Military-First Girls

Military-First Girls
Origin	Japan
Genres	North Korean pop
Years active	2017 (2017)–present
Members	Chunhun (leader) Unha a few other unnamed members
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl	선군녀자
Hancha	先軍女子
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Seongun Nyeoja McCune–Reischauer Sŏn'gun Nyŏja
Japanese name
Kanji	先軍女子
Kana	せんぐん じょし
Transcriptions Romanization Sengun Joshi

The Military-First Girls (先軍女子, Sengun Joshi, from the Korean term Songun) are a Japanese girl group and all-women fan club of the Moranbong Band, a North Korean girl group. They perform North Korean pop songs and follow the choreography of the Moranbong Band. The group's founder and leader is Chunhun, a Japanese illustrator who became interested in North Korean culture after coming across North Korean propaganda art during her university studies.

Chunhun has stated that her goal is to introduce North Korean culture to the Japanese public and normalize their perceptions of the country. She has compared her group's interest in North Korean music to other Japanese women's interest in K-pop and American singer Taylor Swift. Group members have received backlash from Japanese nationalists and right-wingers due to their perceived sympathies towards North Korea.

Background

The emergence of state-sponsored girl groups in North Korea has given rise to an overseas fanbase, especially in countries with large Korean diaspora communities, such as Japan. The 2012 debut of the Moranbong Band, with their unique interpretive styles, is credited with starting a niche fandom of North Korean pop music parallel to the Korean Wave in the South.

Founding and debut

The Military-First Girls began as an all-women fan club of the Moranbong Band organized by a Japanese woman with the pseudonym Chunhun. Members of the group periodically get together for a girls' night out (女子会, joshikai), with discussion topics ranging from their love lives to North Korea. They debuted as a musical group on 2 November 2017, performing North Korean pop songs at a venue in Tokyo, in homemade costumes resembling the uniforms of the Moranbong Band.

Members

Chunhun

Chunhun is the founder and leader of the Military-First Girls. A freelance illustrator and visual arts major from Kanagawa Prefecture, Chunhun grew an interest in North Korean culture after encountering North Korean propaganda art in university. She was previously a student intern for Daily NK, a South Korean news website specializing in coverage of North Korea. It was during this time that she began calling herself the "Military-First Girl". She started an online presence in 2013 and has attracted a significant following on social media. However, she attributes her difficulty in finding a job to her public profile.

Chunhun has stated that she is interested in North Korean culture specifically and does not support the North Korean government. In a 2017 interview with The Japan Times, she said: "By introducing North Korea's culture, like its fashion, music and arts, I want the Japanese public to realize there are good people living there and that they can't be blamed for what the government does." Chunhun often wears North Korean cosmetics that she purchased from souvenir shops in the Chinese city of Dandong, located on the China–North Korea border. She is also an avid reader of the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea and North Korea's official newspaper of record.

Unha

Ri Unha (a pseudonym) is the only Korean member of the Military-First Girls. She is a Zainichi Korean who attended North Korean schools in Japan run by Chongryon, an affiliate of the North Korean government. In her high school years, she learned about contemporary North Korean music from her textbooks and exercised to it during physical education classes. She also learned how to play the sohaegeum, a North Korean fiddle. She attended a Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble concert when they toured Japan.

Unha joined the Military-First Girls after discovering their Twitter profile. Like many other members, her renewed interest in North Korean music came from her viewing of the Moranbong Band's debut performance on YouTube.

Others

Another member of the group is a young housewife from Tokyo whose perception of North Korea was changed after she went on a four-day tour of the country with her husband. She described the North Korean capital Pyongyang as "more prosperous and cleaner than [she] had thought", and the North Korean soldiers who accompanied her tour as "very kind" and "human too".

Fandom

Fans of the Military-First Girls are known as tongmu (동무), a Korean term used chiefly in North Korea, equivalent to the English term comrade. Unha credits her group with creating a cultural bridge between the local Japanese and Korean (Chongryon) communities.

Backlash

The Military-First Girls have received significant backlash online from Japanese nationalists and right-wingers. Group members have been accused of being "anti-social" and "North Korean spies". Chunhun has personally received death threats and been called a "cockroach". In a 2017 interview, she defended her group by comparing their interest in North Korean culture to Japanese women's interest in the cultures of South Korea and the United States: "I listen to [the Moranbong Band's] songs for the same reason many Japanese women listen to K-pop or Taylor Swift. ... Just like how there are women who like K-pop and South Korean culture, or women who like American singer Taylor Swift and wear makeup like hers, we just love North Korean culture."

In a 2021 interview, Unha described the backlash that followed public interviews by the group in 2017: "The situation got serious after we did our first interview with Chunichi News, and then the criticism got even worse after the Reuters article on us. One member ended up losing her job. The people who criticized us were deluded into thinking we were propagandists for the Kim Jong Un regime even though it clearly said in the articles that we did not politically support the government."