"謊言才是最特別的愛哦? "——身為偶像卻秘密產下一對龍鳳胎的星野愛如是說。
動畫《我推的孩子》第二季於2024年10月告一段落，同年11月原作漫畫也宣告完結。同月，《我推的孩子》的真人電視劇也在Amazon Prime上陸續公開；本作更是在次月以2.5次元真人舞台劇的形式與日本觀眾見面。
這部備受矚目的動畫在亞馬遜和網飛上摘得第一名的佳績，由日本組合YOASOBI演繹的動畫OP《Idol》成為了首支獲得全球音樂榜Billboard Global榜第一名的日語歌曲，並取得最快達成9億次播放的全球紀錄。同曲MV更是在YouTube斬下近6億播放量。可以說，這部自問世起就備受關注的作品最近迎來了一輪新的高潮。
The reason why "The Child I Push" has achieved such unprecedented success, and even become the most topical work after Japan's entry into Reiwa, is closely related to the "promotion (push) culture" of Japan in which she took root. It is precisely through the portrayal of the unique consumption form of "admiration (love)" of modern Japanese idols and the integration of the fantasy (lie) "reincarnation" theme unique to anime that "The Child I Push" realizes the mapping and introspection of "esteemed culture" and the characters in anime at the same time.
From "uppercase" idols to "lowercase" idols
"The Child I Push" is a story that describes the "dispute" between the "uppercase" idols of the past and the "lowercase" idols of the present.
The so-called "capitalization" refers to modern Japanese idols who once debuted alone. Through their songs and performances, these idols have become the only center of obsession for fans. Momoe Yamaguchi, Akina Nakamori, Seiko Matsuda, and Misora Skylark are all idols with a strong presence of this kind. Even if there are occasional idol groups with 3-0 people, most of them are still centered on one of them.
On the other hand, "lowercase" idols are contemporary Japanese idols that include a variety of forms such as underground idols, based on the concept of idols after the popularization of idol groups. Taking Yasushi Akimoto's "Kitten Club" as a typical example, such idols do not have an absolutely transcendent existence, but focus on amateurs; Instead of choosing a center for "the stars to hold the moon", it formed a "galaxy" through a few stars, which completely refreshed the previous view of idols. With the Good Morning Girl Group、HELLO! With the advent of PROJECT and the launch of idol groups such as AKB46Wanogizaka (Iwasaka)0 launched by Yasushi Akimoto, "lowercase" idols gradually took shape.
In this sense, the "uppercase" idol view that "I Push" wants to present or imply in "The Child I Push" is a product of the "lowercase" idol era in the late Heisei period. The focus of the work is undoubtedly an absolute center - Ai Hoshino (hereinafter referred to as "love"), the absolute C position of the former idol group "B Beauty". Despite her tragic background of being abandoned by her mother and growing up in an orphanage, Ai Hoshino was able to become the center of "B Beauty" by a star scout on a street corner, and finally achieved her goal of holding a concert at Tokyo Dome, a dream of idols and artists all over Japan. But in the early morning of the concert, Love was assassinated. For her, it was as if she had suddenly disappeared after reaching the pinnacle of the idol world. So far, while Ai Hoshino has brought a huge impact to "The Child I Push", it has also set the tone for the work and become a "center that is not there".
The story aims to unravel the mystery of "love was killed". However, because love is gone, if you want to find her traces, you can only start from the people around her. Therefore, the work focuses on people other than love and picks up their voices: among them are idols who are successors, there are also people who stand with love at that time, and there are people who begin to imitate love in idol activities. The story travels between these people and finally returns to love. It is not difficult for us to find that although the protagonists of the story are supposed to live in the present for the future, they always want to go back to a point in the past - this is not only the fate of the story, but also the final obstacle that needs to be overcome. It is precisely because of this that "The Child I Push" can be called a story between "uppercase" idols and "lowercase" idols competing for the right to speak the story.
References and critiques of contemporary icons and culture
The depiction of idols and showbiz in "The Child I Pushed", although it belongs to the branch line relative to the main axis of the story, has a huge influence. The beginning of the work describes the story of Love's short life, and then the story of the twins who cut into love and grow into high school students. At this time, "The Child I Push" began to depict the filming scenes of movies and TV dramas produced by industry professionals, the performance scenes of idol groups, marketing using social media and video, love reality shows, and 5.0-dimensional stage plays. These depictions focus more on the behind-the-scenes scenes that are being performed or filmed than on the works themselves, similar to the animation "White Box" that tells the story of animation production. These chapters depict the process of interpretation of the work, as well as the discussions and compromises between the various leaders and authorities in the process of making decisions. Two of these episodes have a huge impact on the audience due to their high resemblance to events that actually happened in the entertainment industry.
One is the online violence that the audience uses against the performers in a love reality show. In this episode, Akane Kurokawa, one of the protagonists, could not bear the pressure of being cyberbullied and almost committed suicide. However, just a few years after the appearance of this plot in the story, there were really people in Japanese reality shows who chose to commit suicide because they couldn't bear the cyberbullying. "The Child I Pushed" was also criticized by many audiences, accusing it of choosing industry-related scandals as the theme for the sake of the performance effect. But in fact, this plot is just a recreation based on similar events that happened in the Japanese entertainment industry. It is precisely because of this that the work accurately predicts and reveals the problems of contemporary Japanese showbiz. The more intense the audience's reaction to this plot, the more it proves the sense of presence and persuasiveness of this plot. At the same time, it is also the result of the portrayal perspective of this work, which contains an internal critique of contemporary Japanese themes such as "admiration" and "idol". If this plot has the nature of deliberately exposing a scandal, it is only because the work completely imitates the reality of the Japanese entertainment industry. It is not so much that the work is using this thoroughness to sell and sell the story, but rather that the work wants to get close to the essence of these phenomena, which brings this sense of presence.
其二是在2.5次元舞台劇的情節裡，在準備高人氣原作漫畫的舞台劇化時，由於劇本完全不符合漫畫原作者的心意，原作者和製作方形成了對立的狀況。兩者間的不信任使得原作者開始擅自介入舞台劇的劇本。在這段情節問世後的2024年1月，現實世界中的漫畫《SEXY田中小姐》翻拍電視劇時出現如出一轍的對立，原作者蘆原妃名子在網上告發了製作方，引起了輿論的巨大反響。數天后事態甚至惡化至原作者選擇自殺結束生命的結果。雖然相對於漫畫原作，真人版不僅有著完全不同的媒體形式，更涉及太多的製作方和演出方，想要完全反映出原作者的意圖幾乎毫無可能，但影像製作方內部的歸責過於曖昧不清，也是該事件中業界需要反省，並極力避免的問題。
"The Child I Pushed" is able to reveal the original author's lack of understanding of this limitation, and vividly portray the dilemma of the producer and the screenwriter who is caught between the original author and the creator, which is really valuable. Although this plot in the work finally ushered in a happy ending, readers and viewers can still get a glimpse of the original author of the copyright owner, the production team of the employer, the publishing house and brokerage agency sandwiched between it, and the employees on the shooting site, as well as the irreconcilable relationship between the multiple parties in the process of live-action comics.
It is not difficult to recall the historical fact that Japan in World War II caused the entire country to tilt to the right because of the decisions of the military department. Therefore, since the "war" in the work is initiated by a certain commercial entity responsible for transmedia, if the subject persecutes the producer for some reason, it should be more worthy of introspection and self-criticism from the industry. At the same time, it is also a metaphor for the situation of "idols" who have gained public attention on their own: while serving as a symbol of capital, they are also at the mercy of business. If it were the emperor, he might be able to change the status quo a little with his order, but what if the order was wrong? INTERVIEWER Today's Japan is in the midst of introspection.
The reason why the anime OP "Idol" mentioned at the beginning has gained such popularity at the moment is precisely because the content of the song reveals the essence of "The Child I Push": to distill and expose the above-mentioned contemporary Japanese problems through the theme of "idol". It is precisely through the controversial depiction of current idols and revered culture that the work has this critical perspective.
Characters and figures marginalized by "esteemed culture".
The Japanese word for idol, "Idol", is closer to Diva, but its specific meaning is still inseparable from the concept of idol. So what is an idol? In Japan, where the emperor was systematic, there was a strange resemblance between idols and emperors, and as objects of public worship, idols were in a sense a kind of existence similar to "gokage" (bust portraits of emperors). This is a kind of "nothing" general existence that almost infinitely gathers beliefs, but it brings a sense of existence in the image of a human being, and blends into the surroundings of the public.
At this time, do people imagine the inner world of their idols? Or when the word idol is replaced by an emperor or a god, do you still think about it?In this sense, idols are beings in a completely different dimension from ours, making it impossible to guess their hearts. Thus, the seemingly absurd concept of "admiration" and "not asking for anything in return, but just constantly giving generously for the sake of the object" can be justified: because the relationship between man and idol is not the relationship between man and man who owes money to pay off money, but is closer to a relationship of selfless devotion to the God in which man believes. After all, even when you ask God, "Why have you forsaken me?" Jesus turned out not to be a man, but to be "the Son of God."
Thus, idols, or at least "capitalized" idols, are not human. When this understanding is brought into "The Child I Push" as a fictional work, since the fictional character is not a human but a character, then Ai Hoshino will not be a character, or at least it should be said, not an ordinary story character.
The other characters in this work seem to belong to the characters, but they are not ordinary characters. This is because, most of them are attracted to the presence of Ai Hoshino, and they are all characters who are "idols who are not characters". Among them are not only those who admire love, but also her family and children, and even those who imitate love. At the same time, in the process of wanting to become the "idols" symbolized by love, they are also imprisoned in the existence of love. As the story unfolds towards "solving the mystery of love's death and completing the reckoning with it", these characters will inevitably have to face the shackles that love has placed on them.
In this sense, the core concept of "respecting" culture, which is the core concept of Reiwa era Japan, is to completely hollow out the center that no longer exists, making it seem as if it is ubiquitous, and this ubiquity has surpassed the existence of idols like Ai Hoshino. She has become deeply embedded in the everyday as the existence of a forgotten world, as the French philosopher Jacques Derrida proposed in his discussion of "understanding and testimony in the age of media", as "the unique every time, the end of the world". The analysis of this work is also of great value for preliminary research on the concept.
When "lies" become special love, when "fictional characters" become special characters
Let's focus on Ai Hoshino's sentence at the beginning of the story: "Lies are the most special love, huh?" Just like Ai Hoshino used the "lies" to cover up his life experience and personality to weave his love for fans, and finally confirmed his most special love for children when he was dying, as a character in the "fictional" setting, how did he leave a special impression on us and become a special character?
To answer this question, we must first explore the conditions under which a fictional character ascends and becomes a character. Of course, as long as you can show its charm as much as possible, even the paper people in the comics will become vivid and lifelike. But what is the internal logic that makes the characters jump off the page? According to the Soviet folklorist Vladimir Plop's theory of narration, the characters in the story always appear with some kind of duty. Especially in media such as novels, since what is not necessary does not appear in the narrative in a visual form, then the things that appear always have some kind of meaning.
The duties that Propp refers to are the functions or relationships that lead to the development of the story, such as "hostility" or "gift", which are often closely related to the structure of the story. (Of course, since the "characters" of anime often transcend the existence of a single story, it is not possible to simply follow Propp's analytical approach.) ）
A character in a fictional work can be called a character if it is comparable to a human living in reality. However, most movie, TV drama and anime audiences generally don't see the characters as mere characters, which is also the mystery we always want to explore when discussing and commenting on the popularity of works. As we've seen in various cosplay and fanfiction, in recent years, characters have become more than just canonicals or texts, and people's attention to them is often analogous to that of real humans, and sometimes even beyond the latter.
Naoki Hanzawa series
When we read the biographies of celebrities, or when we see the name of a well-known company, we are able to imagine the real experiences and stories of these people and companies because these inherent names ensure that they feel presence. On the other hand, when we read stories like the "Naoki Hanzawa" series, we still feel a sense of presence when we read these completely fictional works that are based on the real world. That's because we don't just think, "Isn't this the company in reality?" It is also because the plot in the work is exquisite and tight, which will make us feel interesting and real. It may be strange that we can feel the same way about this kind of fictional character who is completely different from the celebrity in the biography – because we are bringing emotion and empathy to an existence that has no basis in reality.
It's not just a character based on the setting, but a special character, what distinguishes the two? The anime "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is a prime example of an answer to this question. In the story, as the product of Haruhi Suzumiya's wishes, aliens, futurists, and superpowers appear. And these three were given the names of Nagato Yuki, Asahina Minoru Kuru, and Furuizumi Kazuki respectively. It is based on this premise that "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is rated as a typical metafiction work. Of course, in order to depict everyday life naturally, we need to choose a name for the characters who appear in the scene. However, these names are supposed to have no value beyond distinguishing characters. After all, these names only have the responsibilities of cosmic people, future people, and superpowers.
Although there are different approaches to script production, in general, the characters who appear in the story are born out of their role. At the same time, when a duty is given a human form, it is often inevitable that it will be detached from that duty. The reason why the people with special abilities in "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" naturally have their own names is just a plot requirement to preview the birth of the characters. For example, the character known as Yuki Nagato, although her duty is to be a cosmic person, but while complying with this duty, she also forcibly connects to this world with a wealth of information, which inevitably forces her to leave her original duty. At this time, if we want to include this detached behavior in the subject of the act, it is impossible to justify it if we only functionally follow the duties of the cosmic man as the subject. In other words, her subject will inevitably be given an inherent name, and the well-known setting of Yuki Nagato already foreshadows her fate - an existence that is foreseen to be detached from its own duties.
This trend is more strongly demonstrated in the theatrical version of "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya". In the story, Nagato has been using the ability of the cosmic man to continuously observe the whims of Suzumiya, and finally a bug occurs due to the large scale of the calculation processing. Nagato, who went berserk because of this bug.,Create a world where you seem to be just an ordinary human.,And the hero's Ah Xuan is involved in it.。 Although Haruhi Suzumiya also exists in this world, she no longer has the supernormal abilities of the original world. The story shows here: Nagato, who has always carried out his duties as a cosmic person, is detaching himself from his responsibilities and wants to become an ordinary human, and even has the desire to enjoy the world of two people with Ah Xu.
Thus, we have an answer to the difference between a character and a character: duties are given names through their use in the work - fictional characters who are initially just duties become characters over time in the story. Internally, fictional characters are self-conscious due to "bugs" that detach themselves from their duties and act unrelated to their own purposes. From the outside, fictional characters who were originally nothing more than "settings" will bring readers and viewers expectations and imagination beyond their responsibilities due to the "extra-purpose" behavior in the story.
An idol narrative of the Reiwa era
Back to "The Child I Pushed", in addition to the plot before Ai Hoshino's death, this work can be said to be a story with twin siblings Akuya Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino as the protagonists. They are also surrounded by classmates and peers, partners and colleagues in the same studio. On the surface, this is the story of twins who are both beautiful and talented to climb to the top of show business. The expectation of readers and viewers for this kind of story is a narrative of "youthful existence gradually growing and succeeding", an orthodox narrative of idol stories.
The so-called "orthodoxy" is because, at least in the era of "capitalized" idols, idols appeared in front of the public and the media in the form of finished products. Even in the "Kitten Club", where "lowercase" idols are beginning to appear, although the idols are all amateurs, the presentation form still allows the amateurs to dress up as mimicry finished products and show them in front of the media. However, since the Good Morning Girl Group, idols have begun to make their debut in the talent show, and they will make their debut through the results of the draft. "Lowercase" idols often have a nurturing process in which members challenge difficulties and work hard during the draft process. At this time, the audience's cultivation perspective will also accompany the idols until after their debut, until they become a well-known idol group.
這種養成的視角隨著互聯網逐漸得到普及。能實現個人間交互的互聯網為初期偶像和偶像預備軍的養成提供了絕好的舞臺和工具。其中最具象徵性的是Perfume組合。她們雖然不是出道於選秀節目，但自2002年開始活動后，直到2006年，Perfume經歷了一段處於娛樂圈底層，不為人知的時代。她們的成功要歸功於同年問世的Youtube和Niconico視頻平臺。當遊戲《偶像大師》的高品質MAD動畫，配上Perfume的樂曲在Niconico平臺上得到大範圍傳播后，樂曲的人氣才開始回流到Perfume身上。在Perfume仍不為人知的時候，大量粉絲不再通過電視等傳統媒體，而是通過動畫主動追起Perfume的歌曲。對於他們來說，Perfume就像自己從沙子里淘出的金子，格外值得珍惜。就這樣，Perfume的人氣獲得了爆發性的增長。而與這種成長伴行的大量網路使用者，自然而然地擁有了一種養成的視角，這種感受一直持續到2007年10月Perfume首次登上黃金時間的歌曲節目，以及2008年末首次登上紅白歌會。
AKB48 is also a Japanese idol group that represents this period. AKB0, which debuted in 0, has established a permanent performance theater in Akihabara based on the concept of "idols who can meet face-to-face". In addition, through disruptive business methods such as putting handshake tickets into CD packaging, AKB0 has also frequently set an unprecedented number of million CD sales. All of these elements are the result of "close contact between idols and fans" that was unimaginable in the past in the era of "capitalized" idols. It was through the fact that he could see AKB0's theater at any time and regularly sold handshake tickets on CDs, that producer Yasu Akimoto completely refreshed the relationship between idols and fans in the past. In the end, AKB0's handshake ticket even became a vote to determine the popularity of individuals in the group, and only the idols who received the highest votes were able to participate in the song performance as members representing AKB0 and gain media exposure. Let fans get close to idols, and also allow them to use their own money to directly contribute to their favorite idols and improve her status - it is this idol business model that contains a distorted and cultivated perspective in a certain sense that has become the key to opening the Pandora's box of "promoting culture". In addition, when Yasu Akimoto made the AKB0 documentary, he also titled the work "Chasing Dreams After Injury", and used the camera to record the images of girls who go through harsh training, shuttle through high-intensity performance schedules, and even collapse from time to time because they are out of breath. This kind of sensational narrative of "going through the trials, winning the election, and succeeding" has become a commodity in itself, and the dramatized stories of the girls in it also implant a distorted perspective on the cultivation of those who consume this commodity. The ultimate goal of AKB0 on the stage of Tokyo Dome is also the goal of the idol in "The Child I Push".
In this sense, "The Child I Push", which continues this basic narrative, is naturally an orthodox idol story of the Reiwa era. Of course, because it refers to and criticizes the current culture of admiration, "The Child I Push" is not just a simple reproduction of this narrative. However, the complexity of this work is by no means limited to this, as the work also introduces elements of reincarnation.
Idol + reincarnation = characterization of the mantra
"The Child I Push" takes the performing arts environment of Reiwa in Japan as the theme, detailing the personality formation of the characters, and while showing the worldview of "respecting culture", it also updates the past idol view from Heisei's "capitalization" to Reiwa's "lowercase". At this time, factors such as the reasons why people yearn for idols, the psychology of actually wanting to become idols, and the distress of people who are idols become pain points that stimulate readers and audiences, so that fictional characters who are nothing more than the settings in the work become characters with unique personalities and are recognized.
However, if we add to this the fact that the protagonists came to this world through rebirth, what kind of changes would it bring? The twins, the protagonists of "The Child I Push", are born in the story as false beings from the beginning (from doctors and patients to newborns, from the upper world to the lower world), but they still want to struggle to do something. Unlike the characters around them, Akuya and Ruby are not the real Akua and Ruby, and at the same time, because they are newborns themselves, the reincarnated object has not yet formed an identity, so there is no such thing as "real". From the hearts of the two, they are indeed a kind of deductive and false existence, but from the names Akua and Ruby, they have no choice but to live like this. While trying to solve this multi-layered contradiction, "The Child I Push" also inevitably explores the relationship between characters and characters.
If there is a fictional work that wants to attract readers by exploring the psychology of idols, however, when idols in the real world are also using strategies similar to Yasushi Akimoto to express growth and heart, the work loses its depth and freshness. On the other hand, although it is difficult to find and prove idols who have undergone reincarnation in reality, creation can hypothesize and express this premise. So, why do we need to introduce such a meta character element in idol stories?
First of all, the reincarnation of fanatical fans of idols into children of idols, of course, there is such an factor as "fans' second-creation wishes". Considering that the prisoner who killed Ai Hoshino was also an avid fan, it is not difficult to find that there is no real difference in value between the pre-reincarnation twins and murderers in terms of having a strong obsession with love. When this obsession develops in a positive way, it will become "the idol I push"; When it goes negative, it becomes a stalker and a killer. When viewed from the Gemini's side, there is another set of contrasts: Ruby, who witnesses her mother's death and secretly decides to take revenge on the mastermind behind it, Ruby, despite the same sadness, may not have witnessed this scene, and her goal is to use the natural beauty inherited from her mother to become the group "B Beauty" that idol resurrected her mother.
Thus, the fact that she was born as a twin also reveals that Ruby embarks on the coming-of-age story of an ordinary idol, while Akua embarks on a mystery story about the murder of an idol. At the same time, the sibling relationship between the two makes it inevitable that they will be influenced by each other's stories. The entanglement of this story type makes the fictional characters conscious and wavering about their own responsibilities, and finally realizes their own roles. At this time, Gemini and rebirth are metaphors for this realization.
If Ai Hoshino is a special idol, then reincarnation also brings a special character to Gemini as the protagonist that is different from her. When they are characterized, whether it is Arima Kana, who has never fought since he was a child and gradually developed a love affair with Akuya, or Akane Kurokawa, who imitated Ai Hoshino and even deceived Akuya and dated him, these peripheral characters who can't experience the upper world can't empathize with the twins, nor can they connect with the mystery of love's death. This constitutes the marginalization of the characters in anime works, and this marginalization is not only due to the primary and secondary relationship between the characters in the story, but also a metaphor for the actual idol society.
In the world of idols that emphasize competition, idols will not only fight to the death for exclusive attention because of their popularity, but fans will also consume money and energy at any cost to promote idols. This structure, which originates from faith at all costs, has similar roots to the psychology of prisoners who share the same beliefs but commit murder with love. The more you are attracted to love, the less you can get the understanding and empathy of others - at this point, the "marginalization" of the character is the result of the curse of "promoting culture".
Bearing this curse, Akuya and Ruby are reincarnated as "my pusher" in the form of "lies", the former chooses to avenge "love", and the latter chooses to reproduce "love" on his own: the same lie, but two completely different loves. Without having to look at the ending of the comics, we might be able to predict their ending. At this moment, Ai Hoshino's sentence "Lies are the most special love" not only interprets her behavior of concealing pregnancy and childbirth in her idol activities, but also the biggest legacy left to the twins. At the same time, we who are deeply involved in this story, why don't we practice "respecting culture" while looking forward to the third season of the 2026-year animation, and look for a special "love" that others can't understand from the "lie" of anime?