BTS in Japan: four concerts huge success despite diplomatic rows with South Korea

The four Japan concerts this month of K-pop stars BTS drew a total of 210,000 fans, according to the band’s management agency, making the Japanese leg of the band’s world tour a huge success despite worsening trade and diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan.

On Saturday and Sunday, the seven-member outfit rocked Shizuoka’s 50,000-seat Ecopa stadium on the second Japanese stop of their “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself” world tour. The previous weekend the band held two concerts at the 47,000-seat Yanmar Stadium Nagai in Osaka.

The “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself” tour kicked off in May in the US, before hitting Brazil, England and France.

But the Japanese shows came with a special set list, featuring the band’s first live performance of the Japanese-language version of the band’s latest global hit song, Boy With Luv.

It was one of the three tracks on the Lights/Boy With Luv Japanese single released on July 3. The record topped the Japanese Oricon weekly single charts for the week of July 1 to 7, having earned 637,000 points, the highest first-week score ever for any foreign artist in Japan.

Sunday’s Shizuoka concert was also screened live at 277 Japanese cinemas, according to Big Hit Entertainment, the band’s management agency.