Following in the footsteps of their male counterparts, long-legged South Korean beauties are taking the Japanese pop scene by storm this year. When all-girl K-pop act released their in August, it went straight to No. 5 in the Oricon weekly singles chart, and (known as SNSD in South Korea), who also debuted recently (on Sept. 8), sold a whopping of their first single ¡°Genie.¡±

The bands are about to go head to head in what the Japanese media are dubbing a ¡°¡±: all five members of Kara appear in teeny tiny black hot pants on the cover of their new album while Shojo Jidai¡¯s new single, out later this month, has the nine-member unit sporting short shorts, while showing off their amazingly long legs.

acts to debut in Japan this year were , who released their first album on Aug. 26, , who released their first single in Japan on May 5 and most recently K-pop indie solo artist , who made her debut performance on Sept. 24 at a private show for industry types at Star Lounge in Shibuya.

The girls are following the lead of Korean boy bands such as and , who have already become big hits over here. Big Bang were awarded the ¡°Best New Artist¡± award at the 51st Japan Records Awards in December 2009 and TVXQ, who debuted here in 2005, broke the for foreign artists who have the largest amount of sales of a single in its first week of release.

Unlike Japanese bands, Korean bands are groomed for overseas success, so that along with taking singing and dance classes, members often study a foreign language in order to communicate with overseas fans. Shojo Jidai not only have a Japanese speaking member but even went so far as to release a Japanese version of their single ¡°Genie¡± (see video above). Whether this will be enough to outsell Japan¡¯s homegrown J-pop acts remains to be seen.