🍑🌙 | q and a

Q: How did you got into idols?

A: so, in 2003, I was a junior in high school, and I was on livejournal (a blogging platform with social features), and one of the communities I followed on livejournal was one that would post mp3s of jpop music for you to sample to try and promote their favorite artists, etc., basically a music curation blog. one fateful summer day between my junior & senior years of high school, someone posted the Minimoni. Hinamatsuri single in its entirety and I downloaded it thinking the cover looked cute.

At this time in my life, I was very depressed and umedicated, and most of the music I was listening to was moody, emotional rock music, so this particular single was especially out of character for me, but I love trying new things, and I love cute things even more, so I downloaded and listened to it.

‘Hinamatsuri’ was a fun song, but what really, REALLY sold me was the B-side (other A-side? I always thought this was a regular single but the hello!pro wiki has it listed as a double A-side so…?), ‘Mini. Strawberry Pie’. This song changed my life. I know that sounds fantastical and dramatic, and at the time, it was a small change, but looking back, it truly did change my life.

Because of Minimoni., I got into the agency that produced them (Hello! Project), and learned everything I could about them - the hyperfixation had truly taken me. Something about the music that was being made by Hello!Pro idols at that time was really magical and entrancing to me. It was so…happy? Which was not something I had in my life at all at that time. It made me feel alive, listening to it. It reminded me of a simpler time, when I was much smaller, and things felt happier.

At this point in my life, basically everything I was interested in was ridiculed and made to seem stupid by my family, and I was also made fun of for it. Hello! Project became my secret hyperfixation, something I wouldn’t let my family rob the joy from for me, that I protected at all costs and never told them about.

So for me, getting into idols made me want to live again, I know that’s not really what you asked about, but it was the result of what you asked about so…even now, all these years later, finding idols that I enjoy, listening to their goofy and happy music…it reminds me that life doesn’t have to be so dark and depressing, that we can always laugh, goof off, and act silly, and things can and will get better as long as we stay positive and keep trying. Idols are hope embodied into musical form for me, so they’re really important to me.