In the present time, Korea and Japan has big conflict because last month, South Korea’s top court ruled that Japan’s Nippon steel & Sumitomo Metal corporation must compensate four south Koreans for their forced labor during the world war Ⅱ, and Japan refused this with saying “unthinkable.” To include, as I mentioned in the previous post, BTS Instagram’s post became a big trouble, so how both sides look at the other country, is not positive compared to before these events happen.
In the post before, I talked about the Korean program “Produce 48,” and the group that came out from the program is called IZ*ONE (Eyez-wun is the way to pronounce it). The group just debuted last month, but the tickets to the showcase were sold out within a minute, there first album set a new record for the highest number of albums sold on the first day of a Korean girl group’s debut release, and first music video achieved more than 4.5 million views within 24 hours of its release on Youtube, making it the most-watched debut music video by a Korean act in 24 hours.
As you can see, the group made so much new record, and the citizens should be really proud of them. However, because of these recent troubles, some Korean are claiming to music companies and TV stations to have IZ*ONE stop promoting in Korea, because the group has 3 Japanese member (out of 12), and it means the group is an enemy for Korea. While Korea is taking this style, Japan is totally the opposite. Many Japanese are really welcoming IZ*ONE, and many are mentioning that politics and entertainment should not be mixed up together. I totally agree with this opinion. Politics and entertainment does not have any connection, or I even think that IZ*ONE, or entertainment can ease the negative feeling that each country’s citizens have to each other.