Idol Replacement Therapy: A Series in Three Parts.

By: The Incredible He-Hulk

Part 2: The Circumstances of Dilemma

Whenever a group loses an idol, that group risks losing some, or all, of the wota that were primarily fans of that girl. If the remaining idols can’t fill the vacuum, then the group will decline. To ameliorate this issue, idol groups often add new members. But, if the replacement isn’t a strong personality with a lot of appeal, she’ll end up being little more than dead weight for the girls already in the group—someone to drag along with them who contributes very little individually. Conversely, a new girl cannot be too forceful or too talented. A new girl thrust to the forefront of a long existing group is often met with hostility by existing fans that have existing favorite members. When a new girl is featured over a group of veteran members, hard feelings are inevitable and the new girl is demonized by many. And, what’s worse, even beyond these general hurdles all idol groups face when their line-ups change, C-ute and Morning Musume face additional, exclusive challenges when it comes to finding new members—Challenges based on each group’s unique founding, history, and standing in the idol world.

The H!P Kids groups should be categorized as idol ”street gangs”. Each born from a common collection of girls raised to be idols since adolescence. These girls have common experiences that have forged them into cohesive idoling units of one mind and one purpose. These girls have strived for years to get where they are today. They’ve succeeded and failed together. They’ve laughed and cried together. They’ve known heartache and joy together. And it’s because of this unified history that many fans of these groups cannot see them as revolving door units. They are fixed member acts that are made up of only the girls who deserve to be a part of them—the girl’s whose blood, sweat and tears forged their success and name recognition in the first place.

H!P has largely held to this “street gang” principle when handling C-ute and Berryz Koubou. In all the years since the H!P Kids were chosen, only one girl was ever added to the mix after the fact. Because of this, for a lot of fans, Arihara Kanna never really fit. I liked her (I like all the idols), but Kanna was never able to amass much of a following, and she never really looked like she was 100% comfortable being the new girl in a collection of idols that had existed for years prior to her involvement. It was no wonder then, that after much subterfuge and idol machinations, Kanna retired from H!P with no fanfare or eulogization. She simply ceased to exist. Kanna represents a lesson learned. Don’t mess with the H!P Kids group’s lineups if you can avoid it.

And yet, with the eminent departure of Umeda Erika, C-ute will soon find itself a five member group, three members short of their largest lineup. So, what will H!P choose to do? Will they be tempted to pull the trigger on a new girl simply because C-ute was formally an 8 member act? The desire to maintain original intentions and the status quo is often a strong one. Or, will they choose to stay the course with the 5 remaining members? A 5 member idol group can be successful as long as the personalities are strong enough, and C-ute’s two most important members remain intact. Both possibilities offer positive and negative outcomes.

Meanwhile, Morning Musume faces a similar situation, albeit one with its own set of particular challenges. In their case, they are losing a girl who is very popular, and, although she isn’t the lead, Kusumi Koharu occupies a place of prominence in the group. Because of this, any new girl that is added to the group won’t be able to, at least in the short term, replace Koharu’s popularity. She will be the new low-rung on the idol totem pole, and will be starting in a similar place to where the pandas began their careers. In a lot of senses, today’s Momuso is a group with few stars, and the last thing a group like that needs is another girl without star power.
But even though Momuso is losing a much more valuable member than C-ute is, they also have several advantages unique to their group that make adding replacement idols much easier, and, frankly, expected. For much of its history, Momuso was a “Growth or Death” idol group. In fact, they didn’t even reach the height of their fame until after they had replaced some of the original members and added new ones beyond those. Because there is an expectation of new members amongst fans, there will be very few rumbling against such a thing.

Additionally, despite the group’s age (and all the warts that come with it), Morning Musume is Morning Musume. The group’s former status as a pop culture phenomenon has caused it to be a name known to all of Japan. So, even though the group no longer sells nearly what it once sold, many prospective idols who would not be interested in trying out to be a member of C-ute or Berryz would want to be in Morning Musume. Morning Musume auditions receive thousands more applicants than H!P Egg auditions, and that fact alone increases the odds of finding a highly qualified replacement. Finding someone who is capable of replacing both Koharu’s important role and reaching her level of popularity is possible if not exactly likely.

A final simply interesting fact is that this graduation flies in the face of management’s recent openly acknowledged attempts to turn Momuso into a “too many cooks” idol group. Momuso’s manager has admitted in interviews that today’s group is largely unknown as individuals and that they recognize this as a problem. Few Japanese know any of the girls, or would even recognize that these girl’s are in Momuso unless you pointed it out. One of the goals of this new era was to reacquaint the girls, as individuals, with the nation. A graduation and then an audition flies in the face of this new approach. It’s a return to the same old, same old revolving door idol group.

Tomorrow, what to do.

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Idol Replacement Therapy: A Series in Three Parts.

By: The Incredible He-Hulk

The daily idol grind has claimed two new victims. By the end of the year, both C-ute’s Umeda Erika and Morning Musume’s Kusumi Koharu will move on from their idol careers into the nebulous career of “modeling.” But while I personally believe these girls want to be models mostly because being a model isn’t being an idol, the how or why of it isn’t of any particular significance. Graduated idols are spilled milk, and there’s no use crying (or speculating) over spilled milk. The real—and much more fun—question is whether or not H!P will bother to replace these fallen soldiers with fresh faced idol recruits.

I will be tackling this issue in a series of posts over the next few days. Today’s post will concern itself with the mechanics of idol replacement—the blueprints used to build the temples at which we worship. Tomorrow’s post will focus on the particular situations each group faces when considering adding new members, as well as the obstacles associated with those situations. Finally, the last article will discuss the pros and cons of adding members to each group and whether or not they should.

Part 1: A Conflict of Visions.

The first decision an idol house must make is simply whether or not a group needs an infusion of idol talent. C-ute and Momuso both have specific considerations to make, unique to each of them, when considering adding new girls. But before we deal with specifics, there are a few general schools of thought on what I’ll refer to here as the numerology of idol groupings, and many of these theories (all given names, now, by me) have been used for years by idol fans—whether they realize it or not—to argue for and against adding members to their favorite groups. At the very least, each has some interesting points to make:

- First, there is the “Growth or Death” school of thought. This theory postulates that an idol group that isn’t constantly replacing old idols, and occasionally simply adding new idols, is an idol group on the decline. In recent years, new groups such as AKB48 have made this theory the basis for their entire marketing strategy. The more idols you have in your group, the better chance that fans will find an idol in your group worth following.

- Next, there is the “Too Many Cooks” theory. This theory postulates that having too many idols in a group prevents idols from creating strong personal identities and building name recognition as individuals. An idol group is only as strong as it’s most famous idol. This is the primary theory used by “bandol” groups like ZONE, and other fixed number idol acts. By keeping the roster small, you put increased emphasis on each girl. Additionally, this increased emphasis creates increased pressure on the group’s idols to be appealing across a wide array of wota demographics.

- Lastly, there is the “Street Gang” theory of idol group creation which puts forth the position that there is an important bonding experience idols all go through when they are the founding members of a group. Their struggle to earn success unites them in a way that nothing else can, and so the close ties formed during this period give an idol group its personal identity. Thusly, any members added to the group after this period dilute the group’s power and further distance the act from its roots.

These three principles are helpful, but flawed, and are rarely universally applicable. This is partially because each principle argues against the others on some level, but also because the nature of an idol group’s formation is so often unique. Morning Musume, for example, ceased to be an idol “street gang” the moment the second generation showed up. So, whether or not you believe in this theory as an important element of a successful group is rather irrelevant when considering current Momuso. Meanwhile, the two H!P Kids groups are very much still “street gang” groups.
However, the fact remains that, regardless of their imperfections, these 3 theories form the basis for the formation and development of nearly every idol group, and therefore will be used to form the basis for this discussion about the current H!P idol group’s future membership.

Finally, once you get beyond these three theories for idol group formulation, there is one last guideline that applies specifically, not to idol group creation, but to idol group maintenance. This is the “Rock and a Hard Place” rule. This theory primarily concerns itself with the effect a specific idol’s departure has on the group and whether or not new idols can mitigate these effects, ameliorate them, or even improve the group in some way. A new idol must be an eventual gain, if not for the group and its chemistry, than at least because she can recoup, at least partially, the financial loss a departing idol creates.
A new idol is expensive, both to train and to promote, and whether or not she will eventually replace the lost sales of the departing idol cannot be easily predicted. So, the question becomes, will you replace the lost revenues created by a departing idol by spending more money to find, train, and promote a new idol who may, in the end, never be nearly as popular (and profitable) as the departing idol was? It is a difficult question to answer for a business that operates on narrow margins already.

Continued tomorrow.

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Gomen

By: Zabel

I just can't find the will to do Ichigo this week. Not just a problem of will, but I've got other things to do lately, and to make things worse my health has been quite poor ><

I did listen to it. Aichan talks about the new MM single Kimagure Princess, recommends another play Ogawa Makoto starred in, gives advice on how to study English, and talks about how she never thought she would still be in Morning Musume at age 23 (but is glad to still be). If anyone wants to write about the show in more detail, they're welcome to.

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