Sukkiri to air segments on Nizi Project on the 11th and 12. They are going to highlight Rima's team and Mako's team as well as reveal a portion of the individual rankings.
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I really loved Yuna's vocals in this performance compared to her previous rounds.
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If that's what the trainer told the girls, that's a really weird direction in how she wants the girls to sing because it's not suppose to be a "fun" song.
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I believed (and I think others too) Nizi was headed more likely towards an OT9 with the way they were portraying the trainees in the earlier part of the season. With the recent segments focused on Yuna on Sukkiri!! and the main show, now it seems everyone except Riria and Momoka have been given a story arc or "member-like" edit heading into the final mission.
Very interesting that they are starting to edit Nizikake and the Hulu main show differently, and even put different stuff on Sukkiri. We saw today the JYP talk we had seen in Sukkiri last week and the girls picking the debut members. They also showed Mako's team performance on Nizikake but only Maya team on Hulu. I like this editing better than watching the exact same thing 3 times in one day, even if I will watch the same thing next week. The week spacing is enough for me not to feel like I'm wasting my time watching everything. Also I like seeing the reactions from the Sukkiri crew and the tid bits by JYP himself, Kosaka Daimaou and Mori Keisuke announcer.
I think the talk JYP had with the girls is one of the reasons I like JYPE more than the other companies in Korea. He seems to truly care about his artists and want them to not only be successful on stage but lead happy dignified lives. It may sound like lip service to some, but seeing how they dealt with Mina's struggle, the day6 kids and how they treat the artists that leave the company I'm willing to buy in it's honesty. Now you never know how much the girls truly understood or took in what he said but I hope they got something from it.
I wonder if what he wanted from the member picking part was see how invested the girls are in debuting or their gauge their self-esteem. Maybe it's both. Maybe they even used to judge how the girls view each other too, but I would hope that weren't the case. I'm very curious about how all the girls picked, especially a few, but I know and agree that we will never and should never see the full results. Specially in the age we are in that people feel a morbid glee in harassing people online. Even if they are less than 1% of the mentions we have already seen the catastrophic consequences this minority can cause.
So it turns out the last chance thing was a Yuna specific thing. There is a lot we don't get to see behind the scenes so I won't judge JYP deciding to say that to her, specially considering it seemed like she took it to heart instead of it increasing the pressure and stress she was putting on herself.
As I said before I feel like this time all groups are better balanced and have equal challenges as far as song goes. Feel Special is tricky because it really exposes your vocals, has an energetic bursty dance and is a complex concept. I don't think it is difficult to sing per se, but it has a lot of longer notes that really force the listener to focus on your stability. The dance is also not energetic at all times, but it has a lot of fast and powerful moves throughout the whole performance. While the concept is a mix of sadness and happiness with a more mature feeling to it. Definitely not something either rookies or young girls can quite say they understand fully.
Team Iris had a pretty good showing to me. It wasn't perfect but I felt it was good enough to be a proper girl group performance. There were a few times the girls weren't in sync but it wasn't too many. The vocals overall were nice but they had a few mistakes here and there. I'll start with Akari. I was very worried for her to be honest. The choreo is very draining and she had issues with stamina on her individual performance, but turns out she managed to hold up. She didn't quite go full force on the choreo, but none of the 4 did imo, which is understandable because they were singing live, so I won't take points away from that. She looked great and I think she capture the concept well. At several points her stage presence was shining and I caught myself thinking she really fit in this performance. One thing that came to me is right now she doesn't seem to have much range. It is to be expected because she has very little experience singing, this show might even be her whole experience with professional training. I can't quite tell yet how much she can add to her range, but her tone really matched well with this song. She was stable for the most part I noticed only 2 times she went off pitch. I think she danced well, didn't notice any mistake. She was smooth and had a good feel for the moves. I'm really happy she got to a point in which she can show her skills properly and is improving with training.
I'm not sure if Yuna is completely over her nerves, but I'm so glad we finally got to see her perform like she practiced. Every time they show her first audition before the Tokyo training camp I felt bad for her, because the girl clearly can do it. I think she had a couple of sketchy times during the dance, but overall danced well. She was offbeat after the intro but caught up fast and she had to rush a little bit her positioning. The latter one though I think is more because she is the shortest and had to move the farthest so I won't criticize her too much on it. Ideally in a choreo made for her she wouldn't be put in that position. Otherwise she didn't look awkward at all and pulled off all the moves. I think vocally she did very well too. She hasn't quite shown her full potential singing but she managed to be stable and sing clearly with a nice tone. I think when she is 100% confident she can push her vocals more based on a few practice shots her voice sounded very good. Concept wise I think she also did a good job. She looked a lot more natural, if she was nervous during the act she didn't let it show. I think she killed the rap part. Was her best look and delivered very well. She had a little bit of a breathing issue, but it didn't overwhelm her performance. Really happy she did well this mission. I'm cheering for her to keep it up for the final mission.
Maya usually kills the concept and the stage presence but I felt she struggled a little bit with this one. I think she understands the concept, but couldn't quite show it. It wasn't an uncomfortable look for the entire thing, but a couple times I thought her expression was a little bit off. Dance wise I felt this was her best performance. She was sharp and precise. I didn't notice any mistakes or awkward looking moves. She really continued to improve every mission. Vocally I think I was right that her tone doesn't quite match the song, but she managed to sing it without sounding out of place. She was out of pitch at one point that I noticed but was the only time. She was stable for the rest of it. I think at this point I'm ready to call her ready to debut along with Mako and Miihi.
I agree with JYP that this was the most disappointing performance by Miihi, but I would like to highlight that even then I still think she was at the same level as the other girls in the team. She just has such a high level that even if this was her weakest performance it still was decent. Her dance wasn't off to me. She had one or two times she had to rush the choreo, but it wasn't too noticeable and I don't think she made a mistake. The concept to me also didn't seem to be an issue. I felt like she portrayed the feelings of the song properly and her stage presence was there still. The issue is she was shaky singing at times. It is uncharacteristic and I kind of heard it a bit in the preview, but decided not to say anything until I saw the full performance. She usually sounds very clear and stable and at several points in this song she sounded like she was straining her voice and wavered. She still had moments she sounded good because of her voice alone but she definitely was struggling throughout the song. I give her points for keeping her composure during it all, her stage presence is no joke. It is a shame though, that she couldn't perform to her fullest. This kind of came out of nowhere. We had seen her be disappointed with not being first, but it didn't quite hit her as a speed bump but more like slipstream that made her more determined. At least that is how I felt. I don't know quite what happened. Maybe the added stress of everything piled up and finally affected her. Still this doesn't change how I feel about her, and I'm sure neither does JYPE or JYP himself. She had a bad showing but we all know how good and talented she is so just hope she recovers for next mission.
This mission I feel like it's going to be hard to rank the girls individually. They really have been shortening the gap with the training. I can't promise this will be the last time I mention it but once again this makes wish JYPE had given more girls the chance to go to Korea.
The end was also very sweet and touching. The girls thanking Miihi and Yuna feeling sorry she might have stressed her out. Also the Miihi "daisuki" before they went up to the stage was very sweet.
I'm very excited and a little scared for next episode.
I think the talk JYP had with the girls is one of the reasons I like JYPE more than the other companies in Korea. He seems to truly care about his artists and want them to not only be successful on stage but lead happy dignified lives. It may sound like lip service to some, but seeing how they dealt with Mina's struggle, the day6 kids and how they treat the artists that leave the company I'm willing to buy in it's honesty. Now you never know how much the girls truly understood or took in what he said but I hope they got something from it.
I wonder if what he wanted from the member picking part was see how invested the girls are in debuting or their gauge their self-esteem. Maybe it's both. Maybe they even used to judge how the girls view each other too, but I would hope that weren't the case. I'm very curious about how all the girls picked, especially a few, but I know and agree that we will never and should never see the full results. Specially in the age we are in that people feel a morbid glee in harassing people online. Even if they are less than 1% of the mentions we have already seen the catastrophic consequences this minority can cause.
So it turns out the last chance thing was a Yuna specific thing. There is a lot we don't get to see behind the scenes so I won't judge JYP deciding to say that to her, specially considering it seemed like she took it to heart instead of it increasing the pressure and stress she was putting on herself.
As I said before I feel like this time all groups are better balanced and have equal challenges as far as song goes. Feel Special is tricky because it really exposes your vocals, has an energetic bursty dance and is a complex concept. I don't think it is difficult to sing per se, but it has a lot of longer notes that really force the listener to focus on your stability. The dance is also not energetic at all times, but it has a lot of fast and powerful moves throughout the whole performance. While the concept is a mix of sadness and happiness with a more mature feeling to it. Definitely not something either rookies or young girls can quite say they understand fully.
Team Iris had a pretty good showing to me. It wasn't perfect but I felt it was good enough to be a proper girl group performance. There were a few times the girls weren't in sync but it wasn't too many. The vocals overall were nice but they had a few mistakes here and there. I'll start with Akari. I was very worried for her to be honest. The choreo is very draining and she had issues with stamina on her individual performance, but turns out she managed to hold up. She didn't quite go full force on the choreo, but none of the 4 did imo, which is understandable because they were singing live, so I won't take points away from that. She looked great and I think she capture the concept well. At several points her stage presence was shining and I caught myself thinking she really fit in this performance. One thing that came to me is right now she doesn't seem to have much range. It is to be expected because she has very little experience singing, this show might even be her whole experience with professional training. I can't quite tell yet how much she can add to her range, but her tone really matched well with this song. She was stable for the most part I noticed only 2 times she went off pitch. I think she danced well, didn't notice any mistake. She was smooth and had a good feel for the moves. I'm really happy she got to a point in which she can show her skills properly and is improving with training.
I'm not sure if Yuna is completely over her nerves, but I'm so glad we finally got to see her perform like she practiced. Every time they show her first audition before the Tokyo training camp I felt bad for her, because the girl clearly can do it. I think she had a couple of sketchy times during the dance, but overall danced well. She was offbeat after the intro but caught up fast and she had to rush a little bit her positioning. The latter one though I think is more because she is the shortest and had to move the farthest so I won't criticize her too much on it. Ideally in a choreo made for her she wouldn't be put in that position. Otherwise she didn't look awkward at all and pulled off all the moves. I think vocally she did very well too. She hasn't quite shown her full potential singing but she managed to be stable and sing clearly with a nice tone. I think when she is 100% confident she can push her vocals more based on a few practice shots her voice sounded very good. Concept wise I think she also did a good job. She looked a lot more natural, if she was nervous during the act she didn't let it show. I think she killed the rap part. Was her best look and delivered very well. She had a little bit of a breathing issue, but it didn't overwhelm her performance. Really happy she did well this mission. I'm cheering for her to keep it up for the final mission.
Maya usually kills the concept and the stage presence but I felt she struggled a little bit with this one. I think she understands the concept, but couldn't quite show it. It wasn't an uncomfortable look for the entire thing, but a couple times I thought her expression was a little bit off. Dance wise I felt this was her best performance. She was sharp and precise. I didn't notice any mistakes or awkward looking moves. She really continued to improve every mission. Vocally I think I was right that her tone doesn't quite match the song, but she managed to sing it without sounding out of place. She was out of pitch at one point that I noticed but was the only time. She was stable for the rest of it. I think at this point I'm ready to call her ready to debut along with Mako and Miihi.
I agree with JYP that this was the most disappointing performance by Miihi, but I would like to highlight that even then I still think she was at the same level as the other girls in the team. She just has such a high level that even if this was her weakest performance it still was decent. Her dance wasn't off to me. She had one or two times she had to rush the choreo, but it wasn't too noticeable and I don't think she made a mistake. The concept to me also didn't seem to be an issue. I felt like she portrayed the feelings of the song properly and her stage presence was there still. The issue is she was shaky singing at times. It is uncharacteristic and I kind of heard it a bit in the preview, but decided not to say anything until I saw the full performance. She usually sounds very clear and stable and at several points in this song she sounded like she was straining her voice and wavered. She still had moments she sounded good because of her voice alone but she definitely was struggling throughout the song. I give her points for keeping her composure during it all, her stage presence is no joke. It is a shame though, that she couldn't perform to her fullest. This kind of came out of nowhere. We had seen her be disappointed with not being first, but it didn't quite hit her as a speed bump but more like slipstream that made her more determined. At least that is how I felt. I don't know quite what happened. Maybe the added stress of everything piled up and finally affected her. Still this doesn't change how I feel about her, and I'm sure neither does JYPE or JYP himself. She had a bad showing but we all know how good and talented she is so just hope she recovers for next mission.
This mission I feel like it's going to be hard to rank the girls individually. They really have been shortening the gap with the training. I can't promise this will be the last time I mention it but once again this makes wish JYPE had given more girls the chance to go to Korea.
The end was also very sweet and touching. The girls thanking Miihi and Yuna feeling sorry she might have stressed her out. Also the Miihi "daisuki" before they went up to the stage was very sweet.
I'm very excited and a little scared for next episode.
Gonna put this in another spoiler because it is pure speculation by me and will spoil things for those only watching the main Hulu show and not Nizikake plus the Sukkiri segments.
First thing is that I'm looking forward to Heartbeat a lot. The intro with Mayuka and Mako is just one of the best performances I've seen period. I had no doubt Mako would kill this concept and she literally did even better than I was expecting. Mayuka was a great surprise. The preview didn't lie at all. She looked amazing and absolutely owned the concept. I truly didn't see it coming before the preview.
On a sad note I feel like next episode will be the first elimination. The way the girls were crying to me can only be that. It's a huge shame. I agree with what JYP said to Momoka shown on Nizikake though. I truly believe she has it in her. Not sure if she just got into her own head after doing poorly and seeing everyone show improvement. I think she did get better but not a lot and what hurts her the most is her stage presence. JYP really emphasizes it and star quality and I feel like what she missed the most especially in heartbeat was both. The Ayaka and Momoka comparison is gonna be a huge deal, especially since I feel like Momoka did better on Mission 2 than Ayaka, but I wish the fandom didn't focus on that so much. I understand if you don't agree with JYP and JYPE but I also would like to remind everyone that we only get less than 10% of the story. We don't know what fully goes on, and they have a lot more info to go on than us.
It is worth remembering that picking members for a group is always arbitrary and neither JYPE nor JYP has ever said it was all about skill or talent. Not to mention that it is not valid to pick on one member just because someone you liked wasn't picked. Doing that won't make Momoka stay, it will just hurt the other girl.
With that in mind I am very worried for Riria. We really didn't get anything on her and they didn't show feedback for her when JYP gave the girls pointers. She looks good in practice, but that is always the case, and the intro she seemed good, but the lack of screen time and her known weaknesses make me concerned.
Akari doing well this mission gives me hope the spotting wasn't foretelling of the final members, but she still has that last place that can straight up eliminate her if she comes last again.
Also I don't know if it is something lost in translation but I saw it a few times on the Sukkiri twitter account here, here, here, etc, something about final Korean training camp team battle. I'm probably reading too much into it, but maybe it means the final mission isn't a team battle? Maybe it's individual again or less likely 1 team and possibly debut song? I wouldn't like it if it were individual personally. Again I'm probably just making a mountain out of a molehill.
Another thing I was thinking is how is the travel restriction between Japan and Korea? Because of the whole pandemic and how cases have surged in Japan the last few days I wonder if this will affect the future group. Japan doesn't have the music show circuit Korea does so a remote promotion shouldn't be as big of a deal, but it still isn't good. Twice has a release scheduled for Japan in July too so JYPE definitely has a plan.
Also about the future group I wonder if they will do things the K-pop style or the J-pop style as far as new media is concerned. With Twice JYP had the leverage to continue doing stuff their way but since this group is a joint venture from the start I wonder what Sony will want and how their talks with JYPE will go. Japan is notoriously slow to adapt to new media, and putting MVs on youtube was very rare until recently. They are definitely adapting now after K-pop showed them just how huge it is for international growth, but it still isn't a full embracing. I wonder if Sony will be archaic and not let the Nizi group have MVs on youtube on release and how much they will embrace streaming or if they will go full new age on JYPE's request.
On a side note it was nice seeing how invested Mori (Keisuke announcer), Kondo (Haruna comedienne) and Inuyama (Kamiko columnist) were on Sukkiri about the girls. By how much they had to say you can tell they are interested. Kato (Kouji comedian) also. It might be a sign more people in Japan also get invested, especially people outside of the demographic for idol groups or girl groups in general.
First thing is that I'm looking forward to Heartbeat a lot. The intro with Mayuka and Mako is just one of the best performances I've seen period. I had no doubt Mako would kill this concept and she literally did even better than I was expecting. Mayuka was a great surprise. The preview didn't lie at all. She looked amazing and absolutely owned the concept. I truly didn't see it coming before the preview.
On a sad note I feel like next episode will be the first elimination. The way the girls were crying to me can only be that. It's a huge shame. I agree with what JYP said to Momoka shown on Nizikake though. I truly believe she has it in her. Not sure if she just got into her own head after doing poorly and seeing everyone show improvement. I think she did get better but not a lot and what hurts her the most is her stage presence. JYP really emphasizes it and star quality and I feel like what she missed the most especially in heartbeat was both. The Ayaka and Momoka comparison is gonna be a huge deal, especially since I feel like Momoka did better on Mission 2 than Ayaka, but I wish the fandom didn't focus on that so much. I understand if you don't agree with JYP and JYPE but I also would like to remind everyone that we only get less than 10% of the story. We don't know what fully goes on, and they have a lot more info to go on than us.
It is worth remembering that picking members for a group is always arbitrary and neither JYPE nor JYP has ever said it was all about skill or talent. Not to mention that it is not valid to pick on one member just because someone you liked wasn't picked. Doing that won't make Momoka stay, it will just hurt the other girl.
With that in mind I am very worried for Riria. We really didn't get anything on her and they didn't show feedback for her when JYP gave the girls pointers. She looks good in practice, but that is always the case, and the intro she seemed good, but the lack of screen time and her known weaknesses make me concerned.
Akari doing well this mission gives me hope the spotting wasn't foretelling of the final members, but she still has that last place that can straight up eliminate her if she comes last again.
Also I don't know if it is something lost in translation but I saw it a few times on the Sukkiri twitter account here, here, here, etc, something about final Korean training camp team battle. I'm probably reading too much into it, but maybe it means the final mission isn't a team battle? Maybe it's individual again or less likely 1 team and possibly debut song? I wouldn't like it if it were individual personally. Again I'm probably just making a mountain out of a molehill.
Another thing I was thinking is how is the travel restriction between Japan and Korea? Because of the whole pandemic and how cases have surged in Japan the last few days I wonder if this will affect the future group. Japan doesn't have the music show circuit Korea does so a remote promotion shouldn't be as big of a deal, but it still isn't good. Twice has a release scheduled for Japan in July too so JYPE definitely has a plan.
Also about the future group I wonder if they will do things the K-pop style or the J-pop style as far as new media is concerned. With Twice JYP had the leverage to continue doing stuff their way but since this group is a joint venture from the start I wonder what Sony will want and how their talks with JYPE will go. Japan is notoriously slow to adapt to new media, and putting MVs on youtube was very rare until recently. They are definitely adapting now after K-pop showed them just how huge it is for international growth, but it still isn't a full embracing. I wonder if Sony will be archaic and not let the Nizi group have MVs on youtube on release and how much they will embrace streaming or if they will go full new age on JYPE's request.
On a side note it was nice seeing how invested Mori (Keisuke announcer), Kondo (Haruna comedienne) and Inuyama (Kamiko columnist) were on Sukkiri about the girls. By how much they had to say you can tell they are interested. Kato (Kouji comedian) also. It might be a sign more people in Japan also get invested, especially people outside of the demographic for idol groups or girl groups in general.
番組表｜日本テレビ
www.ntv.co.jp
Nothing much new. If you watched last episode and saw the previews you can pretty much tell these were the main storylines for next episode. They are teasing a possibility of a surprise decision by JYP, like maybe ignoring the elimination rule. We'll see. At this point I feel it's 80% chance things goes as I suspect and a small 20% chance JYP and staff pull a merciful move. Also throwing Akari in the tease like that is not very convincing. After her review I would be absolutely stunned if she ranked last.
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Your point about it seeming arbitrary the way JYPE picks members along with something that someone else pointed out on another site brought a few things to mind.
Something I was previously unaware of was that during the regional auditions, there were actually four paths a candidate could take to get to the 3rd stage to be reviewed by JYP himself. Singing, Dancing, Rapping, and Modeling. To get thru stage 1 and stage 2 screenings, a rapper or model would not need to sing or dance. From this it tells me, the company was looking for candidates with varying attributes and they would have different performance expectations depending on someone's background. Reviewing the girls they brought to the Tokyo mini-camp it didn't seem like any rappers (minus Rima) made it. I could understand a few with little screen time might have been models.
Nizi Project Official Website
ソニーミュージックとJYPによる共同プロジェクト始動！本プロジェクトでは、メンバーのキャスティングからトレーニング、企画、制作、マネジメントまで、全てをソニーミュージックとJYPが共同で行い、定期的にグローバル・オーディションを開催、恒久的に良質なアイドル・アーティストを輩出するスキーム構築を目指します。第一弾となるGIRLS GROUP PROJECTの「Nizi Project」は、オーディションを日本国内8都市、ハワイ、LAを含め全10箇所で開催、2020年11月にソニーミュージックよりメジャーデビュー予定です。ご期待下さい！
niziproject.com
Another thought that popped in my head was although JYP has stated himself regarding the importance of star quality and personality, the format of Nizi project has all the missions being a singing/dancing stage performance. Sixteen had more variety of missions like modeling, fan recruiting, swap meet sale, etc where some other contestant's non sing/dance traits could be displayed. Since that is missing in Nizi, it almost seems to me that they are kind of manipulating the cube distribution at times to even out the playing field so they can easier explain their final lineup decisions.
At least so far it seems JYPE is driving this project vs Sony. One thing JYP mentioned in an interview was that what makes a global project/stars more possible now is the type of access. So I would be surprised if they didn't follow the kpop formula of more readily available content.
Regarding Nizi's popularity, anecdotally it seems unlike AKB or even Iz*One fandom there is much more even male/female (possibly even more female leaning) following. There are many nizi twitter accounts by young japanese women. Also a number of celebrities from various backgrounds tweet about them. The random accounts will talk about how them and an unexpected relative (no prior kpop or jpop interest) would watch it together. I'm not sure if the wider demographic that is watching them on say Sukkiri!! now will end up carrying over when they debut. Hopefully some of them would.
Side note, some of the view counts of the Nizi performances are getting pretty crazy. The Feel Special Nizikake performance got over 1 million views in 24 hours on just one unofficial account.
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Turned out that "Feel Special" was also rising on some JPN charts after the previews and episodes. Had to tell some confused Onces that it was because of Nizi Project cover.
BPiperDude
StanYes think I know the account your talking about. It is strange in a good way how originally he only had marginal views in the low hundreds over a full week or so and with all English comments. Now the comments are 50/50 English Japanese if not maybe even more Japanese. Still a healthy amount of English comments but his view counts are now in the millions. The show has also been #1 on Hulu now for at least a couple of weeks. I hope this translates into the group being successful in Japan in the music sales department but one can never know as there will probably be a hiatus from the ending of the show to the group putting out music. Always a possibility that the general public may switch to something else but I'm thinking that it won't and that the group will be at least marginally successful. Not sure if we will get an ITZY type success were the debut song literally blew all expectations away, but we can hope at least. That's what makes anticipation of a new group so appealing. That little bit of unknown and such.
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Well, seeing the Sukkuri hosts shed tears on TV makes me hopeful that the Nizi girls' story will connect with the rest of Japan when they debut.
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That's another thing that I've been pondering. Not sure if anyone else might be more familiar with Japanese market. It seems like a lot of people are connecting with their story and there is a lot of support for all the girls. So the question I had was are Japanese fans more accepting of different image types of their idols / celebrities? If most of the girls debut, there is going to be more of a variation of image (looks, body types, etc) compared to what you would typically see in a korean girl group. In kpop, it seems virtually all female idols are held to the same standard and knetizens are often very harsh on those that don't fit or even on those that do. There's so much talk on korean forums about things you don't see on international forums (face size, body proportions, etc).
BPiperDude
StanI do know in the Japanese Market they have embraced Genre's that Korea never has or had. In the Late 1970's they loved heavy metal, in the 1980's they joined the punk rock craze. Now this was at a time that Korea was basically a closed society due to Military rule so not blaiming Korea for not being able to do it at that time. But Japan embraced them but other east Asian countries did not such as Thailand, Malaysia, etc... (won't count Cambodia or Vietnam as they were having some serious issues internally). So to me Japan is pretty well able to accept different idea's and types of music. As far as looks go I can't tell you except what is online and I don't know if I trust all of that stuff. They are the number two market for music and you can't get that way embrasing one type. So that's my reasoning as to why I think Japan will not have an issue with the diverse looks among the girls.
I think the show itself only shows and highlights performance, but JYPE is very consistent with their approach to their artist picking. They value personality, both on and off the stage a lot more than singing and dancing ability. I don't quite agree with the idea they are "manipulating" the cubes more like what they are evaluating when giving them is not how well they sing and dance but a mixture of everything that combines into being a performer. I for the most part agree with JYP's rankings, with a few exceptions due to our own personal biases, like Miihi over Mako on mission 1. Again as I said earlier every company has their own arbitrary reasons for picking group members, it is inevitable otherwise they would just use an algorithm.
I wouldn't know about JYPE driving the project. I don't think we have enough evidence of that. I do agree Sony is definitely leaving the making of the team to JYPE but that isn't enough in my mind to say they are taking a backseat. I think Sony recognizes how well the Korean side of the project is at picking girls given their history and is just making a business decision for the best results. It does make sense to follow a K-pop approach to new media if JYPE wants the group to truly go global, but talking is easy, it doesn't always go that way in negotiations between business partners. I do think it is the right move to follow a K-pop model, but Japanese companies are still very reluctant. This will be a test of both their partnership and Sony's willingness to adapt. Personally I wouldn't be surprised by either path. I think it's a 50/50 chance.
As far as the gender split goes AKB actually grew to it's current popularity largely because it gained female fans. Back in the day there used to be a lot of female wotas. Members like Miyazawa Sae, Akimoto Sayaka, even to a lesser extent Kojima Haruna gained a lot of female fans. Now that a lot of those members graduated they are mainly male leaning, but I wouldn't say it's fair to say they don't have female fans. Male fans populate the handshake meetings for the most part but female fans buy albums too and contributed a lot for AKB's success specially at the height of their popularity. Even now you have Okada Nana that has a lot of female fans.
Another thing to keep in mind is K-pop is a mostly female populated fandom. Especially in Japan. So It isn't surprising to me female interest is high for Nizi girls. Also contributing to that is survival shows aren't nearly as common in Japan as in Korea. By what I have seen a lot of girls are sympathizing with the contestants struggles and doubts.
The view difference is Youtube in a nutshell. If you are lucky enough to catch a topic that is trending you explode in views out of nowhere. It happened with Minecraft too several years ago. Keeping those numbers is what is difficult. Once the show ends or if they decide to make videos on other topics is when the numbers will go back down more than likely.
Right now it's hard to gauge the show's popularity in Japan. Yes it is ranking at the top of Hulu and the youtube views are high, but neither of those are trustworthy measurements. Without knowing the numbers exactly the Hulu numbers can be deceiving. I don't know how popular Hulu is in Japan, but if their subscriber count is low being atop of that isn't really that much to go on as far as future sales numbers go. Youtube views are also extremely unreliable. It is very easy to manipulate views, K-pop itself is a testament to that. Also youtube is international, and since that channel is aimed at an English speaking audience the views are probably largely international viewers that won't be able to add much to the sales numbers.
If they release the MV on youtube I expect it to have good view numbers, but that isn't much. Sales wise, it is important to know that right now very few people are releasing stuff in Japan and sales have been very low. Having a debut like Itzy is virtually impossible even if we account for the difference in the markets. My best guess is if they sell 20k physical copies I would call it a success. They seem to be getting some attention in Japan but nothing super huge. 20k for most groups is a great number. If they somehow go viral and get a lot of attention I can see them getting close to 100k but that is best case scenario imo. Very low chance right now given their current interest level. Worst case scenario they sell 8k. These numbers are all based on other acts in Japan.
A positive is that they seem to be getting their own fandom not just trickle down once. That will make their chances of success much higher imo. If they get stuck with the group from Twice's label moniker I don't see it helping much. Twice is still active, even in Japan, and they are not big enough to carry a sister group in Japan. Not marketing them as that was a smart decision imo.
Well, Japan is less obsessed with visuals than Korea, but still is an important factor. Weight is a big deal for idols and musicians still. You have to be Adele levels of talent for them to ignore you being fat. Now they are more lenient on just being a little bit out of shape. You won't get eviscerated like in Korea. There will be the 5ch trolls, but those are a constant. As far as looks Japan does seem to have a bigger spectrum. That might be just me misrepresenting it due to anecdotal evidence. An example though is height. If you are short you won't be popular in Korea. Japan doesn't really care that much. They appreciate someone tall and with long limbs, but they also don't discard short people. I also feel like they are way more open to foreign looking people than Korea. There are way more multiracial people on Japanese tv and popular in general in Japan than Korea. I can see a few girls from the show not getting any fans in Korea because of their looks that will get a niche fandom in Japan. Not saying everyone will have the same popularity but that people that would literally get ignored in Korea will have fans in Japan.
Just going by the popularity on 48/46 groups, and of actresses and models I feel like I see way more different looking people than in Korea. You have like Oguri Yui, Okada Nana, Kojima Haruna, Shiraishi Mai, Hirate Yurina, Oshima Yuko, Maeda Atsuko, Rola, Hirose Suzu, Ayase Haruka, Honda Tsubasa, Dan Mitsu, Hashimoto Kanna, Kaho, Gouriki Ayame, Ieiri Leo, Kawaei Rina, Momota Kanako, etc. In Korea you have to be tall, skinny, with a fair complexion, long limbs, with a somewhat innocent but not childish look.
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Well, Koreans have too narrow and rigid a definition of beauty that everyone else will automatically be considered more accepting. Having said that, I don't think Japan is as body positive as the west though - for example, being obese will definitely get you remarks from the Japanese, though probably nor as vicious as those you get in SK.
It's probably more accurate to say that Japan has different and less rigid beauty standards than SK. The snaggletooth, for example, is considered cute in Japan, but in SK you'd be asked to get dental surgery to achieve that perfect smile. Also, where SK prizes certain facial features, I find that the Japanese favor a certain "image" or personality type. There are a lot of J-idols who would certainly not match the high beauty standards of Kpop, but thrive in Japan because they match a desired persona or stereotype.
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We can use GOOGLE TRENDS to gauge NIZI PROJECT's popularity worldwide. I refuse to believe that Twice IS NOT BIG ENOUGH IN JAPAN to carry a sister group . I think they are more than able. But even if they want to they cannot do it because Twice is under WMJ and NIZI is under SONY.
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The daily vote is ending. The last period is 200610 00:00 - 23:59
Google trends is not a good way to gauge popularity in Japan when a huge part of the population uses Yahoo rather than google. Not to mention it can also be manipulated even if it isn't common like youtube numbers. You can anecdotally take some very rough estimate of how popular they are in Japan with those numbers along with twitter trends and other metrics, but none can be taken as a true direct representation of their true popularity. Their sales numbers will be the true test of how big their fandom is.
Twice is 100% not big enough in Japan to carry on association alone another group. I would even say they can't do it in Korea either. As popular as they are in both countries you need to be unprecedentedly popular to pull such a move. You need to be BTS levels of popularity in Korea or AKB/Nogizaka levels of popularity to do it in Japan. Which they are not in either country. Not saying it won't help, but it won't make them instant 100k sellers.
I never said Twice and Nizi were represented by the same company in Japan. Just that Japanese companies in general are very outdated when it comes to new media. I have no idea why that is relevant to this discussion. If you can't see how being from JYPE would connect them both even in Japan I don't think we have much to argue.