 |
| Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org |
Welcome to my episode one review of NCT Universe: LASTART.
If you have not read my introduction post yet to this competition reality show, please go back and read it to get a great idea of what to expect from this show.
If you do not want spoilers, please do not continue reading because I will not hide anything in my review. Besides, these episodes already aired a while ago.
When the first episode aired in Korea, I had no idea how to watch it even though I was in Korea. Sadly, I waited until I came back to the United States so that I could catch episodes one and two on Viki, an Asian entertainment streaming platform.
In this show, they let the contestant speak their native language so they are not necessarily forcing contestants to speak Korean as the mother company is Korean. For this show, I find that pleasant and also less pressuring for the contestants and we get to see who they are in their natural state.
This episode's guest Artist Director is KEY from the group SHINee. With his already impressive dancing and performance skills, he is sure to give some good feedback in this show. He stated in the show that he auditioned three times before being accepted by SM, which is amazing that he persevered. I also remembered that he is from Daegu (shoutout to Daegu!) and in his trainee days he said he didn't live in a nearby dorm, so he actually commuted to Seoul, back and forth. Daegu is practically on the other side of the country from Seoul. Even my Chinese-American family didn't understand and thought that my in-laws from Daegu can simply meet my family at the airport in Seoul. Luckily, there is the KTX train in which we can travel back and forth in more than two hours. We have the KTX bullet train in Korea that connects both cities. We have to admire Key's dedication and I am a firm believer of if I want something badly, I must do what I must do to make it happen.
For this episode, Key is already taking the role of motivator and the artist director most likely to give compliments. Perhaps this is who he is in real life and a real motivator (except to his fellow SHINee member, Minho who he playfully bickers with a lot?). Seeing how Key treats Enhypen's Niki, who is a big SHINee fan, is already inspirational to see the way he treats his hoobaes (juniors in the same industry) very well.
Eunhyuk from the Super Junior group and BoA are the main Artist Directors who will be present to judge the trainees for each round of the competition. Eunhyuk was smart to say that he prepared both a song and a rap for his audition, but merged the two when he went into the audition where Kangta from the H.O.T. group was supposedly present. To me, that is a clever way to stand out as a trainee, but also a double-edged sword if you either can't do one or both well. He must of had a lot of confidence to audition that way. From past knowledge, the Super Junior audition process was brutal from some 90 trainees starting and eventually, they were eliminated down to the 12 members who debut as Super Junior and even then, it was considered a temporary group as there was no long-term plan in place. As per Super Junior member Yesung in another survival show, he explained that he spoke to none of the trainees during the training period until after the debut announcement because he is too busy ensuring his debut.
We can already see that it wasn't easy back then, though BoA luckily mentioned that she did not have a hard time debuting as she was one of the early trainees and I assume she passed auditions with flying colors. I am amazed at how SM entertainment recognizes a person's talent early on in the trainee's life, but I also believe their training system is probably one of the best as many artists from SM claimed that they knew nothing of how to dance before they joined the company. SM trainees that went to other companies have skills that are higher than average when compared to trainees from other companies or just starting out.
SM Entertainment's casting team probably does mass recruiting before the training team starts weeding out the trainees who don't qualify. I am not a fan of SM entertainment recommending plastic surgery in general, but ultimately, I want that decision to be with the artist because this is their personal life and if they want plastic surgery, it is none of our business.
The show already warns the audience that BoA is a harsh critique, but that is fine for me. She is a veteran artist. If she can't spot rookie mistakes, who can? Ideally, we want artist directors who have a lot of experience to be in the artist director position. Artist Directors will be the live judges, watching the trainees perform and will provide half of the scores to the trainees with the other half of the scores given by the new "IP TF" team, which I will assume from my introduction, is the Intellectual Property Task Force team because they did not specifically define what that term meant. For a good balance, we should have a mix of compliments and constructive criticisms for the trainee's growth. It is also great that all judges have the ability to speak Korean, Japanese and English so that there are no major communication problems. I can tell all artists spent a lot of effort and time to learn languages to capture audiences overseas.
As Eunhyuk mentions, this is SM's first official competition program and I can't wait for it to start. Before I even view any performance, my opinion about SM trainees, where they are normally kept in secret from the public (the SM basement, haha), is that they must be unusually talented. In the past early 2000s, I could see more flaws, but nowadays, SM performances are close to perfect. As a fan, I barely see major mistakes from SM performances and even when I see a mistake, it could be cute or deserving of praise of how they handle it like a professional. With SM entertainment, there is a high standard of quality. SM Entertainment's slogan is "Asia's number one entertainment group" and I consider SM artists as one of the best there is in the K-pop industry where all of them have the potential to have lasting careers.
We are introduced to two confirmed NCT members, Sion (시온 in Korean) and Yushi (유우시 in Korean or 勇志 in Japanese) who are already announced as SM Rookies prior to the start of the show. I know who they are, but I have not seen them officially perform yet so I am very curious about them. Going forward, I will refer to them and any other trainee by using the English pronunciation of their names. If you have seen my other blogs, you will know that I love language and culture so I immediately search the meaning of Yushi's name and found that it means bravery and determination. I like that name for a male name. The fact that he is officially debuting is enough proof that he embodies his name.
Yushi states his strength is dance and from the introduction scenes, Sion seems to concentrate more on vocals. Sion's looks remind me of NCT Jaehyun. They are both a little bit shy and reserved, but I can see that Sion is more of a leader of the trainees and the person making sure everybody is fine. He already has leadership qualities in my mind with careful and deep thoughts. Later scenes of this show specifically shows him helping other trainees and he is a number one supporter of Yushi, which is cute. When I look up the age of Sion, he is the oldest age group of 21 so he can potentially be the leader of the group. We will have to see later on who becomes the leader. Because this is a Japanese-focused group, Yushi might become the leader instead. In SM's Exo group, Chinese-Canadian ex-Exo member, Kris Wu was the leader of the Exo-M group that was focused on the Chinese market. I think the new group will be a strong group if one of them becomes a leader and the other person becoming a sub-leader. I might be thinking ahead of myself because I haven't evaluated any other trainees yet.
Lastly, because these trainees are announced around the same time when Riize, SM's newest group, was born to the public, it makes me think that the two did not make the cut for Riize or the two decided that instead of joining Riize, they rather be part of NCT or there is also the possibility that the two trainees didn't have a choice and the company practically needed strong members for what was known as "NCT Tokyo" at the time. Given that Riize's maknae (the youngest member of a goup) is Anton at age 19, both Yushi, being 19, and Sion, being 21 in age, could have joined Riize. Either way, I'm excited to see more of them.
It's also important to know that Yushi was previously a member of a Japanese group called Edamame Beans. Edamame Beans officially debut in 2020 with pre-songs as far back as 2018, so I think Yushi left the group before the official debut in 2018. I'm glad he decided to join SM Entertainment and I would like to know his story and what made him decide to join SM. Seeing the word "NCT" next to Yushi's name brings him to another level of cool.
Originally, I was looking forward to Yuta (NCT 127), Shotaro (formerly in NCT, but now in Riize), and SM Rookie Shohei to be in the NCT Tokyo (unofficial name) group. With the debut of this show, I threw that thought out the window. Shotaro is obviously out of NCT since joining Riize. Yuta could be in NCT Tokyo, but fans are already worried about the health of Mark and Haechan, who are in duel groups, NCT 127 and NCT Dream. Also, it is possible that Yuta wants to go more into acting with his latest movie, High&Low: The Worst X (available on Netflix USA) or other opportunities since he is no longer a rookie in this business. Lastly, there is no news about SM Rookie Shohei whom I read was injured so he needs time to recover. I am sad that Shohei was not a part of Riize to join his SM Rookie buddies Seunghan and Eunseok. Shohei is also born in 1996, which makes him 27 years old and he would have a big age gap with Yushi and Sion, which is not a big problem, but not preferred. Ultimately, life is about timing and we are starting completely fresh to create a new group.
Since there are two members already set to debut, I have deja vu flashbacks of Hybe Labels Japan's reality survival show, "&Audition – The Howling where members K, Nicholas, EJ, and Taki were already set to debut and they needed five more members to make a nine member group. I didn't not like the way the competition show was filmed and possibly the end result so unfortunately, I lost interest in the group afterwards despite being a fan of K and Harua. That show looked like a rush job with huge cuts in scenes, which are hard to follow.
I am going back to Yushi who is learning the Korean language. He says his fluency is about 70-80%, which is impressive. He said he started with zero knowledge about Korean language when he arrived in Korea and since he trained for five years, which they later reveal in the episode, he probably can debut with his current set of skills.
As for Sion, who started learning Japanese, his teacher mentioned that he is ready to use his Japanese skill in Japan. This means, the two should be debut-ready. If there are more members who are Japanese in the group, Sion might be the minority in the group who speaks native Korean.
"Afrolex" dance by Yushi and Sion
Eunhyuk thought Sion and Yushi were very relaxed and liked the multiple dance styles incorporated into the dance such as house and dub steps. He wanted them to focus more on showing charisma on the stage.
BoA thought Yushi was relaxed and did not skip a beat. However, Sion was rushed a little.
Key agreed with BoA that Yushi had good composure and wish that Yushi showed more facial expressions.
My thoughts when I first watched their performance was that they already had the SM style of fluid dancing skills to music that is trendy. I have never heard of Afrolex before and couldn't find this song, but I already wanted to hear this song on repeat. My first thought was similar to the artist directors in that while Yushi had great, fluid dancing skills, he looked like he had deep concentration on his face and SM artists almost always look at the camera with expressions while they are dancing. Sion looked like he was having more fun on stage. However, I did not catch what BoA was saying that he rushed his dance moves so I put the dance on replay multiple times. It was really hard to catch him "rushing," but to me, that is a minor problem because in the end, I thought they set the tone of what we should expect from this group. I don't get to see this live, but through camera cuts, so it is harder to tell what is going on during the performance.
Yushi said after the performance that he also messed up some dance moves in the beginning due to nervousness. If I can't tell or notice anything wrong, then they are professionals to me. For so many of my early years of public piano performances where I messed up certain notes while playing the piano, but because I kept going, nobody genuinely ever noticed the notes were wrong. The listeners were shocked when I told them I messed up some parts. Yushi might have messed up, but he received comments from all three judges that he was very relaxed on stage.
I found it amazing that the SM casting team went to Mokpo where Sion lived to do a camera test on him. This is dedication. I'm sure they found something special about Sion other than his picture.
 |
| Mokpo is almost at the south-western tip of Korea compared to Seoul in the north |
I also felt surprised that Yushi seemed very nervous and his mind went blank when he was asked the question of how he sees his group debut. I hope to see a more confident Yushi in the future. I know this is part of Japanese culture not to show external emotions, but if Yushi can show me that he is happy to debut with just his facial expression, then I will know deep down in his heart how he feels.
It is also in this part where Sion gave a wise answer such as setting the goal for the group to bring happiness to the public, who can also bring happiness back to them. I am starting to feel leadership vibes.
At this point of the show, we are reminded that we should pick members to match the style of Sion and Yushi. We are not here to pick random trainees to join a group. We are here to pick random trainees to create a group that will fit well with Sion and Yushi. There is a difference as we need to tailor the group now as opposed to starting fresh to see which trainees fit well together and have unique skills that will make the group stronger overall.
For the non-debut trainees evaluation, they have to shoot mission videos for the new IP TF team for review while the artist directors will watch the live performances. This means I will also watch the live performances as opposed to the mission videos. The new IP TF and the artist director groups each contribute to 50% of the trainee's score.
There are a total of four missions in this show and there will be a ranking announcement after the end of each mission with the fourth mission scores announced as the final debut lineup. Only four unofficial trainees can debut with Sion and Yushi.
Five teams of two trainees each will perform for the first mission with the aim to become the top four trainees.
Haruta (하루타 in Korean, ハルタ in Japanese) and Anderson (Canadian descent) dancing to "Believer" by Imagine Dragons
Haruta trained for 8 months while Anderson trained for 6 months. This is considered a very short training time before debut. They would have to be super talented to pass the mission in my opinion.
This is a dance performance so we also do not see how well they can sing. At SM where every artist is an all-rounder, I do not expect less than all-rounder status so all trainees need to be able to sing, rap, and dance well.
Key loved the performance and thought this was a moment teenagers turn into adults. Anderson had great expression and mouthed the lyrics as well to indicate he understood the lyrics. Key liked the contrasting outfits and called Haruta a back-up dancer.
BoA stepped in provide a different opinion on their outfits, which wasn't very compatible. Her eyes naturally went to Anderson's brighter colors and pant patterns, but Anderson also had impressive dance skills.
Enhyuk did not want to comment too much on dance because they both did well. He focused more on expressiveness on stage and Anderson did better.
I already see a minus point/worry for Anderson when he said he cannot speak Korean well. He might then have a tough time working in Korea and also needing to study Japanese to debut in this group. He doesn't have five years like Yushi to study languages if debut is around the corner, but having Anderson in the group will help the group where English speaking skills are needed. We have to think globally, but we also need to know if he is qualified to be in the debut group.
I start thinking about Winwin from WayV and I think his Korean language skills were mediocre at the start of his career (and so was NCT Dream's Chenle for a brief period of time), but he still was able to overcome it, so if Anderson has the willpower, Anderson can push himself to learn Korean and Japanese at the same time and hope that he doesn't confuse the two languages.
There were Chinese staff members at a Chinese school criticizing me for attempting to place my daughter in both a Mandarin and a Cantonese class at five years old. They kept saying my daughter will be confused. In my opinion, this can happen for people who are multilingual, but if the situation is avoided, the person, or my daughter in this case, will never learn. This is also the reason why none of my family can speak Mandarin well as opposed to our native Cantonese.
Amazingly, Haruta and Anderson cannot communicate well to each other in their native languages, so I guess Anderson and Haruta used body language to work with each other. I'm sure that they also had help from the staff, but language is already a challenge by itself. We shall skip any possibility of evil editing in this case because something like this type of situation can easily cause a misunderstanding.
I agreed very much with BoA. The color combinations was the first thing I saw that unlike Yushi and Sion, who had very nicely-coordinated matching outfits, I felt like Haruta was a back-up dancer and Anderson was the main dancer just by outfits alone. I also could not concentrate on Haruta well. I actually re-watched the performance many times to be fair to Haruta. In the end, my conclusion was that Anderson's expressions and dance skills is what I wanted to see in Yushi. With this expressive talent that Anderson has, he is already on my top four list for debut. I have yet to hear him sing so I won't be so sure yet. Being westernized helps because as westerners, we are taught and encouraged to bring our emotions outward for all to see. Seeing emotions on stage is a treat for the audience. I am also impressed at the articulate way that Anderson speaks. He looks to be someone who would be class president in his school and someone who aims to impress others and become excellent at what he wants to do. He responds with the right words without hesitation. I compare him to Mark in NCT in which it took me a long time to appreciate Mark because Mark couldn't normally get out a proper thought in English with lots of "ums" (filler words) in his speech. I took a long time, but I eventually became a Mark fan and accepted him for his charms. I am naturally attracted to men who can articulate their thoughts well.
Unfortunately, Haruta did not stand out to me so I can't give him any extra points or minus points. He is in the unknown section of my list. In a true SM fashion, Haruta should have thought of a way for him to stand out. There are ways to still get attention even though he is wearing all black. Hartuta said after his performance that he does not regret wearing the black outfit and that it looked nice on him. Upon hearing this, I was a bit disappointed that he missed the point because this was not a solo stage, but the two performers should match each other so that there is balance between the two performers. I am about to play Studio Choom's Mix and Match series for him.
Below is a recent Mix and Match video from NCT Dream's Jisung and Mark.
I like how my opinions are almost the same as the Artist Directors so far. I really have the pink blood (the official fan name of SM entertainment artists) in my veins.
This time, we have a vocal performance for a good variety. In SM Entertainment, there are four groups of trainees: vocal, rap, dance, and modeling.
Jungmin (정민) and Minjae (민재), both Korean in decent, singing to "Running on the Sky," which is originally sung by singer Lee Juck
Perhaps, it was the upbeat guitar sounds that made Eunhyuk wanting the trainees to move around the stage and explore, but the trainees both stood in place. It also could be because Key mentioned that this is a popular song for Korean soldiers to sing in the military (since the soldiers are away from home and having a tough time) and also that this is a lively song. Jungmin had an open smile at the beginning of the song so the show captions him with the term, "방긋" or bang geut (meaning an open, bright, silent smile 😃)
It is at this point, episode one ends with the question if we can continue smiling after the song is over.
Yikes. I had to laugh.
My Conclusion so far in ranking for mission one:
1. Anderson
2. Haruta
This was my review up to this point. Because I already missed two episodes, I am able to keep watching in the United States through Viki. What are your thoughts on the first episode?
Please leave a comment if you would like and you are welcome to continue to episode two of NCT Universe: LASTART.
No comments:
Post a Comment