BeBoy Kidnapp'n Idol
Reviewer: Wiggle [website] [email]Overall Rating: D
Media Reviewed: Digital Fansub
Creator: Kazumi Ohya
U.S. Licensed: No
Released by: Toshiba EMI
Run time: 25 minutes
BL Content: Very soft (brief touching, kissing)
Genre: Romance
Other media: Unknown
In my personal quest to acquire and view every piece of animation featuring boy's love, I was very excited once I finally got my hands on BeBoy Kidnapp'n Idol. I knew from summaries that it was about an idol singer kidnapped in order to be molested by a freaky music producer, which sounded like a great premise. With visions of a reverse Zetsuai, I fired up my Quicktime to enjoy this 25-minute mini-movie.
The summaries I found hadn't lied, at least. The Idol in question is Kazuya, a 16-year-old popular idol singer with the requisite load of female fans and the expected lack of real enthusiasm about his career. Rather than rehearse or sign autographs, Kazuya would rather play video games with his friend Akihiko. Akihiko is predictably quieter and more violent than the sweet and carefree Kazuya, yet protective of him despite the arguments they get into. Are these characters sounding familiar yet? It's the standard formula that many yaoi manga are born from, but Kidnapp'n Idol doesn't do anything new or unexpected with it. The two boys have a fight and Akihiko confesses his attraction to Kazuya with one lone kiss.
The "Kidnapp'n" part of this short film comes when a strange record executive takes a liking to the freshfaced young Kazuya, and instructs a "muscle" employee to acquire the new idol for him. Ostensibly, Kazuya is kidnapped in order to make a new record deal with this executive's company, but it's really a thin deception to cover up for the creepy man's lust for Kazuya. Neither the executive nor the professional thug are given names in the anime. The executive is a weird, pale redhead resembling a very washed-out Goth Ronald MacDonald and lacks any characterization whatsoever. The thuggish employee, however, is the one bright spot in the anime. He has a cool attitude and even helps Akihiko rescue Kazuya, displaying a definite interest in Akihiko.
With a short duration and dull plot, there's really nothing to distinguish Kidnapp'n Idol from the other shounenai plots of best friends falling in love. Lesson XX and Our Road of No Return both pull off this cliche with more interesting characters and a more engaging plot. BeBoy Kidnapp'n Idol looks like a mediocre beginning to a story that should be a lot longer, and hopefully involves the unnamed record company enforcer to a greater degree. As it stands, without a longer story to pad the thin plot, this short movie has very little to recommend it to even the most devout of boy's love fans.