u/AdGloomy5846

Right now on X, there is a debate like, “Why doesn’t J-pop sell itself globally?” or “Why are concerts in Japan basically limited to Japanese people?”

And for some reason, people always compare it to K-pop and say, “That’s why J-pop can’t become popular like K-pop! It’s declining!”

But J-pop is not declining. It is still popular in Japan.

Are the music industries of Italy, Germany, Spain, Thailand, India, and Malaysia “declining” just because their music is mostly popular domestically? I don’t understand the logic that says music is declining unless it expands globally like K-pop.

In the first place, current J-pop will never become popular in the same way K-pop has.

Modern K-pop, especially dance music, is made to sell in the West. Many of its producers include American songwriters and composers. It is extremely strategic.

J-pop is different. Its main target is the Japanese domestic market.

There are exceptions like XG, but they are basically following the K-pop route. That is probably not what traditional J-pop fans are looking for. If they wanted that, they would just listen to K-pop.

And honestly, this is completely normal. Japanese artists sing in Japanese, become popular in Japan, and make music for Japanese listeners.

J-pop is not made to sell in the West. Even if Japanese labels made copyrights, licenses, overseas access, and streaming much easier for foreign fans, I still think its popularity would remain niche.

Why? Because it is in Japanese, and it is not designed around Western trends.

Also, the Japanese music industry probably thinks promoting overseas is not worth the cost. There are only a small number of fans abroad, so they simply do not want to spend money there.

For example, if overseas fans could gather at the same level as Japanese fans, then Japanese artists would probably expand overseas more seriously. I mean 30,000 to 50,000 people per venue.

But in reality, many acts would probably only draw around 2,000 people overseas. Even ONE OK ROCK’s world tour had venues around that scale. That is almost certainly a loss.

Ado apparently drew more people, but even then, I heard it was still unprofitable.

And the truth is, even in Japan, concerts can be unprofitable unless they draw 30,000 to 50,000 people.

So overseas expansion is even harder.

Should foreign fans be able to buy tickets for concerts in Japan? Yes. That is genuinely unfair.

Did J-pop miss its chance to expand globally like K-pop? No. If J-pop stopped being Japanese-language music, sang in English, and chased global trends, then maybe it would have a chance.

I’m asking this as a Japanese person.

This is something I’ve felt for a long time, and it’s about the left and right wings within South Korea.

In Japan, the right wing is basically what most people imagine: patriotic and generally hostile toward foreigners. But they are also pro-American.

On the other hand, the Japanese left is like this: they are extremely anti-Japanese, constantly criticize their own country, and almost never criticize foreigners. They are anti-American, or more precisely anti-U.S. military, and they tend to praise China and South Korea. They also never really show pride in their own country. It is basically endless criticism of Japan.

I feel that, even by global standards, Japan’s left wing has an unusually strong tendency to be self-deprecating toward its own country.

I assume the Korean right wing is similar to right-wing groups in Japan and other countries.

But what I want to understand is the Korean left. I understand why they are anti-Japanese. There are historical issues behind that.

However, when I look at social media, one thing that stands out to me is that many Korean leftists seem to be very “patriotic.”

When I see Korean left-leaning people on X saying things like “Korea is superior to Japan,” “Korean industries are amazing,” and “Japan is declining,” it looks very much like an extension of Korean-style left-wing nationalism.

It feels similar to the kind of patriotic behavior that Japanese right-wingers engage in, or rather, it feels like there is a very strong ethnic-nationalist tendency.

What do you think about this?