Korean boy band TVXQ! have once again lived up to the meaning of their name: the “Rising Gods of the East” made history last week when the final shows of their Begin Again tour helped the concert series surpass the milestone of 1 million tickets sold. They’re the first foreign act to ever sell that many tickets during a single Japanese tour.
The Begin Again Japanese dome tour began at the Sapporo Dome on Nov. 11 of last year and concluded with three shows at Yokohama's Nissan Stadium, held on June 8-10. During that 13-month period, the pair performed 17 shows. It was their first Japanese tour by the duo, which features Jung “U-Know” Yunho and Shim “Max” Changmin, since they returned from fulfilling their obligatory service in South Korea’s military; each was discharged in 2017. They released their first album in three years in March, the 11-track LP New Chapter #1: The Chance of Love.
Known as Tohoshinki in Japan, TVXQ! rose to prominence to become one of the most popular teams in Japan in the mid-00s. The then-five member group broke numerous records, and become the first Korean male act to top the weekly Oricon chart, the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Billboard singles chart, with their single “Purple Line” in 2008. Since then, TVXQ! has become a mainstay in the Japan, the world’s second-largest music market. Their success, along with that of other Korean acts like BoA, Kara, Girls’ Generation and BIGBANG, made way for many K-pop artists to push into the Japanese music industry.
TVXQ!’s latest record-breaking tour outsold their 2013 Time concert series, reports Billboard, which saw 840,000 concertgoers in attendance. The last Korean act to come close to seeing 1 million ticket sales was BIGBANG, whose Japanese leg of their 2015-2016 MADE tour saw over 911,000 concertgoers in attendance.
The group largely came to become entrenched as a mainstay in Japan's music scene by spending a dedicated amount of time on the country; both U-Know and Max speak Japanese fluently. They've released and promoted locally, through events like concerts, fanmeets and televised appearances, over 50 singles in Japan, far exceeding the 20-odd (depending on the count) that they have released in South Korea. By 2014 they were recognized as the best-selling foreign act in regards to singles sales. They're so popular in Japan that they even have a distinct fanbase there: while TVXQ!'s fans worldwide are known as "Cassiopeia," or "Cassie(s)" for short, in Japan they're known uniquely as "BigEast."
The high ticket sales during the Begin Again tour reaffirmed TVXQ!’s place as one of the most popular foreign acts in Japan following their hiatus while the members served in South Korea's military. It came amid renewed interest in K-pop in Japan. Over the past few months, acts like TWICE, BTS and EXO have proven immensely popular, and many other top Korean groups, such as Red Velvet, GFriend, and Seventeen, recently released or are about to drop their first Japanese albums. But as well as they are all doing, it will likely be a while before TVXQ!’s record is broken: it’s taken the act 15 years to achieve this monumental feat at bringing a foreign act to such heights in Japan, and it's unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.
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