Being the number one card-carrying member of the Church of Tamon, Utage wholeheartedly believes that her oshi belongs to everyone. One of their precepts is that Tamon should never, ever direct his love and affection to one person and one person alone. As a result, she now wants to be professional and maintain boundaries between her and her oshi. Sure, sure. But a teeny, tiny part of her still desires Tamon for herself, and this is enough to trigger a crash-out. I’m torn too. I’m torn between “Girl, it’s just a popstar” and “This guy is weird and manipulative, so you should stay away from him.” In the end, however, it’s too late for Utage to back out. Well, no, she can always back out. But that would require her to switch off her fandom.
Y’see, lately, Tamon has been working harder than ever. In his manager’s own words, the mega popstar doesn’t even get scared about new roles and responsibilities these days. But this Tamon hasn’t hit any personal breakthroughs. No, he’s just solely fueled by his motivation to make Utage happy. If you remove her from the equation, then the guy will fall to pieces again. In a way, maybe he should. In a way, maybe everyone should allow Tamon to hit rock bottom, get real, actual help for his issues, and thus build himself back up so that he doesn’t need constant help and validation from an external source to merely exist as a person. Basically, the foundation is rotten, so it needs to be replaced. But no, everyone always wants to take the easy way out, so of course, the boys’ manager would rather just keep Tamon dependent on some random teenager.
I guess I went into this show with wrong expectations. What did I think I was going to get? Something wholesome. I expected Utage to realize that the real Tamon is nothing like the idealized version in her head, but she falls in love with the real him anyway. As a result, she supports his ascent to super stardom from behind the scenes… or something like that. And in a way, this is still happening. It’s just happening really, really slowly. So this isn’t the problem. This isn’t where my expectations and the reality of the show — the B-side of the show, if you will — aren’t lining up. Again, the actual problem is that there’s no wholesomeness here. There’s none whatsoever.
Tamon isn’t just some shy, introverted dude who personifies the “fake it till you make it” idiom. If he was simply that, we’d be golden. But the real Tamon’s got real fucking issues, man. He threatens to kill himself practically every episode. On the flip side, I totally expected to see Utage torn between selfishly desiring Tamon for herself, and also wanting to support her oshi from a distance. But I also expected this to be more of a 50/50 divide between the two opposing sides. What we’re getting instead, however, is more like 10/90. The ratios are completely off. When I see Utage rant and rave about her oshi, it feels oddly dehumanizing. Like it doesn’t really matter what the real Tamon wants, because he needs to exist on this higher plane as an unattainable ideal for all Tamon-maniacs to worship. As a result, I find myself unable to root for Utage.
Therein lies the problem: there is literally no one to root for. The rest of F/ACE all have B-sides to them, and they’re all shitty. We’ve already met Ori. We already know what a jackass he is. In this week’s episode, Keito properly introduces his B-side to Utage, which is that he only sees his bandmates as stepping stools in his quest for money. Even worse, he has no respect whatsoever for his fans. And of course, I’ve already mentioned how the manager wants to exploit Utage to make his own job easier, blah, blah, blah. The point is, everyone here sucks and that’s where my expectations don’t line up with the reality of the show. I expected a love story, but I’m getting some weird co-dependent relationship. I expected good people at their core, and all I’m getting is one crazy fan and a harem of immature brats.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- Who is this? Is it really just a fellow otaku geeking out over his oshi? Or is it actually one of the F/ACE boys in a Clark Kent-esque disguise?
- Well, maybe Utage and Tamon are fated for each other, because even when she’s trying to avoid him, she still bumps into him in the streets.
- Sigh, it’s just a popstar.
- Dude, you’re going to end up wrapped around her finger too.
