Last week, the Fuji TV newsmagazine "Mr. Sunday" looked at Korean pop's success in Japan from two angles. Taking a street-level perspective, the show's host, Seiji Miyane, hung out in Tokyo's Okubo district, which has become "the new Harajuku" because young Japanese women flock there to rub up against Korean culture. Miyane interviewed a group called KINO (K-pop IN Okubo), made up of young Korean men who learned Japanese and then came to Japan on their own to become stars. They don't have a management deal yet, but given the enthusiasm of the female fans who pack their small-venue shows, it's only a matter of time.
For a loftier perspective, Miyane attended rehearsals for the 21-member boy band A-Peace, the main attraction at a new theater in Ebisu offering K-pop all the time. If this sounds like a rip-off of Exile or the AKB48 formula, then you're probably new to the discussion. The Japanese pop faithful like to point out how much K-pop owes its senpai (senior), in terms of its business model, without mentioning how much further K-pop has taken it. Whether or not A-Peace's routines are more accomplished than those of any comparable J-pop group (they are) is less important than the fact that the members' average height is 185cm. How tall is SMAP's Takuya Kimura?
K-pop is out to conquer the world, whereas J-pop has never even applied for a passport. The popularity that Japanese music enjoys elsewhere in Asia, including Korea, has been achieved passively. Korean talent agencies are aggressive. The kind of economic power they aim for can't be achieved only in Korea. They have to expand outward, and the first country they target is Japan.