Message From Planet C: An Introduction to Queen & Elizabeth

[You are receiving a transmission from Planet C! Do not contact your Internet Service Provider! We have entrusted our ambassador, Courtney-seijin, with providing you with semi-regular updates on idols, magical girls and sad old men consumed by a desire for vengeance. Please stand by.]

We have been monitoring the radio waves form your planet and have recently noticed that the anime, Fuuto PI, is available to stream on Crunchyroll. As this show functions as a sequel to an earlier entry in Toei’s longstanding Kamen Rider series, Kamen Rider W (2009), I have been appointed to provide you with valuable context regarding the presence of the main characters’ regular informants, Queen and Elizabeth.

Unvoiced in the anime, yet occasionally glimpsed providing our protagonists, Shoutaro and Philip, with details relating to their cases, Queen and Elizabeth were portrayed in the original source material by members of pop group, AKB48, Itano Tomomi and Kasai Tomomi, respectively.

It is impossible to impress upon you know how important AKB48 was as a cultural phenomenon in Japan at the time. Like any big business, it was once believed that AKB48 were ‘too big to fail,’ so entrenched were they in pop culture that their presence became synonymous with the idea of the idol industry at the height of their popularity. Members of the first and second generations of AKB48 at the time Kamen Rider W aired, Itano and Kasai were regularly at the centre of the group’s most popular members—not the centre, that’s some dangerous idol fandom terminology right there, but at the centre. It made sense then, what with the group’s popularity, that sooner or later, Toei would take a stab at the time honoured tradition of cross promotion… and that this time honoured tradition would bless us with the unparalleled majesty of the single, Love♡Wars.

Key things to note when interacting with AKB48 fans: Love♡Wars, wonderful as it is, is not considered an actual AKB song. It was not performed during theatre performances, tours, or eligible for votes during fan concerts. The reason for this is the absence of producer, Akimoto Yasushi, who is responsible for writing the lion’s share of lyrics for the group’s releases. Yet whilst the song is not deemed official by the strictest definition of AKB purists, what it is considered to be, in the parlance of local younger people, is ‘a banger.’

Full of life and energy, Love♡Wars adds colour to the world inhabited by the characters, it adds contextual detail to the setting of the story, and, more than anything, it charms the listener. Kamen Rider W and main series screenwriter, Sanjo Riku, are often praised for the richness of the story’s setting and, whilst this song and the presence of our two teenage informants are but small details, they are important ones, something I believe is worth dwelling upon here. Although dismissed by many of our contacts on your planet during the time of the song’s release, whilst often considered an oddity by later fans of Toei’s franchise, your correspondent remembers standing wide eyed at the magazine racks of the Japan Centre in central London, staring at glossy photographs and text declaring the single’s release and thinking that surely this was a watershed for both idols and Toei’s tokusatsu shows. Sadly, it did not prove to be as such for either of fandom, and yet the richness of that memory persists and is this that has spurred us now to make contact with you in such a fashion.

So popular were Queen and Elizabeth in this series, that in May 2022, Transport for London officially opened the Elizabeth Line in honour of them. (Disclaimer: this may not actually be true).

Whilst a second season of the anime has not yet been confirmed, it is worth noting that Kamen Rider W is experiencing something of a renaissance right now, with Sanjo’s original Fuuto Tantei manga continuing, and 2022 seeing the debut of a new stage play based on the story and a further continuation in the video game, KAMEN RIDER: memory of heroez, released the same year. With both Kasai and Itano still active in the entertainment industry and both affiliated with the same agency, it is not inconceivable that should a second season be announced, this time we might see them both reprise their roles in a more substantial manner—and if not, your loyal correspondent here has a partial suggestion: Ueda Kana, who voiced Itano’s fictional descendent, Itano Tomoyo, in the 2012 anime, AKB∞48. That, dear friends, is perhaps a story for another time.

On a semi-regular basis now, I hope to make contact with you about further issues relating to idols in tokusatsu and the colourful history of this interplay. Please stand by for further transmissions.

Would you like to see a second season of Fuuto PI? Are you excited for more Messages from Planet C? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!