Tokyo Idols

"Tokyo Idols" is a documentary about the very young (10 to 18 or so, generally speaking) Japanese girls who become pop singers and cultural "icons" to a segment of Japanese society, in particular certain men aged about 30 to 50. These girls are pretty, cheerful, energetic and very much conditioned to want to please their fans. While this sounds creepy, and in some ways is creepy, the world of these idols is very controlled - the singers will have "handshake" meetings with their fans, for example, but the men are only allowed to shake the girls' hands and there are "minders" standing behind the men and forcing them to move from one idol to another after a set number of seconds has passed. So the girls are relatively safe in what could be a very dangerous situation. This film primarily follows Rio, a relative elder in the scene given that she's 19 as the film begins, 21 at the end of it. The filmmaker, Kyoko Miyake, is very gentle with all the characters; even when you think some of these men are terrible, she always treats them with respect and dignity and, in the end, the viewer is more likely to feel sorry for them than anything else (well, except the young man who is only interested in girls around the age of 10 - they "no longer interest" him when they get older than that). It's a really interesting glimpse into another Japanese phenomenon, complete with commentary from journalists, sociologists and others who have a stake in the culture; well done.