 Author's Note: "IDOLS in Thailand" is a four-part series on the growth of idols and idol culture in Thailand, and how the modern Thai idol industry was largely influenced by Japanese idols. I would like to extend my thanks to my informants in Thailand, who have graciously lent their time to show me the history of idol culture in Thailand and acquaint me well with it, so that I may pass it forward. In recent years, Japanese idol culture has become wildly popular overseas. But, in one particular country in Southeast Asia, Japanese idol culture has spawned a local idol culture unique to that country itself and a number of performers / groups that largely follow the Japanese idol concept. That country is Thailand.
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 Long-running Japanese idol group Morning Musume ’19 has added three incredibly cute new “musumes”, who will form Morning Musume’s 15th generation. Two of them were picked from a recent Morning Musume ‘19 LOVE Audition, and one member will be joining them from the Hello! Pro Kenshuusei Hokkaido trainee division. In a live-streamed announcement, they were greeted cheerfully by the current Morning Musume members.
 We’ve certainly heard of overseas idols and idol groups wanting to travel to Japan to do performances, but not like this: Vancouver, Canada-based idol group Seishun Youth Academy—one of the few overseas idol sister groups in the world—has launched a crowdfunding effort, with the support of their Japanese agency NoMake, which aims to bring all of the members of Seishun Youth Academy to Japan. There, they would perform together with their Japanese sister group 青SHUN学園 (Seishun Gakuen) at an unspecified major idol festival in August.
TWICE fans (a.k.a. ‘Onces’) are once again finding themselves in a daze as the popular K-POP girl group has released two new music videos for their newest Japanese singles, “Breakthrough” and “HAPPY HAPPY”.
 Seishun Youth Academy Recently, we reported on FES☆TIVE’s announcement of a sister girl group. While smaller ‘sister groups’ are a frequent occurrence in the Japanese idol world, FES☆TIVE’s sister group will have one unique and major aspect that sets it apart from others: it will be based overseas.
 In a surprise announcement during a concert event in Bangkok, Japanese idol FES☆TIVE have announced that they will have an overseas sister girl group based in Thailand.
We talked about Anime Expo 2019 guest announcements and there's another big one today! Idol group Aqours from LOVE LIVE! SUNSHINE!! will take over The Novo in downtown Los Angeles for two performances on July 5th and 6th! With their show titled LOVE LIVE! SUNSHINE!! Aqours World LoveLive! in LA ~BRAND NEW WAVE~
 A-to-J Connections recently realized that we were a bit overdue for a new KOTO interview and as chance would have it, this would be our fifth interview with her and it would take place just prior to her special Fifth Anniversary Concert! If you don't know who KOTO is, let's give you all a very brief recap. We first officially caught up with KOTO early in 2016 with an interview and a live report that can be found HERE and HERE respectively. Just a few short weeks later we were lucky enough to catch up with her in Taiwan where she held her first overseas live! That interview was split into two parts and can be found HERE and HERE. A few months after that we arranged another interview that followed the release of her single "Butoh Yugi" which can be found HERE. LASTLY, we caught up with KOTO in October 2017, circa the release of her "Kotoraberingu" (Kotraveling) single and you can find that one HERE. Basically, you can learn all about KOTO in all those articles!
Since then, a lot of developments have occured! She had a successful crowdfunding campaign for a new album and MV in April 2018 and followed that success up by announcing her major debut, and the creation of a new label just for her called "KOTORA", through Universal Music Japan! November 2018 would see the first album from her in two years with the release of "Bye Bye Teens Lullaby" and she'd also release an MV for one of its songs, "Tiger Fighter Cyber Fighter"! As already mentioned, she recently celebrated her fifth anniversary and has even expanded into other things such as creating choreography for other idols! Basically, there's a lot to say, but let's move onto to the interview! |
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