Long title aside, I do genuinely believe that (good) foreign JP idol contents are rather hard to come by. Now, what do I exactly mean by good? Well without naming any sites, a good majority of JP idol contents that are out there can come off feeling rather same-y and boring. Obviously this is rather personal preferences, but in my opinion most of them tend to not purely idol-focused, have jack all content, no longer updated and/or just not really that good.
Not Purely Idol-Focused
By itself, this isn't really a bad thing since usually the content that these people are writing tend to also be related to JP culture, but if you're just viewing it in the lens of a JP idol enjoyer then they can feel rather annoying as you'd ended up being spammed by other things that you don't really care too much about. Sure JP culture is cool and all, but when you spend 8 posts going over JP culture for every 1 post of idols, then it's kinda a huge throw off for me.
Have Jack All Content
This mostly apply to blogs that are just starting up (like this one lol) that maybe seems cool & fun at first, but completely flop when you realised that the site itself only have like 5 write-ups at best. It isn't really the end of the world, but it's very much annoying especially when combined with other metric such as being abandoned, potentially due to lack of interest or commitment.
No Longer Updated
aka abandoned. They may possess fun or perhaps even high-quality content, but then completely nullified itself due to the fact that their last updated post was about 6-7 years ago.
Just Not Really That Good
While this sounds completely subjective, as stated before I do feel that most write-up can ended up sounding rather repetitive as most blogs tend to focus on idol groups that are more traditional over the more modernised, experimental groups that we have today. This by itself isn't really too bad of a thing as it's a personal preferences type of thing, but it sure would be nice if the groups that I like can get more write-up regarding them other than the rare occasional mentions. A lot of them also tend to have those JP idol terms/glossary which is nice, but when you realise that most sites don't really tell you all the terms as oppose to just the more popular one, then they just kinda become bit useless once you've grasp the general idea of the basic popular terms. The blogs may also have those “check out these underground idols” type of post which I'm not really too fond of since at the cost of sounding rather pretentious, I think that most people are too obsessed over wanting to find new & newer underground idols instead of enjoying the ones that they have already found. Sure some people may enjoy this kind of thing, but to me this kind of thing isn't really recommended for idols since idols aren't like your typical music artist. To me the charm of idols is less their dancing let alone their singing, but it's mostly the character traits and personalities of each member alongside the relationship that they have with their fans, thus by constantly jumping groups you aren't really fully able to appreciate the members as a result of you kinda treating them more as a musician over idols which is completely missing the mark of them being idols in the first place. In my opinion, a better way to word these kind of blog to be “hey, check out these 5 great idols that I like/found”, just outright remove the chika (underground) term from the blog, this will also allow you to recommend idols and groups that “veterans” may already know about.
Also don't get me stated on most JP idol videos on YouTube as most of the video essays in regard to them are just about the doom & gloom of the idol industry to which sure it can be shocking to find out about if you have zero idea regarding it, but now when your typical nobodies think of idol they'd think about all the bad things surrounding the idol industry instead of “haha cute funny girls doing twirls”. I'm not saying that we should completely ignore these issues altogether, but I just wish that more people would start shedding light onto how stupid fun JP idols are instead of always doomposting 24/7.
Conclusion
So really at the end of the day what can we do with all of this information? Well, if possible then I wish for more people to start their own YouTube channels and/or blog and actually start producing (good) content for JP idols. It is challenging and yes it can be hard, heck just look at this blog itself on the fact that it took me months just to upload a new post, but this honestly less of a busy issue and more of a lack of commitment/lazy issue. Thus, if you're reading this and you want to show the world as to why you love JP idols and why we too should start loving your groups, then you should start now. The write-up may be messy and bad at first, but it can't possibly be worse than not starting altogether. And as for the people out there that can't really afford the time nor money to start a site or YouTube channels dedicated to JP idols, then the least you can do is to check out the group(s) that the author of the blog/YT channel love, even better if you can shoot them an email regarding it, anything just to show support to their creator.
Most importantly, if you've created content for JP idols and think that it's something that everyone should see, then be sure to contact me. Even if I don't wound up giving it a shoutout on my site, it can at least be something fun that we can talk about.
What Does This Mean for the Site
I'll be re-branding osshoi.com as a purely JP idols-centric site. While I'm aware that I might just ended up making an example out of a xkcd comic, I do still think that it'd be nice to give it a go regardless. I can't promised fast & quick idol updates (or even a lot of updates at all), but I'll at least strive to make them fun at the very least.