On the 30th of April 2019, Japan saw the end of the Heisei Era with the abdication of the Emperor Akihito after thirty years of reign. Two days before, Sashihara Rino, former member of AKB48 and HKT48, performed her last concert as an idol. Over her twelve years long career, she became one of the most influential figures of the idol industry, becoming an idol producer and manager, but also gained an important place in the Japanese entertainment industry. Her final concert as an idol being so close to the end of the Heisei Era means a lot for idol fans, called wotas.
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In 2012, I discovered AKB48 and other idol groups. It became an important part of my life, engaging discussion with other fans online, going to idol concerts in France, buying merchandising. Through the years I read several articles from Western newspapers giving a misinformed lighting to this community : ‘Some of the group’s business practices are reminiscent of the yakuza’ (Adelstein, 2019) and links to prostitution, Japanese mafia syndicates, are often suspected by journalists. It was visible that the industry itself was often practising questionable methods such as very strict control of the personal life of the idols, heavy work schedules and harassment. I wondered how the fans were seen, some of them can be considered questionable as well, but how the entire community was perceived either by themselves and by community outsiders. What kind of community are we ? I started to think about the relationships between the fans and about their behaviours.
Wota (idol fans) as a subculture
Introduction
Several elements comforted my idea of researching more specifically on the idol fan community. The first was the reading of an extract of Hodkinson’s Goth : Identity, Style and Subculture that made me realise the similarity between the goth subculture and the wota community. Both are fan cultures and apparent themselves to Hodkinson’s indicators of a cultural substance. (Hodkinson, 2002) The second element, in opposition, first caused me to reconsider my interest in both the idol industry and the fan community, wanting to step away from it, before realising that, in contrary, it could become a deciding aspect of my research. This element was the Maho Yamaguchi’s assault, when two fans assaulted in December 2018 a member of NGT48 in her apartment. This event forced the fans to reflect on themselves for the first time.
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As a fan and member of the community myself, I considered my insight an asset to this ethnographic research, allowing me to understand the different elements that construct this community. The fact that I am a Westerner, and not a fan living in Japan, with a limited understanding of Japanese, instead puts me as an outsider on certain levels, such as having to rely on translation. But it also kept me on the same position as the other Western fans, sharing more similar experiences than fans living in Japan. This research aims to give an understanding of the wota community as a subculture. To fulfil this aim, I will follow the four indicators of subcultural substance defined by Hodkinson (2002) : identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness and autonomy. By analysing the semiotics used, online discussions, questionnaires’ answers, I will provide elements of subcultural substance in the wota community.