Idols, ‘Namamono,’ and “There’s Fanfiction About Us?”

Read on Renta!:
There’s Fanfiction About Us?

Japanese title:
俺たちナマモノ？です
Oretachi Namamono (?) desu

Author:
Tsubame Koshiora (@konashuor)

“Don’t Google yourself.” It’s common knowledge among celebrities, big and small, that it’s not a good idea to go searching for other people’s opinions of you or your work—especially not on the internet, where people can be particularly brutal behind the veil of anonymity. However, what if you googled yourself, and rather than finding criticism or bashing, you found something else? Say, for instance, art and stories of you getting pounded by your coworker?

Smalltime idols Homeroom—or H.R., with the H standing for Hibiki and the R standing for Rui—are two school friends who tried out to become idols in high school, and for five years they’ve grown into entertainers who’re tied together in both their personal and professional lives. This is a fact that hasn’t gone over the fans’ heads—in fact, there’s a whole faction of their fanbase (a majority of it, really) that’s quite keen on just how close the two are.

Hibiki isn’t sure what to expect when one of his drama costars Haruna tells him, “Hey! I searched ‘hibirui’ and found something interesting! Look it up with Rui♥” Rui tries to make him stop, terrified by the mean people on the internet, and initially he’s proven right when they stumble on a password-locked site with the description “concerned parties do not look.” The passwords are easy for the two to get past, considering it’s trivia about their entire career, but rather than a hate site shitting on them… it’s a fan-art site… filled with illustrations of them having sex…?

So let’s start out with a cultural lesson about namamono, and then we’ll move on to my full review on why I love this manga.

Enter ナマモノ

The literal translation for the title is “We Are Namamono (?),” so what exactly does that mean?

ナマモノ (namamono, or “raw thing”), alternatively 生もの or nmmn, is the fandom slang phrase for what would commonly be referred to in western fandom spaces as “RPF” and “RPS.” Nama means “raw,” or something still close to it’s natural form—raw and unprepared vegetables, uncooked meat, etc.—and it is thus the catchphrase for tagging content dealing with real, living, raw humans. (For historical figures who are no longer alive, ヒモノ/himono or カワキモノ/kawakimono can be used instead.)

Namamono is usually used to refer to idols, musicians, seiyuu, theater performers, actors, famous athletes and, more recently, influencers and streamers and VTubers. While quite hidden, there’s an entire subculture of shippers who track and absorb every interaction between their favorite boys, their eyes shining with glee as they type with fervor on their private Twitter accounts and to their like-minded friends about how their 推しカプ (oshi couple, or fav ship) are totally in love, they can sense it, they just know.

However, since these are 妄想 (mousou, or delusions) about real, living people, the shippers have to be very careful to respect their boundaries. This is why you won’t go to a doujinshi event and see people openly selling their Arashi porn, nor will you find people openly posting their romantic fanart or fanfiction of their favorite seiyuu with full official tags to Twitter (or, at least, you shouldn’t). There are a lot of rules—both written and unspoken—about creating, sharing, and consuming this kind of content.

For one, accounts for shipping namamono are generally supposed to be private. On the rare occasion that they’re public, they have to block all concerned parties. Accounts that share and discuss namamono also need to have a variety of code words in their bio:

nmmn専用 (nmmn senyou)
an account that’s specific for namamono shipping
周辺B済 (shuuhen B zumi)
all concerned parties have been blocked (B)
永遠鍵 (eien kagi)
this account will forever remain locked
成人済 (seijin zumi)
of age, for if they want to follow accounts that post adult content

These are all to warn off people who are uncomfortable with the concept of namamono, and also to show that the account owner knows and respects the culture enough to know how to mark their account. There are also other tags that the user might include, such as a highly shortened and unsearchable ship name, i.e. in the case of Hibiki and Rui, their ship name might be something like hbri (though in the manga itself, the translation was true to the full ship name of ひびるい/hibirui). If you only ship that specific ship, and for instance refuse to ship Rui with Yun, you’d say you’re hbri固定 (kotei, or “fixed”), and if you like Rui always bottoming but aren’t too fussed if he’s with Hibiki or Yun, you’d say ri右 (migi, “right”, as in to the “right” side of the pairing name aka “bottom”). These kind of codes in the profile are very important to knowing who’s “in the know” and who you can trust to respectfully enjoy namamono content.

As for non-SNS, fanpages are often locked behind passwords that only hardcore fans or trusted accomplices will know. These often include, as seen in the manga, trivia about the people or fandoms in question. For fanart posted to sites like Pixiv, the actual names of the group, person, fandom, etc. are not tagged, and only coded ship names (as mentioned above) are used to tag the artworks so people looking for cute, platonic content don’t accidentally stumble across it. Same with the idols, Vtubers, etc. in question during エゴサ (ego search, or looking themselves up online) or trying to find fanart of themselves for thumbnails, etc.

This isn’t to say there aren’t outliers. Unfortunately, young or over-zealous fans may still openly discuss or fangirl about their favorite ship without realizing it’s bothering people (or, worse, could make the actual concerned parties uncomfortable). Not just with same-sex ships, but it happens sometimes where male and female influencers stop interacting because the shippers get too out of control and are starting to openly push their fantasies onto the actual people. The rules exist to prevent and warn against this kind of behavior, so it’s important to look into them before you seek out or share namamono content.

The most important thing is to try your best to keep this content away from the people who find it uncomfortable, be it unwitting fans or the celebrity in question. As long as that rule is respected, then it’s fine to daydream about the cute interactions between your favorite boys.

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One thing that really stands out about “There’s Fanfiction About Us?” is that it doubles as both an adorable, sexy romance between Hibiki and Rui, and also a love letter to idols, their shippers, and their fans. We’ll start with the romance plot between Rui and Hibiki.

Just a Couple of Idols Who’re REALLY good friends…

While their relationship originally starts out as merely sexual, accidentally turned on to the idea of having sex by how enticing it looks in the doujinshi they read, it then moves to professional, and finally mutually romantic. When their manager, Shinji, walks in on them having sex, he comes up with the brilliant idea that they should sell themselves as a ‘ship’ since, admittedly, most of their fanbase is in it for the cute relationship between the two. As he says: as far as idols go, their looks and talent are mediocre, but their dynamic as a duo is what really sells them.

However, as they get pushed to be more handsy in front of the camera, they can feel themselves catching feelings behind the scenes. Rui finds himself constantly accidentally turned on by Hibi’s presence, and Hibi is desperate for a chance to finally convey the feelings he’s been fostering since their school days.

Enter Yun, a hot, rich actor and the main antagonist of volume one with his overt crush on Rui. As fans realize ‘yunrui’ is just as appealing as ‘hibirui,’ Hibiki and Rui are forced to work apart more and more, and can feel themselves yearning for each other. Having never fallen in love before, and a tad too simple-minded to understand his own feelings, Rui has to face the fact that it bothers him how Hibiki, too, is being pushed more toward his other costar and they’re no longer a unit—in their career, or their personal lives.

The manga is currently ongoing at 19 chapters (23 if you count the decimals) so, needless to say, they got past their initial issues and the series continues to move onward. Aside from Hibi and Rui, there’s an absolutely wonderful cast of characters that make their world in show business feel full and exciting.

There’s Yun, of course, who starts out as Hibiki’s rival. He’s a great guy, though, who backs off as soon as he realizes Rui has feelings for Hibiki. His cute trait is that he gets lost easily, and can act a bit spoiled at times. From the same talent agency is Ayuha, an actress by day and a huge otaku by night.

Then there’s Daiya, a pretty-faced young man from Homeroom’s talent agency who looks much younger than his age. Daiya comes from a desperately poor family, so his head is often in the clouds thinking about food or money or how to support his siblings. Shinji often bribes him with food and coupons. There’s also Haruna, who’s in it more toward the beginning as Hibiki’s drama castmate and ‘friend,’ but still occasionally shows up in more recent chapters.

All of the managers and agents, particularly Shinji, bring their own flavor. There’s Ayuha and Yun’s agent, who’s a bit more serious and hard-working. Shinji, on the other hand, is more laid-back and playful, eternally messing with and amused by Hibiki and Rui’s relationship. He’s bizarrely good at every single thing he does, but somehow ended up in a career managing idols and actors.

(Also, there have been a handful of hints about a possibly budding relationship between Daiya and Yun, and I’m very much here for it… 🥴)

Koshiora-sensei’s comedic timing is brilliant. The huge cast of characters leads to many wonderful running jokes throughout the series. For one, when Rui gets excited or nervous he tends to speak in haiku. Hibiki is horrible at waking up in the morning, and incredibly bad at small talk. As was noted previously, Yun’s sense of direction is absolutely godawful, and Daiya’s constantly drooling over coupons and supermarket sales. Each character has their own unique personality, so even the chapters that focus less on Rui and Hibiki’s romance and more on their world as idols and actors still feel incredibly fun and endearing.

As for Hibiki and Rui themselves? Both characters are absolutely wonderful; Shinji and H.R.’s fans aren’t wrong in noting their dynamic is what really sets them apart. I love how they both play the roles of being the silly, immature one at times—Rui because he’s a very simple and energetic person, and Hibiki because he can sometimes let his insecurities get the best of him and he’s just so unbelievably in love with Rui. Because of this, the two of them are always meeting in the middle; their conflicts are always left light-hearted, and they’re able to communicate and make up.

Also… the ero scenes… are sooooo good. One thing I love about Rui in particular is that it’s always very consensual, and he’s always very forward about what he wants and when, which is nice in a bottom. He’s very obviously super sexually attracted to Hibiki, especially after their initial encounter, and it shows. Hibiki is also just as interested in giving as he is receiving, frequently going down on Rui and even just pleasuring him for extended periods of time without even asking for anything in return (there are various evenings where he’s blue-balled but doesn’t seem to mind). They feel very balanced even in their sex life, and it makes it even more enjoyable to read. They’re one of those couples whose story could just continue forever and ever and I would never lose interest.

A Love Letter to Idol Otaku…

If there’s one thing that’s clear when reading There’s Fanfiction About Us?, it’s that Tsubame Koshiora truly knows idols and idol culture. There’s an incredible amount of attention to detail in Homeroom’s idol activities, from the types of shows they show up in to the type of interviews they do and the types of outfits they wear.

For instance, chapter 7 is all about them going to Guam to film a post-concert special. While both Rui and Hibiki don’t know what they should be doing, Shinji keeps prompting them to just be themselves because that’s what the fans want to see. Which is very true of idol fans, especially in Japan—they want to get to know their idols as people, and so watching them do silly daily tasks like making lunch or going shopping is incredibly appealing and endearing. Especially since, in Rui and Hibiki’s case, their “daily life” in Guam has a lot of them being very intimate and sentimental toward each other.

Another really cute scene is the “day in the life” one where both Hibiki and Rui separately film and then edit a day in their lives with their idol activities. Both of them are working apart that day, but constantly mentioning each other. This kind of content is also super common, especially for fanclub content (which this was filmed for), giving the fans a glimpse behind the curtain on hair and makeup, filming, photography, etc. This way the fans get a fun (curated) look into their idol’s life.

Aside from “daily life” content, Hibiki, Rui, and all their idol and model counterparts also take part in tons of silly variety shows, commercials, interviews, etc. It reminds me of when I was into Kanjani8 (oh, the memories…) watching them go on all sorts of bizarre adventures just so the fans can watch their reactions and listen to them share parts of their own lives.

A lot of attention is also given to Hibiki and Rui’s different looks as the story progresses. As anyone who likes idols knows well, they’re constantly changing their appearance to fit different roles, styles, trends, sponsors, etc. While Rui and Hibiki keep the same base appearance through the manga (they never don’t look like themselves), Koshiora finds a million different ways to dress them up—hair slicked back, hair style up, big cutesy idol uniforms, super casual sweats and a t-shirt. There’s a ton of fun variety in their appearances through the series.

And finally, I have to talk about the use of fans and their reactions through the series. There are so many incredibly cute moments where we cut to a fan watching H.R.’s concerts or interviews or shows, and each scene is so relatable and silly. For instance, we get a glimpse of a girl watching Hibi and Rui being handsy with each other, and she’s like “omg they’re SO DATING,” while also acknowledging she’s being ridiculous, but also “what if??” All the while, the actual reader knows that Hibiki and Rui are, in fact, in a relationship behind the scenes, so we’re essentially witnessing two different stories–Hibiki and Rui as idols, and Hibiki and Rui and boyfriends.

The use of these girls gives so many moments for the reader to remember when they saw idols or actors they love feeling up each other one stage, or talking openly about how much they mean to each other, etc. and that little flame lit up in their chest that was like “Are they…? Nahhhh of course not! …….But… 😳”

But the girls in There’s Fanfiction About Us? are always careful to be polite and respectful, which is the most important take-away. No one pushes Hibi and Rui’s relationship onto them—they decided that on their own (though the doujinshi helped a tad…) without any fans trying to force them to be or act closer than they actually are.

There’s Fanfiction About Us? is a wonderfully cute, sweet story about idols and their fans. Admittedly, I’m long past that phase of my life (though I still quite like VTubers, which I’ll write another post on later), but reading this brought back all the silly innocence of loving and tracking your favorite performer’s every word, analyzing it for the tiniest silly hints so you could flail about it with friends.

It’s also a wonderful introduction to Japanese idol culture for those interested (though I do think there are likely many parallels to Kpop as well). If anyone else has other interesting information about namamono culture and fandom in Japan, please feel free to share them in the comments, and I hope those who love idols will consider looking into this adorable series!