Alt-Idol

Alt-idol (alternative idol) is the Japanese idol movement that, from the early 2010s, rebuilt the idol format on underground aesthetics: black-metal, noise, shoegaze and punk production, transgressive stagecraft and lyrics about death, failure and alienation, sold through the same handshake-event idol economy. Founded in practice by *BiS*, launched in 2010 by *Pour Lui* and manager Junnosuke Watanabe, the movement expanded with *BiSH*, *Babymetal*'s parallel metal-idol breakthrough and hundreds of underground groups; Watanabe's agency #WACK#, founded in 2014, became its institutional centre.