Giant Robot Store and GR2 News

K-pop has been establishing a New World Order for the past few years, infiltrating youth culture across the globe with easy to recreate group choreography, anorexia inspiration, fashion less freaky than Harajuku girls, and daring men’s hairstyles that capture 90s goth girl chic. In Mongolia, boys get haircuts (and dye-jobs) to look like Korean stars, and girls memorize lyrics and dance moves to perform chart topping songs. Politicians and culture keepers here bemoan the proliferation of K-pop and all it brings with it. They say the dramas (there’s bound to be a show dubbed in Mongolian airing on at least three tv channels at any given time) have negative themes about family and the fashions are objectionable, but they’re probably just sick of hearing their grandkids play the same Girls Generation song on their Samsung Galaxy over and over and over. Outside of the Asia-Pacific region, Brazil has taken to K-pop in a big way, fueled by the internet and international Korean television channels. Pre-dating PSY, K-pop has been a profitable South Korean export that’s helped keep the domestic music industry afloat. Massive concerts, fan conventions, and websites worhsipping K-pop and its ever-changing favorites are growing in number. The Korea Herald shares this story about a Brazilian K-pop fan who just carried out the inevitable, undergoing plastic surgery to look like his “Oriental” idols. In your reconstructed FACE, Korean cosmetic surgery industry!!
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Although it’s challenging to say that anything at Coachella could be considered ground breaking (especially considering this year’s lineups of reunions vs. new discoveries) it seems that  Hologram Tupac may have led the way for the future of K-pop. The Korea Times reports that SM Entertainment, home to some of today’s most popular idol groups, are seriously considering investing in holographic theatres that would offer “concerts” of their top acts. As their story points out, they had  to use a hologram Tupac at Coachella, because he’s DEAD. According to The Korea Times, SM Entertainment  has been wanting to do this for a while, and after they pulled off a successful holographic  Girls Generation concert, their passion for 1980s futurism was re-ignited. Just imagine how AWESOME it would be to be able to pay to go to a holographic concert, watch the whole thing through your Galaxy s3 screen (wriggling through the crowd of people in front of you with their giant phones blocking your view) while you record the show to post on your tumblr on the subway ride back home to your parents house. The future is bright for groups like Girls Generation and steady hitter, BoA. At least they get to have boyfriends and be “themselves” in real life, unlike their J-pop counterparts, AKB48.  GR Familia, Anne Ishii wrote a brilliant piece about the weirdness of AKB48′s idol reality. It’s like K-pop is Jem and the Holograms, and J-pop is the Misfits – seriously, like with the evil manager, and the orphanage, and the holograms, and the Misfits always having hard times but better outfits… Everything we thought was only a cartoon futuristic techno fantasy is our now.      
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Linsanity may have died down, but one fan still remembers. Earlier this year we wrote about the song writer for K-Pop groups Girl’s Generation and Chocolat, Jenny Hyun. To bring you back up to speed, boxer Floyd Mayweather dismissed Lin’s achievements with what some perceived as racist. Ms. Hyun decided to up the ante with a racist diatribe against Mayweather of her own. Eventually, she dropped off the online stratosphere, claimingthat she was being admitted to a hospital for schizophrenia when the backlash proved too much. Regardless of what happened, it looks like she’s back on the map. Her website, blog, twitter, and other social networking accounts are online. And from the looks of things, she hasn’t quite learned her lesson either.
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This is rising Mongolian sumo talent, Takanoiwa A. Baasandorj posing for a press junket with rising K-pop stars T-ARA earlier this summer.  They have something in common – growing popularity in Japan. Takanoiwa came to Japan to train and compete in sumo, as a part of the Takanohana stable. Retired yokozuna, the highest rank in sumo, train young wrestlers to rise through the ranks. They learn more than just the sport, but how to adapt to to very regimented Japanese tradition. Some of them do better than others… at the adapting. The Asahi Shimbun reports on the changing face of sumo in Japan. As far as foreign wrestlers go, Mongolians are still the cream of the crop in sumo. They take on Japanese names, and Japanese lives. They can spend a lifetime trying to become yokozuna, and still never make it. Asashoryu (aka Dagvadorj Dolgorsuren) made it to the top at 29 and then fell, with some disgrace. His marriage to his Japanese wife crumbled as scandal grew. Mongolian “fighting spirit” is best saved for the basho. 2011 brought a huge match fixing scandal to light, and the sport is still recovering. Dwindling attendance is a problem as well. The younger generation hasn’t taken to the national sport the way the older generations did. How to sauce it up again? I’d go just to catch yakuza gambling action, but maybe that’s just me. The right-wing nationalists aren’t keen on the rising number for foreign sumo wrestlers, but it has brought in a larger international audience. One tactic in place to bring in a younger Japanese audience is the development of sumo character design for products and promotion. Collectible cards could do it, but maybe some more amazing smart phone apps (for edutainment rather than betting), or some updated video games! I would pay money for some meta video of sumo-sized gamers getting their virtual sumo on. I can already picture the Gangnam Style/sumo parody…  Invisible Horse, meet Sumo Belly Slap!    
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