SINGAPORE – Before the pandemic, Singapore-based Japanese entertainment events organiser Sozo staged only two to three shows for Japanese music acts each year in Singapore.

But in 2024, Sozo has more than 20 shows for Japanese artistes in South-east Asia on its slate, all before the end of June. 

J-pop, a genre once dominant in Asia in the 1990s and early 2000s, was overshadowed by the rise of K-pop in the 2010s. It is now showing signs of a renaissance.

Sozo’s managing director Shawn Chin says J-pop is coming back.

“In the past, if you can sell 1,000 or 1,500 tickets for a Japanese act’s live show here, that’s considered very good and you’re covering costs,” he says. “Now, it’s more profitable. We’re selling more tickets at a faster pace.”

Sozo just wrapped its biggest capacity show for a Japanese act in Singapore – a 5,500-strong audience for a sold-out concert by the duo Yoasobi, held at Resorts World Ballroom on Jan 11.

Tickets to the pop act’s show here sold out immediately after it went on sale. Sozo is also organising Yoasobi’s Asia tour stops in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

Another A-list Japanese act that sold out their show here is rock band One Ok Rock.

The four-man band’s show at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in December sold out the same day its general sales opened.

Previously, when the group held a concert at the same venue in 2018, tickets took over two months to sell out. 

Aside from Yoasobi, Sozo also organised rock band Man With A Mission’s Singapore concert at Capitol Theatre in September 2023. 

It will also manage the South-east Asian legs of Gen-Z Japanese singer Ado’s first world tour as well as Japanese singer-songwriter Eve’s Asia tour to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in May.

“The promotion business for Japanese artistes is really growing exponentially. We’re even setting up a new division focusing on concerts for these acts,” says Mr Chin.  

Long-time fans of J-pop say the genre has seen new interest, in part due to a boost in anime audiences. 

Ms Serene Teo is a 30-year-old financial adviser who performs J-pop songs as a hobby and has been a fan of Japanese entertainment since 2009.

Ms Teo, who participates in anime and cosplay events, says: “In the past, I think anime was seen as a bit uncool and there was some stigma attached to cosplay, for example.

“But during the pandemic, there was a shift in perspective, perhaps because a lot of people had nothing to do and started watching anime. It became more accepted.”

She adds: “The first cosplay event I went to in 2022 after the pandemic, my friends and I were shocked by how crowded the event was. There were many unfamiliar faces we’d never seen at previous events. Clearly, the community is growing.”

Sozo, which organises Anime Festival Asia in Singapore, says 40 per cent of attendees who visited the 2022 edition of the festival, the first held after the pandemic, were first-timers to the event.

Mr Chin says: “Prior to Covid-19, it was more of a niche audience, maybe hardcore fans of Japanese culture and entertainment. After Covid-19, it became a more mainstream event.”

Japanese acts who sing for anime series have benefited from the increased interest in such series.

Ms Amanda Lee, a 33-year-old internal communications specialist who has been a fan of J-pop for 20 years, says: “Anime is the gateway to J-pop for so many people. When there’s an amazing soundtrack, people discover the contributing music artistes.

“A good example is Yoasobi, who sang Idol (the opening theme for the anime series Oshi No Ko). That song blew up and made Yoasobi so global and mainstream.”

Idol placed seventh in Apple Music’s 2023 year-end top songs chart, marking the highest entry ever for a J-pop song. Yoasobi also topped Spotify’s list of most-streamed Japanese artistes outside Japan.

Polytechnic student Tiffanie Goh, 19, who began watching anime in 2019 after a friend recommended hit anime movie Your Name (2016), says she discovered musicians such as Kenshi Yonezu through series such as Chainsaw Man (2022).

Yonezu, who is one of the biggest solo musicians in Japan, sang the series’ opening theme Kick Back.

Ms Goh, who is also a freelance TikTok creator, says many of her friends also discovered J-pop via TikTok, where songs can often go massively viral.

“A lot of my friends prefer K-pop, so they usually learn about J-pop only through TikTok. Some songs like Yoasobi’s Idol, Yoru Ni Kakeru and Tabun, and Kaze Fujii’s Shinunoga E-wa, are so popular that my friends know about them even if they don’t follow the genre,” she says.

Idol, which sparked a viral dance challenge, has been used in more than 515,000 videos on the platform.

Singer-songwriter Fujii’s Shinunoga E-wa, which translates to I’d Rather Die and is from his debut album Help Ever Hurt Never in 2020, unexpectedly went viral in 2022. It has since been used in 419,000 videos.

The song is particularly popular in Thailand, and Fujii held a sold-out show in Bangkok when he toured Asia in 2023. 

Japanese artistes going overseas for concerts may seem commonplace now, with some of the country’s most popular musicians such as Fujii, Yoasobi, Ado and One Ok Rock taking their tours aboard.

But this was not always the case.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, when J-pop acts such as Hikaru Utada, Namie Amuro, Ayumi Hamasaki and boy band Smap were popular across Asia, overseas tours were rare.

Ms Gillian Tan, assistant director of artiste management at Unusual Entertainment, which is organising the Singapore stop for top rock band King Gnu’s first Asia tour in April, says: “Prior to the pandemic, the market wasn’t really right for Japanese artistes. In the early 2000s, even when stars like Utada were very popular, Japanese artistes rarely toured overseas.

“And then K-pop took over the market and it became somewhat of a downtime for J-pop.”

King Gnu, formed in 2013, are Unusual’s first concert for a Japanese artiste since the pandemic.

Japanese singer-rapper and member of pop group AAA, Sky-Hi, whose real name is Mitsuhiro Hidaka, agrees that J-pop acts were previously reluctant to venture overseas.

The 37-year-old founded his own management agency and entertainment label BMSG in 2020. BMSG currently manages acts like idol boy band Be:First.

The enormous potential of the Japanese market – the second-largest music market in the world behind the United States – meant that sales of J-pop acts were not contingent on the international market, he tells The Straits Times over e-mail.

He adds: “The significant time and budgetary implications of international pursuits were often discouraging. Managing language barriers, arranging travel logistics and planning effective promotional strategies could demand considerable resources. 

“Given this, when faced with a choice between focusing on assured success at home during an artiste’s zenith and venturing into unknown foreign markets, management often leaned towards the former.”

Ms Emma Q., 34, a medical researcher who has been listening to J-pop for 16 years, remembers how inaccessible music and gigs used to be for foreign fans.

She had to travel to Japan to attend concerts by idol groups like Arashi, pop duo Yuzu and rock band Bump Of Chicken.

She says: “It was rare for them to have any overseas tours, and even when they did, it was mostly in South Korea or Taiwan and almost never in South-east Asia.”

Now, Japanese acts are much more keen to engage overseas fans from all around the world – something that sets this new resurgence of J-pop apart from the J-pop wave of the 1990s.

Certainly, social media such as TikTok and streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube play a part. It is now much easier for musicians to distribute their music around the world and for fans to connect with acts they enjoy.

But J-pop’s renewed popularity is also fuelled by Japan’s own changing circumstances that prompt them to look beyond their home turf for sustained success.

As Sky-Hi puts it: “It’s no secret that Japan is dealing with societal issues like an ageing population and declining gross domestic product. As we look ahead towards the next decade, it’s increasingly essential for Japanese artistes, including myself, to explore international avenues.”