ASP News

Japanese fans are something exceptional and fearsome and there are a lot of them. Tune in on some random popular J-pop song and they’ll all know the lyrics and exact dance moves. If you go a little further west to Japan you’ll find a country where the fans are at least the fearsome as the Japanese ones. Maybe you have guessed what I’m talking about already. Exactly, South Korea and its’ entertainment world. Koreans love pop. And they know that the Japanese do too. So of course a lot of Korean artists are famous in Japan, to that extent that they even have to produce Japanese versions of their singles and albums!

Boa Kwon is a Korean singer born in 1986. Her stage name is known as BoA (Beat of Angel) and she is active in both South Korea and Japan. She was discovered by the Korean talent agency SM Entertainment where she was trained, and after two years she released her debut album in 2000. Already after two more years  she released her debut album in Japan.

BoA is one of the two non-Japanese Asiens who have had million-selling albums in Japan. She speaks Korean, Japanese and conversational English which have helped contribute to her commercial success. In 2008 she debuted in USA, under SM Entertainment USA, with her single “Eat you up” which you can watch further down.

BoA’s singles could be compared a little with Kumi Koda’s in sense of genre – she actually recorded a charity single together with Kumi Koda too. A lot of her singles are K- or J-pop – everything from sweet songs to R&B. A lot of her songs have been used in games and movies, and she has worked together with a lot of famous Korean artists.

“Eat you up” was as mentioned BoA’s first English single and it was released in digital format on the Internet. Two videos were released for this song, an American version and the Asian version (seen above). However, the American version has received a lot of criticism and the Asian version was rated to be much better.

“Key of Heart” is an example of her pop ballads. She released both an Korean and Japanese version of this song and video. The song was used as a soundtrack for the Japanese version of the movie Over the Hedge.

There are a lot more Korean artists who have debuted and gotten popularity in Japan and vise versa. The two entertainment worlds seem to have gotten close and the cooperation will properly only get bigger in the future.