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Celebrity Studies
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Idols and celebrity in Japanese media

culture, by Patrick W. Galbraith and
Jason G. Karlin
a
Leung Wing-Fai
a
School of Asian Studies, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Published online: 21 Jul 2014.

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To cite this article: Leung Wing-Fai (2014) Idols and celebrity in Japanese media culture,
by Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin, Celebrity Studies, 5:3, 376-378, DOI:
10.1080/19392397.2014.935627

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 376 Book Reviews

among them, value the joy given to them by the ‘larger than life’ Latina star, and Carmen
Miranda encourages the reader to share in this enjoyment.

Victoria Kearley
University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Email: vlk204@soton.ac.uk
© 2014, Victoria Kearley
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2014.935626

Idols and celebrity in Japanese media culture, edited by Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason
G. Karlin, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 239 pp., £50.00 (hardback), ISBN
978-0-23-029830-9
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This collection of essays aims to update the field of ‘idology’ – the study of the
phenomena of idols – within celebrity studies. The long existence of popular idols in
Japan has only recently caught the attention of academic researchers, in work such as
Aoyagi Hiroshi’s (2005) Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic
Production in Contemporary Japan. As the editors’ introduction to Idols and Celebrity in
Japanese Media Culture attests, the phenomena of aidoru (idol) and jimusho (talent
agencies), as well as the specific discourse on tarento (talents) in Japan, are quite unique
from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Galbraith and Karlin’s introduction
confirms how pervasive and longstanding these idols have been, mainly due to their
origins in the intimacy of national television, and their saturated images across different
media. As such, audiences need to have a high degree of intertextual cultural knowledge
about the celebrities, gained through newspapers, magazines, online social media and
television (pp. 10–12). This is a point I make in my forthcoming discussion of multi-
media stars in Hong Kong (Leung 2015), and my colleague Chris Howard (2014) agrees
that many Japanese idols fail to cross over to successful (international) film careers for the
same reason.
As the editors suggest in their introduction, the Japanese idol system has undergone
changes since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s – idols are more ephemeral and more
multi-media than ever, especially given the Japanese youth’s abandonment of more
traditional media such as television. Since the Millennium, however, with groups like
AKB48 and Arashi, the idol system in Japan appears to have entered into a new phase,
which may even be identified as ‘hyper idol age’ (p. 25) with not only young otakus (a
term of Japanese origin that refers to obsessive fans of popular media products) but
middle-aged and older women (note the gender divide) fanatically screaming for stars
such as the Korean soap opera heartthrob Bae Yong Joon (Chapter 8). While sketching out
and updating the field, the introductory chapter does not explain the organisation of the
collection and the logics behind the four parts – Systems, Desire, Difference and Image.
Perhaps due to the editors’ view that ‘celebrities are the enforcers of the regime of
capitalism through their signification of the ideology of consumption’ (p. 19), the book
focuses more on the consumption of than the production of these idols, with only Part I
dealing with the making of the aidoru. W. David Marx’s chapter explains the rather
complex, long-established and somewhat secretive operation of the jimusho system,
which is a welcome contribution to the existing body of work by researchers who are
interested in the production of media stars and celebrities. The chapter also demonstrates
 Celebrity Studies 377

how unique the jimusho system is, although I can find similarities in terms of media
corporations in the Hong Kong/Chinese media, such as their reputed connection with the
underworld. Igor Prusa’s chapter on the 2009 Sakai Noriko scandal is an insightful
analysis of the case. Sakai’s transgression (convicted of drug use) reminds me of
the Edison Chen sex photograph scandal that spread across Chinese language media in
2008–2009 for the media frenzy and its ability to comment on the framework of morality
for idols as ‘model citizens’. The piece relies on paradigms of spectacle developed by
Debord and Kellner, but it would also be fruitful to contextualise the case alongside other
scandals in the Japanese media in order to comment on the specific meanings of the Sakai
case in its immediate milieu. Jason Karlin’s chapter contains two strands: the cross-media
use of idols in advertising, and the female otakus of Johnny’s (a famous agency) young
male tarento. The convergence of ‘old’ media such as television and social media in terms
of advertising updates existing knowledge. However, I would like to know more regard-
ing both subject areas than the chapter was able to detail.
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The three chapters in Part II, ‘Desire’, work well together. Kazumi Nagaike’s discussion
of Johnny’s idols and their status as shonen (literally young men but generally understood to
be androgynous boys in popular culture) draws on longstanding debates in Japan. The
‘icon’ in the title, however, is under-theorised. Glasspool’s strong chapter examines the
ambivalent sexuality of the male idols especially around the members of Arashi. The
homoerotic relationships between the members appear to subordinate heterosexual mascu-
linities while at the same time ensuring the continuation of male dominance. Equally, female
fans’ own creation of boys’ love dojinshi helps them to find relief from domestic life. Part
III, ‘Difference’, only contains two articles respectively on Agnes Chan and Bae Yong Joon
(affectionately known as Yong Sama by his Japanese fans). There are some factual errors in
the first (e.g. that Hong Kong mothers bring their children to work), but it is a timely
reminder and appreciation of this fascinating figure. I remember Agnes Chan’s idol-dom
from childhood in Hong Kong. There she is probably seen more as a ‘near-native’ Japanese
star since she developed almost her entire successful career in Japan rather than in Hong
Kong. She is, as the article points out, also a legend, having evolved from a young idol to
campaigner and academic. Ho Swee Lin’s article on the Japanese fans of Bae is a great read
of a long-term anthropological project. This is a prime example of how research in celebrity
studies is often multi-disciplinary and the different approaches to the subject yield a
complexity not appreciated by either film studies or cultural studies alone.
In the last section on ‘Image’, Patrick W. Galbraith’s chapter highlights the shifting
nature of the media image in the age of consumer capitalism: ‘people chase around images
and objects for the pleasure of immediate interaction, without necessarily achieving a
stable subject or viewing position’ (p. 194). The writer is right, although we have to also
consider the shifting and unstable subject positions of the image, or at the very least what
is considered an image in this media saturated world. The sheer number of ways in which
idol images can be created, circulated and consumed, from near soft-porn videos to
photographs taken by fans themselves, indicate precisely the prolific nature of the
media star image. This is also evident in the last chapter on a couple of ‘virtual’ idols
who represent a different kind of consumption of the ‘image’ by the otaku fans.
The strengths of the book lie in the scholarship and the range of topics presented in
several subject areas that are hitherto under-researched. Idols and Celebrity in Japanese
Media Culture will contribute to scholarship in Japanese popular culture, contemporary
society, gender and sexuality. What the study shows is that idology remains firmly within
the cannon of celebrity studies while at the same time thrives on its particularities. It
certainly encourages those who work with celebrities and stars in non-western contexts as
 378 Book Reviews

a subject area that draws from existing paradigms but should not be afraid to assert
difference. The research approaches – comprising textual analysis, fan studies, ethnogra-
phical research, Internet research – demonstrates that this is an area of study which often
requires a multi-disciplinary perspective. While the updates of seminal works, such as
Aoyagi’s, are successful, and individual chapters are complete in themselves, the book
lacks an overall conclusion and central argument. In terms of contribution to tertiary
education teaching, individual studies may be used in courses on Japanese popular culture
or to supplement the often-Eurocentric examples used in the teaching of celebrity culture.
Overall, the collection is a timely addition to the field, with many valuable chapters
touching on issues of gender and sexuality. The individual studies contained within this
volume are all scholarly and vigorous but the book as a whole could benefit from a more
coherent thread which the four sections build up to, unless what we are witnessing is
evidence of how vast the field is and how diverse are the approaches to understanding this
unique and important phenomenon.
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References
Aoyagi, H., 2005. Islands of eight million smiles: idol performance and symbolic production in
contemporary Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Howard, C., 2014. National idols? The problem of ‘transnationalizing’ film stardom in Japan’s idol
economy. In: W.F. Leung and A. Willis, eds. East Asian film stars. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 49–64.
Leung, W.F., 2015. Multimedia stardom in Hong Kong: image, performance and identity. London:
Routledge.

Leung Wing-Fai
School of Asian Studies, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Email: wf.leung@ucc.ie
© 2014, Leung Wing-Fai
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2014.935627

Notes on reviewers

Linda Berkvens received her DPhil in Film Studies from the University of Sussex. Her
DPhil focused on stardom, agency, and the career of Barbara Stanwyck. She is currently
doing research on child stars, Olivia de Havilland, and stardom and media industries.

Victoria Kearley has been studying part-time for a PhD in Film at the University of
Southampton since October 2008. The representation of Hispanic masculinity in contem-
porary Hollywood cinema is the subject of her doctoral thesis, which considers how
popular genre conventions can reconfigure traditional conceptions of race, gender and
sexuality within mainstream cinema.

Leung Wing-Fai is lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Studies at University College Cork,

Ireland. Her research specialism is Chinese language media (including new media) and
popular culture. She is writing a monograph on multi-media stardom in Hong Kong
(Routledge, forthcoming) and co-editing a book on East Asian film stars (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014).