Become A Music Monster Overnight! [EN]: Chapter 57

18. Tokashi

“Shibal! Bakayaro!”

Bakayaro.

Literally, it means someone who can’t distinguish between a horse and a deer, a term used in Japan for someone foolish.

Tokashi mixed Korean into his cursing.

Despite being of Korean-Japanese descent, his Korean was poor. His Korean wife played a big role in him becoming fluent, but Korean swear words were just as significant.

His job made it difficult to endure without constantly swearing.

Tokashi is the planning director at Mania Entertainment.

Mani Entertainment rode the Korean Wave [Hallyu, the increase of global popularity of South Korean culture since the 1990s] and made a decent amount of money in China, growing into a mid-sized entertainment company.

However, recently, they were facing a major problem.

It was caused by the excessive issuance of shares in the entertainment company to facilitate their aggressive expansion into China.

The influence of the Chinese side grew, and naturally, activities and the foundation itself were shifting to China.

And that’s not all.

More than half of the idol members preparing to debut were of Chinese nationality.

Although the trend of idols is becoming multinational thanks to the Korean Wave, the main members are still Korean.

Five out of nine members were Chinese, and two out of four were Japanese.

Moreover, one of the two remaining Korean members had Canadian citizenship, so it seemed difficult to even maintain the pretense of being a Korean idol group.

The blatant aim was to target China and Japan, but there was a problem.

“The Chinese kids are out of control. Their skills are mediocre, and they don’t listen. It’s driving me crazy!”

“They’re already going to clubs at night. If they’re like this before their debut… sigh.”

If it were another entertainment company, or even Mania Entertainment in the past, they would have kicked them out immediately.

But Mania Entertainment couldn’t do that now.

The Chinese kids debuting this time were all children of high-ranking officials in China.

In China, where *guanxi* [relationships or connections] are valued, the power of these high-ranking officials is beyond imagination.

So, they had to carry these kids no matter what, whether they lived or died.

Of course, those who debuted like that flopped.

They poured so much money into it that they gained recognition at a terrifying rate upon debut, but the problem was the misdeeds of the Chinese members during their activities.

They could somehow prevent them from causing accidents in clubs, but the problem was the content they posted on Chinese social media.

It was filled with derogatory content about Korea, and it wasn’t just one member, but all five of them.

Naturally, Mania Entertainment’s internal affairs became a mess.

Among them, what Tokashi disliked the most was that the responsibility for creating the current situation was being placed on the wrong people.

“Fucking bastards! *Kuso-gaki* [Shitty brats]!”

Among them, Lee Ji-woo, the planning team leader who had brought him here as the core of this investment, was fired.

Ironically, Lee Ji-woo had been trying to stop Mania Entertainment from focusing solely on China for a long time.

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