[asaqe]

Originally Posted by sa547

The sudden popularity (or oversaturation as critics and naysayers would like to say) of the *48 families somehow kickstarted the idol boom, forcing all other idols, be it old groups (i.e. Morning Musume, et. al.) and new alike, whether traditional or avant-garde, or even boybands (i.e. SMAP), to come and try to challenge the *48 domination.

At the moment the boom, despite being confined domestically, is still much at its apex, it's never constant, which means the producers and management have to keep coming up with new ideas.

There will be the case of "no export" because the Japanese record companies feel that there will be a small audience outside Japan who care to buy their singles, apparently drawing lessons from the debacle in the attempt to export Pink Lady to an uninformed American audience, and of course the language and cultural barrier.

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I'm not surprised that there are those self-proclaimed expert/writers who are actually k-pop shills or outright Japanophile elitists.

Also, I find SNSD's extremely high vote count rather disturbing than genuine.

You must mean Japanophobe because I haven't been seeing much love for Japanese Culture over here lately.