Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
AKS President Akimoto Yasushi, who recently participated in a collab with Mnet for ‘Produce 48‘, has been revealed as writer for “Bird“, a BTS song to be released in Japan.
On September 13, Billboard Japan reported, “BTS will be releasing a single album in November. A new track ‘Bird,’ as well as a Japanese version of the previously released track ‘Airplane pt. 2’ will be included [in the album].” The lyrics for the upcoming track “Bird” were written by Yasushi Akimoto. BTS was able to meet Yasushi Akimoto through Big Hit Entertainment’s CEO Bang Shi Hyuk. Bang Shi Hyuk requested Yasushi Akimoto to write the lyrics as he had always respected the former’s outlook on the world.
After this was reported, BTS’s Korean fandom was decidedly outraged, and they haven’t been shy about expressing that.
https://twitter.com/glamour_JM/status/1040170934466949121
+it’s a sensitive topic among Korea & Japan and what other ppl,non-fans will say.
It’s also known that BangPD requested him to write lyrics & many fans are mad about that.
Please do not try to be rude towards what I translated,I want just to let i-armys know what is happening.— 글래머지민 (@glamour_JM) September 13, 2018
So basically, they’re accusing Aki-P of being misogynistic and a right-winger, which they’re concerned about because they feel it will reflect poorly on BTS. Ironically, this didn’t seem to be a thing until they made it one, and now it has spread to the point where it’s in the Korean media, and Korean netizens are … well, unhappy (1/2/3). I guess working with Aki-P is one thing, but the fact that Bang Shi Hyuk sought him out and specifically praised him for his worldview appears to have made things worse.
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As far as their charges against Aki-P, it’s hard to refute that some of his songwriting has been questionable, and people have specifically focused on “Einstein Yori Dianna Agron” for the blatantly misogynistic content.
As a girl
I’ve got to be cute, right?
While I’m still in school
It’s okay to be stupid
What’s most important now
Is to be all cheerful and energetic
And sound cute, right?
As a girl
Love is my profession
Until I become a mom
It’s okay to be a child
More than that, isn’t it more important
To take care of my skin
So that it remains nice and smooth?
While Aki-P’s strident defenders have claimed it to be satirical in nature, well at least one Japanese professor certainly wasn’t buying that.
“I felt as if the clock had been turned back to 50 or 100 years ago,” Masami Ohinata, a psychologist who is president of Keisen University in Tokyo, blogged after a student showed her the lyrics.
Yeah, it kinda comes off wrong, regardless. It’s one thing if the girls themselves wrote it to parody what others think of them or something, but for an old guy in charge of everything to do it doesn’t quite work the same. Besides, that’s hardly the only problematic shit associated with him or his writing anyway, and quite frankly “Dear My Teacher” and “Teacher Teacher” are far more creepy to me, so I get the criticism on that front.
As far as the right-wing accusations go, I’m honestly not totally sure where that has come from (maybe it’s the already debunked stuff) and none of the claims I’ve seen have been specific either (Update: See below Featured Comment for potential specifics).
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Still, I’m not totally sure why BTS’s own Korean fandom is throwing a fit over BTS working with questionable people and are now basically risking sabotaging the image of their faves their damn selves. I mean, honestly it’s nothing new for Big Hit Entertainment or BTS if we consider that Supreme Boi has worked closely with them for a while now and he certainly has his fair share of issues. Or if it’s the foreign aspect, then they just worked with Nicki Minaj, who certainly has baggage of her own. Though I suppose expecting people to be consistent with their reactions to stuff like this is too much in itself.
Regardless, even though I sorta understand why BTS fans might be apprehensive about this collab, I’m certainly not judging BTS much over this. However, I am interested in the story because it’s definitely become a thing, and this time it’s not because of rival fans or anti fans but because of BTS’s own fans.
