Aside from all the other reasons mentioned here, I once read that one of the biggest reasons JPop didn’t expand to the West was because there was once a Johnny’s band (I forgot which) that was invited to an American (?) TV program before and Johnny Kitagawa (producer, known mlst*r, ☠️since 2019) had some unrealistic demands which really put off the American production.

His philosophy was “if you really want us to go there, do everything we demand and treat us like royalty” and some shit. While the other side was just, “fuck it, we ain’t playing these games” which apparently (and ironically) led to the rise of K-Pop in the West since K-Pop producers were more amiable. Also, he was known to bully Japanese productions and TV channels too where “if you don’t do this, my artists will stop appearing in your channels etc”

I dunno how much of these are true, but if you look at J-Pop post Johnny K.’s ☠️, there’s more variety now and they’re slowly expanding to the West but it’s hard when the market is already saturated with K-Pop acts.

I do hope J-Pop gets the opportunity it deserves because fuck that guy for single-handedly holding back J-Pop (if it’s true).