Informed by semi-structured interviews with Japanese fans of male and female idol groups, this paper focuses on the commodification of “immaturity” and idol development within Japanese idol fan practices, and examines them as potential key factors behind the formation of an “imagined community” (Anderson 1983) out of seemingly separate groups of idol fans.

The commodification of“immaturity is a unique phenomenon that can be observed in Japanese culture. Within traditional Japanese arts, audiences have enjoyed observing the process of growth and maturing of performers. They would support students with potential to become skilled performers while actively consuming their process of“becoming”. This phenomenon is illustrated in the “newcomer matches” in traditional sport sumo, where fans would be on the lookout for possible future star athletes.

In contemporary Japanese idol fan culture, a similar process can be observed as well. Idol groups (e.g. AKB48) organize election systems that become platforms for fans to observe and actively participate in the process of growing and training young idols.

Despite the wealth of literature on idol fan culture there has been little academic work undertaken on this process of commodifying“immaturity”, or the theoretical analysis of factors behind fan community formation methods. The purpose of this studyis to fill these gaps in our understanding of Japanese idols’ fan culture.

The results show that idols give fans an illusion of taking part in idols’growth and let fans consume their “immaturity” as a product , which in turn helps the formation of an imagined fan community.