Rai: As someone gender fluid and obsessed with idols, I was very excited when I first heard about Not Your Idol. After all, it’s about a female idol who decides to begin dressing and acting like a boy.
Unfortunately, however, the manga did not live up to my expectations.
As mentioned, the story is about a girl – Nina Kamiyama – who is an idol that assumes the identity of a guy. This happens because she was assaulted by a fan at one of her meet and greets. Kamiyama becomes so paranoid about being attacked again that she quits being an idol. The incident also makes Kamiyama develop internalized misogyny and a distrust of men. She doesn’t want to be a “helpless” girl anymore, yet she’s scared of men. It’s an interesting paradox. Throughout the course of the manga, Kamiyama becomes closer to a boy in her class, who recognizes her from her idol days. Slowly, she begins to think that maybe not all men are bad and being a girl is okay.
It sounds like a great premise; it’s the exposition that is the problem. Right away, I noticed that the characters are all very exaggerated. Firstly, Kamiyama’s classmates mock her for dressing like a boy and are always spouting gender stereotypes. From what I understand, gender roles are still strongly held in Japan, but in here it seems way too forced. For example, some of the background girl characters make comments like “Ugly girls don’t need to be worried about being groped.” Umm, there are so many things wrong with this statement. I can’t even begin to decipher it.
And this is just one example. All of the negativity was unpleasant to read to say the least. Kamiyama, being the rebel she is, tries to fight against some of these stigmas, claiming that women are more than just their looks. However, the positive messages get lost under everything else going on.
Kamiyama and Hikaru – the boy she befriends – aren’t as exaggerated as the background characters, which is a good thing. But the two of them are not the most original characters either. They’re not bad characters per se, but they’re not great either. Hikaru is probably the one I like most because he can see past Kamiyama’s façade and tries to help her. He is the only nice guy in the manga so far – most of the other male characters are portrayed as jerks. Again, it’s all very exaggerated.
If the annoying characters weren’t bad enough, the plot is lacking as well. Instead of focusing on Kamiyama and Hikaru’s relationship or Kamiyama’s fight against stigmas, the plot takes a weird twist. The man who attacked Kamiyama at the event is still at large and may be stalking her. The manga attempts to add in thriller and mystery elements…but it just doesn’t work. Instead of making me sit at the edge of my seat, it made me scratch my head. I found the whole thing to be very overdramatic and poorly drawn out.
In my opinion, the story should have chosen one element and stuck with it. Is it a gender-defying love story about trying to find yourself, or a fast-paced thriller? These two ideas could possibly go together if done correctly. But, like I said, it just doesn’t work in this case. I felt that these opposing aspects weren’t balanced out well and clashed against each other.
I went into this excited but when I finished the final page, I couldn’t help but feel a mix of disappointment and confusion. The premise of this manga is so interesting, and it did have some moments I enjoyed, especially as someone who is gender non-conforming. It’s possible that the story and characters get better later on, but the first volume left something to be desired. Immensely.
Rai’s Rating: 2 out of 5
Helen: Nina Kamiyama wasn’t just an idol: she was Karen Amamiya, the center and most popular member of the up-and-coming group Pure Club. After being attacked at a fan event however Nina has quit the group and gone into hiding since her stalker is still on the loose. She’s gone back to the life of a typical high school girl, but even a typical high school isn’t the safest place for girls.
There’s a small trend in idol series lately to try and involve more “realism” into the story and Not Your Idol has the most “realism” in any idol series I’ve read so far, although that’s a fairly low bar to clear. Not Your Idol plays around with the idea about expectations for girls in general but still presents being an idol as a bit of a fantasy, far removed from the interviews I’ve read with current and former J/K-pop group members (even if the rest of the girls in Pure Club admit that they all broke practices such as the “no dating” rule). For readers who want a story that’s more grounded in “fact” than “fiction”, Not Your Idol is unlikely to scratch that itch.
Fortunately the marketing for this release seems to be playing up the idea that it’s a “psychological suspense series” rather than a strictly realistic one which is a much more accurate description. The stalker who injured Nina at the fan event is still at loose so Nina and her close friend Sara, who is still a member of Pure Club, are very much on edge even after taking precautions. One thing I did like is that Sara and other members of Pure Club seem to be completely supportive of Nina’s choice to leave the group, even if their management isn’t, and I don’t think this sudden change to Nina’s life would have hit emotionally as hard if she had been surrounded by backstabbing teammates instead.
Not Your Idol actually seems to have a lot to say about the female side characters in Nina’s life and some of its best moments embody the principles of third-wave feminism in recognizing that sexism and misogyny will affect everyone differently. There are a few different instances of Nina’s classmates getting groped while commuting and one girl, who was previously groped, makes waves with a blithe comment about women-only train cars; “If we use up an entire passenger car for ourselves, I’d feel bad for all of the hardworking male commuters. Oh, of course men shouldn’t grope women.” It’s a totally realistic thing for a high school student to say and the things that other classmates (emboldened by her) also say like “It’s only the ugly ones who complain about being scared of gropers!” also rings sadly true.
Not Your Idol uses these situations to challenge these assumptions, like when another classmate comes forward and says yes, I need those train cars, the gropers won’t go after flashy women who will raise a fuss but we aren’t all like that; all of these moments let Nina come to terms with her own thoughts and emotions about being a girl as well. Pure Club described themselves as “the last miniskirt idols on Earth” and it’s clear that Nina was already having trouble reconciling the good and skeevy reactions people have to idols.
I.e reactions they wouldn’t have directed at Nina if she wasn’t a cute girl performing for an audience.
That said, the story is walking a very fine line and I’m not sure it’s going to be able to pull off this tone (of challenging the idea that girls are “asking for it”) without inherently contradicting itself somewhere. Volume 1’s cliffhanger certainly gave me pause about how well Aoi Makino can balance “idols make people happy” and “people see idols as an ‘excuse’ to indulge in their nastier emotions”. I’m also completely baffled how this manga ran in Ribon of all magazines, a shoujo magazine that typically has pretty fluffy fare. “Seinen-Shojo” is a rather apt descriptor indeed. I’m intrigued, and will certainly be around to read volume 2, but I have no idea if I’ll be satisfied with this story by the time it’s over.
Helen’s rating: 3.5 out of 5