Japan's representative three year-end music festivals (NHK's red and white teams 'Kohaku Uta Gassen', Yomiuri TV's Best Hit Music Festival, and Fuji TV FNS Music Festival) have released their guest line-ups on November 25, but it appears that no Korean artists were included for the second year in a row.  

They included incredibly famous singers such as AKB48 and aiko, but no Korean singers such as KARA, TVXQ, or 2PM even though they have ranked in first place on the Oriconthis year.  It appears that for the second year in a row, Korean singers, despite their success in Japan, were excluded from these events.

Last year, people have speculated whether this was due to the political tensionbetween Korea and Japan for the ownership of Dokdo Island.  However, NHK had insisted that the occurrence had nothing to do with that, claiming that the Korean artists' scores had fallen in comparison to 2011 when TVXQ, Girls' Generation, and KARA had participated in all three music festivals. 

It is unknown as of yet whether the same reason applies for this years' festivals.