Pop idols are not only a Japanese phenomenon -- Britney Spears sells from Zurich to Zimbabwe -- but Japan produces more idols, of both sexes, than anywhere else in the world and has refined the idol aesthetic to an extreme. Japanese idols must be not only cute enough to make your teeth hurt, but everlastingly chipper and bright, with never a negative thought crossing their unfurrowed brows. Idols are permitted a bit of naughty sexuality -- the pouting of Ryoko Hirosue or the booty-shaking of Morning Musume -- but they are essentially wish projections of ideal youth.

Kyoko Koizumi, or Kyon Kyon as she is still universally known two decades after her debut, is among the most successful idols ever. When she was at her peak in the 1980s, it was impossible to open a newspaper or flip on a TV without seeing her perky 1,000-kilowatt smile.

Yet Koizumi's act was slyly subversive; as though she not only knew the idol gig was a sellout, but was letting us in on the joke. The trademark smile, which she varied about as much as a Mickey Mouse logo, expressed a complacency that bordered on contempt. "I'm giving you what you want," it seemed to say, "but that's all you're getting." The subtext was, "This is a silly way to make a living, isn't it? And I'm going to milk it for all its worth."