One popular all-male group called Arashi made their start with this company in 1999 and are still going strong (Covington, 2014). The timing was perfect since half of Japanese households had a television in the 1960s. The first idol group recruitment agency was Johny & Associates in 1963 and these were aimed toward males as well as females (Covington, 2014). This article aims to examine the history of idols, their function and their integration into anime.ġ971 is considered the beginning of the boom with the first idol group Sannin Musume (Kimura, 2007, as cited in Galbraith & Karlin, 2012). CDs for these idol groups sell even when file sharing and music rental services are at an all time high (Calbraith & Karlin, 2012), indicating that the success and over-saturation of idols may be a strike of marketing brilliance. In recent years this phenomenon has gained the interest of scholars for their profitability, as Japan is one of the world’s top media consumers. Nakamori argued that the phenomenon has grown to such an extent that idols are the main face of Japanese culture. The trend of adorableness has even spawned its own set of Japanese buzzwords to define sexy-cute, classy-cute and trendy-cute (Galbraith & Karlin, 2012). The mounting popularity of aidoru has coincided with similar ‘cute’ media in Japan like manga, anime, K-pop and hot spots for these forms of entertainment like in Akihabara and Shibuya. In its humble beginnings it nurtured boy bands, but nowadays the trend favors females (Covington, 2014). Although idols can exist and function outside of an agency, the most successful ones have a contract with a company (Galbraith & Karlin, 2012). They are distinguished from normal pop singers since they are a product of recruitment agencies and have a large focus on promotion. As much fun as a catchy, silly pop song is, a more interesting phenomenon in Japan is the idea of “idol pop”, music by pop idols, sometimes called aidoru. Jpop is a broad term that refers to Japanese pop music, or even popular Japanese music (Covington, 2014).
Hamburgirl Z idol group want you to buy burgers. “Magazines, radio, above all television: in whatever direction one turns, the barely (and thus ambiguously) pubescent woman is there both to promote products and purchase them, to excite the consumer and herself be thrilled by the flurry of goods and services that circulate like toys around her.” – John Whittier Treat (1993, as cited in Galbraith & Karlin, 2012).