This year, six K-pop groups will appear on NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen, the most notable program in the Japanese pop music industry. This is the largest team appearance ever.
According to the cast announced by Japan’s NHK Broadcasting on the 13th, six K-pop group teams, including Seventeen, Stray Kids, Le Seraphim, and Twice unit Misamo, Niju, and JO1, will appear in this year’s Red and White Song Battle, which will be aired on December 31.
Niju is a group under JYP Entertainment that released their first single album in Korea this October. JO1 is under Rapone Entertainment, established by CJ ENM in Japan, and was formed through CJ ENM’s audition program ‘Produce 101 Japan’. Although they are composed entirely of Japanese people, they are classified as a K-pop group as a music genre in Japan.
Although it is not as popular as it used to be, the Kohaku Uta Gassen is considered a ‘dream stage’ that every Japanese singer wants to stand on. In the 1980s, original Korean Wave stars such as Cho Yong-pil and Gye Eun-sook appeared, and in the 2000s, top Korean stars who gained popularity in Japan such as BoA, TVXQ, and Girls’ Generation appeared one after another. Afterwards, the appearance of Korean singers was rare for a while due to the deterioration of Korea-Japan relations and COVID-19, but last year, Twice, Le Seraphim, and Ive appeared.
The appearance of a large number of K-pop stars on Japan’s largest music program, Kohaku Uta Gassen, is interpreted as showing the high popularity of K-pop in Japan. Until last year, there was a lot of backlash, such as the spread of social media (SNS) posts asking, ‘Why are Korean singers appearing?’
In addition, the viewership rating of the Red and White Songfight, which once exceeded 80%, has recently fallen to the low 30% range, and the realistic judgment that the viewership rating will fall further if it does not attract Korean Wave fans also played a role.
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Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.