You are now reminded that Shin Shou killed Wake Up, Girls!
Yamakan's bitter tears and hard work built an idol unit that would be different. It would be one to confront the nature of the prevailing units such as AKB48 that treated it's girls like livestock. He would craft a story for them about coming together from nothing and rising to the top, supported by their otaku. It would be a story both showing the true appeal of idols as opposed to the spartan lifelessness in the current popular units and the passion of the otaku and their role in supporting the Cinderella unit. A tale that encompassed the whole of the idol culture, on stage and off, in a way that has never been done before. He would show the full picture of what it meant to be an idolfag.
He would show how the girls come together out of nothing to create a miracle for a short night, garner support, and become a great unit for the fans that stayed with them from the moment they were enchanted by that miracle.
He would show how the fans come together to support the girls that could perform miracles, protecting them against the hardships of being on a stage and firing each other up.
He would show how each of the two groups support each other to create spiritually transformative experiences for them both.
In more ways than one, it was a story that mirrored his own and is full of self-fulfillment. Where WUG desperately tried to carve their own path into an industry that did everything in it's power to keep them down, Yamakan would carve his own studio out of the dejected artists the industry threw aside. Where their first project, Fractale, failed to garner more than a core dedicated fanbase much like Tachiagare did in WUG, Yamakan would continue to push forward with Ordet, his own idol unit fighting against history's tide.
I'm reminded of a post from back when WUG first aired by an anon, "He didn't get to save anime, but now maybe at least he can save idols". I'm not sure if that anon even knew how Yamakan saw both the idol industry and the anime industry limping along in the same way together, but the post was poignant enough to stick in my mind.
In the end of his story, WUG would triumph in these chaotic times, becoming top idols. However, real life would not be as fulfilling. Ordet tapered off and eventually fell off the map. Whether it was not enough effort (from the idols) or not enough support (from the fans), who can say, but Ordet is no more and the staff went their own ways, Yamakan himself leaving to focus on his magnus opus.
WUG had another anime from a different studio and it was so bad that they announced their disbandment as an idol unit immediately after. Their final time as WUG will be until March 2019.
Just like the former Ordet staff went off into the industry on their own paths, the WUG girls will be walking off into their own different paths as seiyuu. But that time when they were all together, staring the cold industry dead in the face and challenging it to move for them will burn into eternity as a moment of beauty and fire.
Exactly like in that night of miracles where girls shined on stage with grace and men shouted with their love below.