Popular Fifth-Gen Idol’s Allegedly Negative Remarks About Korea Trigger Backlash

Recently, a magazine interview with &TEAM’s Harua went viral online, garnering almost 100,000 views on Korean online community sites.

In the article, he shared his thoughts on promoting in Korea, which drew significant backlash from K-Netizens.

When our Korean debut was confirmed, our third single, ‘Go In Blind’, had already started seeing results in Japan. Because of this, I wanted to keep pushing forward toward even higher goals. So when I heard our next stage was Korea, there were parts of it that I couldn’t quite process at first.

— Harua

K-Netizens criticized him for making it seem as if he didn’t care about Korean fans.

• “If you don’t like it, then please don’t come to Korea.”
• “We don’t want it, even if you come to Korea.”
• “Then just leave the group and be a singer by yourself in Japan.”
• “&TEAM is not a local group, but a global group, so it’s not strange for them to promote in Korea…”
• “Then just promote in Japan, then…why do Koreans have to withstand all this?”
• “It sounds like he’s saying they were going up in Japan, but because they had to promote in Korea, he didn’t like it.”
• “It seemed like they had more fans in Korea…Korean fans must be so mad.”