#honorable mention for Morning Musume 'Ai no Gundan' because the outfits were absolutely cute

[papirouge]

the jpop anon... again 😳

yeah, its pretty obvious that kpop groups do get super prepared and photoshopped to hell in promotional pictures. thats why when you look up their photos from like, award shows or other live events like that, sometimes they may look a lil different. like again, i mentioned snsd, their legs look super skinny in promotional material and videos, but in photos of live events, some girls legs for example look bigger. theyre still thin ofc, just not stick thin.

and like you mentioned, jpop idols arent expected to be perfect or have a flawless look. many times, part of the appeal of a japanese idol is watching her grow and get better and more profesional, which i think its one of the reasons kpop is ages more popular than jpop; many times ive heard o read people say how impressed they are with the complex choreographies of korean groups, something that jpop idols rarely perform. kpop idols debut when they already have achieved some good "performance level" for a lack of better terms.

you know, i dont think every idol company does this, but i always though it was super cool how helloproject actually forbid their idols from having plastic surgery. thats why many of them look so different from another, and i think its awesome theyre not pressured to change their appearances to fit some modernr beauty standard. also apparently they cannot wear braces, i think its because it can affect your singing ability, though it may just be an aesthetic thing, and those inside braces can actually damage your tongue which is not what a singer would want. like you know how airi suzuki has a tooth thats a little behind the others and she has never "fixed" it? i just mention this because i have that literal exact same tooth in the same place. in fact, we have the same smile, which i think is sorta cool.

oh, and i never could get into akb48. i dont know why, they just never caught my eye. the only songs i tried to listen to were heavy rotation and koisuru fortune cookie since theyre so popular and i just wasnt a fan (also wtf with the heavy rotation MV?).

i also cant find those stray kids attractive. same goes for bts. and yeah, i also though they looked like AI xD. i just thought it was a little mean to say. and i never got why bts got so popular, though to be fair the only songs ive ever heard from the were those english ones like dynamite and butter (i think that what its called). theyre just... not that amazing what can i say,..

i liked berryz koubou. they always stood out when you watched them due to having such an interesting assortment of girls: you had two big girls with risako and maasa, the super tall yurina, the very short momoko and captain, chinami who was very skinny and had a darker complexion than the rest, and you also had risako constantly changing her hair color and miyabi dying her hair blonde or orange and wearing light color lenses. i always though goofy berryz (like in yuke yuke monkey dance) or serious berryz (like jiriri kiteru or ai wa itsumo kimi no naka ni) were the best berryz. it was so weird when they tried to shove them into sexy roles like in want! or ai no dangan, the girls look so awkward. and you cannot expect me to find momoko sexy when in concerts she would perform those sexy songs with those wretched pigtails of her...

I think that's something you addressed in your ealier posts, but I lowkey disagree with the fact that ugly people are fated to remain the 'ugly one' in the band even after ps because there are legit extremely good surgeons doing wonders. You can make drastic changes to a face and still have compelling results

Look at AngelaBaby who's the blueprint for every east Asian girl seeking to achieve the eurasian look

They look like 2 different person, but right still looks like what a natural very pretty Eurasian woman would look

The problem is going overboard with plastic surgery, which is why she ended messing up with her unecessary chin implant that makes her look botched. She should've stopped in 2009.

Kpop idols simply look botched bc they are cheap surgeons ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Japan is indeed less heavy with plastic surgery but idols, even underage, undergo plastic surgery xD they are just more lowkey and hypocrite about imo (that's the only redeeming thing with the Kpop industry imo ; they're pretty straightforward in their heavy course of beautification so people don't get gaslighted in thinking those people were born like this)

Look at Sayumi Michishige and Reina Tanaka who respectively got their eyelid and eyelid+nose done

Japan will accept crooked teeth, but not monolid lmaooo

And it was already the case with OG Momusu

Tsuji Nozomi waited to graduate to do eyelid surgery though - it's lowkey hilarious how both she and her husband got the same procedure on the same time(?)😭

And yeah I see what you mean with teeth thing of airi Suzuki. Naoki Umeda had the same feature and it made him super cute. I will forever miss UmeTsuba 😭😭

That being said, while it's true that those imperfections will fly because idolship is all about seeing little girls grow into womanhood, it's pretty significant to see how quick former idols switch into conventional beauty after graduating. Japan is extremely ageist with women, and things young girls have been elevated for, will be helf against them past a certain age.

There's something dread9ful with the Heavy Rotation MV.... "Mystery Night" (by Angerme (formerly S/Mileage)) lyrics are pretty awful too. All of them were underage, singing about hitting up with a rando during a party...

Koisuru Fortune Cookie was AKB48 peak. I never got into their music but the MV was great - it's pretty rare to have idol MV with that much work done (I think Heavy Rotation MV, as disgusting it was, very polished - isn't its artistic director the same woman who directed Helter Skelter?)

Berryz Kobo went off out of nowhere for "Ai wa Itsumo Kimi no Naka ni" lol I like when idols do assertive songs. That's why I also loved "Otome no Gyakushuu" by Angerme ("Counterattack of the maiden"). But imo nothing will ever top the aesthetic of Momoiro Clover Z for "Birth Ø Birth" - absolutely iconic

#honorable mention for Morning Musume 'Ai no Gundan' because the outfits were absolutely cute #answered