Last week, Japanese talent agency Yoshimoto Kogyo and South Korea's CJ E&M announced a new talent competition TV show for Japan, set to debut later this year. And it's not just another program to fill up the back end of 2019, but will be a test case to see if the traditional power structures of male idol music in Japan can be shaken.
"Produce 101 Japan" aims to bring the popular Korean program "Produce 101" to this country. The original debuted in 2016, gathering 101 women at various levels of the country's entertainment industry together and getting them to compete for 11 spots in a new pop outfit.
The biggest twists setting this apart from other televised talent competitions? The fact that people from any talent agency in the nation could enter, and that viewers at home determined the winners by voting via smartphone and the internet.