Review by Booklist Review
This winner of Japan's 2020 Akutagawa Prize delivers an intimate perspective into the isolating effects of idolizing a celebrity. Akari is an unmotivated young woman who doesn't find much pleasure in life. She drifts through high school and her work at an izakaya feeling misunderstood by her family and classmates. Her only passion in life is her oshi, or idol, Masaki Ueno, singer-songwriter for the J-pop group Maza Maza. Meeting him in person doesn't interest Akari, though. Instead, she enjoys remaining unseen at his concerts and devotes herself to supporting him through her blog and social media accounts. When a scandal about Masaki breaks out, Akari becomes obsessed with figuring out how she can defend him, dedicating all of her resources, time, and energy to the cause. But as the scandal spirals out of control on social media, Akari's world begins to fall apart. Through Akari's eyes, Usami explores obsessive fandom, different forms of isolation, and the deep desire to be seen and understood as a flawed human being.
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Usami (Kaka) delivers a gut-wrenching tale of obsession and social media. High school junior Akari is obsessed with J-Pop idol Masaki Ueno, and after Masaki is accused of assaulting a fan, his fan base splinters and Akari's fixation on him intensifies. She encourages her social media followers to support him and devotes all her money and energy to deluded attempts to help him, such as buying up his secondhand merchandise and posting a video of herself eating a cake in his honor. She loses a dangerous amount of weight, wears her hair over her face to hide her worsening acne, and struggles at school. Eventually, the strain she puts on her family comes to a head, and news breaks about the end of Masaki's future in the entertainment industry, forcing Akari to look within herself for answers. Usami's unflinching depiction of a deeply alienated young woman makes for powerful commentary on the toxicity of social media and fan culture. This short novel packs a punch. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In this Akutagawa Prize--winning novel, which has fired up the Japanese literary community, socially maladroit high school junior Akari is over-the-top obsessed with Masaki Ueno, a member of the popular J-Pop group Maza Maza. When a fan claims that Masaki assaulted her, Akari cannot step back and rescue herself from her illusions. With a 40,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An accusation against her favorite J-pop idol upends an unstable teen's world. Akari, a high school junior in Japan, wakes up one morning to the dreadful rumor that Masaki Ueno has assaulted a female fan. She is devastated: To her, Masaki is not simply a member of the popular group Maza Maza, he is her oshi, in whom she finds meaning and around whom she organizes her life. Akari has always had difficulty with her schoolwork, her family situation is tense, and she gets easily overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her job at a restaurant. When it comes to Masaki, however, she is dedicated and organized: She copies down every word he utters in public in binders, interacts with other superfans through her popular blog, and spends most of her earnings on band merch and memorabilia. Other people ridicule Akari's dedication to this one-sided relationship, but she insists that she doesn't see anything wrong with it because she doesn't expect anything in return. Akari is content to devote herself to Masaki from a distance, wanting to understand him fully and "to see the world through his eyes." As the assault threatens Masaki's future in the band and as a celebrity, Akari becomes further unmoored; she feels as though her future and well-being are inextricably tied to Masaki's own: "I need to give him everything, I thought. It's all I have. It was my cross to bear. Believing in him was how I lived." Akari's obsession is fatalistic and intense, and Usami's prose (translated by Yoneda) renders it and the hold it has on her tenuous life ably and affectingly. While the intensity of the fandom and what it entails may seem outlandish to some, it will especially resonate with readers familiar with real-life superfandoms such as One Direction's at the height of its fame, down to details such as sought-after exclusive merch and hateful online comments sections. A short, engrossing novel that captures the essence of obsessive fandom. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
