Yoko Tanaka (Mika Kanai) is a 14 year old girl from rural Shibuya who's always dreamed of becoming an Idol Singer. To make her dream come true, she travels to Tokyo to make her debut. While on the train, she encounters Saki Yamamori (Megumi Hayashibara), a girl near her age who's run away from home and is also headed to Tokyo. The two decide to become famous together, and there begins a great journey.
Ashi Production's second major idol-themed work after Idol Densetsu Eriko, it is based on the life of Yoko Tanaka, who was a part of the agency HoriPro and won various awards and nominations left and rights at music festivals in Japan. She was a starlet in making, and the anime was made to promote her popularity.
In Japan, the anime is infamous for the disastrous Troubled Production that went in it's making, the disagreements behind the scenes, the bizarre writing as a result of Shudo commissioning random writers to finish the scripts and the ugly fights between the staff and the sponsors that resulted in financial discrepancies. Even Yoko Tanaka has stated that she received a lot of stress from the series. On the Japanese Wikipedia page for the anime, the sections about the controversy are even longer than the sections about the anime itself. The anime was put out of it's misery when Shudo defied the wishes of the sponsors and toy manufacturers and went along with his own artistic vision. One by one, sponsors and toy manufacturers started pulling out and the funding had to be cut, while episode drafts had to be re-arranged. What happened next was Ashi Productions being the subject of mass scrutiny and demands of requitals from investors.
The material that didn't manage to make it to the anime (as a result of it being Cut Short) would later be repurposed to make Magical Princess Minky Momo.
Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko contains examples of:
- The '90s: World War II is mentioned to have happed "45 years ago", which places this story in 1990. Though you can tell anyway because of how the characters sing and dress.
- Adjective Noun Fred: Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko. Though she's not an angel, she certainly is an idol.
- Ambiguous Situation: In the Distant Finale, Future!Yoko is nowhere to be seen. Her friends and associates, who are now old, are looking at her fondly on their TV screens, even though she's young. Are they thinking about how she inspired them from an early age? Or did the worst possible option happen?
- Anime Hair: Not just the titular character, who's pigtails are so massive they resemble a heart behind her head, but at least half the cast whether they're recurring or one-time characters have hair that encapsulates their entire head and covers part of their face, come in all sorts of shapes and colours, and are unaffected by wind and water.
- Beta Couple: Kyoko and her boyfriend, who she has to hide because of
Contractual Purity. There's no "alpha" couple, even if Yoko and Saki are a case of Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. - Celebrity Cameo: Madonna, Micheal Jackson and Mick Jagger appear
◊ in one episode. - Christmas Episode: In the Christmas episode, Yoko reveals that she believes in Santa Claus, but Saki says she'd rather receive a gift from a boyfriend than Santa. It also doubles as a Green Episode since the girls visit a farm and are told that if they don't take care of the environment, Earth's oxygen levels will fall 3% by 2020.
- Coming of Age Story: Both Yoko and Saki are tender-aged young girls who leave their homes to forge their own destiny in metropolitan Tokyo. Because of their innocence and Country Mouse upbringings, they face Culture Clashes and are seen as outsiders, but do their best to become famous like they wanted to while overcoming their own insecurities.
- Costume Porn: Given how Saki is an actress and works at a theater company, this is a given. Many times, her and the crew wear elaborate outfits, especially in their Mary Poppins adaptation.
- Creator's Culture Carryover: One episode centers WW2 being told from the Japanese point of view. The term "Great Tokyo Air Raid" is used to describe the events of 9-10 March 1945, when in the US it's called "Operation Meetinghouse".
- Creator Provincialism: Believe it or not, this anime was originally set in London (where Takeshi Shudō lived for a while). However, since the rest of the staff weren't familiar with it, this was changed to Japan, particularly Shibuya and Tokyo.
- Cut Short: It was originally slated for 60 episodes, but the ugly squabbles behind the scenes led to the eventual output being 43.
- Distant Finale: We see the finale fifty years later. Kyoko is still trying to be an idol despite her old age, and fondly reminisces about her old friend Yoko, who changed her to a better person. However, Yoko herself is never seen - her fate is left ambigious to the viewer.
- Fanservice: Bare legs against frilly skirts, bunny-suit style spandexes with furs, skin-tight costumes that show sideboobs and sexy santa outfits note are just SOME of the sort of things the female leads wear.
- Flowers of Romance: Mu once tries to woo a female flying squirrel by giving her a flower.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: Yoko is enamoured with the Indian-style drawing of the sun at the restaurant and later finds out that she really likes Indian curry.
- A God Am I: One episode has Yoko encounter a boy who calls himself the God of Shibuya. He turns out to be very nice and they go on a date together.
- Gratuitous English:
- Some signs are in English (like the opening/closed signs of the ice cream shop) despite the work taking place in Japan.
- Actually a plot point in one episode - Riko wants to become a Broadway star, but to do that she must be proficient in English. Problem is, she's Book Dumb...
- Green Aesop: Mr. Daichi mourns that lush greenery is disappearing from Shibuya and fears that in the future, Earth will be near unrecognizable to new generations. He tells Yoko and Saki to always think of the Earth and nature.Daichi: "Starting with a single drop of rain, plants, animals, and all living things must work together.''
- Head Pet: Mu enjoys sitting on Yoko's head or on her shoulder.
- Hope Spot: In the first episode, Yoko and Saki realize that if they band together, there's a chance their talents can carry both of them to success. It doesn't take long for them to find a talent manager afterwards.
- Kids Driving Cars: Yutaka is 16, and drives a fancy car to reflect his status as the heir of the wealthy Takudaiji conglomerate family. Ryo also drives a 40cc bike despite his age.
- Leg Focus: In spite of being fourteen, Yoko and Saki wear racy costumes that show off their legs, and go through near-pornographic territory with some of their outfits. Example.
- Lighter and Softer: Yokoso Yoko lacks the Break the Cutie melodrama of Eriko, and is more of a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things sort of show. Though there's one dark episode dedicated to the fatalies of Operation Meetinghouse during World War 2 in Japan.
- Medium Blending: In the intro, we see live-action footage of Yoko Tanaka juxtaposed with her animated counterpart, the fictional Yoko-sa. The anime is actually based on her life and she sang the OP. See here.
- Merchandise-Driven: Before the anime aired, the sponsors produced many Yoko-themed merchandise, but Saki proved to be more popular and beloved by audiences. Shudo was told to tone her appearances down and promote Yoko more (even though she was already the main character). He refused, so they threatened to quit funding. And this is just the tip of the Troubled Production iceberg.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Yoko (voiced by Mika Kanai) is based on Yoko Tanaka.
- Saki (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) is based on Sachiyo Takihana, a Real Life stage actress who was Mika Kanai's best friend at the time of airing. The two were co-workers for years and Takihana actually wrote some of the anime's episodes herself.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Subverted. Mu is a flying squirrel, but he has a ruffle of blue hair on his head, and in one episode he falls for a female flying squirrel who has purple hair.
- Product Placement: An In-Universe example happens when Yoko is asked to be the face of a curry brand. Since she's never had curry before, President Yamashita takes her to a restuarant so she can try different flavours.Yoko: Wow♪ All of a sudden, my mouth feels like India♪! Wow, that's spicy!"...
- Recycled Soundtrack: Budget strains meant that original music for the show couldn't be commisioned, hence many songs from Idol Densetsu Eriko being re-used.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Yoko's pet flying squirrel, Mu. He looks like a walking ball of fluff.
- Rotating Protagonist: Though Yoko is who the story centers around, many episodes take a detour from her to focus on the other idols in the business, her friends, and their lives.
- Sensual Spandex: A good chunk of the girl's outfits are stripperiffic and show off their bodies, especially their legs. Yoko, being the main character, gets a lot of scenes where she's wearing an Age-Inappropriate Dress to her audience.
- Shared Universe: With Idol Densetsu Eriko. Ichijuin from that anime appears as Kyoko's manager.
- Shown Their Work: In episode 7, we see a statue of the faithful dog Hachiko in Shibuya.
- Shoujo: The "young girl with big dreams" kind, with a dash of Fish out of Water, The Power of Friendship and Idol Singer.
- Shout-Out:
- At one point a gigantic advertisement of Madonna is seen in the center of the city.
- The finale is called "Alice In the Wonderful City".
- Tareme Eyes: Every character is drawn with this style, and the ones that don't fall into Non-Standard Character Design. Contrast to the predecessor anime Idol Densetsu Eriko where only Eriko (and occasionally, Kazuki) have these eyes.
- Token White: Johnny, an American who came to Japan to study music.
- War Is Hell: The elderly have horrible memories of the Allies' attacks to Japan in 1945, marked by mass civilian death and families being separated. Children got the worst part of the deal, watching their parents die and growing up with severe trauma.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Yoko has bright pastel pink hair tied into drills, and Saki has blue hair in a Hime Cut. Along the way they meet characters with cyan, purple and green hair.
