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The idol music industry is largely based on a fantasy, or, if you want to put it in harsher terms, an illusion. With their cheerful innocence, idols make hard-core fans feel like the singers are personally cheering them on through the trials and tribulations of their mundane lives, which keeps fans listening to, and buying, their songs.
The truth is, though, that while idols may be appreciative of their fans as a group, most of them aren’t really in a position to be all that concerned with any one individual who’s part of the crowd at their concerts. But Emi Arisaka just proved herself an exception in a very touching way.
▼ Arisaka’s “Isha to Gokon”
For the past decade, one of Arisaka’s fans, a 55-year-old man who’s known by the nickname Okkyan, has attended almost every single one of Arisaka’s concerts. That covers almost all of the 31-year-old Arisaka’s professional idol activities, but sometime in 2017, he stopped showing up at her live performances.
Arisaka was concerned, and became even more worried when she started digging online and discovered that Okkyan had stopped updating any of his social media accounts. Not knowing Okkyan’s phone number, Arisaka was eventually able to discern the fan’s address from his real (and undisclosed) name, and decided to pay him a visit to see if he was all right.
Unfortunately, when Arisaka went to Okkyan’s home, she was informed by his neighbors that he’d been hospitalized last year to undergo surgery for aortic dissection, a circulatory condition in which blood flows between layers of the aorta, causing severe damage to the artery. While Okkyan was eventually released from the hospital, his condition worsened, and he passed away in his home at the end of August. Adding to the tragedy, Okkyan had no close family or relatives, and no funeral had been held for him.
The story deeply shook Arisaka, who wrote about Okkyan on her official blog earlier this week. “It’s just too sad for the deceased not to have people get together to remember them,” the idol wrote, and since it’s too late to hold a funeral for Okkyan, she’s decided to do the next-best thing: hold a memorial concert to give him a proper good-bye.
The concert is scheduled for April 11 at the Hatsudai Doors music club in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood. Arisaka has also recruited Flowered Gem, another idol that Okkyan was a fan of, for the special sendoff, and you have to think that wherever he’s watching from, he’ll be happy to hear them really singing for him.
Source: Biglobe News via Otakomu
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
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© SoraNews24
20 Comments
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oldman_13
Nice story.
dcog9065
Very nice to hear
Geoff Gillespie
This story is, for me, the perfect storm of a story, being as it combines most of the elements about Japan that make me feel a little uncomfortable. Let's tick them off the list, shall we? Deplorable idol culture? Check. Middle aged man obsessing over said culture? Check. Same middle aged man dying alone, seemingly friendless and devoid of family? Check.
Nice story? Not for me, I'm afraid....
DaDude
The idol is 31 but I think it would have been a slightly different feeling if she was half that age. Everyone has their own hustle, I have my own life and could care less what anyone else chooses to do with theira.
Luddite
A nice gesture.
Jalapeno
Geoff - a "star" actually showing concern for a fan: check! A sour Brit: double check!
Joe Yan
@Geoff Gillespie - I agree with you.
And btw, whatever happened to privacy? Might seem like a nice little story but if it was the other way around and the guy sniffs out a girls address, he be called a perverted stalker.
Thunderbird2
Never ceases to amaze me that some people on here never see anything nice in the world. This young lady clearly her heart in the right place, but no, it's 'creepy'.
TorafusuTorasan
Knowing all the gobstopping translations that get bandied about here, the sidekick idol moniker Flowered Gem is not too bad.
Geoff Gillespie
@ Jalapeno
Remarkable, you've never met me and it's possible for you to be able to profile me from just a single set of comments. A career hunting down serial killers with the CIA beckons...
In all honesty, I am not the least bit sour, quite the opposite, actually. I just hate the whole idol culture thing. It creeps me out...
@ Thunderbird2
Again, another mystifying leap in logic. Because I find this particular story unpleasant I myself am incapable of seeing nice things in the world? Really? Are you incapable of understanding that not everybody feels the same way about things as you do and that in doing so that person doesn't necessarily torture animals and small children? A little perspective here, people...
commanteer
Here's the thing, Geoff. Nobody cares about your opinion of the idol culture - at least not in this context. A celebrity of sorts did something nice for a fan who nobody cared about. She went out of her way. If you don't like the way she sings and dresses, this is an odd place to bring it up.
And yet you seem to have no trouble profiling the deceased in this story. Have a little sympathy. You know nothing of him or his past or even why he was alone. It's a sad ending to a life, and not the appropriate place to be passing judgment and sharing your pop culture dislikes. Perhaps your opinions of the idol culture would be better received in a different context.
Toasted Heretic
I reckon it was a really nice gesture. And I say that as someone who doesn't buy into the whole idol lark.
Geoff Gillespie
@ commanteer
Quite rightly so, and neither should they. But strangely, they still do, don't they...? You'll appreciate that there is a difference between my posting my opinions and others posting negatively about my opinions, do you? I was not posting in any way negatively about anyone else's opinions because, as you say, I also don't care what anybody else thinks. I was merely reacting honestly to how the story made me feel.
If you look back at my original comments, I merely stated that this guy obviously obsessed over this artist and at least one other like her, going to EVERY EVENT she took part in, and that he died alone and friendless without any family. This is all fact. As for having any sympathy....well, OK, it's all very sad and it's a nice gesture by this girl. The really sad thing is that we all live in a society here in Japan where dying alone in your fifties is possible.
ushosh123
Geoff, not sure what your comment is all about.
While the idol culture has its flaws and isn't for everyone, but if there ever was a good / decent story to come of it, this would be it.
Not sure how true the looking up fan info and address truely came about, perhaps that part is also fantasized
Disillusioned
I'm sorry, but I find this statement somewhat disturbing. So, fantasising over young women in lolita outfits is a socially acceptable form of escapism? Society is doomed!
extanker
So you really believe that dying alone isn't possible in any other society? Got some bad news for you.
ishel
I am frequently so saddened by the callous unfeeling nature of many comments on JT that I rarely read comments any more; so I expected to find the same here, but instead it's great to see some positive appreciation of a sweet gesture, whatever one may think of the broader issue of idol culture. What this girl did is something that you just know the guy himself would have appreciated, and makes the very sad end to his life just a little less depressing. Heck, he's made headlines he never would have made otherwise!
Steven Fennel
I have to agree with Geoff here. Despite her seemingly good intentions it does reflect a sadder and more pathetic side of Japanese society.
Also, IMO, this may have just been a publicity stunt on her part. The idol industry is pretty seedy, her producers may have just used it to make her look like she actually cares about her fans. If given the chance, Im sure most of these 'idols' wouldn't even give their fans the time of day...
sf2k
This is a sweet gesture and she's just paying her respects to a fan in an industry not known for its heart and more for its veneer. Something to bear in mind is that an artist does their act over and over but in this case she noticed her supporters. It's a sad story but it's also a nice story too in that the fan had been encouraging her and he wouldn't have known
aherdofpenguins
I was at her show last night in Hatsudai, and she sat at the merch booth to talk to fans and sell merch herself. She even put up with my garbage Japanese. It's pretty normal to be pessimistic, especially on the internet, but she seemed pretty genuine to me.