After dreaming of getting rich, I dressed up as a collapsed idol

Japan is the world's second-largest music market, after the United States. It is also the only country among the top ten global music markets in the digital age where the physical music market has a larger share than the streaming music market.

There is a mature market here, and fans who are willing to spend money on their idols. Therefore, South Korean entertainment agencies plan their development path in Japan before their artists even debut.

Learning Japanese, releasing Japanese albums, and holding concerts—especially after setbacks in China, more and more Japanese girls have appeared among the members of Korean groups in recent years, which is also based on this reason.

It can be said that Japan deserves half the credit for the development of K-pop. Japan is the primary market for K-pop and contributes the majority of physical sales for K-pop idols.

Japanese girls are truly obsessed with K-pop heartthrobs. In order to get certain rare photocards included in albums, they buy albums by the dozen. With their immense purchasing power, they propelled a certain K-pop group's album sales to the number one spot in the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) rankings.

How could Lu Qingfeng possibly miss out on such a huge market when releasing his album?

He had already gained some popularity there by promoting "The Astrological Murder Mystery" at the beginning of the year. After the book was released, he interacted with the conservative faction in the Japanese literary world, which generated a lot of buzz and made more people aware of him.

Later, he signed contracts with several magazines under Kobunsha, and the short stories published in China gradually landed in Japan. Coupled with the domestic updates posted on his personal Twitter account, he seemed to be doing nothing big, but he was actually quietly accumulating popularity.

This can be seen from the fan club they operate, which already has nearly 10,000 members.

Shen Chuan, a Chinese student who initially thought he could make some money by taking advantage of Lu Qingfeng's popularity here, never imagined that it would turn into a legitimate business.

Initially, it was just a makeshift team where he was in charge of everything. As the number of people he had to manage increased, he started to add more staff, and it gradually became a branch of Qingfeng Mingyue Studio in Japan.

When the album "Summer" was being promoted in China, things were actually being done in cooperation with them here.

The first step is to entrust all of Lu Qingfeng's current musical compositions to the Fusang Music Copyright Association, an organization that specializes in managing music copyrights.

This includes licensing music used in karaoke bars, television, movies, anime, games, and shopping malls, as well as copyright usage and charging fees for performances and distribution by others.

With this business, the association can earn five or six billion yen a year—not in Japanese yen, but in Chinese yuan.

There is also the Japanese Recording Association, which is also responsible for protecting copyrights, but its main responsibility is to certify the sales of music products.

Of course, Shen Chuan, an international student, couldn't possibly handle this alone; it was mainly Kadokawa Bunko who were doing it.

Kadokawa Corporation is one of the giants in the Japanese publishing industry and has been seeking further cooperation with Lu Qingfeng, so it is willing to spend a lot of effort.

Kadokawa Group itself does not have a music division, but the company is backed by a global giant, Sony Music, a business group under Sony, a global record company with a large number of operations in China.

Lu Qingfeng, this newly emerging top musician, was naturally among their targets. They had contacted Lu Qingfeng's studio several times, hoping to sign him.

This can be seen as a return of favor, and at the same time, it secured Summer's offline distribution channels in Japan.

Then, the most important part is publicity and promotion.

For Sony Music, just get the offline distribution rights and do some routine promotions, like putting up posters and releasing the intro melody online. Don't think about anything more.

One thing at a time; the bigger the company, the more rules and regulations it has.

So the club is mainly under Shen Chuan's management.

Zhu Zhichang initially wanted to allocate funds specifically for this matter, but Shen Chuan said it wasn't necessary; he had a better way: to directly mobilize the fans.

Then, around the end of April and beginning of May, many young women appeared in the bustling streets of Tokyo, such as Ginza, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara, Yurakucho, and Roppongi, handing out flyers.

They spontaneously organized street promotions for the release of Lu Qingfeng's album.

It seems a bit outrageous and abstract, but in Fusang it seems perfectly normal. Even passersby don't find it strange, because this kind of thing is very common here.

Some people are willing to abandon their families in order to follow celebrities, which shows how advanced the thinking of the Japanese is.

The club also has some wealthy women who rent advertising vans, the kind with LED screens on both sides, to drive around the city.

When all this reached Zhu Zhichang, he was stunned, but after glancing at the chat logs of the fans in the club that Shen Chuan had roughly translated, he couldn't help but feel relieved.

I initially thought it was the cultural depth that won over these people, but the Sakura girl said, "Don't give me that nonsense, it's all about looks, looks are everything."

The Japanese have a deep and thorough love for their boss's face.

During the chat, they exclaimed, "We'll give it our all to see the smile on Fox God's face!" and "If the album sales aren't good, it's definitely because we haven't worked hard enough!"

We want the Fox God to know that we have a love for him that transcends the Chinese people.

Only good album sales can prove our worth, and only then will the Fox God return to Japan.

Goodness gracious! Zhu Zhichang exclaimed, "Goodness gracious! He's even engaging in self-pity!"

He didn't know if Shen Chuan had infiltrated any online trolls, but he figured even if he had, they would only serve as a starting point, since these people were actually taking real action.

He had a feeling that this album would be a huge hit in Japan.

I also took a look at Fuso's release plan. The digital albums are mainly available on the three major streaming platforms: LINE MUSIC, Spotify, and Amazon Music Unlimited.

The physical albums are available online through Tower Records.

This is an international product chain brand, and it also has the largest offline record store in Japan, located in Shibuya, Tokyo.

The promotion of the physical album is the main focus this time. Given the special circumstances of the Japanese market, the photocards included with the album will be the key promotional material.

Unlike in China, two of the fifteen photocards are special limited editions, making them very rare. You can't collect them all without buying several albums.

This blind box concept was first invented in Japan, and it's a common phenomenon there.

For this promotional plan, Sony Music even suggested adding the collectible figures from the limited edition to the albums sold in Japan, and making them a limited edition.

This can further stimulate fans' desire to buy.

When it comes to treating Japanese people like Japanese people, Japan is second to none.

Zhu Zhichang put down his tablet and sighed.

Everything is going well. Once the sales figures for Fusang are revealed and the news gets back to China, no one can stop Lu's momentum.

I really want to take him to Japan to do some publicity.

Unfortunately, I can't be in two places at once!

Today is the first day after the May Day holiday, and the Peking University Sino-foreign cultural exchange team is also setting off.