Chapter 622 The world of face

Japan is a single-ethnic country, and the Japanese society is relatively simplistic, and the acceptance of foreign things is not high.

But this does not mean that Japan does not accept foreign cultures at all. If it is a strong culture in the world, Japan has always accepted it completely, but if it is not a strong culture, it is difficult to gain a foothold in Japan.

During the Tang Dynasty, China was the most powerful culture at that time, and the Japanese began to study China in an all-round way, and they copied everything from the Tang Dynasty to Japan.

In modern times, with the rise of Western powers, European civilization was the dominant culture in the world at that time, and Japan began to westernize in an all-round way, imitating all the European practices to Japan.

After the end of World War II, the United States became the most powerful country in the world. American culture began to become popular, and Japan began to learn from the United States. Whatever was popular in the United States, Japan followed suit.

The simplest example is American football. Except for the United States, only the Japanese are playing American football, and they are very slippery. Apart from the fact that their bodies are not as strong as American muscle sticks, tactics, techniques, etc. are all in the world. Top. .

The American football mentioned here refers to the football under the American rules, which is the kind played by the NFL in the United States.

In addition to American rules, there are also British rules in rugby, which are much lighter in terms of physical confrontation. British rules apply to international competitions.

Rugby leagues held in Europe and Australia are leagues with English rules. Japan is the only country other than North America that has a league with American football rules. Many football players who cannot play in the United States simply go to the Japanese league to make a fortune.

It can be seen that Japan is very thorough in learning from the United States.

Therefore, many artists who are popular in the United States are also very popular in Japan.

From the original Beatles, Queen, to Michael Jackson, to Linkin Park after the 21st century, as well as Meimei and Gaga in recent years, as long as they are top American stars, they are very popular in Japan , their concerts in Japan are even more popular in the United States.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Hallyu culture also began to enter Japan. At that time, in order to get rid of the influence of the Asian financial crisis, South Korea formulated the strategy of cultural rejuvenation.

Japan was the largest market in Asia at the time, and was naturally the primary target for Korean cultural exports.

And what South Korea used to open up the Japanese market was the most popular HOT group in South Korea at that time.

The HOT group is regarded as the originator of idols of Korean music festivals.

However, after the group arrived in Japan, they encountered difficulties.

HOT's washing, cutting, and blowing look is avant-garde in other Asian countries, but it is sparse in Japan. Which of the tyrants in Japan is not non-mainstream? If you want to see ghosts and monsters, there are so many places in Japan, why do you need to see Koreans?

As for songs, the level of songwriting in South Korea at that time was relatively average, and there were even many traditional Korean folk songs on the stage of pop music.

While Japan has been baptized by American culture for decades, their songwriting is more westernized and popular. This can be seen from the theme song of Japanese anime at that time, whether it is the style or rhythm, it is the style of the popular song.

For Japanese, if I want to listen to music, we have better ones in Japan, why should I listen to your Korean music?

More importantly, the HOT combination is not handsome!

As an idol, you can sing badly, dance badly, or have no acting skills, but you must pretend to be handsome.

After all, this is a face-seeing world. If idol groups are not handsome enough, that is the original sin!

When the HOT group entered the Japanese market, Korean doctors had not yet developed the unique skills of knife work. Those original Korean faces with single eyelids were difficult to touch the aesthetic point of Japanese audiences.

Even the most popular combination in South Korea failed to set off any waves in Japan, which also made Mizu Iijima think that this newly established F4 combination may not even have a short-lived opportunity!

...

Japan's cultural industry is still relatively developed, such as books, magazines, etc., which are very popular in Japan. Various magazines can be bought directly in Japanese convenience stores, and bookstores, comic stores, etc., are also all over the streets of Japan.

Most of the bookstores and comic stores are relatively small in scale, and the space inside is not large. There is only enough space in the aisle for one person to pass through. Bookstores such as Crayon Shin-chan are already relatively large bookstores in Japan.

Although the so-called sparrow is small and complete, the small bookstores on the streets of Japan sell a relatively complete range of books and periodicals. In addition to best-selling books, such as magazines, star photos, new comic booklets, etc. are all on sale.

Some bookstores can also be used as filming locations for movies, making a few wonderful movies while selling books, and earning extra income.

For example, April Story, Days at Morisaki Bookstore, and the series that cannot speak.

In a certain bookstore, a young girl passed by the place where the pictures of celebrities were placed in the bookstore. She glanced at it inadvertently, and then stopped immediately.

Then the young girl rushed over and picked up a photo book from the most inconspicuous corner.

It's really F4's photo album! The young girl suddenly showed a treasured expression, and then the young girl held the F4 photo album and walked to the counter to pay, as if she was afraid of being preempted by others.

Seeing the girl buying F4's photo album, the bookstore owner suddenly smiled. In the bookstore owner's opinion, there is a high probability that this kind of photo album of non-Japanese stars will not sell, so he only bought five copies and placed them in the Test the water on the bookshelf, if it can't be sold, it will be disposed of as waste books, and it will not lose too much.

F4's photo album was just put out, and a copy was sold, making the boss feel that he had returned a mouthful of blood.

Soon, the second, third, fourth, and fifth books were all bought by customers, and the people who came to buy the F4 photobook were all young ladies.

All five F4 photobooks were sold out, and customers came to ask when the new batch of photobooks would arrive.

Only then did the bookstore owner realize that this F4 photobook is still a bestseller!

It's really strange. They are obviously not Japanese stars. How can so many people like them? Is it because they are handsome?

The bookstore owner sighed lightly, and then handed the bookstore to the clerk, while he drove the buns to the bookseller to buy goods.

However, what the bookstore owner didn't expect was that F4's photobook was out of stock!

...

In Japan, selling photobooks has always been an important source of income for idol artists.

When many young artists just debuted, they wanted to sing, but they wanted to dance, and they wanted to act. The record companies were unwilling to sing for them, the film and television companies were unwilling to ask them to shoot dramas, and even magazines were unwilling to ask them to shoot. , at this time, the photobook became their only source of income.

The so-called underground idols in Japan basically survive by selling photo albums. The larger the scale, the higher the sales.

In addition, there are some female artists who are resident in the hard disk, and several photo albums will be published after shooting. After all, taking pictures saves energy, saves your voice, and makes more money than taking videos.

The price of photobooks in Japan is below 2,000 yen. The so-called below 2,000 yen is actually 199X yen. Even if it is full-color high-definition printing, the price is relatively high, so the profit of selling photobooks is very good.

Some film and television stars with better image, the money they make from selling photo albums is much higher than the salary. Therefore, Japanese artists are more keen to take photo albums.

The same is true for many singers. When releasing an album, they also release a photo album. If you want to save trouble, just grab a few shots while shooting the MV, put them in the photo album, and release them together with the album, and you can make a fortune. .

And for popular idols, taking photo albums can also cover up the lack of personal ability to the greatest extent.

Idols mainly rely on their faces to eat. Some idols sing, dance, and perform. In other words, as long as there is one thing you can do in singing and dancing, you don’t need to rely on your face to eat. You can rely on your strength. .

You don't need to sing, dance, or act when taking a photo album, just pose. Moreover, the photos taken can also be improved through post-processing, and the requirements for artists are the lowest.

F4, a young artist who has just debuted, belongs to this type of face-to-face meal.

In later generations of F4, some can sing, some can dance, some can act, and they have also won some awards, proving their strength.

However, these skills are all developed after some training and practice after becoming popular. Take acting, for example, as long as you have some talent, you will definitely be able to master some acting skills and skills through the experience of several male protagonists, and gradually become a powerful group.

But the F4 in 2001 obviously does not have these capabilities. Therefore, we can only rely on the photo album to make the first wave of money. Therefore, when Meteor Garden was broadcast in Japan, F4's photobook also came to Japan.

And F4's photo album, it really sells well in Japan.

After all, this is a face-to-face world!

Before F4, Asian artist groups still became popular by singing and dancing, rather than relying on their faces to eat.

In the early Beyond band, it really depended on strength to eat. Later, with the youthful and lively combination of the Little Tigers, it is natural for fans to like it.

Later, there was HOT's unrestrained passion with a touch of non-mainstream, and it showed the rebelliousness of young people drippingly and delicately. NRG conquered the audience with good songs and gorgeous dances.

Even in Japan, the SMAP group that Kimura Takuya belongs to is showing healthy and lively characteristics when they debut. Among the five people, except for Kimura Takuya, the other four people's looks are definitely not related to idols.

Until the appearance of F4, the idol group was really defined. The four big boys with different styles but good looks and good figure gathered together and put on a few handsome poses to attract a group of nympho fans.

The emergence of the F4 group has given a lot of young people a slap in the face who want to rely on their strength to eat. At this time, everyone realized that the world is really a face!

In the entertainment industry, hard work is very useful, but a handsome or beautiful face can easily span decades of hard work by others.

At that time, Ms. Chai also spent a lot of effort in choosing the F4 combination. First of all, the height is required to be more than 180 cm. This alone has eliminated many young people.

After all, in those days, 180 cm was already considered tall, and Ms. Chai's audition was not in Shandong. Young people over 180 cm were not easy to find.

In F4, Jerry Yan had acting experience, and she was already spotted by Ms. Chai and reserved a spot. The remaining three people hope to be selected through audition.

At that time, there were more than 200 people in the audition. After one round of elimination, there were only 50 people left. The Meteor Garden team needed to select another three people among these 50 people.

Then Ms. Chai met Wu Jianhao at the gym, met Zhu Xiaotian while eating barbecue, and happened to meet Zhou Yimin who accompanied a friend to the interview, and the other F3 was selected.

That is to say, of the more than 200 people who were selected for the audition, none of them were selected, and they all came for nothing. The purpose of this audition is to give Zhou Yumin a chance to accompany his friends for an interview.

Perhaps it is also this kind of selection among amateurs that four different styles were selected, and finally became one of the most popular idol groups in Asia.

...

As a middle-aged woman and a senior executive of an artist's office, Mizu Iijima usually pays great attention to the maintenance of her personal appearance, and she has never lacked all kinds of cosmetics and beauty products.

On weekends, Iijima Mizhi took advantage of the rest and decided to go to the drugstore to buy some cosmetics to replenish his inventory.

At the door of the drugstore, there is an advertisement of F4, and they endorse a relatively affordable skin care product.

This kind of unpopular artist group can only endorse cheap goods. Like Kimura Takuya, the endorsements are all high-end products! Iijima Sanzhi thought sour in his heart.

Walking into the drugstore, I found that there are still many people buying things today, and there are already customers choosing products.

When the female clerk saw that Mitsuchi Iijima was well-dressed, she thought she was a rich customer, so she greeted, Ma'am, we have a newly launched face-lifter, would you like to take a look?

Women are always more concerned about losing face, and it was Mizu Iijima who nodded again.

The female clerk immediately brought the face-lifting device, and when Iijima Mizhi saw it, it turned out to be a puppy brand!

Has this brand disappeared in Japan yet? Iijima Mizhi said unconsciously.

The female clerk replied: Madam, you are really joking, this brand's face-lifting device is currently the best-selling device. And if you buy this face-lifting device now, you can also participate in the event!

It turned out that it was only through promotions that I survived in the Japanese market! Iijima Sanzhi thought to himself, and then asked, What promotions are there?

If you buy this product, you can participate in the brand's lucky draw. The female clerk explained seriously.

What are the prizes? Iijima Mizhi asked.

The prizes are here, please take a look at this lady. The clerk pointed to a small cabinet next to the counter, and continued: We have a total of first, second, and third prizes. The third prize is the poster of the popular group F4. open!

Is it just a poster? This manufacturer is stingy. UU reading www.uukanshu.com There shouldn't be anyone buying this face-lifter for the poster, right? Iijima Sanzhi complained.

Yes, customers only want to get the first prize, so they will buy this face-lifting device. The female clerk said.

What is the first prize? Iijima Mizhi skipped the second prize.

It's a photo album of the popular group F4! said the female clerk, picked up F4's photo album, and then introduced; This photo album is currently out of stock, and you can't buy it in the bookstore, you can only buy the puppy brand. The face-lifting instrument can only be won by lottery!

Why is this F4 again! Iijima Mizhi snorted coldly.

Ma'am, this group is very popular among girls in high school and college! The clerk said immediately.

Can he be more popular than Kimura Takuya? Iijima Sanchi asked in disdain.

Kimura-kun is married after all. The female clerk pointed to the F4 poster, showing a nympho expression: Look, this F4 is so handsome! I really hope to sleep with them...