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Girls Generation in Japan

The Korean pop group Girls Generation came to Tokyo last week to give their first Japan concert. Thousands of fans attended their performances and they got a lot of media coverage:

A few interesting things about them:

Fans seem to really like their legs and their dancing.
They have translated their group name into Japanese and use the kanji “少女時代” instead of something written in katakana.
They have one song in Japanese (“Genie“), and it looks like some of them can speak a little bit of Japanese.
Most of their fans are young women, but they do find one older guy who has turned his daughter into a fan. “Death Note” Director Shusuke Kaneko is also a fan.

Oh, and here is a screen capture of some American fangirls who were featured in the report. They said they met each other on the internet, so maybe there’s a chance they might stumble across this post. Here you go:

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30 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - September 3, 2010 at 8:38 am

Categories: Celebrity News, Foreigners in Japan Tags:

saketoba

Who is this!?
俺、アイドルに興味無いから大ブームなんて知らなかったよｗ

韓国人が音楽関係に使うお金は年間平均にして300円程度だそうで。どおりで韓国人アイドルが日本に良く来る
わけだ。本国じゃ商売にならんよね。アメリカにも良く行ってコンサート開くけど、観客のほとんどは在米韓国人ら
しい。この集まったファンとやらに「十五円五十銭」って発音させてみたら？
Stop Idling

I like all kinds of music, but this is not….fun maybe, but gets boring real quick….before TV and music videos, music was based on your singing or musician talent, but now its all about the superficial look….

Montsan

I completely agree with your sentiment but there was plenty of fluff music being produced “back in the good ol’ days” – most of which has been lost because, well, it sucked. Television may have placed a greater emphasis on physical appearance and our current media-swamped culture has certainly exasperated the techniques of publicity, but pretty artists lacking musical talents are really nothing new. What has changed is that it has become much easier and cheaper to publicize oneself and the media and entertainment outlets have a significantly larger quota to fill (i.e. content is no longer limited to daily/weekly/monthly print publications from well-established companies).

Now I have to be honest and say that I haven’t heard any of the music from “Girls Generation” and can’t really criticize their talents right now, but I do have a distaste for the factory line bands that place so much emphasis on style over substance that this group appears to embody. Although of course, like I just said, it’s really nothing new.

They do have very nice legs, though.
Jeffrey

Not in Japan. Pop music, for the most part, has never moved out of the late 1950s U.S. model of manufactured talent. Most of the idol singers who seem to dominate the charts (which are completely unreliable) and are seen performing on television, have been created by a talent agency and/or record label. Because radio formatting in Japan is even more restrictive than it is in the U.S. or the U.K., few independent or innovative acts ever get exposure. Also, videos really aren’t that big a deal in any music market any longer thanks to YouTube and the like. MTV in the U.S. hasn’t been about music for about twenty years.

“Live” television performances, concerts and radio are what drive the Japanese market.

T-rock

They are hot enough and have very nice legs

Richard

Unless they are crickets, they do not make music with those very nice legs. So why the pretense of music and concerts?

Maybe they could do a fashion show on a catwalk, or a synchronized swimming exhibition?

Zar

You’re not familiar with the idol business are you? Singing skills are secondary. Looks and personality are the most important thing.

SNSD seems to have the looks, but they don’t have the personality. They’re not going to have any lasting power in Japan.

OTOH another korean group called Kara made their debut a few weeks earlier. They have a much higher chance of success in Japan.

FMD

They love starcraft so much they made a song about GGing at the end of the match

znah

very original

AI

Korean names are rarely written in katakana. It´s often written in kanji.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

Korean groups that used Katakana or Romanji names in Japan:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIG_BANG
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%91%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A5%E3%83%8B%E3%82%A2
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHINee
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAX

Girls Generation already had an internationalized English name (“Girls Generation”) and the initials SNSD, and I find it notable that they went with Kanji for their official Japanese name. Their Wikipedia entry shows that they’ve also done the same for China. It looks like they are working very hard to adapt themselves to each market they think they can succeed in.

Miss_igirisu

I noticed them on the music stations as　少女時代 as well. The song that I saw on there (not sure which one it was..) had no Korean left in it, which I think was a little sad. Perhaps it might have been more fun to have a sprinkling of Korean in songs like they do with English.

http://www.sakatland.com/japan Sakat

Even when the name is writte basically in English?
Stereo

Their Korean name “So Nyo Shi Dae” is Korean pronunciation of 少女時代, anyway. Pronunciation of foreign proper noun is a complicated matter. How do you pronounce Paris or Bach?

Back in the 80s, Koreans were very eager to get rid of Chinese characters, because they associated Chinese characters with Japanese annexation since Japanese taught Korean commoners Chinese characters during that period. Japanese expression of former president Kim Dae Jung changed from 金大中 in 70s to キムデジュン in recent years.

Now they are using 少女時代 in stead of ソニョシデ. This could be a reflection of a trend toward Chinese characters in light of growing importance of the Chinese market. 4 members of the group say they can speak Chinese, whereas 2 and 1 can speak English and Japanese respectively.

proshot

Let me get this straight…

Koreans associate CHINESE characters with JAPAN?

You’re making yourself look really clueless.

Koreans stopped using Chinese characters because Chinese characters are associated with CHINA, who had an immense influence on Korea throughout her history (unlike Japan which began influencing Korea only 100 or so years ago), which is a fact that nationalistic Koreans do not like.

loopy

- All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the *Japanese* done for us?

- They freed us from the Chinese

Kono

I want to thank James for this article, it’s nice to see some positive Korean-related articles.

I like Japanprobe alot, and this makes me happy.

LOD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3icx2yMVkW4

So you still haven’t heard the fact they sang the song “Dokdo is Our Land” for an audition?

Well, but on the second thought, it’s not really a news for any Korean celebrities.

T-rock

It was all a positive until someone has to throw in the negative, it was just waiting to happen of course those several rocks in the sea anyways good God really just don’t care anymore…

T-rock

Korean and Japanese women are some of the very hottest period The AKB ladies are not too shabby either

Kono

Have you ever seen a mixed Korean/Japanese girl?

gods gift man.
FMD

They aren’t all like that, although 95% of what you see on TV / Media is.

nate

I guess it’s less creepy that AKB48… both Japanese men and women could use more exposure to women over the age of 19.
TofuUnion

In Japan, there are going to sing in Japanese like their Japanese debut single ” Genie “…
T-rock

dude don’t mean it that way, cause of saying Japanese and Korean ladies are good looking doesn’t mean immediately you have to point your finger and pre-judge people!

Cause I said good looking doesn’t mean right away omg he’s a sicko gimme a break man!
natcaasi

Girl’s generation does translates directly to ShoujoJidai and maybe so does the expanded form of SNSD too. Nothing wrong with that … just peculiar …

And who does not like hot women !!! =P
ama

I am a Japanese, but do not know it
Nng

“Fans seem to really like their legs and their dancing.”

Seriously? That’s what I dislike about them. x__x
I really don’t like the Korean music, it’s so weird.

And what do they all want in Japan all of a sudden anyway? How people can even like them is a mystery to me. @_@
Colin

They are attractive, yes, and have a sense of style, but the music they are singing in the video sounds sort of like the music from a dance cassette tape I bought from a McDonald’s when I was like 3 or 4 years old.

I mean really, I probably haven’t heard or thought about that cassette in like 15 years but still I watched the video and the first thing that popped into my mind from the deep crevasses of my memory was that tape.

Just my …odd… comment pertaining to them.
Pops

Korean music is pretty good actually. Sure, there’s a lot of bubble gum pop and all, but there are a lot of great artists and sounds worth listening to. And even SNSD has some catchy tunes that are fun to listen to, some with those kinds of melodies that get stuck in your cranium and don’t go away easily. It’s all good, and best wishes for SNSD’s success, wherever they go.

Girls Generation in Japan

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