^I am at university here.

lucky dog! lol

Hehe thanks :D

Some members sued their korean label because of some abusive aspects of their contract (as usual on K-pop industry), this eventually made some members to leave the band.

Or something like that, I'm not a Toho fan, so I don't really know much about it.

Isn't more like, all of these music companies do worse than before? Like, Johnny's isn't what they was before either. At least if you compare with like 5 years ago. The only thing going well these days is idols who is way easier to see and meet than regular artists (like AKB48) or the Korean artists. I think the J-pop scene should get some inpsiration form the K-pop scene. Like, K-pop can be found on YouTube (full videos, just like AKB48) and music services like Spotify. It's great promotion in days like these.

But overall, the global music scene should follow the digital developments more.

Japanese music market works very... stupid towards internet, it's not even funny.

I was amazed once I noticed AKB48 channel as full subtitled videos o,o Why aren't Ayu, Hikki, Namie, Koda putting their subtitled videos online?!

I think that is a major problem...
Japanese companies don';t really track digital sales like America does.

Because i mean, sales are down, but where is it all going?
I hope everyone is not going to pirate all their music!

Imo that's pretty much the only thing they should do the way Korean companies do and NOTHING else. Oh and even DBSK aren't as popular as they were 3-4 years ago. Their popularity in Japan has decreased from their golden days.

I think it might be just a crisis of ideas and certainly new modern kpop takes inspiration from old jpop lol

^I was listening to some old school kpop and both genres always had a lot of similarities...

I don't think it is as bad as they have to go to Kpop lengths

EXILE sales aren't dipping what so ever and all their tours that are huge aren't really sliding, lmao

I think album sales are just becoming less an important factor and more so touring, TVXQ actually sold out their dome tour pretty fast,they aren't suffering either

the only people who are the newbies, AVEX hasn't had a breakout star in a long time and their over promoted ones have flopped hard like GND and Iconiq

random rant, just I think they don't care about international fans just yet since they aren't that important to them like Kpop

I do think they are changing like all of C'kay and Perfume recent releases who have a strong overseas fanbase are getting faster itunes releases worldwide
I don't get why Ayu doesn't do this or Kumi, avex needs to more ahead of the times like the used to be, UMJ is beating them
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I am still sad no Like A Doll, also love all the fan write ups

Thing is, K-POP market themselves as a market. You have different companies which fans see as families to that extent. When you see K-pop artistes, you link them to one another...this is not the same for J-Pop, where there are too many artistes and you can't see them as ONE. At least thats how I see it..

Exile and Namie could, but I am not sure for a full tour. Plus when I made that statement I wasn't counting them. :) Their publisher is AVEX but their management is not so they don't always go to A-Nation.

Last year I thought them inviting AKB48 to perform was a sign that ticket sales were down. At every date each year they have always had a "surprise" artist from a different label perform at the show - but it was always truly a surprise, not something that was promoted before hand. When I went Remioromen performed. But last year was the first time they actually announced and promoted who the surprise artist would be.

I never really understood this concept until today. I find it extremely interesting.

Anyway, the genius of the kpop market is all into their promotion. Not just how much of it they do, but also how they do it.

Anything to hook people and sell the whole package~

It's kinda like AKB48 or Perfume. Is the music even really the most important thing with them? lol

I thought they had SEVERAL surprise artists last year [and maybe the year before that too] since X JAPAN and a few others popped up?

I just hope this whole fad of having a few groups dominate the charts is about to be over...
its sad really.

With ayus avdvertisment, AVEX does seem lazy. Like what. happened to the Duty, I am... and MY STORY type CM's (Love songs CM included). Or even the DVD menu with ayus DVD's, nothing special. I think though ayu will always sell her tour tickets and always liked to be seen live despite her CD sales. I think people would rather download than buy though. You cant pirate something which isnt released. Though this may be ayus choice. I think ayu could climb back to the top but she would have to give her soul back to avex. Im just happy if its what she wants, and if she happy with it, than as a fan, thats all I can ask for :)

Though I do think downloading/etc and not buying has a big role in declining sale

^what about AKB & KARA huge sales at this time of high-developed digital downloads then?

wow... 2 who groups out of how many people making music!
Man talk about a revolution.

AKB are what you call phenomenal. Besides, they still dont match the album sales of 10 years ago.
As a whole the physical side of the sales as gone drastically down.