JYP Entertainment launched its first Japanese boy group, Nexz, Monday -- the agency's first boy group in six years. Nexz consists of six Japanese nationals and one South Korean national born and raised in Japan, selected through the K-pop agency’s “Nizi Project Season 2” audition program which aired on YouTube and Hulu Japan last year. The audition program is part of JYP Entertainment’s “Globalization by Localization” project aimed at localizing K-pop in different countries including Japan.
“It would be a lie if we said that we weren’t burdened by the fact that we are the first boy group to debut after the popular K-pop boy group Stray Kids under JYP Entertainment. But we will take it as our responsibility to live up to the high standards that they've set,” said Yu during a press conference in Seoul on Monday. “Our group name is an abbreviation of two words: ‘next’ and ‘generation.
’ We hope to draw our future together with the new generation,” said Tomoya, leader of Nexz. Nexz members are Tomoya, Yu, Haru, So Geon, Seita, Hyui and Yuki. Despite consisting of Japanese members and a Korean member born and raised in Japan, the entire press conference was conducted in Korean.
“We really studied hard the Korean language for today, to communicate with reporters and fans in Korean on the day of our debut,” said Tomoya in fluent Korean. Nexz debuted with single album “Ride the Vibe,” led by the title track, “Ride the Vibe,” in which the group.
