The flow of globalization intensified in the 21st century enables a diverse and complex cross-boundary practice of de-regional cultural texts as opposed to the previous times. Above all, inter-Asia movement of various cultural practices that crack the unilateral cultural flow between Western and non-Western countries are becoming visible, and thus the studies on this topic are being actively conducted. This study pays attention to the various practices of mobility of music and its practices in contemporary Asia that takes place along with the transnational flow of population and capital. It examines the process of mobility of K-musials, Korean musicals to other parts of Asia after , focusing on the practice of K-musicals in Japan and examining its multi-layered characteristics and meanings.
Korean musicals are global cultural products, which have imitated, appropriated, and interpreted American Broadway shows, and at the same time regional and hybrid cultural forms which have been transformed based on Korean discourse, production subject, capital, and market specificity. Since the mid-2000s, Korean musicals, that began in the 1960s, have moved to Asia, associated with cultural capital of hallyu. Hallyu, as an another local variant, is another cultural phenomena of transnational consumption of Korean popular culture. This study examines the production and consumption of K-musicals, which originated from the point where two cultural variants-Korean musicals and hallyu-meet.
Korean musicals introduced in the 1960s through the United States have continued to be concerned about Korean identity and indigenization in relation to musicals that were power outages before. Above all, they have been "Koreanized" in a specific way in the frames of nationalism and globalization derived from national interest. These Koreanized musicals have emerged as cultural industry contents with the national support through the participation of large corporations and incorporation into global cultural industries. The intervention of hallyu cultural capital in the world of musicals, which is globally successful, has converted the system by making idols participate in musicals or transforming the primary hallyu contents into musicals. In this process, the participation of hallyu fandom in musicals has been crucial to visualize the movement of Korean musicals in Asia, and the Korean musicals are transformed into hallyu contents through the titles of K-musicals or Hallyu musicals.
Before the 2000s, Korean musicals, which were performed intermittently in Japan, began to perform actively along with hallyu boom in Japan in mid-2000s; a variety of Korean booms have occurred since 2012. This includes musicals with diverse characteristics ranging from idol musicals, drama-cals using hallyu contents, and movie-cals to small scale creative Korean musicals. K-musicals in Japan are been gradually escalated and sophisticated due to the complexity of cultural and discursive factors based on the industrial and physical foundations of Korean-Japanese musicals, such as the Korean Wave in Japan, the willingness of exchanges in the world of Korea-Japan musicals, and the transformation into global industry. Furthermore, as K-musicals in Japan have been stagnating since 2014, the interest of K-musicals is shifting to China and other Asian regions. K-musical, which was born through the standardization of the style of musical in globalized period and the symbol Korea, is granted with its own value and position in the global market by acquiring the label K, or the global distinct brand, and further producing the authority and the justification in its moving to Asia.