Gotou Julia
THEY HAD DONE THEIR UTMOST—or at the very least, they hadn’t made any mistakes as far as she could tell.
For Julia, a lot was riding on this event. Though the setlist had only five songs, she had polished her performance, all while handling a ton of other work. With the help of her instructors and the other group members, she had committed herself to her singing and dancing practice more rigorously than ever before, staying late after hours in the studio to check every last movement, down to her fingertips and gaze. All to ensure she wouldn’t slip up like last time—to remove any unnecessary elements and nuances from her narrative. It took weeks of effort on her part, but the fans wouldn’t receive the latest chapter of her story until the day of the concert.
Generally speaking, Julia chose not to openly discuss her training regimen or work struggles. Instead, she conveyed it indirectly through other group members. For instance, when Ran took a selfie, Julia would sometimes be in the background writing lyrics with a pensive look on her face, or sometimes Sakuna would “secretly” record a video of Julia dancing by herself and post it publicly.
In her opinion, boasting about hard work didn’t always come across as flattering, depending on the person. For Sakuna or Maki, showing off their blood, sweat, and tears would seem natural and probably lead to good PR. Conversely, Julia’s passion and sincerity became easier to swallow when her efforts were “discovered” through the lens of a third party. Most people wanted something that felt pure. From that perspective, silly as it was, it made sense to choose the most efficient methods with which to craft her storylines.
Recently, she had restricted herself to only posting the bare minimum on social media. This must have aided in directly conveying her commitment to her performance, because comments about the old video had become less frequent. In response to her “good morning” tweets, she received nothing but praise, well wishes, and excitement for the upcoming concert.
Because of this, she didn’t fully approve of the movie etiquette skit. She would have told them there was no reason to bring it back up, but she was never given the opportunity for debate. She only agreed on the basis that management had a plan in place, and since it ended up getting some laughs, she decided to try and accept it, even if doubt still lingered in her chest.
During the concert, the past few weeks of focus paid off. Her body was filled with tension for the entirety of her performance, but even under these limiting circumstances, she felt she’d displayed improvement in her voice and carriage.
When the talk show started, she braced herself for whatever question was about to come her way. Thankfully, they selected something much more normal than she was dreading, and she barely needed to dig through the annals of her mind before finding an answer. With the aid of some battle-ready nuances, the words flowed smoothly from her lips.
They were told there was a time limit on their use of the theater green room once the event was done, so they got changed, packed up their things, and headed out. Taking the staff elevator to the first floor, the seven members walked outside and piled into the Toyota HiAces waiting for them right there at the curb. Their destination was the studio located in this very district.
A few minutes later they arrived at the building, rode the elevator up, and set all of their stuff down in the mirror-walled practice room. Meanwhile, another car arrived with their manager and the other staff.
Like always, the seven girls formed a circle on the floor. While the adults were getting situated, Ao raised her hand to start things off.
“Jul, don’t you think you were a little too stiff?”
Though her name was called, Julia didn’t respond right away.
“I just mean like, if your energy is a ten at your absolute best, and the time you messed up was like an eight, it felt like this time you were at a twelve. Just a thought I had. Oh, and Towako, how much did that violin cost, anyway?”
“Does it matter?! I’ve only ever shown off one of them, and it’s not even worth ten million yen!”
The adults in the room snickered out loud, while everyone else save for Julia (and Towako herself) reacted with shock.
“It’s Gran-gran and Paw-paw’s money, anyway. More importantly, I did sense that Jul was worked up tonight, but I didn’t think it was out of character.”
“Yeah, I mean, there have been times where she acts stressed on purpose, so it’s nothing we haven’t seen before…but that all depends on whether she meant to do it.”
Julia wasn’t sure how to answer that. As far as she could see, choosing her words at this juncture would serve no purpose other than self-defense, so she shook her head. “No, it wasn’t intentional. I did feel tenser than usual, but I was aiming for my regular best, the way Ao described.”
“I thought so. It’s just a vibe I got, but like…hmmm. Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, but it felt like you were sort of…programmed. Do you get what I mean?”
“More or less.”
“I thought it was just me, but Towako felt it too, so maybe it was only obvious to us on stage?”
Ao looked around at the members and staff who had yet to give their opinion on the subject. To be clear, she wasn’t trying to be harsh. They held these postmortems after each concert, and it was a chance for the whole team to give candid feedback. One by one, the other members offered their thoughts.
“To me she felt eager, but not in a bad way. After what happened last time, I think it’s good that she came out swinging way harder than usual,” said Sakuna.
“I agree. Barely anyone in that crowd was a first-timer, so I suspect they knew the context,” said Ran.
“Seems like the harder you try to be perfect, the worse you end up doing. It can be really frustrating,” said Maki.
“I remember thinking I needed to match her energy, so I must have felt it too,” said Mei.
Their manager Shinogi, who had served as the announcer for today’s event and watched the concert from the back row of the auditorium, raised her hand slightly. “I think even the crowd could tell that her every movement was polished. But like Sakuna, I don’t think it came across negatively. How did you feel you were projecting yourself to them, Jul?”
Again, there was no reason to play coy. “It was my first experience performing for a fully seated crowd, so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think I heard any complaining like last time.”
In a room the size of a movie auditorium, and with proper lighting, even Julia— someone who couldn’t drive a car without glasses on—was able to see all the way to the back row. Though she obviously couldn’t memorize all her fans’ faces, she had quickly spotted a few who regularly attended VIP pre-shows, and they seemed happy.
“The regulars looked like they were having fun, which was great to see. But I’m going to keep in mind that there might be some who felt what Ao felt. I want them to see my enthusiasm, not me being pushed to my limit.”
The first sentence was one hundred percent sincere, while the rest was closer to fifty. Even if Ao was completely right, as long as the fans were seeing Gotou Julia the way they were meant to, then today’s mindset was the correct choice. And even if this performance had been somewhat excessive, she still needed to step up to the plate—because in the weeks since the previous concert, she had sensed she was one backstep away from plummeting to her doom. She didn’t have room to pull back any further.
“By the way, Ao, wasn’t there a moment where you nearly mixed up the song order?”
With this stray comment from Sakuna, the focus of the postmortem moved away from Julia.
“Ugh, you noticed? Yeah, I tried to play it off, but…my bad.”
Ao craned her head back, then used the momentum to spring forward into a bow. In response, the staff began to coach her. Despite her excessive arrogance, she was at least willing to take feedback if it meant improving her stage performance. After two or three comments on the choreography, the meeting came to an end.
Since none of the members had other work scheduled today, they recorded a video of themselves participating in a game of President as a treat for the fans. Ran ended up losing and, as punishment, was ordered to introduce herself to the camera in a silly voice until she hunched over in embarrassment. After that, they were all free to go.
While Ao and Towako packed up and headed out, Julia went to their manager to request the talk show questions the fans had submitted for her today. Normally, things of this nature were bundled with fan letters and mailed directly to her house.
“Okay, but I’ve already weeded out the weird ones.”
“I’d like those too, please, just in case.”
And so Julia added the small number of filtered messages back to the stack. Since the staff still had work to do, she decided to stay behind and read through her surveys. To avoid getting in anyone’s way, she moved to the corner of the room, sat down with her knees bent, and started to flip through.
For the most part, alongside a variety of questions, the fans had expressed positive feelings or words of encouragement. Some of the names she recognized from social media. One person had even included a little doodle of her, which made her smile. But most of all, none of these made mention of Julia’s non-idol aspects, and it truly felt like the past few weeks of purposeful action had paid off.