The World God Only Knows Flag 5: Crazy Idols

November 4, 2010

The World God Only Knows Flag 5: Crazy Idols

The idol scene is ginormous in Japan.  It’s been around for years, searching out talent that goes beyond mere good looks and singing and extends to even acting (real and voice), product promotions and the like.  It’s something similar to perhaps American Idol and other talent searches in Western countries, though to an even bigger extent.  An entire damn industry is built around idols and they dominate TV.  We get Japanese entertainment channels over here on cable and man let me tell you, they worship them like goddesses.

Except Keima.  He worships no one.  YOU worship HIM.

God speaketh wisdom.

Capture target shifts from rich Tsundere girl to everyone’s favorite idol sensation, Kanon.  Going back to school between her career debuts, she finds it that the only way to be recognized as a true idol is to garner fans who know her.  Now, since Keima really doesn’t give a damn about the real world, she finds it necessary to convert the Capturing God into one of her fans, if only to validate her own existence of finally reaching the status of a Japanese idol.  She intends to go about it by giving him private concerts to win him over, a gesture that other Japanese schoolboys would kill for a chance at, but of course Keima doesn’t care about such trivialities.

This fact is what God intends to use as his weapon to capture the demon inside Kanon.

Priorities.

Any doubts I initially had about Hiro Shimono bringing out Keima’s megalomania has been put to rest with this episode, as his performance in emulating The Party to explain to the ignorant masses (Elsee) the difference between real idols and game idols, a brief evolutionary history and as to why game idols are better, was full of grandiose brilliance and perfection.  Here’s to hoping he can continue pulling it off for episodes to come.

God needs to let everyone know he IS a God after all.

Idolatry is an industry.

On the other hand, while I found Kanon’s songs for the episode sort of perfect in bringing out her idol-ness for us to see, I didn’t like the songs.  I found them terribly generic, more or less boring and very cheesy, but that’s more of an extension of my relative dislike for the idol industry and the insanity is creates rather than the episode itself.  The songs were fine from an idol-watching perspective I guess.

I’m also not too sold on her VA, perhaps considering that she was a singer first and a VA second.  Singing wise it was fine, but I don’t think she really brought out Kanon’s shifting from an enthusiastic idol to psychosis, to highlight the problems she face and her desire to win Keima’s fandom.

People would kill for a private performance like this.

I guess the arc and the episode does manage to capture many of the stresses and problems idols have to face on a daily basis. It’s a very competitive way of life I am sure, with the amount of CDs you sell and the amount of fans you have being the gauges of your relative success and overall worth as an idol.  Idols are quickly promoted and probably forgotten even faster.  I don’t know the average lifespan of an idol’s career, but it seems like a cutthroat business to me, and every day is a fight to keep your star burning brightly to keep the idol spotlight on you.

Kanon probably isn’t immune to this, and likely sees Keima as an extension of her desire to be the best idol she can be.  Keima represents her failure to allure fans and her need to keep them coming back if she’s to continue her dream of being one.  To win Keima over to her is to finally succeed.

Will she win her over?

Be the hunter, not the hunted.

I haven’t seen the episode distribution yet, but I assume Kanon’s going to get two episodes like Mio before her.  From that, it’s likely we’ll get more girls for him to capture than what the ED and OP suggests, but I guess it remains to be seen.

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