Especially with certain incidents happening recently, I’ve seen a lot of conversations of how black culture has inspired kpop, whether it’s fashion, song genres, or more. Personally, although I understand the frustration that comes with descreditment, I still think it can be a really unique insight as to how globalization and history, such as the occupation of US soliders in Korea, inspire different subcultures since we’ve seen the influence from way back in 1st gen when SNS wasn’t even widespread.

However, a lot of assumptions are also being made about how “everything kpop comes from the West/black culture” and that is where I want to draw a line. As someone who grew up with 2nd gen kpop, as well as Heisei jpop, there are also a lot of things that were inspired by the jpop industry which has been thriving since the 1960s and I just wanted to highlight a few.

Of course, I want to preface that this isn’t me trying to ignore black culture that did, and still does, influence the industry but I also want to place credit where credit is due.

Lightsticks:

For those who don’t know, for most of the 2000s, groups were supported with their designated colored balloons and that was the common trend. However, GD was the first to create a specific group based lightstick for Big Bang and things spiraled from there to the lightsticks we use now.

However, jpop has been using lightsticks, aka penlights, since the 70s and custom group based ones (aka not just a stick with a light) have been used since the 90s with Bluetooth based ones first being used by Arashi to coordinate with certain member colors. Some of my friends even have lightsticks from the early 2000s before GD or even Se7en created theirs.

Photocards:

Although I am aware Motown has used photocards since the 1980s, jpop has equally held a collectable photo culture for decades. Since the 80s and 90s you could buy various sets of photos for your favs, especially for groups within the Johnny’s agency, which had a portrait rights ban until fairly recently. Hence, these photos became the only way to see your fav outside of television appearances or concerts. Heck I even own a bunch of pictures from the year 2000 when my favs were still trainees.

You can see this how this influenced kpop, especially since the first collectable photocards were used within TVXQ’s Japanese releases before SNSD popularized them within Oh! and made the modern PCs we know today.

Graduations/Training:

Now speaking of trainees, the system of making an idol, from joining a company, training them on various skills, to having a grace period where the public slowly gets introduced to them, was also a direct inspiration of Johnny’s who were doing this system since the 1970s. Of course, other companies catered towards females (since Johnny’s only admitted males) soon followed in the 80s as well. Both structures featured the system of parasocial exclusively that we know today, that idols are molded only for the fans, and that breaking that exclusively (aka being in a relationship) goes against that purpose. There’s actually a great research paper here about how deokhu, or fan labor resulting in parasocial expectations, has developed over time.

Things like the SMRookies system, having pre debut showcases, etc were all inspired by the system of admitting trainees who show potential when they’re super young and then molding them into artists through backup dancing, working with already debuted artists, featuring in media, and more. Some groups (aka my favs KAT-TUN, pls stan) were so popular pre debut that their pre debut performances themselves took place in Tokyo Dome.

In terms of debuts, unlike kpop, jpop did and still does, maintain a range of debut ages, although of course, both skew young. There’s some current very popular juniors, aka trainees, such as members within B&ZAI who are lined up to debut soon and they’re reaching their 30s (born 1998) which is something I’ve yet to see in kpop. Of course there was also Sexy Zone (now Timelesz) who had a member as young as 11 debut, so yeah, definitely a range 💀 There are also different debut expectations, because they often start younger in jpop, there is a mindset of watching your idol grow, even if their skills are lacking at first. However, kpop prides itself on professionalism, often you will not even see a trainee until they are practically debut ready.

Regarding the group structure themselves, the most obvious influence has to be how Morning Musume and AKB48 basically popularized the concepts of rotating groups and graduation, which SM was trying to do with Super Junior ’05, tried to do with NCT Dream, and just gave up after that lol. The whole Produce 101 system is also basically a changed version of the AKB48 Senbatsu, which used to be insanely popular and watched on TVs nationally like a survival show finale.

Similar to debut ages, although the kpop industry doesn’t follow graduation concepts to a T (members leaving being replaced with a new one), large expansive groups breaking up into smaller subgroups, such as TripleS, were built off this model.

Fan meetings/messaging:

Both kpop and jpop differ, yet are very similar, in the ways they allow fans to meet idols. The fanmeeting ticketing system, which you can only participate in based on album purchases, was inspired by handshake events, which are more common in jpop. Although there had been prior fanmeetings with groups as early as 1st gen as a support for album sales, most of the early ones in the late 90s didn’t have personalized greetings, just a set place where idols could thank fans.

The fanmeetings we know today (1 to 1 conversations with members, signing items, bringing gifts) were based on handshake events. These handshake events, which were popularized by AKB48 in the 2000s yet have been done since the 90s are more broad, allowing every single guest to meet an idol, even if there was no purchase. There’s some (lowkey distressing) footage of a young SMAP getting harassed by handshake guests so tbh I’m glad this system got replaced by more strict guidelines.

Now regarding online communication, messaging itself could mean things like Bubble or fancalls, which is just a COVID evaluation of handshake events, but both evolved from various histories.

For kpop, private fan communication has actually been around for a while (anyone remember UFO?) before the inception of things like Bubble. However, for specifically mobile based communication since UFO was forum based, AKB48s Mobame was one of the first to incorporate a text based method in 2018 with Bubble and other services coming a few years after.

Member colors:

Now this is a trend that’s mostly dying down in Korea, probably because everyone was beefing over sharing colors for some reason, but in Japan, the trend is still going strong! Penlights often include member colors specific to each group and merch as well. There’s even sayings about how you can have a “pink type” oshi, because all of your favs have the designated color pink.

Of course, the kpop genre itself has evolved and has moved away a lot from it’s jpop foundations, yet that inspiration still remains. Even though these jpop staples have been around for decades, I don’t want this to be a competition about who influenced who. The great thing about globalization is that inevitably there would have been some intersection of cultures that influenced the other. Rather than saying everything comes from kpop or everything comes from the West, I just wanted to showcase how difficult cultures can come together to create the genre we love today, and we should celebrate that! Granted, with proper credit to the pioneers as well.