Middle-Aged Men and Women Also Cheer For Boa

When the space craft shaped “Asimo” appeared, 18-years-old singer Boa was ushered out of the spaceship. As the door of the spaceship was opened, Boa started to sing her hit song “Double,” with rainbow colored false hair and a white hempen hood on her head. At that moment, the 13,000-strong crowd that filled the Yokohama Arena to the brim raised a battle cry.

Boa, who appeared at the stadium like this, showed a powerful performance for two hours on April 18. When the audiences all sung along with her completing song, “Feel the same,” she even had her eyes drenched with tears as she was deeply moved by the fans’ encouragement.

Boa showed a variety of brand-new images of her on this day. When she sang the songs “Amazing kiss” and “Love and Honesty,” she transformed into a little girl with a short skirt; she suddenly turned into a sexy mature girl with powerful dance performances as she sang the songs “Midnight parade” and “Rock with you.” She also wore a black evening dress to clear herself of the images of a little girl.

At the performance on this day, many visual entertainments were visible, such as the spacecraft stage set, which cost about 150 million won, the six different Boas at one stage simultaneously, and the dance utilizing fluorescent walking sticks.

This performance finished off her road show concert tour in five cities, “Live tour 2004: love and honesty.” Starting from the Saitama Super Arena on March 20, she has attracted approximately 105,000 people for a total of nine performances through Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, and the final concert at Yokohama on this day. Although five performances were intended at the first stage, the concert coordination team added four more performances because all the tickets were sold out at the first day of selling. Minus the 700 million won worth of sales of concert tickets, another 200 million won worth of sales of the diverse character commodities of Boa have been recorded, totaling 900 million won.

“My breathing capacity has dramatically improved and I have learned how to control the ambiences of a two-hour-long concert because I successfully accomplished Japanese road shows five times in the last year,” remarked Boa at the press conference held after the performance. “I can give 90 points out of 100 for this tour.”

Many fans of her are mesmerized by her sexy style. As for this point, “I want to enjoy more of a teenage romance style. I don’t want to be regarded as sexy singer yet,” said Boa with smile.

People in their fifties were found at the arena as Boa has also secured the fan base consisting of middle-aged people in Japan. “Though Boa is pretty and good at dancing, her kindness and humbleness seem to have attracted the most to the Japanese people,” remarked Ahn Soon-mee, 22, a woman of Korean residence in Japan.

Kurita Hideichi, the chairman of SM Entertainment Japan said that “the reason for Boa’s popularity in Japan is her purity and innocent image, which have become hard to find in present day’s Japanese pop singers.”

Finishing her road show in Japan, Boa will participate in Taiwan’s “Golden Melody Awards” as an award nominee in this May, and prepare for her fourth album in Korea, which is scheduled to be released in this June.

Sun-Woo Kim sublime@donga.com