TWICE Could Be Swept up in BTS Scandal

K-pop girl group TWICE may have a scheduled appearance on a Japanese TV show canceled after superstar boy band BTS were dropped last Friday over an offensive t-shirt a band member wore.

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Japanese media reported that TWICE may not be appearing on NHK's year-end music festival, Japan's premier special program featuring its top singers.

Sponichi, a sister paper of the Mainichi Shimbun, said Monday that NHK is deliberating whether to let TWICE appear on the show.

"TWICE, which has been at the forefront of the resurging Korean Wave in Japan, posted the fifth highest viewer ratings of 37.4 percent in last year's show, so their invitation to this year's show had been almost certain", the paper said.

BTS's appearance was canceled because one band member sported a t-shirt on a world tour that superimposed celebrations of Korean independence from Japan with an image of an atomic bomb explosion, which has angered not only Japanese patriots but many others.

But there may be other reasons for the cancellations since Japan is furious over a ruling by the Supreme Court of Korea ordering Japanese companies to compensate Korean victims of forced labor.

Asahi Shimbun reported Monday that Tokyo cancelled an annual meeting of Korean and Japanese intellectual property offices scheduled to take place in Kyoto on Nov. 2.

"Japan told Korea that it would be better to postpone the meeting as the atmosphere is not ideal between the two countries", the daily quoted insiders as saying.