I just randomly decided to sign into my Japanese iTunes account to see what was going and not to my surprise 2NE1 was on their Top Songs chart. What did surprise me was that they were singing in Japanese. The last KPOP artist that I knew of who was equally if not more popular in Japan was BoA. I'm going to assume there are more KPOP acts that do this, however, I've never come across them personally while checking up on iTunes or the Oricon (Japanese Billboard). I found it interesting, so I felt like sharing. lol All you 2NE1 fans, let me know how you feel about their attempts at Japanese. It sounds pretty good to me, coming from a JPOP perspective. The cuteness mixed with the rapping reminds me of BENNIE K (you all should check them out, they're great).

That makes sense. However, I did read that they are under the avex record label in Japan and will be releasing an album. avex is huge and has some of the best selling and most popular JPOP acts on their label (Ayumi Hamasaki, BoA, Do As Infinity, Every Little Thing, EXILE, Gackt, Namie Amuro... ect.) So they may very well blow up in Japan, especially because like you said they're not "idols", they have a strong independent feeling similar to Namie Amuro who continually sets trends in Japan. As for the American music scene, it'd be cool to see them break through the barriers many other artists have run into.