing that, the girl retorted:

  “No, it’s nothing. I was just afraid, since I actually enjoy the friendship of boys a lot, that I could be endangering my career.”

  “Well, it’s slightly risky, but there’s one thing we can do to almost negate risks.” her producer suggested, “If we work your image right off the bat as a girl who likes games, manga and all those stupid things you do like, things that stereotypically boys also like, and we be frank from the get go with the media that you’re such a blast in those things that boys like to be with you just for the sake of those pastimes, I think you’ll not only be fine, but carve yourself a niche.”

  “So in essence, tell the truth.” Naoko summarized. “Was it really that difficult to come up with the idea of being honest?”

  “It shouldn’t be, if not for the fact that a girl admitting these things is a very experimental thing.” Aratani told her, in a serious tone, “I think it can go well, but there’s probably little data about it. And if things don’t go as we planned, we’re both screwed, because all of my investment and your image will be lost. Also, it’ll be almost impossible for just me to keep an eye on every publication and correct any mess that pops up. And all of this doesn’t even change the fact that your fans can get jealous anyway. Personally I’d still prefer if you kept a low profile.”

  “Can we find a common ground, then?” Naoko offered, “We tell people the things I really like, just don’t emphasize the boys part? I don’t plan to screw anything up, but in worst-case scenario having told the truth about my hobbies can at least make it easier to explain that a supposedly awkward situation was actually just related to games and stuff, not romance. I… don’t want to force anything up on Aratani-San… but can you at least consider it, pretty please?”

  After thinking for a minute, Aratani accepted:

  “Okay, making an alibi from the get-go sounds like a good plan B. Just don’t go overboard and if we need to resort to it, we fall back to Operation Boy Friendly Lass. Let’s do it.”

  Giving Naoko a moment to applaud and express her happiness, the producer continued:

  “Alright, that’s the end of advices. Just don’t murder, rob, kick puppies or anything bad and you’re gold. Now onto a different subject, and here’s where the fun begins: let me introduce you the Idol Star System Generation and the ranking structure that’s the bread and butter of the corporation, aptly called the Idol Star System. Do you know anything about it?”

  “All I know is that it’s kind of a stupid name.” Naoko unabashedly told her producer, who asked why she thought that. “For starters, I don’t know if I should read it ‘Idol Star… System Generation’, as in ‘something that generates a system that does something for idols, who are the stars of the show’, or ‘Idol… Star System… Generation’, as in ‘the production or generation of a solar system where, instead of planets, we have idols floating in the space’, or maybe ‘Idol… Star System Generation’, like ‘genealogy of generations of a solar system made of idols’ or whatever. Also, being a Japanese company, why name it in English? Worse: butchering the language.”

  Itching on his chair to put his feet on his desk, only not doing so because it’d be too inelegant, her producer explained what he could:

  “Well, the I.S.S.G. CEO told a few years ago to the press that the name was made to be purposefully vague in order to give it multiple meanings. If I recall correctly he used English both because it’s a trendy language that Japanese youth like, that sounds good enough and also to make the company more easily accessible to internationalization. The full, legal name of the company, though, includes the typical ending on Japanese. As for how’s the I.S.S.G.’s name is really supposed to be pronounced or what it really means… no one knows, as far as I’m aware. Even when pronouncing the name of the company in interviews, its spokespeople are instructed to say it in quick and monotone fashion so as not to induce any reading in favor of others. In reality, there’s probably no correct or wrong way, since there’s not even an instruction to agencies or idols as to how to say it, so just pick the one that feels right for you and you’re set.”

  He made a brief pause, as if expecting Naoko to continue the conversation. Both stayed looking at each other in silence for a few seconds before Aratani remembered:

  “Oh, yes, I gave you that explanation just because Naoko-Chan told me she knew nothing about the corporation, right? Okay, let’s see. First, if you look carefully at documents you’ll see the I.S.S.G. is actually a conglomerate, but people generally call it a corporation or a company for whatever reason, and the higher-ups don’t care. Maybe they think ‘conglomerate’ is too intimidating a word to be in entertainment business. In general, they ask that idols refrain from speaking about anything from the I.S.S.G., the only exception being the already mentioned Idol Star System that lends its name to the company. In fact, to make announcements as if you’re a staff of the I.S.S.G. is a violation of their rules. Remember that you don’t really work for them, you work for The Paragon Idol Agency. You can’t publicly claim or disclaim anything in their name.”

  Dancing uncomfortably from one side to the other of the chair, the young man turned his seat sideway and stretched out his legs on the floor while telling:

  “ About the Idol Star System itself, it’s basically a glorified ranking structure, where depending on fan base, money accrued for the corporation and victory in tournament-like shows the idols ascend, gaining more visibility, better cuts at profits from ticket offices and merchandising and the possibility to participate in bigger events, among other benefits.”

  “So it’s basically a system of belts like in many martial arts?” Naoko abridged.

  “Yes, if you will.” Aratani agreed, “They could’ve made it simple, like creating classes ranging from one till eight, or F till A, or ‘Meh’ till ‘I’m too cool for school
” or whatever, but no. Instead they decided to base their system on our solar system, just for the novelty of it. So tell me, Naoko, do you know the names of the planets and the order they’re in relation to the Sun, excluding our own?”

  “Like, Mercury, Venus… Mars and such?” Naoko asked. “Yeah, I know.”

  Different from the Roman Pantheon-inspired planet names in many Western cultures, in Japan the origin of planets names had connection with elements and natural occurrences. Mercury was named Suisei, where “Sui” was written with the same character as “water” or “fluid” and “Sei” meant a star or any bright celestial body, excluding the Sun and Earth’s Moon. So the Japanese name of Mercury was composed of characters that literally translated as “water or fluid bright celestial body”. Venus was called “Kinsei”, where “Sei”, like in every other planet, meant the same as before and “Kin” meant “gold” or “metal”, among a few other possible meanings that were, however, not applicable to this circumstance (for example, the same character for “gold” could mean “money” too, but nobody would thing of Venus as a “money planet”).

  After Earth came the red planet Mars, dubbed “Kasei” where “Ka” was written with the ideogram for “fire”. Pretty self-explanatory, unlike Jupiter, which, named “Mokusei”, was graphed with the Kanji, or Chinese character, of “tree’ or ‘wood’. Along with “Dosei”, Saturn’s Japanese name written with two kanji for “earth, mud or soil celestial body”, it concluded the five planets whose names alluded to elements in ancient traditions, also used on other places like five of Japanese’s names of the days of the week – the other two being drawn from the Sun and Moon kanji characters.

  Starting from Uranus, the names of planets became disconnected from elements and focused more on natural occurrences and mythologies. Uranus’ name in Japanese was “Ten’Ousei”, where “Ten” meant “sky” or “heaven” and “Ou” alluded to any kind of sovereign, but especially a king or emperor. Thus, it had the characters for “King of Heavens celestial body”. In similar fashion, Neptune was called “Kaiousei”, where the “Ou” meant the same thing, a king, and “Kai” was written with the same character as “sea” or “ocean”. Thus, Neptune aptly meant “King of Seas celestial body“.

  Finally, on the note of the old planet demoted from its position, the distant, cold Pluto, it’s called “Meiousei”. The “Mei” character meant “dark”, so that celestial body’s kanji character composition translated as “King of Darkness”.

  “Good. So, Naoko-San, picture this,” Aratani explained, “Going from the most distant planet to the nearest to the Sun, and also excluding our own lil’ place, we’ve the King of Seas, The King of Heavens, then Soil or Earth, then Wood, Fire, Metal and Water. Correct?”

  “What about Pluto?” Naoko asked “I know it’s not a planet, but doesn’t it make any appearances? Even if just a cameo one?”

  “We’ll get to that in a second,” her producer told her. “So, following suit, there are seven classes in the Idol Star System. From lowest to highest, Sea, Sky, Earth, Wood, Fire, Metal and Water. Well, in reality there’s an eight class, but that’s a special one only a handful ever earns.”

  “Darkness!”, Naoko exclaimed exultantly, suddenly imagining herself clad in a black dress and with a scythe instead of a microphone, “So badass, right?! I want to be a Darkness Idol! Yeah, let those poor bastards feel my music as I emerge from the shadows and take them to eternal chaos! They’ll never see it coming! Mwahahahaha!”

  With an unassuming, serene face Aratani jokingly replied:

  “Naoko-Chan, the brain damage your games caused you are spreading, better take it easy.” After a few minutes where both traded witty comments, the man was finally able to continue, “No, Darkness is not a class. In reality, it exists as “Dark idol”, but is just a semi-official way of mentioning idols like you, that still haven’t met the minimum requirements for getting to the Sea class. The Sea one is the lowest official class, and Water is the highest an idol generally gets. Beyond the Water one there’s a special, final grade called the Star Idol, sometimes also called the Sun Idol. Only Water class idols can compete for it, and each year only one person, the one who wins the Special Invitational Idol World Tournament, is awarded Star Idol class. Since the career of an idol usually ends around twenty-five years old, and more often than not before it, there’s only so many Star Idols out there. I’m pretty sure currently there’s about five, with a sixth one being selected on the main event of the tournament happening during next summer break.”

  Naoko eagerly spoke her mind in wonder, contaminated by her thoughts of titanic clashes:

  “Wow, that’s much cooler than I expected! Darkness Idol would still be cooler than Star Idol, in my opinion, but yeah, not too shabby anyway. I thought idols’ lives were just about getting in a band and singing, not about a tournament of life and death where people climbed a hierarchy through blood and destruction and battled their way up to stardom while kicking their opponents to their doom! That’s awesome!!”

  In Naoko’s mind she could clearly picture it. The “stage”, a caged arena surrounded by yelling people craving for blood. She and another girl there, and just as music started to rock in deafening volume Naoko would run against her opponent and deliver a jaw-dislodging elbow blow. As her rival started to fall down Naoko would jump on top of her enemy and pin her down before begin pummeling her face with a flurry of slaps. As her enemy screamed, Naoko would joyfully shout “That’s right! Sing to me, bitch!”

  Noticing the pumped up, smiling girl with distant eyes, Aratani hesitantly corrected her:

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention anything about blood or any life and death situations.”

  “Are you really sure?” the girl insisted, and her producer repeated “Pretty sure, yes.”

  “Aw…” Naoko feigned disappointment. After a while a question formed in her mind, prompting her to go back to the topic, “Alright, so what are these tournaments about, then?”

  “Contrary to what you may be thinking, the tournaments are not a big part in the System, Naoko-Chan.” Aratani elucidated, “Sure, the small ones, called cups, are required for the ascension in class, but other than that there’s not much to it. Much more important are the actual presentations, from where most of our revenue will come. They’re divided in two major categories: Ranked and Non-Ranked. Non-Ranked ones are just your regular, everyday shows, no questions asked. You go there, sing, dance, get paid and that’s it. You can either contribute or not a percentage of profits to I.S.S.G., to increase your contribution limit until you can partake in cups that increase your class. Ranked presentations, on the other hand, is where things get hairy. They all count toward your total revenue accrued for the I.S.S.G. so contributing is mandatory. Actually, though it’s counted as a contribution, it’s the other way around: the corporation promotes the event and choses the best idols to be in it, the people pay to watch it and I.S.S.G. gives each idol, or rather, their agencies, a share of profits, already deducted by a margin of contribution.

  Taking a moment to go back to the non-ranked gigs, Aratani said:

  “Non-Ranked presentations are generally created by agencies and they take home all the sweet, sweet cash they get. It’s far more lucrative than Ranked matches, where ticket office money is usually divided between a few, most or all participants depending on the rules of each event. On the flip side, I.S.S.G.’s the one conducting the events, so agencies don’t have to worry about renting a place, promoting the gig, paying staff, charging fans, nothing. Idols just go there, do their things and it’s done. Bank account numbers gets a few more pals to join the party.”

  “Sounds pretty simple.” Naoko judged, her eyes getting sharper, “Too simple. Where’s the catch?”

  “Smart girl,” the young man commended her smarts, “Even not mentioning your adversaries, which are bound to make everything they can to grab first place, there are numerous catches. Most of them involve rules of specific presentatio
ns. While the Non-Ranked gigs are simple and clean, Ranked ones are further divided into numerous subcategories, and then some. We’ve, for example, Free-for-All, in which fans pay through the internet, and the idols whose fans raised the most amount of money gets the spotlight on a simple show with no first place, second or anything. Then there’s the Queen of the Hill, where an examination board evaluates idols to determine the winners, all the while the crowd watches the competition. There are also Duels, where two idols face one another in three or five rounds, depending on rules, to see who gets the most amount of points according to the board. Also there are themed presentations where certain evaluation categories, those five I mentioned you after the tests, receive arbitrary weights. Also there’s the always chaotic Random Fest, where idols that weren’t chosen for other shows on that week are randomly drawn and invited to participate in a competition with also randomized rule sets. And there are multiple others, including a few very rare ones that only occur once every blue moon or so. I’ll go over the details of every presentation as we tackle them, and be ready because we’re going to be running for prizes almost every week once Naoko-Chan is ready.”

  Feeling the pressure in the form of butterflies on her stomach, the girl put her hands over her cold tummy and questioned:

  “How’re we going to know when I’m ready for presentations?”

  “We can evaluate how well you’d fare in a real gig by measuring your total scores like we did during the tests. Since every judge thinks differently, there’s no way to tell the exact score you’d get, but a rough approximation is possible. True, we won’t know if we’re able to win it until you’ve performed on it, because it also depends on your adversaries, but we’ll try to find easier presentations at first. There are a few greenhorn-friendly shows that help budding idols and their agencies get the show rolling. The payment’s nothing stellar, but it helps make ends meet and lets you gain some actual experience in a real-life show.”

  “That’s… a relief.” The girl felt her worries subside a little “That’s actually well thought.”

  Agreeing with a nod, Aratani changed positions of his feet using the small, precious free space he had and expounded:

  “Before the I.S.S.G. the idol market was segmented. Each agency had their own auditions to select idols, made their own shows and such. The conglomerate came to control the production and promotion chains, to bite on the big bucks, but it soon became clear they had a problem: it was hard for new agencies to get on the market, and the reduced competition wasn’t exactly fun. They even tried to expand into the male idols territory, but it required such big image changes that they opted not to at that time. Even now they still only have plans of doing so. Maybe in the future they will. What they figured out was simpler: if they created their own events and opened them up to new agencies, they could help finance new companies that would eventually expand and generate more income.”

  Painfully turning his torso to face Naoko while having his legs spread to the side was a no-go. The girl, noticing it, told him there’d be no problem if he put his feet over his desk like he was itching to do, and the man, surprised, asked if she’s really okay with that. Sarcastically, Naoko retorted:

  “Better than to see Produ-San snap his backbone twisting like this. As long as you don’t tidy up this room there’s nothing I can do. Not to say it’ll probably look awesome, as if Produ-San is some kind of gangster!”

  Thanking her, he did that for a while, saying:

  “I don’t know if I’m happy or worried that Naoko-Chan thinks it’s nice I look like a gangster, but thanks. Back to the subject, then. Those gigs created by I.S.S.G. were such a success that they began getting megalomaniacal with events. This, along with the Idol Star System that predated the corporation, dating back to one of the companies that were fused together to create it, created a comprehensive path idols could blaze through to fame. And, just like this, they monopolized the very creation of fame, which before was an immaterial thing. It got tabulated and artificialized. Now an idol’s not a Water classed girl because she’s famous, she’s famous because she’s a Water classed girl. It’s hard, nowadays, to be a reckoned idol if you do not partake in I.S.S.G.’s arbitrary rollercoaster of a system and jump through their hops, but on the other hand, they really made it easier for new agencies, that’d have no way of planning their own events and amassing fans out of nowhere for a girl no one knows yet, to thrive. Also, it partially shifted perceptions of idols from band integrands to standalone stars, which… is kinda good and kinda bad.”

  “Why?” Naoko inquired “You’d need to invest on a band of girls otherwise, no?”

  “Yes, from a business standpoint it’s great,” Aratani told her, “but the system puts a heavy emphasis on individualism, which creates unnecessary strain on the girls and just sends the wrong message to society, in my opinion. Before, bands rivaled for fans, of course, but girls from the same band were generally friends once they passed the audition processes. It was a good era. Now everyone’s an opponent, some girls get crazy. Real crazy, I mean. That’s because the Idol Star System only works for individual idols. Bands have no such systems. They still exist like they always did, though, and I enjoy it.”

  “I’d think the I.S.S.G. would try to pull the strings of bands too.” Naoko declared, “They seem more profitable than single idols, or am I wrong?”

  “Profit depends on numerous factors.” Aratani responded, “I can’t tell if they’re more lucrative because they also have larger payrolls, but that’s not the reason why the conglomerate can’t heavy hand them to its whims. To start, it’s complicated to determine if fan base exist for the band or for the girls. Imagine a band with one hundred thousand fans lose a girl that most of its fan base loved. The girl would have no fans to begin a solo career? What about the band, how would they know how many fans it’d have then? First problem’s that it’s a jigsaw puzzle to make a system for bands that does not conflict with the already existent Idol Star System. Second is that the I.S.S. is based on classes. If you divided bands just based on classes too, you’d end up pitting a duet with a thirty-some girl-fest. It’d be kind of unfair. And to divide bands based on member numbers would thin down competition to ridiculous amounts. For example, how many forty-seven member bands are out there anyway to justify a competition? Just one, as far as I know. The logistics to control bands are much harder than those to tab single idols. That’s why currently bands are being formed just by grouping individual idols that also compete against each other on the main system. The results are hardly on par with how they were a few years back, when girls were actually trained as a group, went to collective performing classes and acted as a unit.”

  Suddenly getting up, Aratani stretched his legs more comfortably than on his confined space. With Naoko imitating him, the man told her he just wanted to flex his muscles, but if it’s okay, she should complete her schedule canvas and a few other things and then they should go back to the shopping mall and finish that conversation on the way there. At 1 p.m. would begin Naoko’s first dancing class. After that and subsequent singing and body language sessions Aratani told he had a surprise.

  Letting the girl agonizing in excitement and anxiety over what could it be, her producer left her to type down her agenda while he prepared some tea. After that, bringing two cups, the young man sat back again in front of the computer and showed her an internet page. Made in a comment-thread, forum-like manner with added slots for photos, the black background and silver letters presented a still simple but functional website.

  “Behold your own fan club,” Aratani presented. “It’s an official I.S.S.G. directory, meaning they use the fan count here, along with other metrics such as forum activity, to gauge your recognition level among your base. They also use some witchcraft math to calculate how much of your total fan base is actually represented in your fan club domain. As for the site itself, it’s still bare as bones, but that’s to be expected. I’ll begin feeding it with news, photos, questi
on pools and useless data fans like to hear about once we get our first show. It’s already online but since you’ve yet to amass fans things are pretty dead here right now. Which is good, because you can change the layout and suit it to your liking. It’s very intuitive, really: just drag and drop things, select them to drop a menu with possible changes to be made, this kind of digital illiterate-friendly stuff. Give it a shot now.”

  While Naoko eagerly tested out background patterns and colors, text fonts, layouts, expanded the image photos, dragged and dropped new menus and customized it to her heart’s content, Aratani closed in on her side with a notebook and asked:

  “While we’re at it, let me ask you a few useless data I need. I already have some, like birth date, from your application and you’ve already told me others like your gaming compulsion, but others are still missing, so let’s do it. First about your personality: what’s your blood type?”

  “A+,” Naoko answered without thinking or deviating her eyes from the monitor, “Why? Do you believe in this trash that blood type influences people’s personality?”

  “I believe fans love this kind of useless info, and what fans love gives me money. That’s what I believe.” Aratani retorted, “Do you?”

  “I’m pretty sure my blood type has absolutely no match to what those tests say my personality should be like,” Naoko replied, “I can be wrong since I don’t believe in things like this, zodiac signs or whatever, and the last time I did a blood type and personality correlation test in one of those stupid websites was years ago. But alright, next question.”

  “Favorite food,” Aratani continued, to which the girl had to think about for a few seconds.

  “I love meat and sweets. For me I dislike plain food, it needs to be either salty or sweet. Well… scratch that, ramen is my fav. There are a few other exceptions, like rice, seaweed, salmon and such, but as a rule of thumb if the taste isn’t clear, it’s a waste. See? It’s not that I don’t eat plain things – I’d die of starvation if I did, because most of our food is very plain.”

  “They call it “delicate”, Naoko-Chan.” Aratani declared. “Only the refined can appreciate the delicate aromas and tastes of the refined cuisine. It takes trained senses to do that.”

  “Poor Produ-San will never like those stuff, the way he can’t even smell how bad his office stinks, right?” Naoko teased him with a lovable face.

  “Screw you, girl,” her producer retorted, “Now about food you dislike.”

  “That’s easy,” Naoko revealed, “Anything classified with labels starting on “V” and ending on “egetables”. Kill those green monstrosities with fire. I love fruits, though.”

  “Right, I’ll write you’re one of those unhealthy girls who’ll probably get wrinkles before thirty then.” Aratani joked, though the moment Naoko looked away from the screen to face him, her sharp eyes almost had a red tint, so scary they were. Her producer, after a brief tense smile, proceeded, “Just kidding! There’s no need to look at me like you’re going to rip my heart off my chest and eat it fried. Next question: favorite animal.”

  “Dragons can be considered animals?” Naoko interrogated, prompting Aratani to exclaim, “No, they can’t. Also, damn it, Naoko-Chan! Why can’t you just say a bunny, a cat or another girly animal?”

  “Oh, I like bunnies, they’re cute!” Naoko stated, making her producer sigh in relief. Only for a second, though, before she continued, “As for cats I don’t have anything against them, I even have one at my parent’s home. Well, kind of, since he actually only comes home when he pleases. But I much prefer dogs. They’re much happier and livelier! Dogs are my third favorite real animals, just behind snakes and tigers!”

  Looking helpless, Aratani wrote down something while saying:

  “Tigers are technically felines just like cats, so I’ll just mention “felines” and let’s leave it at that. And don’t you dare answer this question to a fan if he asks you!” Reading the next item, Aratani grinned for a brief moment. After, putting on an unassuming poker face, requested, “Measures.”

  Naoko’s fingers suddenly stopped typing and, without moving her head, the girl slowly rolled ice-cold eyes in her producer’s direction. Aratani casually told her:

  “Fans can’t help but being curious. You can start with your cup size.”

  Quick as light, Naoko showed her producer’s face her fist size, small in absolute terms but big enough to send him flying.

  The fan club webpage still felt somewhat sloppy despite Naoko’s best efforts, with hard edges on every text box and a placeholder photo of her smiling face near the “Fans” tab, which showed all the people who’ve joined the club. Currently zero. It was cringeworthy to be seen smiling there alone, and though the photo was pretty good it just felt strange somehow. Still, the colors felt right, a black, purple and blue background and white characters. The header also felt slightly better with another photo of her, though for some reason her face everywhere bugged her. It could use improvements, but all in all was somewhat better than before.

  After finishing all preparations they departed to the mall. This time there was no Kamijira costume on the way. The man was startled by Naoko’s decisiveness. The girl had given some thought on the looks she wanted and decided she’d wear things that looked decent but also that she’d only dreamed to have before. It conveniently coincided that the clothes of her dreams also attracted lots of attention, though that was to be expected. Anyone would like to wear attractive attires, provided they felt good in them, she supposed.

  A pure white vest-blouse of slim silhouette, full of frills and a large collar caught her eye the moment she saw it. The tiny black buttons were cute but the high-cut left the navel exposed in a daring way. The collar’s extremities had black faux fur that surrounded the fair cleavage. It was just the duality master hairstylist Matsushita told he saw on her, and true to that, she loved the piece. Undeniably not one for women who had any doubts about their own bodies, and Naoko too felt intimidated by it. Still, her heart pounded so heavily that she vacillatingly got the vest to put it on. The moment the blushing girl left the fitting room, Aratani’s cool and collected face grew a trembling smile, as if he tried in vain to control his emotion. It looked like he’d start screaming of happiness and running in circles in the middle of the store until he missed a step and flew through a window or something. Who would’ve guessed that radioactive lizard loving, virtual violence indulging, pop culture freak of a girl could learn overnight how to dress like a lady! Sure, Naoko was still far from feeling natural on that, but for a girl that never had anything like that, she was performing very well. She was even still breathing, albeit with hardships!

  The breathing part was not only due to shyness, but because the bust line was slightly tighter than it should, but that was nothing a couturier couldn’t resolve. After the first purchase Naoko got even more excited than she already was. She used to dislike clothing stores, but after understanding she was free to dress as she wanted, its position quickly increased in her list of nicest places – still under ramen shops, naturally, but close up there.

  From there the girl went on a shopping spree. Naoko had already seen most of the shop windows the day before and knew a few items that sparked her interest. Now the problem was the budget, forcing her to make difficult choices. Just as Aratani told her, she’s supposed to take three outfits, one of which would be used during the first few auditions and presentations. Also, he said hopefully in a few gigs they’d have already amassed enough money to increase her wardrobe, and most certainly by autumn and Winter they’d have already bought other attires in accordance, so for the time being she’s supposed to focus on clothes that made sense for Spring and, maybe, Summer. It helped narrow down her choices a little, though not by much since barely any stores had items from different seasons.

  One exception, thought, was a gorgeous pair of knee-high, snow-white leather boots. Not just any boots, though: platform ones. There were three inches of platforms, a little more on
the heels, but the intimidating height was compensated by the extremely cute lace-up front. Though at the same time, its tank soles gave it a mixed, rough and endearing composition. It was on a sixty percent off price tag due to belonging to the winter’s clothing inventory, but it was clearly not made to be used on snow anyway. Its platform and barrel height and tightness could offer decent protection and the rugged sole could provide good stability on soft and hard terrains alike, but weighting more than one kilogram each foot it’d make a very poor choice for walking on thick snow. That is, unless someone wanted to make exercises or just enjoyed getting stuck a lot. It was designed more to be fashionable than practical, and Naoko could imagine herself wearing it all year long on numerous different situations.

  That is, if she’s sufficiently brave. She already knew the reason of her fears was the heavy censorship she suffered all her life and that it was no fault of her, so she was free to wear it, but she’d also never developed a habit of using such extravagant clothes. Sure, other than the lace-up, it had no other frills that could pass for trying too hard to get attention, but the height of the platform and the barrel was no joke. And she’d already received so much criticism from her father the few times she decided to try her mother’s pumps that it was like if someone afraid of heights faced her fears by rappelling down a building – only with less risk of death. But the fact that she did those things anyway showed just how much she craved for the experience.

  Her female friends had nothing that came close to it, but one of her older friends once went to a weekend girls day-out wearing a thick sole, low barrel bootie. To Naoko, it looked so appealing, comfortable and protective that the girl, since she was fourteen, desired to at least put it on to see how it was like. Something about the sole height and the appearance of the object just attracted her. Even when choosing sneakers it was true, though since she used them until they fell apart and had numerous painful occasions where she stepped on pointy rocks, fish hooks, nails, wood splinters and such due to explorations and not well-thought experiences, she learned to value a resistant pair of soles. It partially explained her fondness of bigger, even manlier footwear (as long as it received a cutesy overhaul), but not entirely.

  It took the girl ten minutes just to decide on trying it on, and the three added inches filled her with excitement, happiness and also a terrible shame to be seen. Just as she loved the feeling of protection she got by tucking herself under the duvet and clinging to a wall as she slept, the high barrel gave a similar sensation, but it just felt wrong somehow. For as much as she loved it, the one meter and sixty-eight centimeter girl was already above average when compared to her colleagues and female teenagers of her age in general – not to mention she was already taller than quite a few fully grown women – and to be almost eight centimeter taller wearing those boots made her feel she’d stand out a little too much for comfort.

  Her producer, though, pointed that Naoko herself enjoyed it, and also looked stunning. He persuaded her not to cave in to her anxiety and purchased the pair, along with a black one – it was priced at only 40% off, but still made for plenty of possible combinations. Unlike the vest-blouse, which required a couturier, the boots fit perfectly too, so he convinced her to start wearing it right there. He was a tall man, Naoko on platforms still got a few inches short of him. He was accustomed to the height, so to speak, so it was easy for him to say those encouraging words to her, but Naoko almost didn’t leave the store wearing it. And when she did, the white of her boots made for a stark contrast with the redness of her face.

  As she continued shopping, Naoko began to get used to it. She acted at first as if at any moment someone would reproach her, but no. People did notice her, she sensed it, but they’re all so discreet, like usual, that the girl felt progressively more accepted. And people were trendier on that fashionable ward than on her hometown, so she was not out of element there despite the inner feelings of anxiety. Aratani, for one, was reassuring, and the way the crowd kept going about their lives made Naoko slowly comprehend she’d made too much ruckus out of such little things. It was a huge victory for her, but to think the world would go rampage against her for wearing boots was a far-fetched stupid idea. Sometimes her imagination was much scarier than reality, she perceived, and also that people in general didn’t act like her father.

  After that, the final purchases went smoothly as the girl let herself be drawn by what caught her eyes instead of being conducted by what she thought other people would think. Two mini shorts, a citrus and a jeans-fabric navy-blue one, along with one purple tank top, a three-tiered red and black miniskirt, black everyday sneakers and a frilled and laced sleeveless crimson shirt that resembled a short dress. Aratani also got her a simple pair of gloves, that Naoko chose to be black and fingerless, and the girl also wanted a cool silver colored serpent dragon bracelet, but budget was already busted, so instead she received a cheap candy and a pat on her back.

  The adrenaline rush she felt was akin to karate classes when they made kumite, or training combats, in free sparring rounds – which didn’t happen often for rookies, especially the multi-man, nonstop ones that felt so chaotic and that Naoko always loved to watch and partake. Aratani wasn’t too excited to talk due to the amount of bags he was carrying, but the girl couldn’t help but chat all about her plans for the clothes. All articles were good enough to be brought to a stage, so she could mix and match them to her heart’s content both on gigs and during everyday life.

  All the clothes really were of high quality, beautiful and stood out, so at first everything was right, but as Naoko got to the dance class one problem became evident: she had bought two pairs of platform boots, the only footwear she could take to a stage since the sneakers, although okay for street roaming, would be underwhelming for a presentation. Since the tank soles were adherent enough, it was technically feasible to dance with them, but with two and a half extra kilos and three inches for a girl that had no experience with anything higher than school shoes it was a complicating matter. Her producer, though aware, wasn’t concerned – it wasn’t the same as to dance in stilettoes, for example – and in fact seemed to find it quite agreeable for some reason, but Naoko, who’s still getting the hang of walking on those, wasn’t so sure.

  The dancing classes happened at the same locale Naoko was tested, and with the same middle-aged, apparently severe woman that judged her. Initially it was intimidating because the girl could hardly run, much less dance with her poor choice of footwear, alluring and striking but ultimately restraining as if the girl was moving with flower pots on her feet. Since she was already bad at dancing to begin with, Naoko got afraid the instructor would get discouraged or got overly critical, but once again she got surprised to find reality being much more caring than her own imagination was with her. As the girl hesitantly apologized in advance, mentioning she was still getting used to her footwear and explaining she’d only discovered it was a poor choice after buying it, the instructor, with an unchanged severe expression but an encouraging voice, stated:

  “Yes, it’s quite the daredevil’s choice, but with big risks come big rewards.”

  “Reward?” Naoko inquired “What reward? You mean… the appearance on the stage?”

  “Why, yes, but not only,” the woman mentioned “It also amps your difficulty modifier.”

  Seeing Naoko looked puzzled, her instructor briefly told her while going to the radio and choosing a song:

  “I see Aratani-San didn’t go over the scoring system most of your presentations will be based on so far. Well, I won’t spoil the fun. It’s a dense system with many nuances that requires more time to explain than we’ve in our class, but basically two of the five major evaluation categories, namely Dancing and Aesthetics, are directly affected by it. One of the subcategories in Dancing, called Execution, takes into account the attire while calculating whether or not you followed a predetermined choreography. Chains, wings, particularly restricting dresses, headgears that can easily fall off, platform boot
s or high heels, carrying novelty objects like umbrellas, anything that detracts from ease of movement adds points to Execution and a difficulty modifier to other categories. It is just a multiplier that ranges from one hundred and one to one hundred and ten percent apiece. If you’re dancing under particularly adverse conditions, these modifiers can add up and make even a mediocre execution score skyrocket, as long as you don’t commit any mistakes. If a mini crown falls or your platform boots make you trip over not only this hurts your tally, but also voids the modifiers. Going back to the five major categories, Aesthetics is another one directly influenced by it. Self-explanatory, really: on average platform boots are much more visually impressive than, say, flip flops. Of course it all depends on your costume and desired effect, but as a rule of thumb the more daring and gorgeous, the better. And you’ve a very solid choice of footwear, not only score-wise but also as long-time fan favorites. Only you’ll have to work twice as hard to keep up with the hardship and the expectations it creates. Shall we begin?”

  Listening to that was a respite for Naoko’s mind. Instructor Sato Mayumi was quite the welcoming and supportive person despite her perpetual grimace. True to her physiognomy, though, she was as strict and perfectionist as she seemed, and even cutting some slack for the girl who still walked like a duck trying to maintain her balance, the teacher was demanding. Sato-Sensei was a very technical instructor, and as the girl quickly discovered, had the sights of a hawk and could practically detect minor flaws in Naoko’s movements from a mile away while sleeping. Granted, what Naoko thought to be “minor”, to a trained eye, was as bright as the sun.

  The instructor’s feedbacks were quick and precise. The dance required songs and Naoko to sing along sometimes in order to get physically ready. The girl was used to karate trainings, but the only vocal sounds she used to make there were shouts. It was deceptively hard to keep her breath when she was required not only to move but also to sing, and Naoko found herself frequently panting and losing the end of sentences to inhale before collapsing. It was also hard to hear the music or her voice because of the teacher’s instructions. It’s done both verbally and non-verbally, but each added their own difficulties to the class. Verbal instructions cut Naoko’s concentration on the lyrics, but like the sensei had warned her, it was a required training since shows were loud and noisy anyway. Of course Naoko would he hearing her own voice more than anything, but concentration was key nevertheless, due to the amount of audible and visual stimuli that would compete with her focus and could very easily make an inexperienced idol lose song cues.

  As for the non-verbal instructions, they’re daunting. The girl had to incorporate many habits in a short amount of time, and master Sato interrupted her as soon as she forgot something. The first class was nothing more than an introduction to basics, mostly related to posture and less on poses or movements. Still, it overwhelmed the girl.

  “Legs,” Naoko frequently heard, reminding her immediately of the teacher’s words at the beginning of class, “There’s no such thing as closed legs on the stage. You’re on a show, not waiting for a train.” It immediately told the girl her posture was wrong.

  In reality, out of context that instruction sounded strange, but it belonged to an initial explanation about how Naoko was expected to present herself in front of a crowd when not posing, waiving or performing choreographies:

  “For starters, imagine your body to be composed of two parts: a lower and an upper one. The upper one is nuance heavy, but the posture of the lower one can be resumed in: spread your legs. There’s no such thing as closed legs on the stage. You’re on a show, not waiting for a train. There are exceptions, sure, but unless it’s part of the choreography or your public image is that of a shy girl, don’t bother at first. And even timid idols don’t usually stand still, legs closed for long. Their stock posture for below the waist line is to get knees together but separate the feet while making them point slightly one toward the other. This gives the cutesy without the legs being closed. The only other exception worth noting for now is the standing crossed legs stance, but we’ll go over it another time. The problem, on stage, for uniting them is that it’s the everyday posture an average person uses. It’s common and boring. When we start learning about poses and movements I’ll go over instances where you’ll want to keep them tight, but other than that, spread it. Just don’t overdo it: if your feet are a little past the shoulder line it’s good enough.”

  Unlike the times when Naoko got lazy or distracted and stood straight, making her instructor warn her with a single word, the upper body had different idle positions, mostly revolving around the arms and the rotation of the waist and head. Like with the legs, the boring ‘arms hanging by the side of the body’ was a no-no with the exception of a near-ninety degree torso rotation, meaning the upper body looked sideways in comparison to the legs. On this situation the hanging upper members would be between the legs, both in front and on the back. Excluding it, that position for arms was only for stances and moves. In general one arm held a microphone, so it had a standard position, but the other one, the dominant one most of the time, couldn’t be left leaning lifelessly, and thus had lots of variances, ranging from the lazy “two hands holding the mic” to some hard to remember idle positions, such as the “waitress”, with a palm open up in the air as if sustaining a tray. Presentations without handheld microphones were even more complex, either requiring careful planning and coordination for both hands or the chaining of movements and poses in quick succession so as not to let any down time.

  Idles were positions girls were supposed to revert back to whenever they’d finished posing or executing a movement and before starting a new one. Since they’re not part of choreography per se, they’re usually half-forgotten, but were indispensable for a good presentation. Dances with no idle postural elements, or with not enough variety, felt sloppy and not only got lower scores but also weren’t as appealing to the audiences.

  When the class was over Naoko’s legs were shaking and her back was done for the day. To move nonstop for two hours under master Sato’s rigorous discipline was harsher than it looked, but it made for quite the experience. Along with the weights on her feet, Naoko felt exhausted and ready to go to bed by 3 p.m.

  The singing class was also one on one and on the same building, but with a different instructor, a young woman with graduations in speech therapy and liberal arts, according to her. And finally, two hours after, another class with another woman, an early forties, a little overweight, short lady with yet another artistic background. The body language teacher possessed overseas theater courses and the supervision of movie choreographies on her curriculum vitae. So many classes with such qualified professionals not only drained Naoko’s batteries dry for good but also got her thinking just how much must her producer have disbursed with her just on that day. When she thought about it, practically all of her remaining fears about the integrity of that man vanished, resting only the first payment to cement her trust. Still, it was already pretty safe to assume it was the real deal, which got Naoko even more excited about the next weekends.

  Of all classes, the girl thought the singing one was the funniest, while the body expression, although very insightful, dragged on for what looked like an eternity. Putting on headphones and singing on a big mic in an acoustic studio was fantastic and the instructions and corrections her teacher made were spot-on, though when Naoko heard the replay she could not believe it was her. Her voice sounded far too different, more high-pitched, than she thought. Also on the other half of the class she got to make many vocal exercises which, despite the boring nature, when done right made her chest, her nose, her throat and her back reverberate. The resonance tingled and made Naoko laugh every time.

  The body expression class, on the other hand, was a mixture of posture correction exercises, theoretical explanations about the meanings of gestures, almost magical and strangely functional tips to employ postures and motions to create feelings such as confidence and ent
husiasm on her or awe and fear on others, trainings on self-awareness, relaxation techniques, studies of facial expression and more. There were a lot of contents, and many were really cool. Naoko felt as if she was studying to be a spy, a yogi, an actress, a telepath and a doctor in human behavior at the same time. Thought Naoko, already exhausted from the dance class and from the strenuous day before, had difficulties learning the theories, almost fell asleep on a few relaxations and her body was hurting too much for the stance reeducation, it was interesting.

  Overall the six-hour training was an incredible experience. By the end of it Naoko was hurting all over, hoarse, tired and a little paranoid about her own posture, but it was fun and she learned a lot. Unfortunately she also had lots of “homework” exercises to do, from voice trainings and postural corrections to movement trainings every day.

  When she thought things were over, Aratani reminded her he’d a surprise. By that time Naoko just wanted to go to bed, but her curiosity was too much to bear. As the man drove her around the early evening city, when people enjoyed the last few hours of Sunday, the girl interposed many questions about the surprise, just to know if she was expected to study or do any more exercises, but her producer simply told her:

  “No, just watch closely and have fun.”

  Soon, from atop a traffic-intense bridge that swindled among buildings a towering structure gradually made itself visible over yonder. Its glass and metal façade was illuminated by countless colored spotlights and bright lines that made its silhouette stand out over the night sky. Shaped like a tree, it presented a huge circular base from where an off-centered tower came out. Despite the appearance it gave off at first sight, it wasn’t perfectly conical, since one side of the building stretched over the center of the base resembling a triangular sail. A gigantic tear-shaped “treetop” crowned the building, supported by the main building and by structures resembling branches. The crown was made of multiple stacked arborized terraces, apparently. Including the transmissions tower with its multiple antennae and satellite dishes, it reached three hundred and twenty one meters, but its impressiveness came mostly from its radius. It wasn’t a slender tower, but a chunky, robust one really resembling a century-old tree. Still, its soft curves, the spirals the metal frames described around the frontage around which the mirrored panels were set and the absence of hard edges gave it a natural and graceful look.

  The terrain it occupied alone would’ve probably cost a fortune and then some in the high-class special ward of Shibuya. Since the tree-like structure had a somewhat circular base, the unused edges of the area were made into four triangular-shaped, small parks complete with trees, benches and even a pond each. It included a fifth, smaller one by the entrance, maybe just to break the bad augurs that supposedly came from number four, which in Japanese had a few readings, one of those being pronounced as “shi”, exactly the same as the word for “death”. Each of the four parks was themed with a color resembling one of the seasons: green for spring, yellow for summer, red for fall and blue for winter. Those were also the colors that composed the logotype of the conglomerate, a large five-pronged yellow star which, from the lower right leg, spammed three overlapping but off-centered planets, going from the biggest one, blue, to the smallest, green, with red in-between. It created a tail-like figure in an ascending parabola that made the central shape look like a rising star. Its outside borders were made thick and of an almost black hue of mixed blue and purple, while also presenting small, sprinkled white dots like a starry sky. Seven slightly bigger star dots spaced around it.

  That was a logo Naoko had seen a lot lately. Every document concerning her new job that made her stay up until the wee hours to read and rubricate had a watermark of that symbol, and the Idol Star System Generation official website also bore it. The I.S.S.G. headquarters also had it on its entrance.

  The HQ was such a sight to behold that Naoko’s sleepiness gave in to the dream-like entertainment aura of almost themed park proportions, full of semi-psychedelic luminosity and vibrant colors. Its outside by itself was already a one in a billion sort of experience, which was awesome because with the ridiculous amount of vehicles on the large avenues around it, Naoko had almost half an hour to appreciate it just until Aratani could get in the line for the parking lot.

  Meanwhile, the thrilled girl pointed out all of the amusing details she could make out of the edifice and of its crowded parks. The only thing that annoyed her concerned the fact the building was off-centered from its base. It triggered the obsessive-compulsive disorder for symmetry Naoko didn’t have, or didn’t notice so far that she had. She was far from the organized, compulsive type, but it was too big of a structure not to see the irregularity.

  “Didn’t the architects and engineers see it?! Are they blind?!” she complained while they waited on the car line, “My obsessignal’s screaming it’s going to fall at any minute!”

  “Luckily Naoko-Chan is not an architect or civil engineer.” Aratani pestered the girl, “It’s off-centered precisely not to fall. The main ground area’s composed of a shopping mall and a huge dome for shows. Problem is, a dome is such a huge open space that it wouldn’t comport the weight of the building, and putting huge support pillars there would not only cost precious space that could be filled with paying spectators, but it’d also obstruct the view of many people. And it’d look ugly, more likely than not. So the building is based over the shopping mall, while the dome area stretches out without overhead pressure. Should it be centered, it’d not have sustenance.”

  Naoko’s mind immediately created a poorly drawn, happy and cute version of the edifice as if sketched on a whiteboard by a five-year old. It even had an immensely out of proportion chibi, or big-headed and lil’ bodied, smiling Naoko sticking out of it. No matter how hard she tried to portrait a more realistic setting, her mind refused to give away Chibi Naoko and her adorable tree. Not that she tried too much: it was funny and lovely, so she stuck with it. As the young man talked about the lack of support of a building erected over a pillar-less vast area, her happy blinking avatar went crashing, arms flailing, as the badly-drawn building imploded into a big puffy cloud. As it subsided all that could be seen was a twitching petite leg and a band-aided head bump sticking out of the debris.

  Amazed, Naoko looked back to the structure, but quickly noticed a discrepancy: the long, sail-shaped part of the building that advanced over the center of the base. Aratani explained it was just a hollow glass overhead. Since the building, in order to use the most out of the space the circular base offered, had an overview shape of a crescent moon that slowly became round as it went up, the glass covering the dome was not just for looks.

  “Imagine that building without the glass cover above the show area,” Aratani prompted, “With a big crescent-shaped surface like it has on its first few dozens of floors out of space optimization, the structure would be like a dam to all the wind,” her producer described, “On such scale, even breezes could test the structural integrity of it. Stronger winds and heavy rains could very well send the skyscraper crashing down on the city. The overhead blade-like glass structure covers this crescent-shape and protects it.”

  And down went Naoko’s cartoony building again, this time leaning and topping over along with her own diminutive screaming version, forming another dense puff as it reached the tiny city below.

  “Okay, I got the structural stuff, but why the glass cover?” the girl asked, “Isn’t it dangerous? Can’t it break and fall over the audience? Wouldn’t it be better if they left just the metal frames?”

  “The glass is not there just for embellishment, I take,” Aratani, bored out of his mind by the big line, explained while going overboard on the details just for fun, “The dome have an internal retractable overhead used during windy days just to protect it in the remote case a glass panel shattered and fell off, but it’s not only safe to have the mirrored cap, it’s a must. If I understand it correctly, the wind problem’s not limited to it hitting the building on it
s flat surface. Due to it being round and aerodynamic on the other face, air currents would probably slip around the structure if they came from the front, and I believe the spiral-like pattern of the metal frames that compose the façade helps channel wind too. But once the air got past the building, the area that is hollow under the real life glassy cover would be exposed. Especially on cold days where heat transfer could create convection lines that drew air off the building due to the expansion of it caused by the internal heating system, I believe, the wind could create negative pressure area on the non-aerodynamic face. In other words, it could vacuum off the flat front of its glasses, especially with so many open windows they have there since it’s an office area. And without the windows a particularly strong air current on the front face could potentially create a negative pressure on the back powerful enough to damage it. The metal frame would most likely prevent any serious structural failure, but glass would fall over the dome, I think. Hence the aerodynamic overhead covered in glass. That’s my take on it, anyway.”

  As the spiraling cartoonish wind lines formed a hurricane that blew off half of the building in her imagination, Chibi Naoko jumped for her life. Opening a parachute she had for whatever reason and putting on a pair of cool shades just to show how much she cared for architecture, the endearing petite girl slowly glided to safety while watching the rest of the structure lean away from her. Unfortunately Naoko’s mind was not one to cooperate, and the building suddenly tipped over in the opposite direction, crashing over the poor girl and collapsing. One thing was clear for her about the exaggerated mental recreation: it sucks to be Chibi Naoko.

  Raising an eyebrow, the confused girl questioned:

  “Just how does Produ-San know all those things? They teach architecture to lawyers?”

  “They barely teach lawyers how to argument, let alone project buildings,” Aratani sarcastically replied, “No, I have a really close friend who’s a designer. Sort of, anyway. The machine type designer, not the clothes one, mind you. He used to tell me about airplanes, cars, trains, even elevators and those stuff. He’s one of those train freaks, though he doesn’t admit it. I also used to tell him about bureaucracies, but between this and hypersonic jets, he usually got more talking time. Good for me, ‘cause thanks to it today I know what’s a convection line.”

  “Cool!” Naoko ardently stated, though adding, “Even then, does it have any practical applications for you? Like, important ones?”

  For a moment her producer stayed still, seeing nothing. His mind drew him to a beautiful depiction of a gorgeous lady wearing skirt and walking down the street. Through the magic of the movement of molecules that expanded upon heating, thus forcing others to move away into areas of less pressure, convection lines in the atmosphere created winds that blew and lifted the now desperate woman’s skirt. Slowly grinning, Aratani simply replied to an even more confused Naoko:

  “Lots of practical applications. Very important ones.”

  The three-floored underground parking lot was gigantic, and even then it’s hard to find a place to park, but it was worth it. The inside of the I.S.S.G.’s complex was nothing short of spectacular. They only passed through a few corridors of the luxurious shopping mall, since her producer told her they’d have lots of opportunities to explore it another day, so the girl only saw a fraction of it, but the place seriously impressed her. It was a business of its own, not relying on any idol-related merchandise to attract customers. Sure, there were a few here and there, but nothing any other shopping center wouldn’t also have. Her producer told her it attracted clients like any mall would, and since the building also had restaurants and a hotel, among other facilities, on the upper floors it wasn’t a place just for die-hard idol fans. Even people that didn’t usually care for dancing girls went shopping there or appreciate the terraced view of the capital and wound up staying for the shows. Aside from the colossal dome there were six smaller theaters used both for idol trainings and presentations, and shows also occurred every night on the restaurants by the treetop. There were always people to watch the gigs.

  Aside from that, Aratani briefly cited, the conglomerate had lots of contracts with event promotion companies, show houses, clubs, media corporations, parks, amphitheaters and many other places and businesses all over the country and a few abroad that maintained a continuous agenda of shows. Lower-ranked idols still got lots of opportunities to shine, even if on smaller houses. Not all of those low-visibility presentations were aimed at fans, meaning a few were more useful to generate immediate revenue than fan base, but work’s work.

  Nothing, however, have prepared Naoko for the Sun Dome, as it was called. Bigger than a regular block just by itself, it easily reached fifty meters in height. Unlike sports stadiums, the stage didn’t occupy all the center of the location, but was composed of two parts: a monumental one on a wall and a smaller, circular, removable central stage with the floor made of glass or some other translucent material, that connected to the main one by a long catwalk surrounded by illumination. The rest of the space was occupied by the audience, and as such it was hard for Naoko to gauge its capacity. She roughly estimated it close to one hundred thousand spectators, but she could be overestimating it.

  Still, that was her impression. As she and Aratani came in from the ticket office, each receiving a luminous plastic stick of a different color by the entrance and getting in barely being able to read the table of attractions of the night by the immense double doors, all she could see was a sea of people. In the darkness the crowd was kept under, the tens of thousands of glowing batons made for a stunning and psychedelically disorienting experience. Naoko had never been on a show before – at least not one with electronic music, special effects and such. And certainly not one in such a gargantuan dome, with so many people.

  The ceiling was mobile, but currently was closed. Over it lines for moving TV cameras and lights were projected, forming a galaxy of dancing stars. The stages before the show were kept in darkness, but Naoko could see numerous spotlights around them. The central one, specifically, sometimes gleamed with light that came from below its glassy surface.

  The crowd was neatly organized in blocks, but it was still hard to move around the cramped and dark spaces. The audience energy, though, was something Naoko had never felt before. So many different men and women, a lot of them young but also many not so much, anxiously waited for the start of the show. The whole place gave Naoko delicious shivers, though just thinking about being the focus of such crowd was also spine-chilling. The girl excitedly but also hesitantly asked the young, suited man:

  “Produ-San, you don’t really expect me to perform in a stage like this with such a huge audience, right?!”

  “Not now, no!” he yelled to be heard, “But someday I hope you will!”

  “I hope I don’t!” she replied, smiling of enjoyment but also afraid, “I’d be petrified!”

  “You’d be petrified if I put you right now on that stage,” her producer said, “You still barely know how to dance and got no stage experience, so it’d be terrifying, I imagine, but someday Naoko-Chan will be ready, trust me! After what you’ll see here tonight, Naoko-Chan will most likely be disappointed with quite a few of her own gigs at the beginning of her career, I think. At first Naoko-Chan will hardly sing for two hundred people tops unless we get lucky on an audition. Hardly. One hundred’s a good starting number, so you’ll begin from the bottom. It’ll give you plenty of opportunity to improve and get used to the audience! As you grow in class you’ll get progressively bigger numbers, until you’re able to come to a place like this and crowd control the heck out of these people like its second nature! Don’t fret over it now, just enjoy it!”

  As the clock turned eight and a half white sparks flew off all around the core platform and ran in a firework-fest through the sides of the catwalk, lighting up footlights, as a monumental screen got turned on over the main stage, which also got floodlit by spotlights. Just as a faint energetic song began playing on the ba
ckground, a grave, silk-smooth mainly voice announced vibrantly:

  “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the Idol Star System Generation’s Aurora Invitational Springtime Ranked Contest!” a thundering round of applauses ensued, instigating Naoko to do the same while also shaking her lilac glowing stick vigorously. “Tonight is overflowing with attractions, so let’s get the show on the road! Please receive the Metal Idol Koyanagi Hideko!”

  Immediately after the announcer stopped talking the until then faint music volume went over the roof and the titanic screen got invaded by a blue and black radiant background, over which a silver and red strip rolled in. It quickly showed some sort of a logo reminding a winged cat, the girl’s name and a photo depicting only her eyes, colored a deep pink that was obviously due to the use of lenses. As the other information vanished from the display and someone began to sing, the strip-like line that revealed just her eyes faded away, and the full face of the smiling idol appeared on the immense monitor. She was probably not a teenager anymore, but her cute expression and laced pink and white tiara made she look as adorable as a kid.

  So captivated by the photo over the mesmerizing background, Naoko took a few seconds to notice the real woman was already on stage, and only after the image changed to the actual cameras that filmed the star. She had a very girly voice, presumably trained a lot to maintain the high-pitch and almost infant qualities. Naoko particularly was not too fond of women overacting like a little girl, but despite it, that Hideko gal looked absolutely fantastic. With short black hair and a white dress full of pink and rosy ribbons, laces and frills and wearing elbow-long pure white gloves, she was the very personification of all things adorable.

  Her presentation, though, was certainly not something a seven-year old girl would do. After having just one day of classes Naoko could already see the absurdly high-level of her dancing skills. Bearing no handheld mic, she used both hands in a hypnotic fashion, catching everyone’s attention with high-spirited movements. Chaining poses and choreographic elements with no combo breakers, she’s very close to an erratic little girl full of energy, but one that knew very well what she’s doing. She went from one side of the stage to the other, claiming every person’s sights, and her feet never stopped moving. In fact, she didn’t resort too much on idle positions because she’s always walking or posing. Most of her choreography came from her arms that always connected gestures in a way that felt natural despite being so over the top.

  When she got to the catwalk, it became even more evident to Naoko she’d have walked in a different way than the idol on stage. Hideko had long and pretty legs but didn’t use long strides or proud postures. She wasn’t a model, but an idol, and one that acted the child type. She used quick, small and happy steps, sometimes even low jumps, and frequently rotated three sixty while still going to the central stage. As her pink, winged shoes threaded over the glassy chessboard the translucent panels over which she walked glowed temporarily in a rainbow mixture, sending powerful beams upwards. Probably very few people noticed it, but putting herself on Hideko’s place it became obvious for Naoko that the idol couldn’t look down or she’d be temporarily blinded. Hence she had to walk and jump without seeing where she stepped, a dangerous thing to do when there were so many jumps and leg work on her executions.

  Following her arms movements, the audience also began flailing their luminous sticks. Her song was kind of silly in the lyrics department, but extremely catchy, and the woman, even though being diabetic-killing sweet, had some positivity to boot. Naoko, though not particularly fan of the ultra-girly setup, found herself carried by the delectable vibes.

  As the songstress returned to the main stage and screamed the lyric’s last line, a surge of applauses shook the dome and made Naoko’s hairs rise with the contagious liveliness. Almost nonstop the announcer introduced another girl, another metal class idol dubbed “Violet Lily”, named in plain English. The instant she heard it, Naoko turned to her producer and whispered:

  “Violet Lily?! The heck’s this name?”

  “It’s not a name, Naoko-Chan,” he explained to her while the song began and the girl got its face shot on screen, “It’s her artistic name. Idols can opt to be known by those instead of by their real names. Of course fans know their true names, but don’t use it. Once you get to your first gig you’ll be asked if you want to adopt an artistic name or not. Your call.”

  Violet, as the fans around seemed to call her, was in stark contrast to Hideko. The young woman’s eye lenses were a jade color, and part of her hair or wig was green while the other was of a shocking purple. Her attire followed suit: with the exception of her jet black slim legging tights full of added-on pockets, everything else were in one of the two colors. Her tube top was green while the long sleeved, opened mini jacket she wore over it was purple, as was her choker. Her footwear was a mixed sort of mismatched pairs: a violet bootie and a half-way barreled gladiator-like emerald boot that left her toes open. She carried a long, cane-like mic with bat wing decorations on it and a black suction cup on the lower end. Her makeup was heavy, with thick eyeliners, intense blush and green lipstick. Her head bore a petite devil-horn tiara, and her earrings were shaped like spiked handcuffs. Her makeup was heavy and she didn’t smiled that much.

  The “metal idol” class seemed just right for that lady, Naoko thought as, in awe, her chest was pounded by powerful sound waves that resonated inside her in a heart-accelerating, frenzy-driving way she’d never experienced before. Violet was a beast, every bit the confident and provocative early twenty lass she looked like. In fact, she was so aggressive that Naoko disliked her personality a bit, but it was another incredible example of how varied idols could be. Her one-handed choreographies seemed somewhat easier than cheery Hideko, but Violet Lily used her whole body in more creative ways.

  On a certain non-verbal point of the music she got to the edge of the stage and, crawling like a panther ready to attack, stared into the people nearby while using her cane-like mic to capture the yells of the audience. In the same way, she also stuck the one meter-high cane mic on the floor using the suction cup and spun around it like a dancing pole. Since it wasn’t truly fixed on the ground and the show was rated ten and older she didn’t performed anything too daring, but the way she acted, Naoko firmly believed she could go much further than that. Violet had an acid personality that felt intimidating to Naoko, but her emotion-heavy song, resonating voice and power-trip prone character had a shocking effect. Her fans were mostly punk-like teenagers as far as the girl could see.

  Contrary to Hideko, Violet’s strides were long and heavy, even though she was shorter than the idol before her. At a moment she simply tuck her off-hand on the pants’ pocket and threaded the catwalk with lowered head but staring straight. Never one to smile, the way she touched the audience was through her thought-provoking, society-bashing lyrics. Her choreography employed far less movements than Hideko, and her dance was more impressive for the few extreme positions, with perfect side splits and exaggerated interpretations of angst with her body rather with the rapid succession of simpler moves. Her poses were also intense, mostly involving leaning forward or raising one foot in front or behind the body and maintaining the balance. It was technical, but not as much as Hideko’s presentation. It was, though, a lot more intense in terms of bravery required.

  Her best trait in Naoko’s opinion as the song ended was her voice, feminine too but forceful like a lion’s roar. Naoko had never felt sound pierce her body like that, making her internal organs resonate and tingle as if they’re numb. It made her heart throb as if she was under some kind of danger. It was an intimidating, but ultimately astounding experience Violet had pulled off.

  The show kept going and Naoko, who didn’t remember the last time she’d so much fun, jumped, applauded and sang along, not even remembering her previous tiredness. It was a fantastic experience that only got better by every passing minute. Each idol sang just one song and lyrics usually weren’t more than four minute
long. On a two hours show, there were many idols coming and going. With the exception of the first five, who were of Metal class, the second highest, all the others were of Water class, meaning the best there was – save for the almost nonexistent Star-class idols.

  About the first five presentations, Aratani explained there’s no examination board because the girls had already gone through an eliminatory round beforehand. It was common that idols were chosen to participate in shows, be it through auditions, public vote, invitations, fan support or even through other shows. Low ranked idols were far too many and usually had to compete for a single spot, but as classes went up things got easier. The show they’re watching, the Aurora Invitational Springtime Ranked Contest, had a huge name but in essence was an invitation based gig for Water-class idols that occurred during spring. It involved a competition with big prizes, and was considered a ranked show, meaning money was paid I.S.S.G.

  Metal Idols were not on par and, like so, wouldn’t compete onstage, but they’re very famous nonetheless and the competition that led the five winners to get a spot there has also been a show all by itself. After the opening arc the true contest would begin, pitting Water Idols one against the other, and then there’d be a pool of five judges evaluating them. The judges stayed by the side of the stage so as not to interfere with the show, though. With a few exceptions, the only instances where they got really visible were during cups, the contests that awarded the victorious a higher class.

  Finally, when the main event of the night started, Naoko was more pumped than when she’d performed on her own tests. Her producer told her that, according to the show’s description, the contest’s format would be that of a two-round Battle Royale followed by a three-rounded score attack Duel. Battle Royale competitions were a kind of ruleset where each girl sang a pre-determined number of songs, two in this case, and by the end an average score of both songs was taken for each competitor. The one or ones with the best overall tallies won or proceeded to the next phase. Since the second phase was a Duel, only two girls would get through, and face off on a three song competition.

  Duels could work on many ways, but two were more commonly found: through scores or points. Even though both words meant almost the same thing, there were differences in terms of rules. Scores were simple, zero to a hundred, numbers awarded on each of five major categories, like Dancing, Singing and Aesthetics. Points, on the other hand, were awarded on a proportion of one for each category. So, for example, if a girl scored ten on four categories and one hundred on the last one while the other got a score of eleven on all five categories, the second one would have gained four points, because her four elevens were higher than her opponent’s four tens, and the first girl would have one point, because her one hundred was bigger than the other’s last eleven. So, even on a ridiculous presentation, the girl with five elevens would have won if the contest was based on points by four to one. If the competition was on score basis, though, the first girl would have been victorious because of her total of one hundred and forty far surpassed the second one’s fifty-five.

  Ten Water Idols were invited to participate. With three exceptions, all were twenty years old or more, though only one was older than twenty-three, being twenty-five. It was most certainly her last year as an idol, and in fact only a few managed to work until such age. There were exceptions, but more often than not women started to lose fan support after twenty-two or so, as Aratani reluctantly told Naoko once the girl asked it. According to the producer, a successful idol could easily amass in six years far more than a typical white-collar worker could make during his or her entire life.

  “But as people say,” her producer told her, “the candle that burns twice as bright, burns for half as long. And just how bright could a star burn?”

  Even though Naoko had never wanted to be an idol, knowing she only had nine years left, tops, made the girl worry for a second. But nine years, for someone who was sixteen, was more than half of her life and seemed like an eternity, so that thought was quickly forgotten. Still, the oldest idol picked her attention the most.

  Every woman there performed on unbelievably high levels, each according to her own personal characteristics. One seemed lazy and happy-go-lucky while another was every bit lovey-dovey. From one that looked a little obnoxious and self-centered but arguably gorgeous and talented spoilt princess to another which was as sexy as it got, going through an apparently normal, everyday girl, a cold-hearted lady of sorts, and more. At first glance it was a rich collection of stereotypes, though Aratani told Naoko their stage personae were usually just that: a mask to be used on stage. Some employed it because fans liked, others because they felt more secure. Though every girl used to have on their own personalities a few characteristics that composed their artistic frontage, only a handful actually acted in real life like they did before the masses. It made Naoko question herself about how Violet would most likely be in reality.

  The oldest of the ten was an incredibly gorgeous lady presented as Ogasawara Umeko. When introduced, the woman with long, wavy light-brown hair entered the stage without any trace of anxiety and no rush. Her attire, unlike that of other competitors, had no frills, no angel wings, no fancy bonnets, novelty gloves, designed mics, cowgirl hats, pilot glasses or anything. It was an unpretentious but exquisite long dress in black with wine-red details, with a cut that left one leg to be shown while hiding the other. Spangles glittered all over making her dark vest appear bright as white under so many spotlights, and her footwear was a pair of classy, high-heeled black sandals. On her amazingly lustrous hair stood a single white rose, and a red gemstone glittered on a silver pendant that adorned her cleavage. She had the second biggest cup size of all competitors, so it was easy for her dress to be too exaggerated to the point of seeming vulgar or too restrictive and end up looking like she tried too hard not to be seen, but her vest found somehow a sweet spot that felt just right. One silver bracelet and a ring nailed her looks.

  Her gorgeous, voluminous brown hair felt faintly familiar, and her smile, for whatever reason, felt more genuine than any Naoko had seen on stage before. As she began to sing it quickly soothed the girls agitated heart in a mysterious effect almost opposite of the one Violet was able to achieve. Her voice was mature and serene, and tackled a dangerously hard song as if it was nothing. The music was full of vocal modulations and presented two instances of sustained singing for long periods that left Naoko breathless just to watch, but Umeko made it without the slightest sign of distress. Steadfast as a mount and with silk-smooth voice, she clearly gave preference to singing over any other aspect. Her choreography was straightforward and mostly related to the use of her hips to perform constant changes in the supporting leg and the employment of her free hand, making long and wide gestures. She also did a few movements with her open leg and the arms, but all in all, after Naoko saw jumps, splits, spins, arms flailing and so much more, her dancing aspect felt kind of underwhelming. Still, it somehow felt perfect for her.

  Umeko looked like nothing Naoko had seen before even though feeling slightly familiar. She was more of a regular songstress than an idol, but not a bad “regular”. Her lyric, “Point of No Return: 5 Seconds for Tomorrow”, was the most touching and well written of all the songs Naoko heard on that show so far, versing on the recalling of a sunset filled school classroom as seen from the eyes of a graduating person, remembering all the things she could have done, the love she could have found and the happy experiences she could’ve happened if only she’d stayed true to her best feelings instead of letting ire, bashfulness, lame excuses, laziness, fears and petty things detract her from the really important things of life, and what would the person do if she could go back in time. It was apparently sad, but the lyrics kept the optimism since the person, learning from her mistakes, found she could apply them on university, on work and on life in general. To Naoko, though, that silver-lining search was the part that filled her eyes with tears. The interpretation of the song was heart touching like noth
ing she’d heard before on that show.

  It was strange that the woman who jumped and waived the least could get the attention of the audience like no other. Maybe it was the lyric that spoke true to the young audience while the lady’s maturity and breathtaking, emotion-galore presentation catered to the older ones. Either way, her dulcet voice, not the loudest but unquestionably the most harmonious and nuanced of all, far surpassed Naoko’s expectations, and even if her song was a bittersweet rollercoaster, the woman was very heartwarming, adding even more depth to the concert. Comparing herself to Umeko was like putting a drum-wielding chimpanzee side by side with an experienced pianist. Of course, Naoko had just taken her first day of lessons, but it seemed next to impossible that she’d ever reach that level of singing prowess, as she thought.

  After such solid presentation the girl that came after it, full of jumps, high energy and easygoing themes was a blessing, but also felt immensely shallow in comparison. Ultimately, it felt unrewarding, just a cheap funfest. It took Naoko a few songs to get back to herself. Not that she wasn’t having fun anymore, on the contrary: it was a blast to be in touch with such mind-boggling situations. To feel emotions, a huge array of them, was fun in itself.

  The second round felt slightly faster. To Naoko, who deserved to win was a tough call. Umeko impressed her the most and made her cry and feel happy at the same time, but her dancing was the least impressive one. An especially egotistical-looking lady with a dark sailor suit and silver wig irritated Naoko with her poise, but her dance was as exhilarating as watching a martial arts movie, only more feminine. Also there was that provocative-looking and acting lady in a black and fuchsia polymer, skin-tight catsuit full of leather belts and wearing cat ears, a choker and high heels that felt a mix between a cosplay of a space-themed manga and a fetish compilation. “Vyper”, she’s called, stylized with a “y” and written in roman characters instead of using Katakana, Japanese’s syllabary for foreign words and names, among other uses. Naoko was actually much more attracted to that woman’s self-confident personality than she wanted to admit (if Naoko had to wear such costume in front of almost one hundred thousand spectators and still dance she’d have died by a heart attack on the first five seconds, probably) and she wasn’t obnoxious like some of the others. Furthermore, her dance was enticing, her song was catchy and her aesthetics and power to attract the crowd’s attention… well, it was second to none.

  Also, in all fairness, under her rubbery clad, well-endowed chest lied a healthy diaphragm. The buxom lady was a very technical songstress and managed to sing complex songs despite having narrow vocal amplitude. She paled heavily in comparison to Umeko’s supernatural capabilities to modulate her voice to her will, but the provoking idol was still decent at singing. And by “decent”, Naoko thought “Water-class idol’ decent”, because in absolute terms she’s outstanding.

  Naoko actually liked that woman quite a bit. She acted in a caring but dominating way that sent mixed signals. A part the fans seemed to fawn over this trace but the girl begged to differ. The best part of that idol for Naoko was that, in some sense, she didn’t seem too much of an idol too. It felt more like an anime character. The way Vyper acted just made Naoko desperately want to be as confident as that woman in real life, though since she appeared to get a little too much attention from Aratani, the girl began rooting for every other woman there just so she lost. It wasn’t jealousy, no. It was just hatred for people with qualities she wanted to have! See? Whole other thing.

  Contrary to the “not too idol-like idol” feel from her first presentation, though, the second time Vyper got on stage she actually looked much more “idol-ish” according to Naoko’s definitions, which threw the girl off-balance. Though still retaining some of her appealing demeanor, it became secondary, limited to a few winks and poses. The woman came back with a head-affixed mic and her choreography got significantly different. Following a happier song’s vibes, her dancing became full of upper-body member’s gestures. They’re perfectly cadenced with the music to the point where it gave the impression the melody was the one keeping up with her, not the other way around. Just as the song was full of heavy beats, Vyper’s lightning-fast moves that invariably came to sudden stops as if she hit invisible drums around looked incredible. In high, pointy heels she still walked like a seductress and, unlike other idols, never jumped, but her upper half gave of cheerier waves.

  Overall, it looked like the idol from the first presentation had her mind hijacked by a joyful external consciousness. Despite getting more in line with how other idols acted, Naoko got a serious liking to that woman, still confident like no other but more positive and upbeat. She still kept her caring smile while her dominating side seemed less rooted on sexiness and more on natural leadership. Vyper got all the more agreeable to Naoko, to the point where she was second only to Umeko in the girl’s favorite list for that night.

  Umeko came back for her second presentation and this time her song was happier, too. At that time she really showed how well she could dance. Even with a restricting tube dress and a white rose on her hair, the woman moved like Naoko only dreamed she could. She wasn’t one for jumps too, but her ample gestures, although not light speed quick as Vyper’s, were no less outstanding. She relied on the difficulty of multiple chains of movements that flowed seamlessly like it was just one. On the first round her genuine smile and encouraging heartfelt presentation made her look like a motherly figure of sorts, but on the second she made much more the older sister part. Her smile was still unparalleled in calmness and honesty, which made it the most beautiful in Naoko’s opinion, but her eyes also gleamed brighter with enthusiasm. The lyrics were not as deep as first time around, but just as well-written, and the interpretation she gave to it was marvelous. The woman sang as if she’s a storyteller, and she was so passionate about it that Naoko got under the impression that almost anything she told, no matter how boring, would seem breathtaking and exciting. Umeko had a magnetic personality that got just clearer as she assumed that sunshine stance.

  The way most of the Water-class idols changed the vibes of their exhibitions as the songs demanded like changing gears on a car while still seeming real as if they all had multiple personality disorders was puzzling to Naoko just as much as it was awe-inspiring. Every way they acted made the girl think she’d finally discovered the real self of an idol, only to be thrown off her feet by a different acting that felt just as real. True, Umeko looked even more genuine than anyone else, but the others’ personalities also seemed water-clear despite changing like a coursing river full of turns and waterfalls.

  By the end of the second round, after every woman had gone twice under the limelight, the huge screen presented a complete list of the scores every judge had given to every idol. There were five categories, three of which Naoko had already listened a little about: Singing, Dancing and Aesthetics. The forth one was really strange, something which could only be translated as “Devotion”, while the fifth one was called Memorability. Most scores the ten idols amassed were over eighty points on a scale ranging from zero to one hundred.

  Umeko and Vyper, the two Naoko wound up rooting for, managed to score magnificently. Vyper got nineties on Dancing, Devotion and Aesthetics, the last one being the highest of all participants and Devotion the second best. Dancing got a close third. Umeko also scored above ninety in three categories: Singing, Devotion and Memorability. While her Dancing score got a “mediocre” eighty-one, probably due to her first presentation, she also got the best Singing and Memorability scores, respectively ninety-seven and ninety-five, and the third best Devotion.

  It had good reasons for why Naoko loved the two more than the others: they really stood up on that presentation. The judges apparently agreed, because after computing the tallies only the two remained. It was a very close call, though: Vyper, in first, had scored four hundred and fifty three, only five points above Umeko and seven beyond the third place, an arrogant and bittersweet-acting lady in a half princess, ha
lf sorceress costume known as Hina, who got best Devotion and second in Aesthetics. Even if the three had ruled the exhibition, the others only got a few points below, meaning any mistake anyone had committed would’ve sent her down to the bottom of the list. Except for the last one, penalized for letting a small cowgirl hat fall off – even though she managed to grab it midair and put it back immediately –, the others stayed no more than twenty-six points below first place. Too close for a five hundred total maximum. No one there was a pushover, that’s for sure. Naoko was under the impression the eighty-eight she’d scored on her singing test would’ve been worth something like a ten on that exhibition.

  Over a blue and black electric-looking background a fuchsia-colored strip appeared on the left half of the gigantic screen, and inside it the sparkling eyes of Vyper, along with her nickname and a strange symbol Aratani explained to be the emblem of the idol’s agency appeared. A stylized red-stroked yellow “Vs” inscription fell over the edge of the strip, in the middle of the screen, and immediately connected another rectangular ribbon that rolled in. It was of a scarlet color and presented Umeko’s info and her calm and happy stare. As data faded away and the picture of the faces of both idols covered the huge electronic rectangle, facing one another and smiling, each their own way, heavy-beat music got started and spark fireworks erupted around the stage. The announcer quickly called in the finals, mentioning in a brief one line explanation that the Duel would take place in a three-round, score-attack format.

  The “Credited Intro”, as her producer told Naoko the standard eye-strip scene was called, got the girl so pumped up that all her body felt as electrified as the big screen. They felt like life-long rivals clashing. She was practically laughing without even knowing why, just in anticipation of the duel, and waived her glowing stick so fast it’s semi-circular blur looked like a luminous purple fan. It was unbelievable, then, that the contestant Umeko, under all that pressure, still seemed so serene while Naoko was frenzied and pumped like she’d received a horse-sized adrenaline shot to her neck. Aratani, grinning, told her in a cool and low voice while the announcer spoke:

  “Easy girl, I know you’ve sent me an A-Okay medical checkup with your application documentation, but you look like you can get an arrhythmia at any moment.”

  “Don’t care!” Naoko replied in sky-high spirits, “So that’s how a fan feel?!”

  “Nope,” her producer answered, “A fan would probably feel even more pumped, unless you’re so excited because it’s your first high-class idol show.”

  “It’s my first idol show, period!” Naoko told him, yelling, “That’s the best thing there is!”

  “Well, there are a few other situations I personally find even more enjoyable,” Aratani mentioned, grinning for a moment, “but you’re right Naoko, it’s a very powerful experience indeed. No wonder, despite the easy access people have to online music, live shows are still a thing.”

  Eagerly, Naoko watched the three rounds of duel almost without blinking. The moving crowd was like a charged, thundering black cloud with a million rainbows inside. Along with the fireworks and the crazed spotlights and the obfuscating central platform’s glassy floor’s illumination, things got even more erratic than before. The duel was a nonstop sequence, as soon as one woman’s song ended the other one’s began. It was mind-numbing, then, that every lyric got a different feeling to it, and both idols played their parts interpreting them all extremely well.

  It was hard to tell if the ladies were saving the best for last or if the adrenaline rush from the presentations just made they perform better and better every time, but each performance looked more solid than the last. Another possible explanation was that, unlike the Battle Royale’s half of the show, during that Duel the preliminary scores were briefly shown on the bottom of the big screen after judges have completed the evaluation, so the women could be adapting their onstage postures based on how they performed. True to the results, Umeko still ruled supreme over the Singing and Memorability categories while Vyper dominated Dancing and Aesthetics. The Devotion category, which Naoko didn’t understand what it represented – and didn’t want to bother others around asking for Aratani or losing the awesome presentation hearing explanations –, was disputed between the two.

  The thing that gave Vyper an edge was that Aesthetics was mostly a fixed score. Since the idols didn’t change clothes between rounds, it only fluctuated minimally, maybe due to how well their costumes matched their songs. The more provocative songs earned the lady slightly higher scores in Aesthetics than the more typical love songs. Still, she had a fun-loving aura that sometimes went overboard into kinky territory, and her lyrics usually versed about having fun, sometimes full of innuendoes while others really just talking about happy things in general. As such, she had consistency in her repertoire and her attire never felt completely out of place – about her personality, not about the real place, because Naoko thought wearing a lustrous catsuit in front of so many people was already an otherworldly absurdity. That and her matching black long hair with a huge fuchsia fringe that covered half of her face earned Vyper a solid nine points of advantage over Umeko every round without any difficulty, a difference that her opponent had to offset with her arguably superior voice. The last round, especially, was a nerve-wrecking showdown.

  The two rivals managed to maintain the show rolling for three rounds with no problems. In fact it seemed like just the beginning of another gig when the songs stopped and the two got called back onstage for the examining board’s results announcement. For a moment both women stood looking at the big screen while each score of each judge for each song of each idol was gradually shown, in a dramatic ten seconds-long tab revealing that almost made the tense Naoko scream “get this over with already!” Even though the prelim scores have been previously shown for each song, it’d require above-average memory capacity and lots of attention for people to have memorized the tallies and know beforehand who the winner was. Also, like Aratani told her, judges could still discuss and make last-minute changes to their values based on not yet noticed facts that others could point out. It was rare, but a bonus or a fault could’ve passed unnoticed by one or most examiners, and would only be credited or subtracted after all the exhibitions.

  At the end Umeko’s final score of a thousand, three hundred and seventy, got eight points behind Vyper on the sum of all rounds. For as much as Naoko had enjoyed that night more than she remembered ever having, she got slightly frustrated with the outcome. Even though she had quickly learned to love Vyper, the woman on the spangled dress just had something too heartwarming, positive and genuine, and her vocal talent was overwhelming – even though her dancing skills really dragged her back compared to her opponent.

  A deafening round of applauses issued. As the two women deviated their sights to face each other, Naoko’s heart skipped a beat, though. She quickly grew fond of both, to see anyone act in a discourteous or sad manner would’ve been too hurtful, even though Naoko didn’t even want to think what she would’ve done if she’s one of the two on the stage. She would’ve been too happy or too ashamed, and both could be problematic. But, contrary to her fears, both ladies smiled. Granted, Vyper’s grin was bigger, but for some reason Umeko also seemed to find something funny. Extending her arms, the catsuit-clad one pulled her adversary into a tight hug. The huge screen, on a very close camera angle, slightly showed the two exchanging a few quick words before separating. The exultant Vyper seemed all the more caring than she used to, while Umeko, though not as radiant, was just as tranquil and joy-filled as she showed to be during the show.

  As both turned to bow to the clapping audience before leaving waiving to the fans, Naoko felt a warm feeling of gladness pervade her chest. Applauding excitedly, the girl was overflowing with happiness, though a part of her still felt numb after their reaction. It had been much more reassuring than she thought it’d be. She felt so sad for Umeko, who’d lost by such a small margin, that at first anything that Vyper could do to h
er rival would’ve seen unfair and enraging. But no. They both acted surprisingly mature, not to say friendly.

  At that time Naoko couldn’t understand how Umeko was so calm after having lost by a hair in front of so many people, but her serenity seemed real, which just made the girl all the more amazed. She couldn’t fathom how much confidence that woman had or what she was feeling and thinking. Taking by her appearance, it’s as if nothing had happened.

  She left the dome, ate and was driven to her dorms in a trance-like state, as if too much happiness, energy and too many good emotions had short-circuited her brain. Even then, the memory of the reunion of the women at the end lingered on her mind as a touching moment, but also one hard to understand. She didn’t know if they’re being honest or just acting. Those two had already shown they’re able to make almost anything they did seem believable, though the girl really wanted to trust it was real this time. The doubt was too much for her to bear.

  As the adrenaline slowly passed, and after getting her tummy full in the shopping mall, the girl began to notice just how worn-out she was. Even then, that night she went to bed dazed by amazement and overjoyed like she hasn’t been for long.