Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

Karaoke Iko! | Let's Go Karaoke is a coming-of-age comedy manga by Yama Wayama, which was adapted into a five-episode anime series this year and a live-action movie in 2023. The manga also has an ongoing sequel series called Famiresu Iko | Let's Go to the Family Restaurant.

The story starts out with young teenager Oka Satomi living in Osaka and dealing with the stress of being the leader of his school choir right when his changing voice is forcing him out of the soprano role. His worries about the future are thrown an even bigger curve ball when he's approached (*cough* kidnapped) one day by a local gangster named Narita Kyouji who has watched him perform and has a request: teach him to be a better singer so he can win a karaoke contest.

Kyouji's in a jam. His boss has a love of both music and tattooing, and to keep his men in line, he holds a quarterly karaoke contest where the loser is volunteered for his amateur tattooing practice—usually getting an image the boss knows they'll hate. Kyouji is determined not to lose and, in a fit of bad decision-making he potentially can't even explain to himself, decides this choir boy will make a good tutor.

Satomi starts spending time with Kyouji at the local karaoke parlour, and the two bring out sides of each other that neither seems to be able to express in their separate lives. Things then come to a head as the school year finishes up and Satomi's final concert is scheduled for the same time as Kyouji's karaoke competition, with an unexpected event disrupting both performances.

The sequel manga, Famiresu Iko, picks up three years later, when Satomi is a university student in Tokyo working part-time at a restaurant. He's visited regularly by Kyouji, and the two have to figure out what a relationship looks like between them now that they're both adults while dealing with complications related to Kyouji's criminal affiliations and Satomi's desire for a normal life (or belief that he should desire a normal life).

The premise of the series is enjoyably absurd, but the story is also rooted in reality in the right places, with strong characterizations and a good dose of feelings in there amid all of the ridiculous and dry humour. And admittedly, I'm just obsessed with Kyouji and Satomi's dynamic. Anyone who knows me knows what a sucker I am for two people who have nothing in common on the surface, who are both a little off or out of touch with themselves, but who somehow fit together in an unexpected way.

The series isn't marketed as BL, but queerness runs through the series and adaptations in both textual and subtextual ways that I'll put under the cut.

( Spoilery and Speculative Rundowns of What's Going on Between Satomi and Kyouji in Each Version )

Karaoke Iko! (Manga)
( A Page from the Karaoke Iko Manga )

Famiresu Iko (Manga)
( A Page from the Famiresu Iko Manga )

Karaoke Iko! (Anime) Note: contains some animated blood splatter and rescue from implied attempted sexual assault.


Karaoke Iko! (Live-Action Movie