Heisei Ends, Reiwa Begins

The Heisei Era is coming to a close in Japan as its current emperor (Akihito) is stepping down at the end of April. His son Naruhito is expected to take the throne and the new Reiwa era will begin on May 1st. Era names were adopted from the Chinese way back when. You may be surprise to hear that Japan has a monarchy, it’s kinda like British monarchy (a ceremonial role with no/limited actual power) except they don’t have sex nearly as much and the emperors are usually like netflix and chill. Actually I don’t know about that, here in America we know a lot of Queen Elizabeth just because she is a British Monarch and not some far east ruler. Basically Japan monarchy is like back in the Shogun period, except Japan modern day Shogun is elected and his name is Shinzo Abe.

It’s been a wild ride in the Heisei era for the music industry. Back in the 90s CD sales and Europe beat music was the move. Anime music was also pretty big. Then Japan Idol culture began to explode around 2000s leading and so far the KPop industry has dominated Japan music for the past decade. So far Japan is looking to adopt the music style of its Korean neighbors sort of like Izone, a japan-korean pop group, (wow a reversal of fate way back when it was usually Japan calling the shots). It has plans to adopt idol life of Korea and recently has look into adopting the “Producer 101” format (which created now dead Kpop bands like IOI) to scout for a new boys group.

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