Unclear Description: Idol Singer

So a "sexy/flirty female pop singer" from China or America would be a K Pop Idol?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If they were in a Kpop group, spoke and sung in Korean, on Kpop talk shows, signed with one of the big three kpop companies etc. possibly? But unlikely as it is a very Korean thing and national pride + racism type thing.

And a Korean export thing, unlike Jpop, Kpop is actually trying to break out onto the international scene, some artists a multilingual like Boa has songs in Korean, Japanese and English. And there are Kcons in NYC, LA and Japan every year.

They are not opposed to working with western artists too, Snoop Dogg has appeared in a kpop song before but he is not counted as a Kpop idol.

On the other side of the fence. J-Pop idols are for Japanese only, no exports, region locked You Tube videos, mass take downs, attempts at licensing get rebuked outside of if songs appear in animes. We are not allowed to be any Jpop Idol's fans.

edited 17th Jul '17 8:18:58 AM by Memers

None of that was given in the previous post. I think you're going to run into Missing Supertrope Syndrome because you're trying to make a couple of very narrow tropes that don't cover every musical act from Japan/Korea, and tropers will shoehorn the performers that don't fit required details because they fit "enough" of the details. I also think that tropers are likely to type X Just X examples or trivia information like "since 2015, [name] has been the most popular of the Kanto pop idols" instead of the trope context.

I think the wiki would be better served if you could break down the different tropes that performers used (like that "3 octaves higher" thing; that sounds like a great stand-alone trope), and put together genre indexes of K-Pop and J-Pop to list performers of that genre instead of a trope example page.

Edit: It looks like we have the genre indexes already. Can you just split Idol Singer into the different tropes they use instead of pages that are The Same But More Specific to the existing genre pages?

edited 17th Jul '17 8:43:32 AM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If they are not a Jpop or kpop idol they do not fit these tropes, in fiction Kpop idols rarely actually appear in fiction so if we decide to not create one about fictional ones and just focus on the K Pop Idol industry and its members that is ok.

In Japanese fiction they are absolutely everywhere and no they do not cover all musical performers in Japan just those in the Idol industry which even in fiction, and Sci-Fi Fiction like Macross Frontier, operate and behave just like real life if a bit Rose Colored most of the time.

It does not cover rock bands or school bands or anything like that. There is a huge difference between K On and Love Live for example, the latter is all about fictional Jpop Idols.

In real life and in fiction they are completely different than western ones. Its an entire genre now that other shows try to cash in on via featuring idol characters.

The Idolmaster, Idol Jihen, Macross Frontier, Love Live Aikatsu Pri Para, AKB 0048, Pretty Rhythm, Wake Up Girls, Million Doll, Lovedol, Locodol, Creamy Mami The Magic Angel, Full Moon O Sagashite, Idol Incidents, Idol Memories, Idol Densetsu Eriko, Lemon Angel Project are all series focused squarely on Japanese Pop idols. Damn near all of them are Mixed Media Projects too.

Thats not even getting into those with major idol characters such as No Rin, Dog Days, Persona 4, Doki Doki Precure and such which still get in on all that. Or have that random Idol Episode like Love Hina, Kyoukai No Kanata Pretty Cure All Stars 1 or Ranma One Half.

---

The 3 octaves higher is standard for the Idol, voice acting and every other industry, its viewed as cuter to the Japanese. Its rather impossible to make a trope out of it since we only actually hear their stage voice all the time, them actually speaking in their natural voice is rather rare. Think about that next time you watch an anime and hear a girl's voice.

Its also the reason why Cross-Dressing Voices is so common in Japan, a cute boy voiced by a girl is viewed as just having a cute voice instead of a girl's.

The only example I can think of where this mattered, outside of a big criticism of the idol industry by foreigners, is the main of Hibike Euphonium did S2 in her normal voice instead of her stage voice. It started a big debate in the community on if that was ok or not, it was certainly very different.

edited 17th Jul '17 10:59:24 AM by Memers

I wouldn't say it's cute vs sexy thing. I'd say the main difference is that K pop idols have more diversity in style, while J pop idols are inherently cute.

Standout Jpop groups like E girls, and their subunits are often confused with K pop idols by Japanese fans. But K pop is still filled with cute concepts, and they are quite popular too. It's just the diversity.

I'd say it's the opposite with K music scene in general vs J music one. J music scene is more diverse and much more experimental. It's only the idol aspect.

The other thing about Kpop is that Korean music market is much smaller so it tries to branch out internationally, J music doesn't need to; Japan has the second largest music market in the world after the US. So Kpop groups try to have concerts and activities in other parts of Asia, especially Japan. A lot of Kpop groups go to Japan to make money.

There is a recent trend of having non Korean members to pander to other countries. The most popular Kpop group right now it's TWICE, and they have 3 Japanese members and 1 Taiwanese. They were created with a conpetition which also had Thai trainees, and Somi, who is mixed race and has become a megastar of her own. WJSN has 3 Chinese members. CLC has a Thai member. Etc.

Locking per New Year Purge.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman