I promise this will be much shorter than my usual Oh My Girl articles.
So! Today, being March 30, two days after their second full-length album Real Love was released, Oh My Girl released their Japanese album “OH MY GIRL BEST” which can be found here on YouTube. I’m listening to it as I’m writing this!
This isn’t Oh My Girl’s first delve into Japanese music; in fact, they’ve had Japanese songs dating back to 2019 with their Japanese debut album. They often have Japanese versions of their title tracks, and in the last few years have even filmed music videos for the Japanese versions along with the original Korean, something fans have commended them for, since it would be easier to just use the same footage instead of reshooting it for them to use the Japanese lyrics.
This album consists of 19 songs, more than any of their albums before, and includes the Japanese version of “Real Love,” which as I mentioned just released two days ago. I will note that for some reason, the YouTube channel put the Korean versions of three of their songs onto the playlist, perhaps by accident, since I know for a fact those songs (being “Dun Dun Dance,” “Nonstop” and “Bungee”) have Japanese versions.
Also on the album is “Etoile,” which was released as a single in Korean, Japanese and English in 2020. Along with this are the title tracks from all of Oh My Girl’s albums, including “Eternally” which was included on their 2019 Japanese album of the same name. Apart from those are three non-title tracks that I very much love, those being “Twilight,” “One Step Two Step” and “Sixteen,” which were included on Oh My Girl’s second Japanese album. In fact, only four of the nineteen tracks haven’t been on an album yet, with those being the Japanese versions of “Etoile,” “Nonstop,” “Dun Dun Dance” and “Real Love.”
I was kind of hoping for “Lemonade” and “Tear Rain” to be included on the album, too, but I understand the route they went with this one. I do support the decision to not include the subunit Banhana’s Japanese version of “Banana Allergy Monkey” since that song is maybe the only Oh My Girl song I actively dislike.
Breaking into the Japanese audience is something that many K-pop groups aspire to do, especially if the group has Japanese members. Oh My Girl actually doesn’t have any, but Jiho, Mimi and Yubin all speak Japanese fluently, and the other members have learned for Japan tours. There are many comments under their Japanese music videos with fans proclaiming that they have great pronunciation, and while I can’t speak to that personally, I haven’t really seen any comments saying otherwise.
I find it interesting to listen to both versions of each of their songs. Some I know better in Japanese than in Korean, like “Hanabi (Remember Me),” while others I don’t know any of, like “Cupid.” I think it’s fun to note subtle differences in tone between the versions, which for all I know is simply because of the different sounds of the languages.
Regardless, I’m a fan of all of these songs, and I recommend listening to “OH MY GIRL BEST” if you’re interested!