Is Kohaku boycotting Korean singers?

Is the NHK covering up how the government’s stance on Korea has affected the popularity of Korean pop culture (Hallyu) in Japan?

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A bit of shameless self-promotion here, cause this post is also a bit about me as well as the Japanese government, the Korean government, globalization and all that is good and right. From now on I’m going to be contributing to japanCRUSH, a news site offering trending internet stories from Japan. The site is part of an awesome network (also including chinaSMACK, koreaBANG, indoBOOM and russiaSLAM) which aims to promote news transparency by translating global interest news items from the places where they happen and the reactions of local netizens.

My first article, published today, is called “K-Pop singers ‘completely eradicated’ from 63rd Kohaku show” and is about how the Japanese government’s political stance towards Korea since the Takeshima Island conflict, has affected the popularity of Hallyu, the ‘Korean pop-culture wave’.

Tohaku is basically a very popular New Years variety show on Japan’s leading network which showcases Japan’s favourite singers every year. Last year, a few Korean bands were also among the selected participants, which lead many observes to comment that the popularity of Korean pop-culture in Japan might finally help ease some of the political and historical hatred between the two countries.

This year, however, not one Korean artist made the final lineup and though Kohaku says its decision had nothing to do with political conflicts, many people in both Korea and Japan are wondering if a resurgence of hostilities towards Korea is not the underlying cause for Japanese telivision’s ‘boycott’ of Korean singers.

The netizen comments are particularly interesting because they really do reflect the extremes of both sides of the dabate (as well as the few crazy ultra-extremists), so please, PLEASE <3, if you are interested, go and check it out HERE!

Cheers to all who give it a glance! ❤