Thursday, March 26, 2015

Idol Groups in Japan

Idol groups are a part of Japanese pop culture. I don’t know much about Japanese Idol groups, but from what I’ve seen, they seem to mostly be groups consisting of large numbers of cute young girls dancing and singing on stage. I don’t understand the words to the songs they sing, but I hear students singing along with them, so the lyrics probably aren’t that complicated. The idols dress alike and have similar hairstyles when onstage. When we’ve seen live performances at festivals, there are also fan groups in the audience who know all the dance moves and songs. If there is anything like it in the US, I don’t know about it.

As I said, the groups are mostly young performers. I recently heard about a 40 member Okinawan idol group, called KBG84, whose members have an average age of 84! To be eligible to join the group, one must be at least 80 years old, and the group’s leaders are Miki Hanshiro (90 years old) and Tomi Menaka (91).
 
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I’d love to see this group perform!

1 comment:

D1-D2 said...

I've never heard of a group like that lol, but good for them. I get sick of seeing nothing but younger and younger singers on the pop scene. I know in Korea there are a few guys in boy bands who are now in their late 20's. Usually by their mid 20's the older members move onto acting or producing.