Wehaiyo!: NCT Universe: LASTART

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org

It's happening, folks! I am going to review SM Entertainment's first reality competition trainee debut show, NCT Universe: LASTART.

As a big fan of SM Entertainment's artists and music, I must be involved in this show in one way or another. I may not be a member of the "IP TF" team, but I still have my own thoughts and opinions about the contestants and the show itself.

Ever since I started watching Korean variety "survival" shows, SM Entertainment is known for declining to send any of their trainees to participate in these survival shows. If I were them, I totally agree and respect that decision. These survival shows are brutal where there tends to be lots of drama (real or not real), potential evil editing where they might accentuate a certain story angle that may or may not exist and may damage a trainee's reputation, ranking based on public vote, which is actually just a popularity vote not actually based on the trainee's talent and their survivability in the long-run, and lastly, if the trainee is selected in the end, the reward is a short contract to be in a temporary group where there is high risk negotiations can turn sour. Reaching success after the survival show is over is harder. The idol group, Wanna One, is one reality show debut group in my mind that achieved significant popularity and success after their survival shows was over, but so far this is an exception. To their credit, Wanna One had great songs such as "Energetic" among others. I am not particularly fond of the songs of other reality show groups, post show.

SM Entertainment and I think alike. We are in it for long-term survival. It is not a secret that SM Entertainment is a long-standing company with artists from the first generation of K-pop and beyond.

If you are unfamiliar with the SM Entertainment company, they are a major K-pop entertainment company in South Korea with contracted K-pop artists such as Kangta, BoA, TVXQ!, Super Junior, Girls' Generation, SHINee, Exo, Red Velvet, NCT, NCT U, NCT 127, NCT Dream, 威神V(WayV), SuperM, Aespa, GOT the Beat, Zhoumi, J-Min, Lee Dong Woo, Ginjo, Lucas, Imlay, Raiden, Riize, and more. SM Entertainment has all the professionals and staff members who guide the trainees to success. In this show, there are no particular evil edits of any trainees other than honest feedback and constructive criticism to motivate the trainees to do better as individual artists. Each trainee grows at their own speed, but for the sake of debuting, they don't have the luxury to come on this show and not show growth. What I really like is that there is no public vote because the voters are all professionals who have a stake in the success of this group. There is no time for popularity games and the constant anxiety about whether I voted X times every day to try to ensure that my favorite trainee survives. There is no payment to vote, qualifications, or ridiculous procedures to go through before my vote is considered counted. I thought elections in the USA are hard enough. Also, I like that there aren't a lot of trainees in this competition show so I can focus on all of them better. In other shows where I see dozens of members, it is hard for me to know for sure who I should vote for in the end because we only see what is shown to us and it is sad for those contestants who barely had any screen time. The final end result usually ends with me being disappointed in the final lineup because there will be some leftover trainees who didn't make the final cut, but could have made the final cut. I hope, to a minimum, that SM Entertainment will disappointment me with this show.

I find it interesting how the show is named. NCT Universe: LASTART is a play on words where the debut group would be the "last" team to debut under the NCT umbrella group, but is also going to be the "start" of their NCT career. There will only be six members in this group, but I am really hoping for seven members. WayV has seven members. NCT Dream or 7Dream, as they are affectionately called, has a perfect group of seven, and NCT 127 used to have seven members before they officially expanded to nine members (sorry, WinWin).

Two SM Rookies, SM's official trainees, are already guaranteed a spot in the new group whose group name will be revealed probably at the final episode/show: Sion and Yushi. I will mention more about them later when I review the show.

The grading system for the trainees is as follows: 50% of the grade will come from the artist directors and the other 50% of the grade will come from the IP TF, who are seemingly upper or executive management of SM Entertainment. I am still scratching my head on what the IP TF means. I know IP stands for Intellectual Property from the SM 3.0 business strategy and development plan videos. I find it very weird to refer to idol groups as intellectual property, but that is the reality of the situation. Everything is business. Music is business. Therefore, I only needed to figure out what TF means, and I think it does not mean a curse word. Ultimately, I am settling for the term "task force" as that sound intimidating and that is exactly who I think the IP TF are in real life or else founder Lee Soo Man, from where the initials S.M. originates, would still be in charge.

Along the way, there will also be relevant guest artists on the show who will provide the trainees feedback during their practice and also provide the trainees a gift afterwards to motivate them to do well. When I see SM artists supporting each other, I always feel fuzzy inside because SMTOWN is a family.

In this show, I will also be an acting special judge or evaluator. I won't necessarily have Artistic Director BoA's vocal goddess talents to discover details in the singing, but I will do my best to also offer my opinion and what I think so far in the show. What qualifications do I have? I have been a piano and violin player all through my school life. I have been in music or talent competitions. I have also joined the chorus for several years in school. I have been in a high school music in high school, both as an actor and a pit musician. I have studied and have a degree in music industry with a minor in music theory. I have interned at a music publishing company in the A&R department, interned at a Chinese television company, and also interned at an internet radio company. While I work in a different industry now, my forever love is the music, the performance art, and language arts. I have joined flash mobs in the past and have danced ballet and jazz when I was younger as well as being a gymnast. I have ice skated and roller skated. Again, none of these qualifies me for the real thing, but it's a good perspective, I think. Best of all, I'm a K-pop fan since 2009 and potentially a J-Pop fan.

If you like what you read so far, please look forward to my next post about episode one. I can't wait to start or LASTART.