Not so much a promise to come back from a long hiatus, but I have thoughts and I feel their need to be expressed. So something small.
Mrs. Green Apple did the opening song to the latest season of the Frieren TV anime. A relative new comer to some of us, that it rode the major label marketing machine until the depth of COVID pause, then came back with a vengence. Mrs. Green Apple is, in recent years, a frequent resident of the Japanese pop top ten, and even shows up when you triage it to United States only. So, I present to you this graph, hopefully you can infer all that the thoughts I had, had to say.
The line indicates total views on YouTube Music, grouped by their artist handle (so this includes music videos and YouTube Music. Content ID tags? IDK). The line going up? That’s Frieren! That is just Frieren.
The other thought I had was, now you know what a mainstream pop artist looks like on this set of filters, what about some others?
First, a steady barometer of weeb interest. Maybe she’s a tad old now? I feel you, Ms. Hatsune.
For never-dead internet trolls and warriors alike, the latest iteration looks like this:
and
I don’t know what to say. All I can is, why isn’t Bandai Namco Entertainment not releasing Gakumas for EN/global? The question and the answer are right next to each other.
A real Japanese pop star number look maybe closer to this:
It’s still hugely affected by what Americans see, which makes total sense, these are the US charts for Japanese artists, after all.
PS. I showed the artist Miku Hatsune, but not music with her persona embellished by producers using her voice. This is also the same reason why I can’t find good counts for character songs (eg., all of IDOLM@STER outside of Gakumas and maybe Valiv). Somehow they’re all tagged by character as the artist, so it takes manual aggregation to collect data on a brand level. Or in Miku’s case, she is more an instrument sometimes.
Sending a flower stand is an East Asian custom. The most amusing ones I’ve seen was when I went to Surabaya to attend a friend’s wedding. Being kind of a big deal I guess, his company, their clients, various neighborhood orgs and individuals all sent these large flower stands. Some are just your traditional-on-four-stilts type. Others are basically billboards by the side of the road made up of flowers. I mean, being Asian I saw them at weddings, funerals, store openings, and other “big” events. And in Japan, I see them at concerts.
The first time I saw otaku flower stands going to concerts was at MOIW 2014. The stands spanned across a good third of the main concourse. There were all kinds, but most notably were these similarly-formatted stands for every idol including Shacho and Kotori. Later I would learn that they were organized off 2ch. And in some ways this was peak. I think in MOIW 2015 there were literally like a kilometer worth of flower stands, and I now sort of shudder to think how much effort it was to deal with it. I guess on the other hand they were very much the full gamut of the most inexpensive to the most elaborate, but you still have to stick to the dimensions and regulations set by the event organizers. Maybe it’s a bit like an art contest, but more like an art family of love and appreciation.
I think more over the whole flower stand thing became its own thing, especially when it takes like 20 minutes to even see all the flowers by walking that kilo or more. I guess if I was doing something like hosting an IDOLM@STER concert at Seibu Dome, I can kind of wing it–there’s plenty of space, the weather was not the worst (imagine if it really poured), and at some level you kind of left it to people to fend for themselves. Japanese people are really good at self-organizing after all, and the visitors are respectful generally speaking.
But if you’re doing a show at SSA, K-Arena, or something much smaller than a stadium, you’re going to be under a lot more constraint. I can see why some shows don’t even bother with flower stands. I think everyone agree that we like these gesture of celebration to some degree, that the fans send flowers as an act of appreciation, but it’s a little too one-sided for me. This is not even mention the occasional drama that could occur from expensive fan projects, given these days the flower stands run from $500 to over $2000 even.
Actually that has been a persistent problem–most westerners who learn this cultural act actually do not know what it is like to deal with flower stands from a concert runner/promoter point of view. It’s why it will cost Anime Expo at least $500 plus union labor per hour to babysit a $500 flower stand outside Peacock Theater, so it will unlikely ever happen. It’s why you can’t just put a flower stand anywhere in the dealer room, because the fire marshal may have to OK your floor plan and which western con is going to take that into account? Or more like, even if it’s not very hard (and I don’t think it is), some guy working at a high enough level at the con has to give their 2c to make the magic happen. What magic? Maybe a photo op for the guest and some optics. I hope it’s worth the while.
[Otakon this year has a flower arrangement display near the panel room area that was roped off. It’s actually perfect for flower stands. If the right person can be reached maybe it might even work.]
I think it’s both “too much” and not enough– not many con in this country will sustainably grab guests that will have fans with enough motivation, disposable time, effort, money and skill to do it. This is why I actually prefer the Time Square ad drop, or what Bandai Namco has been working with, in terms of just actual ads in actual ad slots around town. If you’re going to throw $1000 in flowers, maybe sponsor a couple ads. You’re actually putting money into “use” and not just to flaunt at other fans attending the event. I guess flaunting is the purpose but there’s no less of that in a proper cheering ad… Just that things are much easier to deal with for the concert organizer.
I wonder how the nobori things work in comparison. Maybe it’s a push, and at least Bannam pockets the money that florists would otherwise get.
If you got too much money hosting flower stands because whatever you were doing was a popular IP and foreigners don’t have an easy way to run their own stands, maybe do what 2ch did back in the day and just play the middleman? I think it would be pretty neat.
Anyways, let me just end on this golden rule/warning. It would certainly be folly to spend too much on flowers that you can’t spend on other normal things. Flower stands are extra…nobody needs them, in a very literal sense. And when extra things cause strife, it’s what I call a self-own. The goal of these concerts is to have a good time, to shower your appreciation to the cast members or artists or whoever. Please remember the staff that run the shows also! Things like ads and even a letter to the person you like in the present box will speak just as much as having your name scribbled on a little piece of a flower stand in a sea of plants, if not more so.
PS. As I write this, the news about Aki Toyosaki’s husband just got out and I feel so bad about it. The grieving can have all my condolences.
I went to Anime Expo this year to participate mostly in the exact same things Anime Expo always offered: top lineup of seiyuu presenters at their industry anime stages, one good anisong concert, and midnight mahjong. On the side, we all know this is my one con to see Rinahamu and eat at Yard House. Also, there are international IM@S Producers gathering every time for some reason.
I said “always” but we know this is all just recent history. A couple years ago, it would take a whole village to camp for some Guest Of Honor autograph, literally, because that’s how those Funko Pop rings worked. This year it only took me a minute to reverse-engineer the wrong URL AX used to list Peach-Pit, in the comfort of my office chair. I really don’t know what to say other than, maybe this is the real lasting legacy of Anime Expo–that it screws fans, industry and staff alike, out of just near-competence and bad luck.
Of course credit is still due where it is due–I had a blast at Anime Expo this year, they made strides to improve the con. Outsourcing their autograph thing to Epic (or now part of Leap, like Growtix) may have made some things weird (I hear you Bannam) like other changes, but it’s a net positive overall. Everything on site worked smoothly once you figure out what is happening as it is new to me. The new layout of the JW ballrooms is new to me but we figured it out quickly. There are fewer volunteer staffs than ever, for better or worse, which means everyone is somewhat more rehearsed but also gaps of comms did exist in the few places I had to communicate with the hired hands at the con. For the most part the crowding is managed this year other than the day one linecon to get in.
This year they blocked off even more areas outside on the streets, and there were basically 3 or so food court/beer garden areas that are separated. At least two of them also have a stage. I wonder how much it would take for AX to put some anikura up on stage instead of random karaoke or whatever. I think once the sun sets outdoor grassland activity can be a real nice fit. Adding the Peacock theater for AX’s largest stages is also a great move I think. It still capped from a couple events, which is impressive.
I also think the attendance sort of flattened a bit from last year. There should be more people at the con this year than the last, based on my cursory observation, but it’s hard to see the masses all at once because AX has fully spread out all over LACC and LA Live. It was hard to actually canvas the entire con just due to the crowding at certain time/points and the sheer large area you have to go through.
The dealers were even more distributed between the South Hall (Exhibition Hall), West Hall (Entertainment Hall), and Kentia Hall (Artist Alley). I saw booths selling fanart in the Exhibition Hall. Usual suspect Retro Saikou is out in the Entertainment Hall along with all the Chinese mobile game booth hells. Everything is kind of scrambled. Also TIL Intel was sponsoring a glow-up experience at one of the PC gaming brands. Times have changed.
As per usual, AX this year had a lot of random stuff happening. We were half expecting a surprise Mariya Ise to show up at Panty Stocking S2’s premiere, but I didn’t think it happened? Instead we got surprise Asami Seto-chan at the Apothecary panel with the ever-not-AX-size Yuki Aoi. The seiyuu list is pretty star-studded this year compared to even the last, given how many more of them are here. I think I finally got to see Suguta close up this year, and also, lol, Sora Amamiya? Her famous cheeks made their Continental US debut at an event.
I somehow was not able to see Isobe or Shimayuki, probably because of conflicts, which is kind of unthinkable 5 years ago. Carin Isobe at AX and I didn’t go see her? LOL. Anyways, lots of people enjoyed the two of them who were dishing out fan service during the Proseka panel, or so it seemed.
I attended the Gakumas 1st concerts this weekend. It’s called “1st Period” but it’s actually not the first concert for the media-mix mobile game franchise. It’s just the first show (or 4 shows, spanning 2 weekends) that features the full cast, after the roughly-dated anniversary of the game’s live service a year ago. Since the game (and really before the game was released, including all the lead-up marketing) became available it has done well in the rankings and players generally have good things to say about the latest entry in the IDOLM@STER series. A lot was on the shoulders of the staff and cast to make this hotly-anticipated show a success.
There was a set of tours where 3 cast members form a team and tour Japan’s 3 largest cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya), each team doing 3 stops within a month, in almost back-to-back months. One of the stops was postponed by a typhoon, while the last set of 3 had a gap until February of this year. The appropriately called “Hajime” Tour needs to be mentioned because this is the cast’s actual first live stage experience, except one member. The tour definitely gave the stage experience to many of the newbies in the Gakumas cast, and more importantly it gave the fans a glimpse of what fresh grasshoppers were like close to a year ago.
The importance (or however little it is) put on seeing the growth of the idols is a core tenant in the design of the game, which various interviews have listed. This is just another aspect I suppose, but I appreciate how they made the live performance aspect parallel to its digital version. Or rather, I appreciate them knowing what it ought to be like on the receiving end.
As a Million P for many years, it feels tortured, it basically feels the opposite of it–things we would love and be hyped about often don’t happen when they ought to, or happens at all. Some things are delayed by over 10 years. Maybe delay is the wrong word, but at some point it just became sort of this deep barrel or well where we are glad to have anything being pulled out of, even though we know the contents can make for something much more.
Anyways, for a good example, when Our Chant dropped on Day Two of Harmony Star, we know (since the SSR) there would be a flag just like how Chiisana Yabou, Wonder Scale and Clumsy Trick all had their props. So Gakumas surprised and delighted us by adding Saki to the picture when she walks in with the flag. In fact, after seeing the Hajime Tour version of Wonder Scale and Chiisana Yabou we already think there would be props, just like how the game versions did. For even more foreshadowing, Harmony Star featured a duet (or trio in one case) of cast members joining in another idol’s solo song (and for this weekend it was limited to the B-side solos) so by the point on the second day when Our Chant happened, it felt like a perfect match when you stick the right jigsaw puzzle piece in the right slot.
For details, here are the links to the official site posts for the show, for posterity, and the usual imas-dblinks. Onward with the rest.
I’ll just say things off the hip for this topic, but in a nutshell I can’t stand the CR-administered Crunchyroll Awards. It’s a marketing exercise, but I don’t mind that. What goes in one of these annual bruhaha is basically like, if there’s enough engagement, whatever is fine. Team Miles says it’s a numbers game, but it would pull examples about “fan recognition” for top-of-class works like Frieren which basically undermines the article’s top line point. What is the premise of Team Miles re: the Anime Awards? It’s putting lipstick on pig. I am frustrated because this isn’t rocket science, and it’s not about getting the nerds to agree what the marketing exercise needs to be, it’s just to make the thing where you can actually stand on something that’s just slightly less clickbaity than Solo Leveling winning it. Making it too critical disengages fans, sure, but you don’t have to. It’s not hard; Mile has done it in his hypo, but whatever CR does, just own that this is a marketing exercise. In this 2025 rendition it is just trying to put into terms of the “fandom” (if we still need to use this term to talk about the people who watch 1-2 titles per year as “fans”) consensus. That’s probably fine, but to me that’s kind of just a huge waste of time. Why? Because if you are a fan, how do you not know what is the consensus?
Make no mistake however, I wish the Awards the best, this year and going forward. I would rather engage in the thing that consistently provides my idol-seiyuu internet little sister Sally Amaki a job, than to ignore it completely. It’s one thing when you swallow the bitter pill to watch a trash anime for the seiyuu you care about, it’s another when the twitter/x shitqueen retweets something in your muted/ignored keyword list. Well, my life is no worse off if I ignore it, but I wish my life to be better, which means unfortunately the Anime Awards needs to be better.
The other marketing exercise that is much more engaging (for better or for (mostly) worse), is Anime Expo. There is a lot of positives when Japan can focus its money laser on one US event to show that they care about anime’s largest oversea market. The perspective I have is that, while there is plenty of interest and even maybe money, there isn’t enough of it. As someone who pressed for nearly a decade I can tell you that is one sad game. How do fans get their news other than from PR machines like CR? Is there something not owned by Sony or Kadokawa that we read from? Not to say there is anything wrong with the way things are today(there is so much but that’s for a different post), but if we are to improve on the marketing/news/informational aspect of the fandom we need commercial entities to help.
Which is to say, AX is actually one of those things that has been around forever. SPJA has its myriad of issues over the years, but it serves this function. If anything, that it and AX continue to exist is the proof that good things happen when you bring fans to the commercial side from across the pond. Or maybe I should say you bring Japanese execs and their big booths to Los Angeles and shower them with the many tens of thousands of people who swarm the DTLA summer beer garden that it’s becoming.
I mean there isn’t anything wrong (or is there) with $15 beers on the sidewalks of LA Live, but they keep on growing the footprint of the thing and they can do all this concession outside. Last year everyone was pretty nicely vibing with how AX felt, with slightly lower attendance. This year seems to be slightly bigger lift from the marketing side than last, so we’ll see how it turns out. Which is to say, AX has many problems, but at its core it’s about tapping into the commerical side to give something to the fans. Classic anime cons are fan cons that have to work to pull commercial entities to work with them. From my POV, Japanese companies need to engage all the other large North American cons, not just AX. It’s definitely an unmet need or a vacuum of sorts. AX can feel like a sausage factory with how much commercial content is being squeezed into 4ish days, it’s a feast for that stuff while other cons are in famine.
Which is also to say this fan vs corp thing is toxic, we can coexist as long as, IDK, if we actually have ethics in journalism instead of a dog whistle or something. The reality is both benefits. We are not going to (I am not going to) get IM@S in America without Bandai Namco thinking if they build it we will come. Fans needs to show and showcase their fandom in a more concrete way, and fan cons need to kind of see the forest for the trees and treat it as such and not just vibe until next year. Con runners are exactly the people in the positions to show the execs what the fans want. It really should be a huge part of their game, and for the most part, it is invisible.
Meanwhile AX needs to work on that “for worse” part above. It’s no harm no foul when the Anime Awards crowds some dumb webtoon thing I didn’t even watch as winning a bunch of its categories. It’s another when kids get heat stroke while in line to see some Web 3.0 influencer in the SoCal sun. That is way too close to our postmodern dystopia for me. It’s life and limb when fans trample each other to grab autograph tickets. Or one of the many ways Anime Expo can be UNSAFE. Nobody needs to get hurt or go to the hospital over the Anime Awards or Anime Expo, so let’s keep safety first.
