[News] Johnny’s Starting to Hold Back KPop?

There are signs of Johnny’s, Japan’s mecca for male idol groups, starting to hold K-pop in check.

A source said on 18 June, “Johnny’s, a company managing mostly male groups, is feeling uncomfortable about Korean male groups’ venture into Japan. They started putting pressure on TV programs in a special liaison with Johnny’s.”

Johnny’s is Japan’s representative management company. It owns most of male idol groups such as Arashi, Kinki Kids, Kanjani8, and Kat-Tun. They were alert to the Korean girl groups’ venture into Japan and started to show signs of holding back the Kpop boom at the rush of Kpop  male groups.

Korean male groups are actually having difficulty in making appearances on TV compared to girl groups such as KARA and SNSD.

A source related to a male group said, “It’s nothing new. It has been like that from the time DBSK did their activities in Japan. We anticipated it. What’s surprising is that Kpop has grown so much to make them try to hold it in check.”

source: Sport Hankooki

I think there are so many difficulties for male Korean groups to debut in Japan, and I hope SHINee will have good prognosis for this Japanese debut, just like DBSK (=^,^=)