Kpop + Japanese Kawaii Culture = a New Type of Idols?

Even a casual purveyor of Japanese pop culture would be familiar with the concept of "kawaii." Loosely translated as "cute," it introduces a certain immature, baby-like naughtiness to everything from interior design to the pages of comic books, reflecting a nation often obsessed with seeking out both physical and mental youth even in the twilight years. Nowhere is kawaii more apparent than in the designs of female girl bands, or "idol groups" in the local parlance, that often consist of teens in matching uniforms dancing in sync to bubblegum pop songs about first love and growing up to leave adolescence behind. 

The musical tradition of Japanese idol groups stands in great contrast to "Kpop," the tradition of South Korean boy and girl-bands that have gone global in recent years. Years of grueling training before debut endow members of Kpop groups with a sense of professional maturation in ways that Japanese idol groups lack, and their desire to desire to be seen as adult professionals in the music industry lend to songs and dances that emphasize sexiness, heartbreak, and even social inequality, all of which Japanese idol groups are often keen to avoid. Even music industry insiders for years, considered these two music traditions to be polar opposites.

Yet, recent trends in the Japanese pop music industry have shown that there are efforts to reconcile the two distinct genres to create a new, more middle-of-the-path. Much of the new movement stems from more aggressive efforts to enter the Japanese markets by major Kpop producers who work with local partners to co-produce entirely new groups only for the Japanese markets. Some of the more successful recent ones, like NiziU with the involvement of JYP Entertainment, and J01, with an interest from CJ Entertainment, sing in Japanese and have mostly Japanese members, but are trained in the Kpop way.

The resulting collaborations are not a wholesale introduction of the Kpop genre into Japan. Kpop bands that had a foothold in the Japanese markets in the past years have done so by doing the same dances and songs they do in Korea, only dubbing everything into the Japanese language. The raw sexiness and professional synchronization of their dances won over some Japanese audiences but prevented them from accessing the fanatic, high-spending idol group followers that often drive pop culture consumption in Japan. Once the Kpop boom subsided, they found themselves financially volatile in a competitive market.

The solution, for Kpop producers, is to create new groups that are not only more Japanese in memberships, but in musical orientation. The overt sexiness of Kpop groups is taken out in favor of the girl- or boy-next-door look, with members not individuals to be worshipped, but with flaws that consumers can easily relate to an individual level. These tactics, used for decades by idol group producers, are now being introduced into new idol groups with a Kpop flare. The result of this trend is a group of musicians who do music like Kpop but behave like traditional Japanese idols.

It is a bold bet on the part of the collaborating Japanese and Korean producers, not just from a music perspective. Many of the traditional fans of Japanese idol groups are now in their middle age when political sensitivity to issues like the often rocky Japan-Korea relations become greater. As idol-followers ostentatiously reject Kpop for its Korean origin, it remains to be seen that these new girl- and boy-bands with both Japanese and Korean genes will earn their love. They could be labeled sellouts to a foreign culture and not achieve the original intent to penetrate the market for idol groups that Kpop has yet to break into.

It also speaks to the uniqueness and the continuing allure of the Japanese music market, despite decades of stagnancy. Kpop has conquered everything from the Grammys in the US to the depth of the African hinterlands, but that is often done so simply through translation, rather than brand new groupings and productions. The fact that taking the Japanese market requires the extra efforts of co-productions shows that the investment is both necessary to get a significant following and that it is still worth the cost, given the size of the potential revenues. 

It says much about the Japanese pop music industry that was the envy of Asia until the late 90s or so but has since been rapidly eclipsed by Kpop. Kpop producers are now able to export their musical models abroad because they now have a system for replicating the genre, including the dance training, the looks, and the musical composition, fully detached from Korean culture. Japanese idol producers, however, remained wedded to the idea of kawaii being uniquely Japanese, making their overseas efforts only attractive to a declining number of musical Japanophiles. New Japan-Korea co-production of idol groups in Japan will not shift this overall trend.