Yumenashi-sensei no Shinroshidou - Vol. 2 Ch. 8 - Aspiration: Male Idol Part 3

[Fallenstreet01]

Interestingly, this is actually far from being the worst scenario: the company is not exploiting nor toxic, his partners are friendly and encouraging and he's being paid upfront for his work. Sure, it's such a small place with so little revenue that it barely qualifies as idol business, but it's still far better than what I thought it would be.

Now let's see the final nail fall on his coffin and see him realize the reality of his dream.

 

[Beregorn]

I'd add that the machine being out of order also alludes to the fact that high-stakes career choices have an enormous component of sheer luck, implying that no matter how hard Ryo's trying, the necessary factors may not align for him to make a breakthrough. The pyramid nature of the idol profession makes that clear, too.

It's interesting because there've been a couple books, like The Tyranny of Merit (written by a philosopher) and Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy (written by an economist) exposing the idea that meritocracy is fair and that working hard takes you there as the cock-and-bull story it is. Just like Ryo, there are lots of young men and women working as hard as they can, only a tiny minority will make it, through no fault of their own.

Well, that's exactly what Takanashi has told him. He can't say he wasn't warned. But like Takanashi said in the showdown with Kirigaya, Natsuno's young: he will make mistakes. Takanashi is probably fully aware he's behind the thrashing of his plant pots, so if he's willing to forgive that, so am I, though I still want Natsuno knocked down a couple pegs.

Like for the voice actress: when she sticked to her skills, the one that put out got insanely famous, when she put out she got shitty jobs...

 

[ShaiHH]

The one thing I find very funny about him here is, that he never actually went to an underground Event before, probably too convinced he'd make it into a big agency immediately.
They are small, average audience for the better ones around 30 people, but there's so many groups performing that there might be just 4 people there to see yours. Pays next to nothing, so at best it's a part-time Job and making it out of Underground is not something many groups or individual Idols achieve.
The bigger groups maybe able to fill clubs with 500 people for a yearly one-man live. Otherwise it's the grind at 4-6 of the small Events per week.

The pictures he's looking down on, are a major component of the earnings of the group.