Back in the heyday of OH, for example, around 2015-18, when there wasn't huge gaps between artists like BTS or BlackPink, there was 10× more comparing and fanwars going on with girl group fans fighting over NGG title and Armys and EXOLs going at each other. Not to mention groups like Gfriend was living their peak too and it was a constant mess.
that sounds like fun 
Isn't it logic you compare both to measure the popularity of a group?
Japan is following the trend as well. I read somewhere something like this is the first time since long time that Oricon year end #1 album doesn't have 1m sales.
It is only k-pop that is growing in physical sales. Mainly because of online fansigns giving international fans a chance to interact with their faves which was not possible during offline fansigns so many k-pop fans are mass buying which was not happening when there were offline fansigns. It was limited to only those who can attend the fansigns.
Add cheap prices of different versions of the kpop albums. Japanese albums cost $40-50 with limited editions costing more than $100 while kpop albums cost $16-20 with limited editions priced at $8-9 lol. These k-pop groups are not earning as much as their fans think they do with physicals sales compared to their Japanese counterpart because of these cheap tactics to mediaplay those HUGE sales....
Heard about that a lot, but interesting read it again. No wonder Japan is such a profitable market for kpop groups. Besides the money, japanese kpop fans are very loyal right?
Yeah Japanese fans tend to stay. Most 2nd gen groups are still able to tour in japan better than in sk. I'm a fan of shinee so I'll use them as an example. I know in 2017 they sold 539k for 29 shows so around 18.6k per show. For SK they do around 3 shows and call it a day.
About albums it really is super different. I remember wanting to buy map of the soul the journey and just the normal jewl case cd was $35 + shipping. If I wanted the photobook (no photocard) it was $55 + shipping and the limited edition with the photobook and photocard was more than $100. Not they jewl case was just the cd but the other two had some making cd (not sure if that would drastically change the price). In the end I just chose the 7 album since it was $25 at target which was really sad since I tend to like their japanese releases more.
Japan is following the trend as well. I read somewhere something like this is the first time since long time that Oricon year end #1 album doesn't have 1m sales.
It is only k-pop that is growing in physical sales. Mainly because of online fansigns giving international fans a chance to interact with their faves which was not possible during offline fansigns so many k-pop fans are mass buying which was not happening when there were offline fansigns. It was limited to only those who can attend the fansigns.
Add cheap prices of different versions of the kpop albums. Japanese albums cost $40-50 with limited editions costing more than $100 while kpop albums cost $16-20 with limited editions priced at $8-9 lol. These k-pop groups are not earning as much as their fans think they do with physicals sales compared to their Japanese counterpart because of these cheap tactics to mediaplay those HUGE sales....
Very interesting about japanese album prices . Did not know that . 
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