Do International Idols Fall Under the Label?

what's a toreaboo?

Well... when I think of that word, I think about people who probably think that South Korea is much better than their own country, and probably also think that it is some sort of "kpop paradise".

And those people wish that they were Koreans.

Quote from Dahyunia

I saw someone calling Misamo Toreaboos. That got me thinking if some idols who are from other countries might also be considered Toreaboos. What did you guys think

It can also go the other way around by seeing how many people from outside Japan tried to debut in Japan or have. There was literally a dude from the US who was not Asian at all, did not speak Japanese and tried to debut in a boygroup. He became trainee and even openly said he originaly came to Japan as a weeb. Dude later on got kicked out as trainee cause he was a bit problematic. But there are a lot people who debuted in JPop and havn't been born/raised in Japan. Some even say the reasons why they decided to be in Japan and it's odd. The Korean, but Japan based Youtuber Lee Minhyun wo apeared on season 1 of Produce 101 Japan said (no joke) he left Korea after he tried Japanese food and than said that this is why he wanted to live in Japan... em yeah ... He didn't made it on the show BTW, than continued with releasing his weird Japanese beauty videos and had like 3 solo-songs or so (who are not even that good).

For Japanese idols going to Korea there was one theory, spoken out by the Japanese rapper SKY-HI when he held a survival show in 2021 to form a boygroup for his company. He said he belived that one reason why Japanese people preffer to go to Korea, especially boys was, that the Japanese music market is oversaturated with idol groups and especially girlgroups, who even if most are smaller/not so sucessfull, tend to overshadow most male artists by how many there are and cause the most boygroups who are famous come from the same few companies and its guranted for most that if they join any of the few top lables that they might make it instantly, but it's not easy to debut under these labels or even join them as trainee plus many don't even want to join these few lables and so they fear to not be able to make it in Japan as a artist from a smaller label that has to compeet with many girlgroups and the few top boygroups, so SKY-HI belives that this was why so many young people who want to become a vocalist, especialy the boys, decide to leave Japan cause they think it would be easier to debut in Korea and get famous over there.

I also know from something TWICE's Sana said some years ago, that she only ended up in Korea, cause JYP was literally going around place in Japan looking for people. She said it was a bit akward cause she was in a dance class and he stood at a window that lead to a halway in the building and was watching the people before, than at the end of the class he came to some and asked if they could think of joining JYP. She had barly any plan who JYP was at that time so she was a bit confused, but said she would try it. Another girl from NiziU said that the same thing happend to her, she was in a dance class and JYP was lurking around watching the kids dance before aproaching them.

In some other cases I know what got them to think of wanting to debut in Korea, even if they didn't ended up there at the end:

• Hayato of MAZZEL grew up in a family where his parents and sister had ben extremly into KPop. When he grew up thinking what he would like to do when he grew up he decided he wanted to become a singer and cause his family was into KPop he wanted to go to Korea in hopes to make his parents proud if he would be taken somewhere. However it didn't worked out and so he stayed in Japan
• Aeron of THE JET BOY BANGERZ is half Korean and half Filipino and wanted to move to Korea and become a vocalist over there since he never had lived in Korea before and wanrted to become a singer. However he had known of the dept system and wanted to avoid to get into a dept as trainee so he tried to work a norma job and wanted to save money from it to be able to pay his training if he gets into a KPop company, but he forgot he needs to pay rent, feed himself, ... and can't save enough money cause of this and so it hadn't worked out for him. It wasn't said if he worked in Japan or Korea, but the only thing I know is that he gave up and auditioned for a Japanese company instead at the end.
• Since one of the most favourite groups from Naoya of MAZZEL (the one in my profile pic xD) had been Stray Kids, I think when he wanted to become a vocalist, this was one reason why he decided to go to Korea. But he had the wrong intentions on trying to debut, because he thought people in Korea only debut if they win on a survival show, which made him not go to Korea cause at that time there had been no survival shows. Later on he than joined a Japanese survival show and became trainee of a Japanese company, but when his trainee unit disolved he tried again for JYP, when he found out that there was a show, but he was not successfull and decided to give up with Korea and auditioned for a 3rd show in Japan and made it at the end.
• The vocalist NOA said he originaly didn't even wanted to become a singer, it all happend by accidant. When he was 11 he told his mom randomly that he could think of living abroad and she took it for real and imediatly moved to Korea with him. A year later when he sat at the hairdresser a manager of YG who also was there noticed him and asked if Noa could imagine becoming a KPop trainee and that he should audition. Noa later on auditioned since he loved singing (his reason why he loves singing was actually cause he had watched ' Highschool Music' xD) but he left Korea after he lived there for almost 8 years after being dissapointed to not have been taken for the show that formed TREASURE

Quote from Dahyunia

Wow, you are amazing! Thanks for explaining it to me. When did Sana say that JYP was watching her at the dance studio? I can tell Sana isn’t a cultural appropriator, even though she speaks Korean really well. She loves her country, so hopefully most Koreans know that about her too. I wonder if she regrets going to Korea but I don’t know what Sana will be doing she weren’t an idol .

I forgot when she said that, but she said on the show that formed TWICE that if she wouldn't be in Korea, she could've seen herself as backup dancer for JPop-artists. She apparently even was added as dancer to a concert of the now disbanded girlgroup E-girls that she loved a lot and said that at that time the group was still experimenting with what people could be added to the member-lineup and she said, if not a backup dancer, she could've also thought to become a member of them. Many people said that this is what she mentioned on the show. And to proof how much she loved the group, she even performed a short cover of one of their songs lol.

It was a bit weird to me when I saw people mentioning that she apparently said that, cause her in E-girls would've been so random, but not unlikely, since the dance academy she used to visit was run by the same company that produced E-girls. (Another funny fact is that Sana's dance teacher from back then is now member of a boygroup in the company lol and it was a bit funny when they came to Korea in 2018 and Sana proudly told her members that one of the dudes was her former dance teacher lol).

BTW this is E-girls, they debuted in 2011 and disbanded in 2020 when they had been only 11 members at the end, since they at first tried to work around what would be the best for the group by adding 27 member and the final lineup had 11 members.

And this was her covering one of their songs

Quote from Dahyunia

I saw someone calling Misamo Toreaboos. That got me thinking if some idols who are from other countries might also be considered Toreaboos. What did you guys think

What do I think? I think this is a really stupid question. Foreign idols are there to make money, not satiate some weird obsession with Korea.