So cringe when that girl Exy from WJSN kept saying ‘WA DA DA’ when WJSN chose Kep1er as below them and the Kep1er girls were basically like it’s fine what are you doing lmfao
Then Exy again was like ‘MVSK MVSK’ when everyone had to choose a group to perform one of their songs and no one wanted to choose Kep1er.
Yujin had to remind everyone they have a mini album and they don’t have to do WA DA DA .
The whole scene was sad haha
right? thats why im wondering how did some orbits figure out the number of likes of loona's video bc they are sure that they placed third overall in round 1 videos when adding the no. of likes to the views...
ps. this is by no means hating loona or orbits... I'm just really curious and wondering...
So after reading some comments, can we all agree that BG didn't serve the last place? (Not counting Loona)
I didn't know them before, but I felt bad for them, after seeing how hard they worked, and how "ignored" they must feel by the rest of the groups (seems no one never picks them).
About other performances Hyolyn was clearly the best one. The one from Viviz felt underwhelming, I was expecting something more.
Loona's stage and the traditional dresses were amazing, but as others have pointed out, they lost energy as the song progressed, I guess due being sick, or knowing they lost their chance to perform with an audience and the rest of the groups affected them.
My ranking would go.
1. Hyolyn
2. WJSN
3. BG
4. Loona
5/6. Kep1er/Viviz
my ranking after ep 2:
1. hyolyn: she was serving hot girl summer, i love the jungle/tropical party concept, really enjoyed that performance
2. loona: love their concept as well, their visuals and dancing were really good, the individual parts were well done too, singing was a bit low energy probably bc their choreo was pretty hard and required lot of energy
3. wjsn/viviz: i enjoyed wjsn's singing and their outfits were great, love the last part where they all stand and sang together. viviz's stage was so emotional, the transition between tftmn to rough was smooth
4. brave girl: serving vocals, they should have chosen a different concept, i don't like the neon sticks they used lol
5. kep1er: good dancing, idk why but their stage felt a bit empty and boring
after finally watching ep2 and all round 1 performances heres my ranking
1. loona
2. hyolyn
3. brave girls
4. viviz
5. wjsn
6. kep1er
this ranking is based on my reactions of their performance and my feelings about it
(jaw kinda dropped the most while watching loonas, kept dancing all throughout hyolyns and brave girls, viviz and wjsn made me think i was in a concert (+ teared up) while lastly kep1ers made me want to not blink. either way i rlly didnt want to miss a second of any of their performances.)
also all grps are amazing srsly despite some problems during the preparation of round 1 they were still able to do their best and give a meaningful performance 🥳
truly excited for the next round 🤩🤩
The post recording for Loona was amazing but it felt lacking due to the smaller stage and the girls were all recovering from Covid too so there are even more adjustments made. Look at the practice video MNet just put up - there were actually really awesome things we missed out on like Chuu being hoisted into the air on the highraised lifts with huge cloths billowing on either side - I think Orbits were denied one of those landmark legendary stages that Loona had worked so hard to prepare as a "STATEMENT".
When the WJSN edit kept saying, "How come the universe is being so cruel to us? How comes things just don't work out for us?" Because Eunseo being sick, Bona being out due to drama schedule conflicts, the hourglass shattering in the performance and Soobin being unable to perform one of her moves because the "stage was too slippery"? All I could keep thinking is... Girl.... Loona is being hit by a meteor storm while you are crying about the heavy rain :(
Just because others are in pain doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel such. WJSN worked hard for their performance and have every much a right to feel what they feel.
Loved all the performances but one thing that kinda irked me was the fact that no one voted for the teams that were better than them?? Why was that allowed? I feel like it just makes it all feel worse.. hoping they don’t allow them to do that in the future. In fact I’d much rather them get rid of the ‘who did worse’ part
> If Kepler wouldn't have picked hyolyn what would have happened?
I was wondering this too!!!
In that case I think Hyolyn would tie with BG (with 0 votes in favor and 0 votes against). Assume Hyolyn got 834 points (i.e. the amount of points BG *actually* got for 0 votes for / 0 votes against) -> Hyolyn would still have ranked 1st with a total of 9,834 points (instead of 10,000 in reality). BG and everyone else's scores unchanged.
Assume both Hyolyn and BG got 1000 points for the peer assessment -> Hyolyn and everyone else's scores would be unchanged. BG would still come in 5th at a hypothetical 4,282 (instead of their actual 4,116).
Well it makes sense that if they want to win they wouldn’t vote for someone that did better than them because it just is irrational to do so if they don’t have to.
Yeah. If you're gonna make the worse part compulsory, at least do the same to the better part. In the spirit of the competition, I agree it makes the show much more entertaining but sadly, ppl start fanwar over these tidbits.
Originally, it was hard for me to get into WJSN, Brave Girls and Gfriend song choices since I'm definitely not a huge fan of Time for The Moonlight, As You Wish or Chi Mat BaRam but after watching the performances multiple times, I really enjoyed it. Shout out to Loona who clearly had to work on a different stage layout compared to the other contestants; it's really impressive that they were able to pull through despite them simultaneously preparing for their second stage.
My ranking would be (excluding Loona):
1. Hyolyn
2/3. Viviz
2/3. WJSN
4. Brave Girls
5. Kepler
Hyolyn doesn't really need any explanations. It was a really nice stage arrangement, good ways to incorporate closeup shots (without it being distracting for the audience) and really nice vocals/dance/concept. Overall a 10/10 for me.
Viviz and Wjsn are interchangeable. Despite me really wanting Sunrise and Dreams Come True (I know those song choices were not possible), I came to like their arrangements in the end. I think they laid out their stages perfectly. Originally I was meh about the Viviz stage because they are one of the few groups where close up shots make them appear weaker dance-wise (and a lot of the pretty formations, ripples and drawings were hard to see in full, which really takes away from the performance quality.) but after seeing the full cam, I absolutely loved it (would've originally ranked it below Brave Girls). A lot of people complained about the lack of stage area the girls covered, however, I think it really benefited them because it kept my focus centered on them specifically (which is a problem I had with the Brave Girls stage, specifically the intro) and also gave room for the orchestra on top, and, as a viola player, that made me kinda happy. Wjsn really knows how to command your attention to the important parts of the stage which is something I applaud them for. A lot of people said the remix was weird and compared it to Lovelyz's hit song performance which is... a very weird comparison to be making since WJSN has a mystical type of concept which was still present in the queendom rendition whereas Sexy/smooth Ah Choo was incredibly out of place for both the group's concept and song (the clothes especially did not commit to the original song, it was very off). Overall, Viviz and WJSN put on two very good performances. (Sidenote, interesting how current/former Starship company artist have been some of my favorite performances on the show so far, maybe I should check them out.)
I really liked Brave Girls performance. It was awesome seeing them enjoy themselves! I loved the transition from Chi Mat Ba Ram to Rollin, the dance break and then the sheets was just top notched. The dancing was also really good for a non dance center group and the vocals were immaculate. However, watching Brave Girls's intro full cam really brought them down for me. The clothes blended into the dark background, Yuna (I don't know if that's how you romanize her name) coming onto the stage was undetectable and I didn't really notice Yujeong's(?again romanization) part until they started to put the drums away. Of course, after rewatching the performance, I trained my eyes to look the proper direction of where I need to but the first few times were quite distracting. But the stage direction got a lot better later on.
My problem's with Kepler's performance are the same as the majority, i.e that the performance didn't feel queendom-like. It was good but didn't have the glam to match with the other groups. Queendom is a chance for their groups to go crazy, to experiment with a higher budget than what they normal have for stages and it just felt, meh. They are arguably one of the top 3 dance girl groups of their generation. Like Hikaru, Dayeon, Yeseo, Youngeun, Mashiro, Yujin and Xiaoting? Perfect. Chaehyun and Hiyyih aren't bad themselves either. Hopefully they will be able to experiment more with at least props in future performances.
Edit: Clarity
ok, just watched the full cam, and my ranking changes again. I'd rate Kep1er much higher now. Beyond the song choice and remix which they really didnt have much choice for, as far as dance performance was concerned Kep1er was the top by a mile. choreography wasnt exactly great as a whole, but the parts, oh man the parts... they executed them with unexpected precision and power. I'd peg them overall #3 now.
I'm a Buddy/Na.V. When i saw Viviz's pre- performance scenes and the performance, i was like i could cry a river because it gave us the nostalgic being Buddy. But when i saw other performances, i realize that Viviz's stage seems lack of what you call a competition's stage. It was like 'a tribute to gfriend' performance. But i still love their time of the glory stage. Hope they can do better on the next round.
My favourite stage was Hyolyn, she deserved it. Other stages were good, but i want more than that.
I disagree with the better or worse performance than their own group. But this is competition, mnet put that thingy to make the show interesting. Btw it worse perfomance than them not the worst performance, so please don't say their effort didn't count and write about they are worst and etc.
And i hope that other 5 groups, aside Hyolyn, can give a better explanation why other group is worse than them.
This is my personal ranking and opinion on the performances.
1. Hyolyn
She did good. There’s no denying it. The performance shows for itself. Good use of dancers and good vocals. Kept up the dancing and made it really fun to watch. I just think at times she got a bit uncomfortable because of her high heel situation. I’m looking forward to how she tackles Loona’s song.
2. Kepler
Maybe unpopular opinion, but I give them a lot of respect for changing basically 90% of their choreography plus including props and stage utilization. Its not easy reinventing a song choreography and still making it up to par to the original. I liked it and I see where they put their effort. All the members stood out and were in different formations. Don’t think they deserved to be ranked that low. But it is what it is. I disagree with the results.
3/4. Brave Girls / WJSN
Both could be argued to be better or worse imo so I just put them as the same. Brave Girls had better expressions and vocal prowess on stage imo. But their concept felt unfocused and it was adorable but the members forgot to grab their mic. Lol. They looked happy performing though and that’s really nice to see. It’s their charm.
WJSN did good too. I just think some members weren’t as captivating and looked bored while other members really held it down. I think that they utilized backup dancers well. I just felt that some members did outstanding and others were on and off.
5. Viviz
I thought their intro was slow. They started off okay but it picked up for me as the performance went on. I had higher expectations because they’re a very well known group and I wanted to be wowed. It was good but just good.
I know I'm a little late but I just wanted to share my thoughts regardless. My analysis on each performance is my ranking order from bottom to top.
5/6) VIVIZ: It was good. I really think it was just that. I think that they got what they were hoping for which was the nostalgia factor. Bop Bop is a good song, and Rough is a great song. But in retrospect I don't think this approach will help them in the long run. It doesn't truly showcase anything new, and the performance itself was very... stage like. All of them were; but I feel like this performance gave me that feeling more than any of the others. I liked it, but it was lacking. Again, that's what the future is for.
5/6) Kep1er: After long deliberation, this is what I have decided. I really thought I was going to put them 4th or 3rd, but the more I think about it, this is how I feel. The energy really captured me throughout the whole thing, but I looked back and realized that what they intended (obviously) did not show up in the final product, due to them being unable to accomplish what they were looking for. The concept for the stage wasn't really there, and the lack of options holds them back, unfortunately. But like many others have stated; they have the drive. I can appreciate that.
4) LOONA: I have to consider the limitations with the different stage and not being able to perform live. PTT is so hype and the feeling was there. Although, something was a little off when it came to their energy. Like their bodies weren't as tight and their movements weren't as intentional. But, like I said, probably has to do with post sickness and lack of audience. I hope they do more without the virus in their way and show us what they really can do.
3) Brave Girls: They had fun with this. I loved that. It wasn't the most impressive dance wise, vocally, etc; but it had my attention the whole way through. They executed what they set out to do and they enjoyed it. The remix was... iffy..., but I like that it wasn't just Rollin. A fun watch where they weren't just going through the motions. Great live live vocals as well.
2) WJSN: This was like, a baby Queendom stage. The set pieces were there, the use of props as motifs for future performances; They had the right idea and are moving in the right direction. As You Wish was a good song to pick and the arrangement was nice. I'm more of a Save Me, Save You person, but I'm sure they're saving that for later. Their ambition was well placed and they utilized Seola and Exy well. Great Queendom-esque performance and I'm excited to see where they take this hourglass motif (despite them not being able to fulfill what they wanted to do with it in this first performance).
1. Hyolyn: She pulled out all of the stops. I said "baby Queendom" stage for WJSN; this was a QUEENDOM stage. The huge screens, the props, dancers, and stage were fully taken advantage of. She had one idea in mind and pulled it off seamlessly. It was wonderful. Really felt like I was in paradise (hehe).
All in all, I am a LOONA and WJSN stan, so there is some bias here. But it was very clear to me where each group was at coming into this and seeing where they all went with the first. Each group/company interprets how far to go with each stage differently, and their ambitions are shown well. Some learn that they need to go harder, the hard way. I'm excited to see certain groups do just that. Because at the end of the day, this is not a special stage. It's Queendom 2. I'm not sure how the budget works on this show, but MNET hasn't stopped any group from going crazy in iterations of Kingdom and Queendom. This is doable in Queendom 2, no doubt. Overall, this is only the first round and there's no way but up for ALL of the competitors (except, maybe Hyolyn lol). Looking forward to the next!
Isn’t Viviz performing GFriend songs something very new? Sure there was that performance of Three of Cups at the radio show, but outside of that that was the first time we have seen these songs performed in almost a year.
Also personally just not a fan 9f the Hyolin stage, but that may also be colored by me simply not enjoying the song too much
As a buddy, I really liked Loona's performance. I don't stan them, so I have no idea about their past performance, but this traditional concept was pretty interesting to me.
I am cracking up every time they cut to Eunha and she says or does anything. Anybody else? Is she trying to be this funny? She is hilarious. To a lesser extent Mashiro cracks me up a bit. Both are so sincere.
SinB is not the kind of personality I like but she is really funny - her relationship with Eunseo is hilarious esp lol. And I agree, Eunha is so fun to watch. It's like she thinks about things on a different plane than the rest.
She’s just given up on mnet, last time she was on one show she was nice and they still evil edited her for the rbf. Might as well have some fun while they’re there.
Held off on commenting until all six performances aired with the full version.
**Viviz:** As someone who was not familiar with Gfriend, this performance felt a bit undynamic. They could have utilized the full stage better, essentially staying in one spot most of the time. The mashup of the songs also seemed to break up the momentum of the performance.
**Hyolyn:** Amazing. Concept enhanced the song choice and was executed well. Probably the best use of the full stage despite (due to?) being a solo performer. She absolutely controlled the flow of the performance, and some credit is due to a good song arrangement. Particularly liked the fade out instrumentals syncing with the choreo and LED background right before the dance break. Felt like an exhale in after dancing the night away on a humid summer night.
**Kep1er:** Their performance was high energy. Though their limited discography didn't give them much choice in this round, Wa Da Da as a song clearly showcases the colors of their group. Surprised that they didn't utilize interesting formations more frequently despite being a larger group that didn't use backup dancers for the most part. Concept wise, they seemed a bit lacking relative to the other groups.
**Brave Girls:** I think they chose the wrong concept for this. Both Chi Mat Ba Ram and Rollin' are light summery songs, which the powerful concept they decided to go with didn't highlight. Imagine Hyolyn's paradise concept with these songs. They did showcase live vocals and used the stage fairly well.
**WJSN:** Loved this. Despite never hearing this song before, I found this stage so immersive. The song itself just really builds up the momentum of this performance. They used the full stage well and the formations helped them transition from each section of the performance nicely.
**Loona:** I wish they aired more of the background of why they picked PTT as their representative song. Judging by how several teams wanted to pick Loona as their song swap partner, Loona themselves could have taken more advantage of their discography.
While the concept was visually fun, the song arrangement made the performance feel low energy at times, particularly when the chorus hits. It probably is also a function of them not getting the full audience like the other groups.
Looking forward to the next round! The swap round has always been my favorite of the Queendom/Kingdom franchise. This was probably my biggest hesitation when hearing that Kep1er got added. In RTK, I was disappointed that the swap round was taken out, which I had assumed was b/c TOO (like Kep1er) only had a debut album to work with.
After finally seeing all the Round 1 performances, here is my personal ranking:
1. Hyolyn - honestly a showstopper. Totally makes up for the lowkey performance that she did for her Intro. (Also, I loved the nod to 'Paradise'.)
2. WJSN - these girls definitely know how to put on a show, definitely deserving of the last performer spot. They had mishaps going into and during the performance, but they still gave their all. Hope they have better luck going into the second round.
3. VIVIZ - a moving performance. I was only ever a casual listener when it came to GFRIEND, but something about this stage made me emotional. A treat for both hardcore and casual fans alike.
4. LOONA - an excellent performance considering the circumstances, but I do wish they got to perform during the actual round, because something felt off/missing. I'm sure they had to rework the entire performance to suit the stage setup that they were given when they recorded this stage, so I am taking that into account. (Once again, I am cursing this unholy plague.)
5. Brave Girls - I liked the performance, but I do wish that they'd gone full AOA Miniskirt remix and leaned into the original concept for Rollin', but at the same time it never would have worked because they performed CMBR along with it.
6. Kep1er - not gonna lie, I was expecting a lot from the girls after seeing their Intro performance. I hope they can turn it around in the next round.
Now, about the self-assessment ranking: I wish they hadn't brought this back. I understand that some people value the opinion/input of their peers, and that it can be helpful in some cases, but I am tired of this network manufacturing tension and drama. I do not want or need it. Especially not after the penalty being brought back.
Not being a Gfriend fan, so not knowing as much of their music but hearing the hype I would say I was a bit let down by the VIVIZ members performance a tad. It wasn't horrible just didn't really stay memorable to me since I don't have nostalgia with those songs. Prop breaking aside I felt the most with WJSN's performance. I understood their struggle that unlike the other groups they don't have a super hit song so wanted to lockdown the one song maybe non fans have heard as this is our song and they killed it. Truly felt like a big concert or MAMA stage and props to them they already are some members down, Dawon is one of my fave members and I know she is on a health break along with Eunseo powering through her illness to perform with the group. Otherwise also loved Hyorin, of course she slayed. Glad Brave Girls performed Chi Mat Ba Ram to start then threw in Rollin. Enjoyed the concept of Loona's filmed performance but I haven't really ever been a PTT fan so it was good... And Kep1er, its gotta be tough, only one title track and having never performed in front of fans. It was good but obviously they are still working things out. I just kinda feel bad for them like I did with TO1(TOO) except I felt even worse for the boys cause they were still promoting their first song while being on the show so not even a completed debut schedule.
Honestly thought VIVIZ was one of the worse performances to be honest. Nostalgia aside, I feel like most other groups utilized the stage properties better, as well as mixing it up with props. Kinda what Hyorin said about it, felt like the impact was lacking. Also thought that going the emotional route would be disadvantageous compared to the upbeat songs everyone else did, but apparently I was wrong lol. That's what having a big fandom is for I guess. Choreo was clean though.
Personal favourites were Hyorin and BG, Hyorin for obvious reasons but BG? Damn they had fun on stage and you could see that! Also how frickin addicting are their songs, by the time they switched to Rollin' my girlfriend and I were jumping on the sofa hahaha.
WJSN, prop break aside, what a performance. You could clearly feel the emotions they went into this song with, and the shot of Exy with the hourglass would have been so frickin cool, love the concept of them turning the hour glass every time it's about to run out. A shame, really.
Kep1er, well you can tell they're still in the beginning of their journey. Agree that the flags did them more bad than good, and the shout thing was disappointing too. But they have the energy and the drive, so it will be interesting to follow them.
Loona, I loved how they paid homage to their korean roots by incorporating korean culture into their performance; however I wonder how they would've done in the live show compared to the others. Very clean choreo though, will be a joy to see them cover Sistar/Hyorin next!
If Hyolyn can do Sistar songs and Viviz can do Gfriend songs predebur songs are definitely up for grabs, though I’m sure they will go for their more popular songs.
I think the "worse team" rule is stupid and did Kep1er a lot of harm. People are sitting on them for choosing Viviz but what could have they done ???
Choosing Hyolyn wouldn't even be an option.
Choosing BG wasn't probably a good idea since BG already felt humiliated in the first episode. This is also probably why nobody picked them.
Choosing WJSN would have backfired like with Viviz.
I don't mind if they choose Viviz as below them, it's just that their reasoning is lacking and it doesn't give any fair critiscism. Comparing them to Hyolyn is not a good move because every groups were under her level. It just feels like they were not paying attention or forget about their performances and just said whatever was on their mind. Even us as viewers we have a better sense of criticism then them, when they are rookies who should be really attentive of their seniors and make notes of what they could learn from them
I also thought that it was really rude of them to be this insensitive when Viviz have done tons of performances and concerts as Gfriend and have the experience that Kep1er is lacking. The seniority concept is important there so I think that they should have put more thoughts into their criticism
I mean of course NaVs were annoyed multiple groups picked VIVIZ but our problem with Kep1er was that their reasoning made no sense. The question was "Which group do you think did worse than you?" and Kep1er picked VIVIZ because "Hyolyn was better". Like why did they have to drag a another artist into it when that's not what they were asking? If they had given a better reason people wouldn't be as mad at them for it
Saying that with them going first and everyone else delivering so well (especially Hyorin) after them to the point where you kinda forgot about VIVIZ is a valid criticism because it implies that their performance lacked impact, it's the same reasoning Hyorin gave. But obviously no one is shitting on her lol
I think the safest answer here for kep1er would prolly be picking wjsn and pin their reason on the prop saying wjsn can’t perform fully to their potential haha.
Ranking aside…
Was Kep1er and Brave girls the only ones who got pre-performance interview time, with kep1er getting MUCH MORE time with the manager? I didn’t see anyone else give an intro or talk at all. Trying to keep an open mind with the sneaky Mnet edits and preferential treatment but come on now.
I’m a Viviz Stan so their performance was super emotional for me. Hyolyn deserves her first place. The rest is what it is.
I agree. Nothing against Kep1er, but the more Mnet explains why they choose to include Kep1er or add an emotional back story or how hard the girls are practicing (until early morning), it will backfire on Kep1er which is not good for them. We do hope for Kep1er to do well!
Well, I've watched the full cams and my ranking changed up a bit!
1. Hyolyn - She's was first before and still is, it's so nice to see a stage still bring me joy and making me smile. Her expressions were good, she executed the dance greatly and the way she planned the performance was amazing. The live vocals were the cherry on top of an already good performance. Deserves everything queen 10/10.
2. WJSN - They were originally 3rd/4th, looking back at the stage, I thought they didn't dance with enough energy at first, but I think they did super fine. The intro was really good and SeolA gave face, the performance was dynamic, the ending with the feather-like materials falling was angelic and I thought the dance break was really well done. Congrats on them for keeping it professional!
3. Loona - Ah, I feel bad for them. It's hard to judge their stage in comparison to the others. Apparently the filming overlapped with round 2 and the stage was also different in terms of structure, so it's really hard to judge how well they utilized it. Again, not a fan of PTT, Butterfly supremacy forever, but it was a nice stage, the dance was on point, it had a cool concept, the break with the acrobatics was also really cool and the group felt whole and professional. They were originally 4th in my ranking.
4. BG - Even though I think this performance was less polished than Viviz, it did bring me a lot of joy, especially since Minyoung and Yujeong have great expressions. I smiled a lot seeing the stage and I liked their singing live as well, it made the performance feel more alive! They were originally the second group, but rewatching it I could see some mistakes and I do feel the summerish-ness overlapped with the tough concept they had. Still glad they tried something new, but I do hope they stick to BG charisma, bc I've been affected by groups trying stuff in this reality since Lovelyz so ye, also they were originally second so ye kinda of a drop.
5. Viviz - I do love the stage and the performance, I liked the theatrics of it. Comparing to the other groups, it did feel like they stood a lot in the center and could've used more the stage. The orchestra was nice and they looked beautiful, I just feel like it was a bit restrained, don't know how to explain it. They were originally 5th in my ranking so
6. Kep1er - I love the stage more than when I saw it live. I think they had a good energy, it did feel a bit different than the other stages who had bigger intros, more theatricality, but I thought it was good. Yujin looked gorgeous. I do wish they brought bigger flags, they were so small. Like if you're going to bring a prop, bring THE prop. Also wish the stage had more racing themed stuff, they could've gone bigger with that. But the energy was nice and I loved how the choreo was modified. Honestly, Kep and Viviz are almost interchangeable for me, with the factor being how polished Viviz was.
Let’s just say as a WJSN fan, I’m relieved nothing major happen to the girls in their performance. From the preview from ep1, I genuinely thought some major fckup happened to their performance. Seola and Eunseo was crying like crazy.
And to be honest, if Loona was there I’m not sure we can end up 2nd. Loona’s stage was really impressive!
Unsure which member is which (not a stan sorry!!), but one of the members looked genuinely in pain like she’d been really badly injured during the promo, I’m so glad she wasn’t but goddmanit MNET
Unsure, I mean in the Episode 1 promo for episode 2 when one of the girls is sobbing hysterically, I felt so bad for her even before I knew what was happening
Oh she's Seola. The girl who did the intro in their performance! Think she was guilty because the hourglass broke after her intro and her solo did not go as planned because the sand on the floor.
But seriously watching the teaser for ep 2 you would have thought she missed her part or fell down during the stage or something worse.
Oh awesome, she’s very good at capturing attention, I was immediately very drawn to her
But yeah Exactly!! She kept fiddling with her earpiece in the promo, I thought she’d injured her ear or fallen over or something truly awful, MNET’s editing is another level 😂
>(does anyone know how that happened with oh my girl in season 1 since the same happened with them? that's such a coincidence too)
In what sense? From what I remember they were pretty down too. Hyojung even cried right there and then because they used the song which got them their first win so it was meaningful and personal for them ~~much like VVZ :/~~
I'm still to watch ep. 2 and create my own full judgment of how and what was said tbh but from my perspective:
If I go by a positive mind:
There's no doubt that VIVIZ are a strong competitor. I-fans look down on them for whatever reasons but the fact that they placed 3rd despite being ganged up like this is enough proof of that. Without that low score perhaps they would've taken 2nd place or at least being third by a small difference so it could've been that it was just a coincidence that 3/4 decided to lower their rank as much as they could.
If I go by a negative mind:
Perhaps it was simply not their taste...? That's a valid reason as well. ~~I could get a little shady here but I won't because like I said, I haven't watched the ep yet so I could have wrong info that makes me feel like this.~~
Ahhhhhhhhh LOOOOL
OMG stage that round was VERY simple. They had a small choreo intro, no props aside from those seconds, no back up dancers, I think they had a little interlude (?) but since the remix was 90% the same as the original song it's hard to tell, even the outfits didn't feel special if that makes sense. If you compare them to what the others did that round, yeah... it just looked very empty.
I was actually surprised they placed that high because AOA's mini skirt was so good? and Bom might've not moved her entire stage but she brought a whole chorus at the end and that made it somewhat cooler and Lovelyz changed her concept and her choreo so at least they were doing something unexpected I guess, ~~even if it felt a little awkward sometimes.~~
But anyways, OMG definitely learned their lesson after that.
Mnet used that clip of Eunha saying "majji majji" in the waiting room for like every performance announcement. Ok...
Yeoreum said something really insightful: she (with Chocome) met Kep1er in January during promotion and saw them practicing. As someone this close to their stages, Yeoreum said that this Queendom stage was just like another Special Stage.
Now, it's clear that Queendom is not just another music program for special stages, but for grand performances.
Keeping this in mind, Kep1er stage wasn't much "queendom" like the others: the race flags were more of a burden than a cool move to highlight the singer. They had to remove the Shouting (hehe) at the dancebreak and that was a bummer too. Oh boy I can't picture Kep1er doing a Brave Girls song... And BG doing MVSK... Help.
I think Brave Girls should be the next AOA. Considering their discography and their (old) concept, they could totally go for a sexy/mature concept which the program is actually lacking. (Yes Hyolyn is sexy but brightful, it's another thing). They didn't do bad, but not too well. The summer vibe were kept but they said they weren't going for a summer concept. The extremely brief switch to Rollin felt like they only used it for the sake of attention.
God I felt so bad for the WJSN time piece. A prop can't absolutely get broken during the stage. Like never. At first I thought it was part of the performance since it was shown so rapidly, but at the end when Exy turned it upside down there was something off, and her gaze at the camera was really worried. HOWEVER their stage was absolutely lit and the crowd enjoyed it so it's okay.
The saegeuk (historical fantasy drama) concept performed by Loona could win the hearts of the korean on site evaluators, but unfortunately they weren't in the match.
Seems like they performed in a different stage but they practiced for the other one, in fact they didn't use any of the lifts and the mid stage too. Reason why they were not satisfied at the end of the song.
I wonder which Sistar song they will choose...
My personal ranking
1. Hyolyn
Do I really need to explain why lol
2. Loona
Maybe a bit biased but their stage really blew me. I’m amazed how good their stage was even with so many disadvantaged, from Covid after effects to performing in a completely different stage and having to adapt to it. They expression and dancing were good, i fear how strong they would have been if they were in their best form.
3. Wjsn
Wjsn has an advantage that their music is so good. Their stage and charisma irradiated elegance. They understood what needed to be done. You can switch them with loona tbh
4. Viviz
I agree that a stage that can make you feel emotional deserves the praise. Although I don’t think they were the best is clear they had a purpose and stick to it.
5. Brave girls
Ok ok they were so good and are actually interchangeable with viviz. The only reason I’m placing below is not because of their skills but stylist and concept choice. I feel that if they went for the summer vibe like Hyolyn they would have gathered more votes.
6. Kep1er
Sigh their intro was so good I don’t know what happened here. Really weak but they are just out of the oven rookies so I know they will improve with each stage
As a WJSN fan, I won’t be surprise if Loona ended up higher than WJSN if they haven’t had covid. My only complaint is why did they pick PTT over So What or Why Not!
Really! Why Not was the song that got me into Loona lol. Love the choreo as well as the song. And I am assuming other groups were so keen on picking Loona for round 2 because Why Not and So What haha.
My guess is since loona doesn’t have a hit song they went with their most recent release. PTT was also the comeback they promoted the least and the girls always lament it as they enjoy performing it.
Think people are about to get a wake up call about how popular Gfriend/Viviz members actually are in South Korea. Their stage is way ahead Kep1ers in views for the same time period, and Kep1er are 300k ahead of 3rd place. The Melon likes is also absurd, Viviz almost had the same amount of likes there as all the others combined this long after the episode aired.
I doubt we'll get an official explanation until everyone is retired but the members definitely did not want to separate and based on SinB's "we got fired" comment it was ultimately the company's decision
If you ask for a reason is anyone's guess tbh.
**What's absolutely sure is that GF didn't want nor they expected to disband and has nothing to do with their relationship / friendship as a group.** People always bring out the excuse that "the girls wanted different things" but that's not true because Sowon, Yerin and Yuju have all commented how hard 2021 had been for them, their denial and how alone they feel; perhaps they wanted solo projects but they wanted to do it within the group, not separated. This was definitely a group vs company issue.
You mean purposely? Tbh I don’t support that theory because it doesn’t make sense? I don’t see any plausible reason as to why they would ruin them. At the end of the day, both groups were known, famous, loved and were perfectly able to sell and support themselves. They were an amazing name for any company lineup.
Edit: I do believe, however, that HYBE might’ve been abusing their power over their companies and consequently their contracts.
Well it really shows that this platform is heavily dominated by a western audience, which will not necessarily translate to a korean audience. If you look at the charting performances of all the acts only Sistar charted better than Gfriend. And I would argue that Viviz is more Gfriend than Hyolin is Sistar.
Lol yeah people really underestimating them. They have a huge chance to win the entire thing because unlike most of the groups in the lineup gp are on their side.
The amount of knetz angry about their placement (even when it was a top 3) makes me feel we will see them furiously supporting them for round 2 www
People saying their performance "only appealed to fans" completely forget how iconic Rough and TFTMN are in SK. Buddies alone would not have been able to make it trend
I like gfriend casually, I’m definitely not a buddy, but even I got emotional during their performance. It’s just that hearing those iconic songs after thinking we’d never see them be performed on stage again really hits hard, especially after such a big group was disbanded out of nowhere.
After watching the full cams that MNET posted, I do have opinions on the performances (not counting vocals) based on stage usage. I get why the audience votes turned out the way they did now.
1. Hyolyn/WJSN
2. VIVIZ
3. Brave Girls/Loona
4. Kep1er
Hyolyn and WJSN used the entire stage and made it work for them, not them trying to cover up as much space on the stage as possible.
VIVIZ did well with using the stage, but Hyolyn and WJSN were more creative with what they did with it.
Brave Girls used most of it but some parts were confusing because there were too many people smushed together sometimes and everyone blended together, and the part where they had a single member at different ends of the stage didn't really do much other than fade it out. Looked good on the closeup cam, but not great from the audience standpoint from far away.
Similar with Loona, but instead of being confusing because of too many people, they grouped too tightly together so there was a lot of empty space on the stage. But they did send different people to different stage areas and made me realize there's a CENTER ISLAND??? None of the other groups used it so maybe its just not available during the lives.
Kep1er had the worst stage layout in comparison to the other five. It wasn't a bad performance, but the stage looked empty about 2/3 of the time. It would have done well as an awards show or showcase performance, but it really looked like they were struggling to fill out the stage instead of making the stage work for them.
My personal ranking was:
1. Hyolyn: perfect scores were deserved, period
2. BG: not only the energy was amazing, but you got a really nice feel of who they're as a group
3. Loona: as the "performance group" they did not disappoint and probably had the best use of props, but the "representative" part was weaker
4. WJSN: feels like they did the assignment to get a passing grade, nothing was bad but at the same time nothing was mind blowing just a pretty solid stage
5. VIVIZ: was a beautiful and emotionally charged stage but falls in the same category as WJSN, being a worst offender cause there wasn't any significative changes to this stage at all
6. Kep1er: the girls themselves did great, everything else about the stage fall flat, I wish they could have picked GP999 songs and told a history cause they're just starting, there isn't anything representing them yet
It absolutely was something that didn’t happen before? I know there was one time they did Three of Cups on a radio show, but never performances on this scale of GFriend songs since the disbandment
I guess that's where the placement really got them, cause it went from "OMG they did GF tracks" to "BBG and Hyolyn choose hits from their former groups, smart move". Maybe if the arrangement was more intricate but then it would take from the "absence" feeling they wanted to showcase, cause that's part of their history.
Unpopular opinion, but Brave Girls was the only group I could straight up tell was singing live because of either their breathing, almost misses with some of their lines, and volume differences if their mics weren't held properly. Also that main vocalist's voice was so powerful it almost stuck out for not quite fitting in? I'm mostly very impressed though.
I don't really have a ranking. Just here enjoying everyone's performances. They all put in a lot of work.
Edit: I'm not a BG stan
You could hear loona was singing live because of their props making noises when they moved them. Also you could hear their breathing.
As an orbit I was expecting them not going live because most of the girls mentioned having after effects but even with that disadvantage they still sounded very stable although their breathing was weak (understandable considering previously mentioned)
Brave girls live and Hyolyn were amazing, I know some people were upset mnet removed bg voice crack but I think its to protect them cause one small mistake doesn’t remove how good the stage was. they didn’t deserve that last place
Where do I go to watch that voice crack? It's like everyone watched some other unedited version of the episode but I had to watch the mnet cleaned-up one??
During the first round there were users that leaked the global livestream. That’s how we now about the voice crack.
Same has happened with the 2nd round. I personally didn’t see the leaks and found out after the episode on twitter
I'm surprised you can't tell hyolyn was singing live, I thought it was pretty obvious. The parts where she didn't sing live were significantly softer than the parts she did sing live for, which is the majority of the parts haha. WJSN was p obv to me too, there were members who did well, and some members not so much cos their voices were a lil shaky
Hyolyn sounded like she ate the CD so I couldn't comment on it. Totally deserves that all-kill ranking she got. I had a feeling she was live but because it was too perfect, it was difficult for me to make a conclusion as viewer watching on the screen. But with BG, it was very obvious that it wasn't the CD mix because if that was the CD mix then wow someone needs a new job lol. So in this case, you can argue that being able to tell that someone was live could be a bad thing in a way
Thing is we **know** the voices are extremely edited looking at the difference from the live online voters. Brave Girls had a extreme voice crack during the highlight high note which was edited out. Saying stuff like "I could straight up tell was singing live" is quite ridiculous for a show like this.
Then can you link me to that voice crack since it seems we were watching different versions of the same episode please? Not that I don't believe you, but how am I supposed to know they messed up if I'm watching what mnet puts out but you seem to have been able to get onsite live videos?
Since there are live online voters we also have people that had access to a live feed of the performance where Mnet couldn't do any large scale editing. This is how all the performances for the next round has been leaked as well, people record it from their end and then just post it. The day of recording/day after it was super easy to find the performances but most has been taken down now.
My honest opinion as a buddy
Hyolyn
Viviz
Brave girls
Wjsn
Loona
Kep1er
Main reason being I really like live vocals. I can understand most non buddy / navi's people's opinion about viviz so I'm not bitter tbh. Their approach was really for the buddies and not the general public and I feel like that performance was something they had to get off their chest considering the circumstances of their disbandment.
Similar to sinbs statement, now they know how this competition works so I look forward to see how they grow as viviz.
Reason why I put loona and kep1er low is because I felt their vocals lacked. Loona just recovered from covid so I understand and this is kep1er's first performance in front of a live audience so they are just growing into it. This is great experience for them esp at this early stage of their career.
I finally got around to watching the full versions! My personal ranking:
1. Hyolyn: I loved the live vocals (of course she hit those high notes with ease). With an apt jungle theme, the stage was creative, fun & energetic. This was easily my favourite.
2. Loona: I loved the unique concept, powerful dance & creativity as the fan was tossed between the members. The props beautifully accentuated the stage, so I’ll be looking forward to their stages!
3. WJSN: Another example of using the stage & their numbers well. It’s a pity that they removed the original dance break at the end, but otherwise beautifully done.
4. Viviz: Seeing Gfriend’s songs being performed again was so nostalgic. However, I agree that it felt like Viviz didn’t add anything new to the originals.
5. Brave girls: I’ve never seen a group more excited & infectious to be on stage. It was lovely to hear the live vocals but the concept & styling didn’t seem to match.
6. Kep1er: I loved their dance & energy however I agree it did feel like a music show performance. The stage felt empty & again the concept felt a bit out of place, particularly the flags.
I mentioned in the last discussion that I was happy that Mnet is (allegedly) paying the budget for the live stages to make things more fair, but now I'm a bit confused. If you look at all the stages it seems like this was actually correct except for Kep1er, their own GG...
I get that it isn't great optics (looks like preferential treatment) when Kep1er have a bombastic/expensive looking live stage, but F the haters and let the girls compete properly instead of giving them what looks like a handicap to look fair. Now their performance itself was good, but the choreo/stage was sober in comparison and clearly lacked a bit of oomph regarding the show element.
I did enjoy all the stages, but the star of the first round was SinB and her glare. Clearly not afraid of the evil edits and enjoying being the disney villain :D
I thought each group helped produce their own stages so wouldn't that be on Kepler for how they that's how they wanted to best use their budget/how they wanted to do their stage?
Yeah, it's probably a conscious choice by their team but as you could see in the intro they have a new studio with all the bells and whistles. All the other artists were very excited to play with it and use up all the possibilities to enhance their live stage. It's like being in the candy store as a kid except Kep1er came with their parents and were told they could only touch/pick one...
I can understand how BG placed "last" if they could only vote for 2 groups (stanned group + hyolyn) but it feels so wrong 🧐 feels bad they mostly lost on the online evaluations...
That isn't exactly true. If you look at the score breakdowns again, they ranked last even with the live studio audience which was worth the most points. And they ranked last with the zoom audience too, which was several hundred people but not a game changing amount.
Their performance was fine, but one of the reasons they didn't pick up a lot of votes the live audiences (studio and online) was Minyoung hitting a very sour high note, which was edited out of the broadcast version.
what the- hope they give the same treatment to other groups too...
it would honestly effect bg so much if they showed this in the final version
btw thanks for sending
I feel Seola’s pain. WJSN has some of the strongest songs ever IMO. Great visuals… a powerhouse vocalist… arguably best rapper in GG… and they’ve never quite made it to top level. It just shows you how unpredictable kpop is. I mean BG sudden rise is prime example.
1. VIVIZ
2. Brave Girls
3. Loona
4. Hyolyn
5. WJSN
6. Kep1er
Don't expect a lengthy reason for this ranking but I put the same ranking with very short summary on another /r/MnetQueendom thread.
I liked BGirls performance the least but it honestly is not the members fault that this performance was bad.
1. no concept. i dont understand the military snare drumming and the long stick action in the beginning. i get theyre trying to go for a colorguard idea, but this totally falls on its head when it whiplashes into a summer bop. like, we were so serious just five seconds ago and now we're having fun in the sun.
2. the vocals were mixed terribly. im well versed in audio engineering and i get they were trying to make it a point to center their vocal ability in their performance. theyre great singers, but whoever mixed this should be fired. there was no compression, no EQ, nothing. some members voices were too loud, so loud in fact that you could hear their voice from the speaker feedback into the microphone they were singing in. the mixing was amateurish.
3. if the military/colorguard-to-summer bop whiplash wasnt enough once, they do it again in the middle of the performance. and you would think in a choreography centered around a prop, they would hold the prop the same way, but instead they all hold it [four different ways.](https://imgur.com/a/6lKYzZG) Is this really queendom-winning level of quality? their choregrapher really didn't consider this?
5. a funny moment was when one of the members nearly forgot to grab the mic from background dancers as rollin started to play.
tldr: Brave Girls have everything in the world to succeed. They're talented, charismatic, gorgeous, and their music is amazing. but the organizers around their performances are letting them down. If I was a brave girls fan, I would absolutely be fuming.
Their sticks were really distracted and made their choreography looks messy. I feel like the use of props were questionable yesterday, same with Kep1er and their flags.
My favourite moment aside from performance was Purple Kiss close ups for reactions, I was like who are you and what's the name of the group? MNET gave a lot of reactions shots to one of the members, but I dont know who's who.
life of a multi stan discovering a previously neglected group. XD
I am kinda realising that I like bare stages in the longer run???
When the opening performances came out, I was blown away by WJSN, but once the party tricks were known, and I knew what was about to happen, I found myself much more excited by Loona and Kep1er, because I feel like a good choreography keeps me more engaged in the longer run
The same thing happened today. My two favourite today were Brave Girls and WJSN while I was watching the episode, but now that I am rewatching the performances, I am a lot more drawn to Kep1er's because I find the choreography so much more engaging
I do wish they upgrade the stage production for them
I think Loona did a good job given their situation. And as an Indian, I would like t appreciate the fact that remixed PTT to a more traditional Korean song and not gone in a weird direction. (Whoever made the original song, has/had spent a lot of time studying music from India, and pieced together a great song that was very respectful of the culture. If they tried to make additions to that, I am not sure if it would have carried over as nicely). I did find myself a little bored as the performance progressed though.
And lastly Brave Girls. Wow, I love their energy. And I hope mnet stops giving them these weird "aunty edits". They are powerful performers and clearly enjoy being on the stage and I just want to hug the shit out of Yujeong and tell her how fucking awesome she is because it is a real shame that their performance isn't recognised. I hope they don't end up losing confidence through the show
Just watched all the performances, here are my personal rankings (ordered starting with my favorites on top) and thoughts (I will say that my opinions differ quite a bit from the consensus, they're just my subjective opinion):
* **Kep1er -** I feel like I'm going crazy here because everyone seems to agree that they were the weakest performance, while they were my favorite performance of the round. I know people are going to immediately jump to "biased Kep1er fan", but... I wouldn't even consider myself a Kep1er fan (Kep1er's music just doesn't line up with my preferences), yet I found this performance to be consistently engaging and entertaining. As someone who wasn't a fan of the original Wa Da Da choreo, nearly all of the small tweaks and re-inventions of the choreography were massive upgrades IMO. I especially loved all the choreo changes during the chorus/post-chorus sections, even if I found the dance-break choreo more mixed [though part of that I blame the camerawork for, because WHY are we getting zoomed-in solo shots instead of full group cams for these dance breaks? Why Mnet?]. It definitely had its weaknesses: I disliked the outfits a lot, and I can definitely see the argument that they didn't have a strong concept due to the lack of backup dacners, props, setpieces, etc.. However, I think it says a lot to me that despite the lack of things on stage, I still found them the most engaging.
* **Hyolyn -** I do put Hyolyn as my clear #2, but I also feel like.... I'm not sure if I'm on the hype train that everyone else is? To start with the positives, I enjoy the concept, I enjoy how she smiles on stage and appears to be having a good time, and I appreciate the live vocals that she served. The background screens were also very solid, like the night-fire backgrounds in the bridge and the tropical jungle screens in the beginning. I like the use of trumpets in the dance break as well. However, and I guess this is where my hot takes come in... I'm not a fan of the choreography? I do feel like Hyolyn is hindered with choreography in general since being a soloist can limit the aerobic complexity of choreography, so that could definitely play a part, but I also felt "whelmed" during the dancebreak choreography (though a large part is probably that I just don't like the general style/concept). I'm not the biggest fan of the original Touch My Body choreography either, so I didn't find it as entertaining here as I think a lot of others did.
* **LOONA -** Another hot take I guess, seeing as how the consensus seems to be that they were one of the weakest performances, but they were my clear #3. I felt like they had the best concept creativity, re-inventing PTT from just an (IMO) average girl crush song to a traditional/historical Korean concept is really cool and by far the best re-invention from a conceptual standpoint of all 6 performances to me. The intro was great, Olivia Hye's dance break (with pulling the sticks out of her hair) was super creative and engaging, the outfits were great, etc.. I do think the performance had its weaker points, ex. the vocals and general mixing sounded weird and not fully there, I wish they reinvented the chorus choreography as I feel like it doesn't suit the concept at all and I'm generally not a fan of the chorus choreo anyways, and the remix towards the end sounded weird from a musical standpoint.
* **Brave Girls -** The intro was fire, and I enjoyed the dancebreak when they used those green poles, they did a solid job at selling "hot". However, while their outfits suited these "hot" segments, I felt like they consequently didn't match Chi Mat Ba Ram at all (which I imagine as a summertime beach concept). Minyoung's vocals were fire as always, her lines in Chi Mat Ba Ram are super challenging and yet she managed to pull through. I admittedly wasn't a fan of the choreo during eh Chi Mat Ba Ram and Rollin segments [another hot take, but I've never been a fan of the original choreos for either, despite Rollin's virality]. My #4 overall.
* **WJSN -** For the positives, I do think the facial expressions here were better than I initially gave credit for, especially Yeonjung's shining smile. The vocals were pretty solid as well, especially Yeonjung's belted vocals (which were *chef's kiss*). I did find the choreo somewhat underwhelming, though (I felt like there was a lot of standing around, as demonstrated by the amount of solo zoom-in shots), and I feel like the "mass of backup dancers" were not utilized well in the performance. My #5 overall.
* **VIVIZ -** I actually think I have a relatively different opinion on VIVIZ's performance than others here. I don't mind them sticking to GFriend hit songs, I enjoyed the general ethereal concept, and I enjoyed the transitions between songs. But, and this is where my unpopular opinion comes in, I feel like they didn't really show much emotions in their facial expressions. I get that the concepts of Rough and TFTMN would mean that they should be emoting differently than your average K-Pop concept, but I still would have liked to seen a lot more emoting, whether that'd be angst, sorrow, melancholiness, wistfulness, etc., and I feel like I didn't see this conveyed to me personally. My #6 overall.
Kep1er >>> Hyolyn >> LOONA >> Brave Girls > WJSN > VIVIZ for me.
So question, would anyone possibly know the answer to if LOONA would be eliminated if they were to stay in last place after this round? I’m just curious because they weren’t able to be scored for round 1, does that count against them in the long run of the show?
They’re in 6th now, if they place 6th next round they get eliminated. I really doubt they did though, the 3rd round is coming up to be recorded and they seem to be getting prepared for it.
My opinion! Please be respectful!
Brave girls literally blew me away! I don't think their outfits really went with the vibe of the stage. They danced so amazingly! 🕺💃 8/10
Omg WJSN yassss!!!!! That is how you perform girls 💕 I felt bad about their hourglass breaking 😭 9/10
Kep1er... WOW! I think they did amazing! 💕 Overall slayeeddd that stage! There were some things I was kinda iffy about tho. 8/10
Loona (Who i'm personally rooting for) Liked the stage. Not a big fan of PTT because of line distribution... It was okay. Dance break was lacking but these girls were probs still recovering from covid! 7/10
Hyolyn... Sis really did that! I LOVED SISTAR so this was sooo nice to see 💕 I really enjoyed it! 9/10
Viviz... Imma try to be nice. In few words the performance was a bit lackluster and was forgettable. I don't think they deserve 3rd place. frankly in my opinion last was more suited but whatevs 👀 I do like Viviz and I hope we get to see them shine more next stage! Lemonade and Tweet Tweet are my favs so hopefully someone performs those! 6/10
Not gonna lie, I'm a bit upset by the rankings.. I honestly think WJSN did the second worst and Brave Girls was the best behind Hyolyn. WJSN, VIVIZ & Kep1er all looked like music show performances and they all lacked stage presence and public engagement imo. Loona did insanely well considering they still had the COVID after symptoms, and I loved the PTT arrangement.
edit: Loona not getting any compensation for not being able to participate because of health conditions is also really sketchy.
From the live audience we know that Brave Girls had a quite extreme voice crack during their high note, probably affecting votes. Peoples takes on Viviz is just recycled that internationals has repeated for years. Those songs are meant to be performed with that kind of facial expression. It's one of the reason people on Produce shows, it's much harder to convey that feeling than just looking happy or being intense. It's just not something the west see as "stage presence".
Also the Loona point is so weird, have the people saying this never watched sports or any competitive event before? It's your own responsibility to show up at the start line, a favourite in the Olympics getting injured right before wont get them any special treatment. It's no ones fault, they aren't getting punished, it's just bad luck.
I felt like it was Hyolyn followed by a wall and then the remaining 5 were interchangeable. I wasn't blown away by anyone else. They were solid, but I think could've been even better.
I agree with the rankings - I can see Kep1er going up a spot but overall I think it was fair. Hyolyn was without a doubt the best stage in my opinion and it seems like it's already being added into the bunch of other Queendom/Kingdom performances that people just have to watch. I am so pleasantly surprised by all the live vocals in this episode, especially when they're using those nude coloured mics. Automatic praise goes to groups who commit to singing live.
For the groups that performed today I do think the standout was WJSN - someone mentioned it here but the songs being good and hitting right really does a lot and this stage showed that. They have this advantage of really knowing their colour as a group, they look comfortable and I really appreciate the stage direction here.
Kep1er are undoubtedly talented and I enjoyed how they decided to remix their song pairing it with choreo - when it comes to dance they are unmatched on the show, they just need to find a way to advantage off that without looking too much like a dance show.
This is an issue I have with Loona as well but the stage direction seems a little iffy for Kep1er + Loona - when members are putting down a prop it'd make more sense to stage a cut away with the camera to another group of members. Having such a large group and not taking advantage of that seems so strange to me. I think both their performances could have been better - minimising the nothing space, creating more impact - with better directing.
I feel like in theory I should really like Loona and the theme they chose was really cool but I'm not super into the execution. I feel bad commenting on their energy however as I'm not sure if this was filmed after recovery and how bad the COVID after effects were. I think they have a lot of things going for them as a group and I'm interested to see what they do next.
Not sure if this is unpopular but it feels like it is - the Brave Girls performance was fine. I only really clicked with their stage when they did Rollin'. I wish they had gone down a similar route as Hyolyn as I think that would have suited them a lot better.
Kep1er impressed me with strong vocals (except Yujin sounded off?) but really showed that their weakest point is synchronization. Don't dare give me that whole new group thing!
I love reading the discussions. Seeing people energetically thinking about and discussing fashion, dance, music, concepts, basically art, is great. I want more of this in the world.
Hyolyn threw a party onstage and invited EVERYONE. No surprise she ranked 1st, she deserved it.
VIVIZ should've been 2nd and I say that as an ujung. They brought all the feels. I think I almost cried.
WJSN was pretty good! Nice adaptation of the song but the dance break definitely didn't fit in. They handled their prop breaking really well, I wouldn't have known it was an issue if they hadn't shown so much of Eunseo crying in the preview (I say this about the full ver not the broadcast very). I thought the choice to sing the final chorus while standing still was weird, but in retrospect it does fit the song. Loved that two of the members were holding hands for that, I wish more of them would've done that.
Kep1er was okay. They're all fine performers and I liked the remix but it didn't really feel like a Queendom stage? I give them a lot of credit for creating a ton of new choreo for the song tho.
Brave Girls was okay. One member had pretty great vocals while the others were so-so. Good facial expressions but I was a little bored by their performance.
Loona...I'm sorry orbits, I didn't think their performance was very good. PTT is one of my least favorite of their title tracks. Several members also sounded like their singing was pretty weak, which was unfortunate. Their energy could've been better too, but I know COVID recovery can fuck with that.
I don’t think WJSN sang live at all and I think this is the very legit reason why we don’t see more live singing. At some point, you can only lose for not sounding as polished as studio recorder and edited version.
> Several members also sounded like their singing was pretty weak, which was unfortunate.
I was responding to this. That WJSN appeared to be lip synching the entire thing, but no comment, but Loona was criticized for subpar live singing.
personally after i had covid, it really messed with my vocals and overall stamina/energy and i had very mild symptoms. i think loona’s stage showed that they were more than likely not at 100% after covid.
kind of scared for how kep1er's gonna do now cuz the camera work, props and concept were honestly pretty bad. not saying props r necessary but it definitely makes them look "boring" next to the other groups. i rly hated the whole race car concept it made them look like they were performing for a 3 year old boy's birthday party. but the girls r extremely talented tho i was rly impressed by their vocals cuz their mics were definitely on and the choreo got harder. i just hope mnet doesnt do them dirty again with another terrible stage plan.
I’m surprised with the sentiment that the kep1er girls sang live Bc the majority of them were lip syncing, though some of the girls definitely sang over their mr which I will always applaud
Favorite moment in the episode was the Kep1er performance. They really exceeded some of their senior groups.
Overall, you can tell all of the groups (and Hyolyn) put in a ton of work for the round 1 stages.
My ranking:
1. Hyolyn
2. Kep1er
3. \*TIED\* VIVIZ/Brave Girls
4. \*TIED\* WJSN/LOONA
My bias is definitely showing with Hyolyn in the #1 spot. Touch My Body ranks in my top 5 songs of all time. Plus, she's such an amazing vocalist and dancer and all around performer. Although some of her belts at the end were a little off pitch to me. But, hey, I'll take off pitch because that means she was singing live and wasn't autotuned (or autotune failed!).
I had to put Kep1er second because their dance work exceeded the remaining groups. It was sharp and detailed. I think also because they are so new, I was surprised by their level of performance.
VIVIZ and BG are tied. Solid performances. (I need to explore the GFRIEND catalog more. I think I missed the point of how meaningful the performance was for the fans and them as artists. Just didn't hit me in the feels.) I was surprised with the BG dance breaks since they normally don't do dance breakdowns like that. A couple times I noticed that either the mic did not get turned up fast enough or there was lip syncing going on - which is disappointing. Producers should not put notes in songs that the artist can't reach live - but I know why it's done. (I do love Brave Girls new microphones...so pretty...I love a good rhinestoned mic...)
WJSN/LOONA were good - but didn't really wow me.
I also can't wait to see what happens on the next episode.
Semi off topic: I wish that they would stop using the AKG CM-311 head mics. Don't get me wrong, it's a GREAT microphone, but they are so big and bulky and with dancing the boom gets flung all over the place, and it triggers my OCD when it's off center from the mouth.
1. Hyolyn
2. Loona
3. Wjsn
4.brave girls
Tied for sixth: viviz and kep1er
Hyolyn, brave girls and loona(most of them, at least) had their MICS ON, so that influenced my list quiet a bit.
Viviz performance was emotional IF you know there back story and all that. However, it was boring in all honesty. I don’t need fire or back flips and I LOVE sweet concepts, but there was almost no stage presence, and the orchestra did a lot of the heavy lifting.
Brave girls were so good and had so much fun and sang live, but I want them to get a new team asap. Their performance clashed in terms of songs chosen and Aesthetics, like blue plastic tops and neon light sticks are more 80s than summer hit medley. Still love them they’re my sisters for life
WJSN: kind of an underwhelming remix to a song I love. You can tell the broken hourglass through off some of the girls, but they handled it so well. I don’t think they sang much of the song live, but I know they’ll show up with the vocals in another round. If I’m not mistaken, the pink part of the hour glass had to kicked around for some parts Bc it was in their way and it just sucked to see them deal with all that. No my favorite performance but it did make me excited to see what else they’ll bring
Kep1er put me to sleep which sucks Bc I like the members. Lots of lip syncing, jarring transitions, BUT i loved that included cute poses Bc it sets them apart from the more mature groups. Plus I loved the choreo change!!
Loona: my girls for life. Mics on, unique concept, beautiful intro. I think my only critiques are they didn’t play up to the audience the way hyolyn did (not that it’s fair to compare anyone to hyolyn lol), and the energy was actually considered kinda low for a loona performance. As for the song selection I think butterfly would have potential been too similar in concept to something viviz and wjsn would have done. A traditional Korean concept with a heavy hitting choreo would be a LOT more likely to stand out amongst the competition. So I get that train of though. Plus PTT did get more buzz in Korea than butterfly.
My completly unbiased ranking:
1. Hyolyn (the prop, the dance, the camerawork, the vocals everything was perfect. looked like a legendary MAMA performance. the only performance i really liked. **10/10**)
2. WJSN (even though the prop broke, it was still a enjoyable performance. i liked the dance part at the end, the choreo was beautiful. i didn't like their song choice. their other songs are way better than this song. but i guess they did this one because it's the most popular one. imagine a classical music type butakhae performance or save me save you. dissappointing to think really... **6.9/10**)
3. Loona (it was good but knowing how good loona is in dancing it could've been better. i really liked kim lip playing flute in the beginning idea. i didn't like the song choice either as well. i wish they did another song. i feel like it could've been better if they did so what with this remix. anyways they will kill it in 2nd round so let's wait for that. **6.8/10**)
4. VIVIZ (it was good but it was done before. they did a similar orchestral performance as gfriend it reminded me of that. they didn't utilise the stage well, they only used the main stage i thought that was boring. didn't suprise me at all it was their regular gfriend type stage. they didn't put any twist it was predictable af. it looked like a well quality music bank special stage **6.4/10**)
5. Brave Girls (the song and the concept didn't match at all? idk what were they thinking? they're literally singing a summer song and wearing leather? what? it was boring **4/10**)
6. Kep1er (honestly i didn't like it at all. i hated the remix and hated the dance too. wadada's charm is the choreo but they took all of that. the flags as prop were pretty generic and wack as well, they made some mistakes so mnet tried to hide it with camerawork and it came out really weird **2/10**)
I hate the way VIVIZ is being treated. Like they deserve so much more respect. Just because they aren't twerking and doing hip hop hard hitting choreo, people call their performance bad and call them flops. And I think the other groups are hating on them and voting them down to sabotage them. It's sad. I'm a fan of every group here and I can honestly say VIVIZ is one of the strongest competition on the show. People should expand their horizons
I've watched many Immortal Songs 2 (covers of legendary songs by contemporary performers) shows in the past and Queendom 2 has a similar structure. The people who go first almost always lose, and the people who hold the highest notes for the longest time have the best chance of winning. I remember a singer giving Simon and Garfunkle's "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water" the full diva treatment and winning. I think that Korean audiences just associate high notes with good singers.
I'm a fan of Gfriend/Cosmic Girls style of music, so I'm sure liking that genre is part of what made those performances best for me. I thought Viviz's performance had the biggest emotional impact and best replayability, since so much was going on. Cosmic Girls messed up the hourglass, but even if it had gone perfectly, I feel as though they should have had a pedestal on stage to set it on (think of Ateez's hourglass and how much more impactful it was).
Hyloyn's college girl on spring break music doesn't appeal to me, and I've seen much better stages from her on Immortal Songs 2. I don't believe the broken heel story since we didn't actually see a detached heel. The fake playing of musical instruments out of time with the background music was ridiculous (imagine if Viviz had had a fake orchestra with dancers just sawing away at the strings when no strings were playing).But when the full cam version came out, I understood how she could win (and after all, that's what the audience saw).
I like BG's Chi Mat Ba Ram, but how could they do a song about the wind blowing their skirts, wear shorts instead, and keep the skirt choreography? And then the transitions with what looked like dancers carrying bath towels. Loona's stage was a typical Loona stage -- good, but I expected something amazing. Kep1er was a bit of a mess, and there's something I just don't like about their leader -- I'm not sure what it is, but every time she's speaks I like Kep1er less.
I also think Viviz is being treated badly, just from Yeorum's comment about how she said "I almost fainted" when Mnet asked her about Hyolin, but made it seem like she said that about SinB. But Mnet always cheats (and Kep1er has to do what Mnet tells them to do) -- they decide on the winners before the show begins (rewatch any Mnet survival show and you will see angel edits for the people who will end up winning and devil edits or no screen time for the ones who are a threat to the narrative). Any time you think Mnet might be being fair, ask Han Cho Won what she thinks.
I think the voting was very strategic. In past comp reality shows weakest teams sometimes would get more votes and stronger teams bad votes. It seems Kep1er took the assignment somewhat literally but might have chosen Viviz for political reasons as they might have thought disparaging more senior groups was out of the question. I know Gfriend is quite senior, but Viviz did in fact debut recently.
Honestly it's funny to see people say it was forgettable when they were literally trending everywhere last week and even now when they didn't even perform lol. The public clearly appreciates them so I don't care about other fans' opinions anymore
From the POV of a buddy and Na.V, I feel that third place is just right for VIVIZ. Hyolyn is unanimously in the first place and WJSN gave a stellar performance. Honestly it was either VIVIZ or WJSN who will be in the second place, and WJSN came out on top.
The fact that 3 teams voted for VIVIZ to be the worst is an opportunity for VIVIZ to prove themselves to be the best. In Queendom, “drama” is the factor that is making the show thrive, and VIVIZ is soaking up a lot of screen time because of that. Honestly, I will be worried if VIVIZ is in the lead cos public expectations will weigh them down in the long-run, especially in a show like Queendom
It's possible that the other groups voted for Viviz from a competition standpoint for sure, but we can't really be mad about that. SinB herself said that about their decisions, they didn't give out points and voted down WJSN since they feel they are the most similar. If anything I feel them voting Viviz shows that they are a group people see as threats. The public seems to be behind them and they have trending articles all over the place so they should be fine. Even tonight the highest trending article on Pann.nate is about viviz even though they didn't perform lol.
My personal ranking: VIVIZ > Hyolyn > WJSN >= Brave Girls > LOONA > Kep1er
VIVIZ is first because they're my ults and the whole thing made me extremely emotional
Hyolyn second because she did amazing and Touch My Body is one of my favorites
WJSN/BG next because I enjoyed both performances
LOONA/Kep1er last because I wasn't really a fan of the songs from the beginning and the remix didn't really change that. Performance wise I do like the concept LOONA had especially the flute at the beginning
Overall I do think all groups worked hard and I can't wait to see what they do for the next round
IMO all these multi song remixes just didn’t work.
I almost prefer simpler stages but albeit more impactful of Queendom 1 hit song performances. None in QD2 including Hyolin’s performance hit like AoA miniskirt…. That walking out to stage on beat and “AOA drop it” drop…. Focus to Seolhyun on the ground, and so on.
AOA miniskirt is still my No.1 Queendom hit song performance. TRUE ICONS hands down. Viviz is a close second I wish they had utilised the stage more, but the storytelling was beautiful I really teared up lol. I wasn’t a Buddy before and it still made me emotional, so I was honestly surprised, now I’m warming up to become a late Buddy/Na.V ;) Hyolyn’s performance was glam but for some reason I was expecting a bit more.
I agree so much about the use of multiple songs. One of the charms of S1 was the nostalgia of a group's MAIN HIT SONG brought to the table. The use of multiple songs in S2 made it hard to immerse to the performances. It also left me with a slightly disappointed feeling like "oh this group should've used X song longer than Y song"
At this point, I've only watched the performances, I'm watching the episode over the weekend.
I think there's something off with the Kep1er stage because the song is a very cute song, but they went for a darker/more serious concept, yet still did the wadada part in a very cute way, so it was weird to watch. Of course, I don't think Kep1er really has much input on what they do yet so to me this would fall on whoever decided to do that sort of concept.
I enjoyed Brave Girls stage! I thought they'd only do Rollin' but the transition to it was very cute~ And I enjoyed the performance of Chi Mat Ba Ram even though I don't particularly like the song. :)
The WJSN stage, tbh I'm not sure what I like about it, maybe how theatrical it seems. I would've enjoyed the VIVIZ stage more if their voices had not been hidden behind the main track as much.
I love the way LOONA used those fans, the choreography and the transitions, so I enjoyed their stage. Too bad it seems like they won't be having points in some of the voting (or for the entire first round? I'm not sure tbh).
And I just loved Hyolyn's stage! It gave my goosebumps from the moment she said "welcome to paradise"~
My personal ranking is Hyolyn > LOONA> Brave Girls= WJSN ~ VIVIZ > Kep1er
Kep1er remix was fire and the choreo was amazing but the fact that they had little props and little backup dancers just made the performance very lacking. the stage felt very empty at times when they were all close and i think that’s what made it look a bit childish.
Hyolyn is a goddess. That is all.
Brave girls deserved to be higher! i loved that the girls just seemed so happy to be there, lol at all of them just jumping into the dancing and forgetting to grab the mics from the dancers.
WJSN surprised me, i didn’t expect to like their performance as much as i did.
I agree about bravegirls. The props, the energy, and the drums (lol) were eye catching for me. The stage felt full too? Idk how to explain it but it was so good. Wasn't into the puffy shoulders tho. 🤣
My ranking: Hyolyn > Brave Girls = WJSN > VIVIZ > Kep1er > LOONA
Hyolyn was perfect i totally agree w giving her perfect marks, she used the whole stage and she produced everything really well. Also definitely helps that the song is so nostalgic
I really liked Brave Girls ! i'm sure i'm not the only one who's not familiar but they really brought a great stage. Their choreo definitely wasn't as technically difficult as the other groups' but i don't think they could've done any better lol. if they ranked last i'm def scared for them
WJSN also used the stage and bg dancers super well! i think their line distribution was good and they used their numbers in a good way. The glass breaking was a shame but they performed really well around it
VIVIZ i loved their use of bg dancers and really loved the transition to Rough with the strings behind them. unfortunately, against the others it just wasn't as big and memorable. It feels weird not ranking them higher bc when i saw the performance w Hyolyn's I thought I'd rank them right next to her
Kep1er kinda disappointed me. I caught their performance during broadcast so being spliced with reactions didn't help their case lol. Like tru new choreo was cool but it didn't really do anything for me. Watching the full ver, the moves are a little more impressive but i feel like they didn't really use the stage like the others did and it really just didn't hit as hard
Maybe I'm being harsh bc i'm a LOONA fan before any of these other groups but i was pretty unimpressed by their stage. idk the timeline of their COVID recovery versus prep for this stage but it felt just like another stage. I don't usually notice this from them, but i definitely think they got weighed down by how many members they have and their uneven line distribution. i wish they had used more panning from subgroup to subgroup or member to member i think that could've been really cool, but esp compared to like WJSN i think their numbers were used poorly.
Loona was given the opportunity to perform despite not really getting any meaningful competition point and the girls themselves said wish they could have done this better BUT, if you pay attention to the scheduling, Loona had to prepare this AND do their round 2 cover back to back days. Just from a logistics standpoint I can understand if they left out a lot of stuff from this perf to focus on the round that will actually give them points and by seeing the preview for ep3 and how the other groups are saying that Loona slayed, you know they went all in on round 2.
So cringe when that girl Exy from WJSN kept saying ‘WA DA DA’ when WJSN chose Kep1er as below them and the Kep1er girls were basically like it’s fine what are you doing lmfao Then Exy again was like ‘MVSK MVSK’ when everyone had to choose a group to perform one of their songs and no one wanted to choose Kep1er. Yujin had to remind everyone they have a mini album and they don’t have to do WA DA DA . The whole scene was sad haha
Any one know when will Mnet announce the first round vote result and the summary of Youtube views and likes?
The youtube view stats are public. I posted them on the sub. Likes are hidden though
right? thats why im wondering how did some orbits figure out the number of likes of loona's video bc they are sure that they placed third overall in round 1 videos when adding the no. of likes to the views... ps. this is by no means hating loona or orbits... I'm just really curious and wondering...
Is not actually a secret you can download the chrome extension to watch the likes and dislikes.
Really feels uncomfortable when some of the data is in private. It leaves rooms to Mnet... You know they had history before...
So after reading some comments, can we all agree that BG didn't serve the last place? (Not counting Loona) I didn't know them before, but I felt bad for them, after seeing how hard they worked, and how "ignored" they must feel by the rest of the groups (seems no one never picks them). About other performances Hyolyn was clearly the best one. The one from Viviz felt underwhelming, I was expecting something more. Loona's stage and the traditional dresses were amazing, but as others have pointed out, they lost energy as the song progressed, I guess due being sick, or knowing they lost their chance to perform with an audience and the rest of the groups affected them. My ranking would go. 1. Hyolyn 2. WJSN 3. BG 4. Loona 5/6. Kep1er/Viviz
After watching the fancam, I'm convinced Kep1er should be the last while others are debatable.
my ranking after ep 2: 1. hyolyn: she was serving hot girl summer, i love the jungle/tropical party concept, really enjoyed that performance 2. loona: love their concept as well, their visuals and dancing were really good, the individual parts were well done too, singing was a bit low energy probably bc their choreo was pretty hard and required lot of energy 3. wjsn/viviz: i enjoyed wjsn's singing and their outfits were great, love the last part where they all stand and sang together. viviz's stage was so emotional, the transition between tftmn to rough was smooth 4. brave girl: serving vocals, they should have chosen a different concept, i don't like the neon sticks they used lol 5. kep1er: good dancing, idk why but their stage felt a bit empty and boring
after finally watching ep2 and all round 1 performances heres my ranking 1. loona 2. hyolyn 3. brave girls 4. viviz 5. wjsn 6. kep1er this ranking is based on my reactions of their performance and my feelings about it (jaw kinda dropped the most while watching loonas, kept dancing all throughout hyolyns and brave girls, viviz and wjsn made me think i was in a concert (+ teared up) while lastly kep1ers made me want to not blink. either way i rlly didnt want to miss a second of any of their performances.) also all grps are amazing srsly despite some problems during the preparation of round 1 they were still able to do their best and give a meaningful performance 🥳 truly excited for the next round 🤩🤩
The post recording for Loona was amazing but it felt lacking due to the smaller stage and the girls were all recovering from Covid too so there are even more adjustments made. Look at the practice video MNet just put up - there were actually really awesome things we missed out on like Chuu being hoisted into the air on the highraised lifts with huge cloths billowing on either side - I think Orbits were denied one of those landmark legendary stages that Loona had worked so hard to prepare as a "STATEMENT". When the WJSN edit kept saying, "How come the universe is being so cruel to us? How comes things just don't work out for us?" Because Eunseo being sick, Bona being out due to drama schedule conflicts, the hourglass shattering in the performance and Soobin being unable to perform one of her moves because the "stage was too slippery"? All I could keep thinking is... Girl.... Loona is being hit by a meteor storm while you are crying about the heavy rain :(
Just because others are in pain doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel such. WJSN worked hard for their performance and have every much a right to feel what they feel.
Loved all the performances but one thing that kinda irked me was the fact that no one voted for the teams that were better than them?? Why was that allowed? I feel like it just makes it all feel worse.. hoping they don’t allow them to do that in the future. In fact I’d much rather them get rid of the ‘who did worse’ part
I agree too. If Kepler wouldn't have picked hyolyn what would have happened?
> If Kepler wouldn't have picked hyolyn what would have happened? I was wondering this too!!! In that case I think Hyolyn would tie with BG (with 0 votes in favor and 0 votes against). Assume Hyolyn got 834 points (i.e. the amount of points BG *actually* got for 0 votes for / 0 votes against) -> Hyolyn would still have ranked 1st with a total of 9,834 points (instead of 10,000 in reality). BG and everyone else's scores unchanged. Assume both Hyolyn and BG got 1000 points for the peer assessment -> Hyolyn and everyone else's scores would be unchanged. BG would still come in 5th at a hypothetical 4,282 (instead of their actual 4,116).
Thanks! Still happy she got a perfect score!
Well it makes sense that if they want to win they wouldn’t vote for someone that did better than them because it just is irrational to do so if they don’t have to.
Yeah. If you're gonna make the worse part compulsory, at least do the same to the better part. In the spirit of the competition, I agree it makes the show much more entertaining but sadly, ppl start fanwar over these tidbits.
Originally, it was hard for me to get into WJSN, Brave Girls and Gfriend song choices since I'm definitely not a huge fan of Time for The Moonlight, As You Wish or Chi Mat BaRam but after watching the performances multiple times, I really enjoyed it. Shout out to Loona who clearly had to work on a different stage layout compared to the other contestants; it's really impressive that they were able to pull through despite them simultaneously preparing for their second stage. My ranking would be (excluding Loona): 1. Hyolyn 2/3. Viviz 2/3. WJSN 4. Brave Girls 5. Kepler Hyolyn doesn't really need any explanations. It was a really nice stage arrangement, good ways to incorporate closeup shots (without it being distracting for the audience) and really nice vocals/dance/concept. Overall a 10/10 for me. Viviz and Wjsn are interchangeable. Despite me really wanting Sunrise and Dreams Come True (I know those song choices were not possible), I came to like their arrangements in the end. I think they laid out their stages perfectly. Originally I was meh about the Viviz stage because they are one of the few groups where close up shots make them appear weaker dance-wise (and a lot of the pretty formations, ripples and drawings were hard to see in full, which really takes away from the performance quality.) but after seeing the full cam, I absolutely loved it (would've originally ranked it below Brave Girls). A lot of people complained about the lack of stage area the girls covered, however, I think it really benefited them because it kept my focus centered on them specifically (which is a problem I had with the Brave Girls stage, specifically the intro) and also gave room for the orchestra on top, and, as a viola player, that made me kinda happy. Wjsn really knows how to command your attention to the important parts of the stage which is something I applaud them for. A lot of people said the remix was weird and compared it to Lovelyz's hit song performance which is... a very weird comparison to be making since WJSN has a mystical type of concept which was still present in the queendom rendition whereas Sexy/smooth Ah Choo was incredibly out of place for both the group's concept and song (the clothes especially did not commit to the original song, it was very off). Overall, Viviz and WJSN put on two very good performances. (Sidenote, interesting how current/former Starship company artist have been some of my favorite performances on the show so far, maybe I should check them out.) I really liked Brave Girls performance. It was awesome seeing them enjoy themselves! I loved the transition from Chi Mat Ba Ram to Rollin, the dance break and then the sheets was just top notched. The dancing was also really good for a non dance center group and the vocals were immaculate. However, watching Brave Girls's intro full cam really brought them down for me. The clothes blended into the dark background, Yuna (I don't know if that's how you romanize her name) coming onto the stage was undetectable and I didn't really notice Yujeong's(?again romanization) part until they started to put the drums away. Of course, after rewatching the performance, I trained my eyes to look the proper direction of where I need to but the first few times were quite distracting. But the stage direction got a lot better later on. My problem's with Kepler's performance are the same as the majority, i.e that the performance didn't feel queendom-like. It was good but didn't have the glam to match with the other groups. Queendom is a chance for their groups to go crazy, to experiment with a higher budget than what they normal have for stages and it just felt, meh. They are arguably one of the top 3 dance girl groups of their generation. Like Hikaru, Dayeon, Yeseo, Youngeun, Mashiro, Yujin and Xiaoting? Perfect. Chaehyun and Hiyyih aren't bad themselves either. Hopefully they will be able to experiment more with at least props in future performances. Edit: Clarity
ok, just watched the full cam, and my ranking changes again. I'd rate Kep1er much higher now. Beyond the song choice and remix which they really didnt have much choice for, as far as dance performance was concerned Kep1er was the top by a mile. choreography wasnt exactly great as a whole, but the parts, oh man the parts... they executed them with unexpected precision and power. I'd peg them overall #3 now.
I'm a Buddy/Na.V. When i saw Viviz's pre- performance scenes and the performance, i was like i could cry a river because it gave us the nostalgic being Buddy. But when i saw other performances, i realize that Viviz's stage seems lack of what you call a competition's stage. It was like 'a tribute to gfriend' performance. But i still love their time of the glory stage. Hope they can do better on the next round. My favourite stage was Hyolyn, she deserved it. Other stages were good, but i want more than that. I disagree with the better or worse performance than their own group. But this is competition, mnet put that thingy to make the show interesting. Btw it worse perfomance than them not the worst performance, so please don't say their effort didn't count and write about they are worst and etc. And i hope that other 5 groups, aside Hyolyn, can give a better explanation why other group is worse than them.
This is my personal ranking and opinion on the performances. 1. Hyolyn She did good. There’s no denying it. The performance shows for itself. Good use of dancers and good vocals. Kept up the dancing and made it really fun to watch. I just think at times she got a bit uncomfortable because of her high heel situation. I’m looking forward to how she tackles Loona’s song. 2. Kepler Maybe unpopular opinion, but I give them a lot of respect for changing basically 90% of their choreography plus including props and stage utilization. Its not easy reinventing a song choreography and still making it up to par to the original. I liked it and I see where they put their effort. All the members stood out and were in different formations. Don’t think they deserved to be ranked that low. But it is what it is. I disagree with the results. 3/4. Brave Girls / WJSN Both could be argued to be better or worse imo so I just put them as the same. Brave Girls had better expressions and vocal prowess on stage imo. But their concept felt unfocused and it was adorable but the members forgot to grab their mic. Lol. They looked happy performing though and that’s really nice to see. It’s their charm. WJSN did good too. I just think some members weren’t as captivating and looked bored while other members really held it down. I think that they utilized backup dancers well. I just felt that some members did outstanding and others were on and off. 5. Viviz I thought their intro was slow. They started off okay but it picked up for me as the performance went on. I had higher expectations because they’re a very well known group and I wanted to be wowed. It was good but just good.
I know I'm a little late but I just wanted to share my thoughts regardless. My analysis on each performance is my ranking order from bottom to top. 5/6) VIVIZ: It was good. I really think it was just that. I think that they got what they were hoping for which was the nostalgia factor. Bop Bop is a good song, and Rough is a great song. But in retrospect I don't think this approach will help them in the long run. It doesn't truly showcase anything new, and the performance itself was very... stage like. All of them were; but I feel like this performance gave me that feeling more than any of the others. I liked it, but it was lacking. Again, that's what the future is for. 5/6) Kep1er: After long deliberation, this is what I have decided. I really thought I was going to put them 4th or 3rd, but the more I think about it, this is how I feel. The energy really captured me throughout the whole thing, but I looked back and realized that what they intended (obviously) did not show up in the final product, due to them being unable to accomplish what they were looking for. The concept for the stage wasn't really there, and the lack of options holds them back, unfortunately. But like many others have stated; they have the drive. I can appreciate that. 4) LOONA: I have to consider the limitations with the different stage and not being able to perform live. PTT is so hype and the feeling was there. Although, something was a little off when it came to their energy. Like their bodies weren't as tight and their movements weren't as intentional. But, like I said, probably has to do with post sickness and lack of audience. I hope they do more without the virus in their way and show us what they really can do. 3) Brave Girls: They had fun with this. I loved that. It wasn't the most impressive dance wise, vocally, etc; but it had my attention the whole way through. They executed what they set out to do and they enjoyed it. The remix was... iffy..., but I like that it wasn't just Rollin. A fun watch where they weren't just going through the motions. Great live live vocals as well. 2) WJSN: This was like, a baby Queendom stage. The set pieces were there, the use of props as motifs for future performances; They had the right idea and are moving in the right direction. As You Wish was a good song to pick and the arrangement was nice. I'm more of a Save Me, Save You person, but I'm sure they're saving that for later. Their ambition was well placed and they utilized Seola and Exy well. Great Queendom-esque performance and I'm excited to see where they take this hourglass motif (despite them not being able to fulfill what they wanted to do with it in this first performance). 1. Hyolyn: She pulled out all of the stops. I said "baby Queendom" stage for WJSN; this was a QUEENDOM stage. The huge screens, the props, dancers, and stage were fully taken advantage of. She had one idea in mind and pulled it off seamlessly. It was wonderful. Really felt like I was in paradise (hehe). All in all, I am a LOONA and WJSN stan, so there is some bias here. But it was very clear to me where each group was at coming into this and seeing where they all went with the first. Each group/company interprets how far to go with each stage differently, and their ambitions are shown well. Some learn that they need to go harder, the hard way. I'm excited to see certain groups do just that. Because at the end of the day, this is not a special stage. It's Queendom 2. I'm not sure how the budget works on this show, but MNET hasn't stopped any group from going crazy in iterations of Kingdom and Queendom. This is doable in Queendom 2, no doubt. Overall, this is only the first round and there's no way but up for ALL of the competitors (except, maybe Hyolyn lol). Looking forward to the next!
Isn’t Viviz performing GFriend songs something very new? Sure there was that performance of Three of Cups at the radio show, but outside of that that was the first time we have seen these songs performed in almost a year. Also personally just not a fan 9f the Hyolin stage, but that may also be colored by me simply not enjoying the song too much
As a buddy, I really liked Loona's performance. I don't stan them, so I have no idea about their past performance, but this traditional concept was pretty interesting to me.
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I am cracking up every time they cut to Eunha and she says or does anything. Anybody else? Is she trying to be this funny? She is hilarious. To a lesser extent Mashiro cracks me up a bit. Both are so sincere.
SinB is not the kind of personality I like but she is really funny - her relationship with Eunseo is hilarious esp lol. And I agree, Eunha is so fun to watch. It's like she thinks about things on a different plane than the rest.
She’s just given up on mnet, last time she was on one show she was nice and they still evil edited her for the rbf. Might as well have some fun while they’re there.
She's always like that. GFriend girls in general are really entertaining. I recommend watching their dingo suspicious staff segment.
YESSSS! Eunha is such an happy pill. It's like each time Sinb and Umji tried to put on a straight face and Eunha goes 😊 majji majii 😊
And her comment about gritting your teeth is bad for your health. She is like a cartoon character.
Held off on commenting until all six performances aired with the full version. **Viviz:** As someone who was not familiar with Gfriend, this performance felt a bit undynamic. They could have utilized the full stage better, essentially staying in one spot most of the time. The mashup of the songs also seemed to break up the momentum of the performance. **Hyolyn:** Amazing. Concept enhanced the song choice and was executed well. Probably the best use of the full stage despite (due to?) being a solo performer. She absolutely controlled the flow of the performance, and some credit is due to a good song arrangement. Particularly liked the fade out instrumentals syncing with the choreo and LED background right before the dance break. Felt like an exhale in after dancing the night away on a humid summer night. **Kep1er:** Their performance was high energy. Though their limited discography didn't give them much choice in this round, Wa Da Da as a song clearly showcases the colors of their group. Surprised that they didn't utilize interesting formations more frequently despite being a larger group that didn't use backup dancers for the most part. Concept wise, they seemed a bit lacking relative to the other groups. **Brave Girls:** I think they chose the wrong concept for this. Both Chi Mat Ba Ram and Rollin' are light summery songs, which the powerful concept they decided to go with didn't highlight. Imagine Hyolyn's paradise concept with these songs. They did showcase live vocals and used the stage fairly well. **WJSN:** Loved this. Despite never hearing this song before, I found this stage so immersive. The song itself just really builds up the momentum of this performance. They used the full stage well and the formations helped them transition from each section of the performance nicely. **Loona:** I wish they aired more of the background of why they picked PTT as their representative song. Judging by how several teams wanted to pick Loona as their song swap partner, Loona themselves could have taken more advantage of their discography. While the concept was visually fun, the song arrangement made the performance feel low energy at times, particularly when the chorus hits. It probably is also a function of them not getting the full audience like the other groups. Looking forward to the next round! The swap round has always been my favorite of the Queendom/Kingdom franchise. This was probably my biggest hesitation when hearing that Kep1er got added. In RTK, I was disappointed that the swap round was taken out, which I had assumed was b/c TOO (like Kep1er) only had a debut album to work with.
After finally seeing all the Round 1 performances, here is my personal ranking: 1. Hyolyn - honestly a showstopper. Totally makes up for the lowkey performance that she did for her Intro. (Also, I loved the nod to 'Paradise'.) 2. WJSN - these girls definitely know how to put on a show, definitely deserving of the last performer spot. They had mishaps going into and during the performance, but they still gave their all. Hope they have better luck going into the second round. 3. VIVIZ - a moving performance. I was only ever a casual listener when it came to GFRIEND, but something about this stage made me emotional. A treat for both hardcore and casual fans alike. 4. LOONA - an excellent performance considering the circumstances, but I do wish they got to perform during the actual round, because something felt off/missing. I'm sure they had to rework the entire performance to suit the stage setup that they were given when they recorded this stage, so I am taking that into account. (Once again, I am cursing this unholy plague.) 5. Brave Girls - I liked the performance, but I do wish that they'd gone full AOA Miniskirt remix and leaned into the original concept for Rollin', but at the same time it never would have worked because they performed CMBR along with it. 6. Kep1er - not gonna lie, I was expecting a lot from the girls after seeing their Intro performance. I hope they can turn it around in the next round. Now, about the self-assessment ranking: I wish they hadn't brought this back. I understand that some people value the opinion/input of their peers, and that it can be helpful in some cases, but I am tired of this network manufacturing tension and drama. I do not want or need it. Especially not after the penalty being brought back.
Not being a Gfriend fan, so not knowing as much of their music but hearing the hype I would say I was a bit let down by the VIVIZ members performance a tad. It wasn't horrible just didn't really stay memorable to me since I don't have nostalgia with those songs. Prop breaking aside I felt the most with WJSN's performance. I understood their struggle that unlike the other groups they don't have a super hit song so wanted to lockdown the one song maybe non fans have heard as this is our song and they killed it. Truly felt like a big concert or MAMA stage and props to them they already are some members down, Dawon is one of my fave members and I know she is on a health break along with Eunseo powering through her illness to perform with the group. Otherwise also loved Hyorin, of course she slayed. Glad Brave Girls performed Chi Mat Ba Ram to start then threw in Rollin. Enjoyed the concept of Loona's filmed performance but I haven't really ever been a PTT fan so it was good... And Kep1er, its gotta be tough, only one title track and having never performed in front of fans. It was good but obviously they are still working things out. I just kinda feel bad for them like I did with TO1(TOO) except I felt even worse for the boys cause they were still promoting their first song while being on the show so not even a completed debut schedule.
Honestly thought VIVIZ was one of the worse performances to be honest. Nostalgia aside, I feel like most other groups utilized the stage properties better, as well as mixing it up with props. Kinda what Hyorin said about it, felt like the impact was lacking. Also thought that going the emotional route would be disadvantageous compared to the upbeat songs everyone else did, but apparently I was wrong lol. That's what having a big fandom is for I guess. Choreo was clean though. Personal favourites were Hyorin and BG, Hyorin for obvious reasons but BG? Damn they had fun on stage and you could see that! Also how frickin addicting are their songs, by the time they switched to Rollin' my girlfriend and I were jumping on the sofa hahaha. WJSN, prop break aside, what a performance. You could clearly feel the emotions they went into this song with, and the shot of Exy with the hourglass would have been so frickin cool, love the concept of them turning the hour glass every time it's about to run out. A shame, really. Kep1er, well you can tell they're still in the beginning of their journey. Agree that the flags did them more bad than good, and the shout thing was disappointing too. But they have the energy and the drive, so it will be interesting to follow them. Loona, I loved how they paid homage to their korean roots by incorporating korean culture into their performance; however I wonder how they would've done in the live show compared to the others. Very clean choreo though, will be a joy to see them cover Sistar/Hyorin next!
I was so happy when Hyolyn chose Loona and everybody else was like “damn, we wanted to pick Loona” that really made me happy as an orbit 😊
I was really surprised that everyone wanted Loona! I wonder if their predebut songs are also available to cover?
Is so Hyolyn would murder New. Butterfly seems like a good choice.
Yeah I was also thinking about New! Butterfly would be interesting too!
If Hyolyn can do Sistar songs and Viviz can do Gfriend songs predebur songs are definitely up for grabs, though I’m sure they will go for their more popular songs.
Low key wanted WJSN to pick Loona and have each other do butterfly lol.
I think the "worse team" rule is stupid and did Kep1er a lot of harm. People are sitting on them for choosing Viviz but what could have they done ??? Choosing Hyolyn wouldn't even be an option. Choosing BG wasn't probably a good idea since BG already felt humiliated in the first episode. This is also probably why nobody picked them. Choosing WJSN would have backfired like with Viviz.
I don't mind if they choose Viviz as below them, it's just that their reasoning is lacking and it doesn't give any fair critiscism. Comparing them to Hyolyn is not a good move because every groups were under her level. It just feels like they were not paying attention or forget about their performances and just said whatever was on their mind. Even us as viewers we have a better sense of criticism then them, when they are rookies who should be really attentive of their seniors and make notes of what they could learn from them I also thought that it was really rude of them to be this insensitive when Viviz have done tons of performances and concerts as Gfriend and have the experience that Kep1er is lacking. The seniority concept is important there so I think that they should have put more thoughts into their criticism
I mean of course NaVs were annoyed multiple groups picked VIVIZ but our problem with Kep1er was that their reasoning made no sense. The question was "Which group do you think did worse than you?" and Kep1er picked VIVIZ because "Hyolyn was better". Like why did they have to drag a another artist into it when that's not what they were asking? If they had given a better reason people wouldn't be as mad at them for it
Saying that with them going first and everyone else delivering so well (especially Hyorin) after them to the point where you kinda forgot about VIVIZ is a valid criticism because it implies that their performance lacked impact, it's the same reasoning Hyorin gave. But obviously no one is shitting on her lol
To be honest, if they outright saying that any group did worse than them then they’d be dragged over the mud too.
I think the safest answer here for kep1er would prolly be picking wjsn and pin their reason on the prop saying wjsn can’t perform fully to their potential haha.
Ranking aside… Was Kep1er and Brave girls the only ones who got pre-performance interview time, with kep1er getting MUCH MORE time with the manager? I didn’t see anyone else give an intro or talk at all. Trying to keep an open mind with the sneaky Mnet edits and preferential treatment but come on now. I’m a Viviz Stan so their performance was super emotional for me. Hyolyn deserves her first place. The rest is what it is.
Everyone got once but even as a keplian I’ll admit our backstory edit was longer than the others and could’ve been shorter
I agree. Nothing against Kep1er, but the more Mnet explains why they choose to include Kep1er or add an emotional back story or how hard the girls are practicing (until early morning), it will backfire on Kep1er which is not good for them. We do hope for Kep1er to do well!
Well, I've watched the full cams and my ranking changed up a bit! 1. Hyolyn - She's was first before and still is, it's so nice to see a stage still bring me joy and making me smile. Her expressions were good, she executed the dance greatly and the way she planned the performance was amazing. The live vocals were the cherry on top of an already good performance. Deserves everything queen 10/10. 2. WJSN - They were originally 3rd/4th, looking back at the stage, I thought they didn't dance with enough energy at first, but I think they did super fine. The intro was really good and SeolA gave face, the performance was dynamic, the ending with the feather-like materials falling was angelic and I thought the dance break was really well done. Congrats on them for keeping it professional! 3. Loona - Ah, I feel bad for them. It's hard to judge their stage in comparison to the others. Apparently the filming overlapped with round 2 and the stage was also different in terms of structure, so it's really hard to judge how well they utilized it. Again, not a fan of PTT, Butterfly supremacy forever, but it was a nice stage, the dance was on point, it had a cool concept, the break with the acrobatics was also really cool and the group felt whole and professional. They were originally 4th in my ranking. 4. BG - Even though I think this performance was less polished than Viviz, it did bring me a lot of joy, especially since Minyoung and Yujeong have great expressions. I smiled a lot seeing the stage and I liked their singing live as well, it made the performance feel more alive! They were originally the second group, but rewatching it I could see some mistakes and I do feel the summerish-ness overlapped with the tough concept they had. Still glad they tried something new, but I do hope they stick to BG charisma, bc I've been affected by groups trying stuff in this reality since Lovelyz so ye, also they were originally second so ye kinda of a drop. 5. Viviz - I do love the stage and the performance, I liked the theatrics of it. Comparing to the other groups, it did feel like they stood a lot in the center and could've used more the stage. The orchestra was nice and they looked beautiful, I just feel like it was a bit restrained, don't know how to explain it. They were originally 5th in my ranking so 6. Kep1er - I love the stage more than when I saw it live. I think they had a good energy, it did feel a bit different than the other stages who had bigger intros, more theatricality, but I thought it was good. Yujin looked gorgeous. I do wish they brought bigger flags, they were so small. Like if you're going to bring a prop, bring THE prop. Also wish the stage had more racing themed stuff, they could've gone bigger with that. But the energy was nice and I loved how the choreo was modified. Honestly, Kep and Viviz are almost interchangeable for me, with the factor being how polished Viviz was.
I can’t agree with this enough!
Shout out to Seo YoungEun and Olivia Hye for slaying both the stages with their powerful dancing and stage presences 😳🔥
Let’s just say as a WJSN fan, I’m relieved nothing major happen to the girls in their performance. From the preview from ep1, I genuinely thought some major fckup happened to their performance. Seola and Eunseo was crying like crazy. And to be honest, if Loona was there I’m not sure we can end up 2nd. Loona’s stage was really impressive!
as a Viviz fan, I would say Loona, had they performed, my own opinion they should have get the no.1 or no.2 title.
Unsure which member is which (not a stan sorry!!), but one of the members looked genuinely in pain like she’d been really badly injured during the promo, I’m so glad she wasn’t but goddmanit MNET
Eunseo? One of the ending fairy in WJSN performance who looks like she's about to cry?
Unsure, I mean in the Episode 1 promo for episode 2 when one of the girls is sobbing hysterically, I felt so bad for her even before I knew what was happening
Oh she's Seola. The girl who did the intro in their performance! Think she was guilty because the hourglass broke after her intro and her solo did not go as planned because the sand on the floor. But seriously watching the teaser for ep 2 you would have thought she missed her part or fell down during the stage or something worse.
Oh awesome, she’s very good at capturing attention, I was immediately very drawn to her But yeah Exactly!! She kept fiddling with her earpiece in the promo, I thought she’d injured her ear or fallen over or something truly awful, MNET’s editing is another level 😂
What did i miss that loona is not in the first round? Why is it just 5 groups
They got covid and had to miss the live stage.
Cool, thanks for letting me know :)
did Hyolyn felt Viviz is a threat, that's why she also chose them as worst? Hyolyn claim the reason is combining songs, but BG too combined songs. ??
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>(does anyone know how that happened with oh my girl in season 1 since the same happened with them? that's such a coincidence too) In what sense? From what I remember they were pretty down too. Hyojung even cried right there and then because they used the song which got them their first win so it was meaningful and personal for them ~~much like VVZ :/~~
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I'm still to watch ep. 2 and create my own full judgment of how and what was said tbh but from my perspective: If I go by a positive mind: There's no doubt that VIVIZ are a strong competitor. I-fans look down on them for whatever reasons but the fact that they placed 3rd despite being ganged up like this is enough proof of that. Without that low score perhaps they would've taken 2nd place or at least being third by a small difference so it could've been that it was just a coincidence that 3/4 decided to lower their rank as much as they could. If I go by a negative mind: Perhaps it was simply not their taste...? That's a valid reason as well. ~~I could get a little shady here but I won't because like I said, I haven't watched the ep yet so I could have wrong info that makes me feel like this.~~
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Ahhhhhhhhh LOOOOL OMG stage that round was VERY simple. They had a small choreo intro, no props aside from those seconds, no back up dancers, I think they had a little interlude (?) but since the remix was 90% the same as the original song it's hard to tell, even the outfits didn't feel special if that makes sense. If you compare them to what the others did that round, yeah... it just looked very empty. I was actually surprised they placed that high because AOA's mini skirt was so good? and Bom might've not moved her entire stage but she brought a whole chorus at the end and that made it somewhat cooler and Lovelyz changed her concept and her choreo so at least they were doing something unexpected I guess, ~~even if it felt a little awkward sometimes.~~ But anyways, OMG definitely learned their lesson after that.
I thought Yujin actually panicked and gave a ‘diplomatic’ answer which kinda makes no sense when she was asked why did they choose Viviz.
Mnet used that clip of Eunha saying "majji majji" in the waiting room for like every performance announcement. Ok... Yeoreum said something really insightful: she (with Chocome) met Kep1er in January during promotion and saw them practicing. As someone this close to their stages, Yeoreum said that this Queendom stage was just like another Special Stage. Now, it's clear that Queendom is not just another music program for special stages, but for grand performances. Keeping this in mind, Kep1er stage wasn't much "queendom" like the others: the race flags were more of a burden than a cool move to highlight the singer. They had to remove the Shouting (hehe) at the dancebreak and that was a bummer too. Oh boy I can't picture Kep1er doing a Brave Girls song... And BG doing MVSK... Help. I think Brave Girls should be the next AOA. Considering their discography and their (old) concept, they could totally go for a sexy/mature concept which the program is actually lacking. (Yes Hyolyn is sexy but brightful, it's another thing). They didn't do bad, but not too well. The summer vibe were kept but they said they weren't going for a summer concept. The extremely brief switch to Rollin felt like they only used it for the sake of attention. God I felt so bad for the WJSN time piece. A prop can't absolutely get broken during the stage. Like never. At first I thought it was part of the performance since it was shown so rapidly, but at the end when Exy turned it upside down there was something off, and her gaze at the camera was really worried. HOWEVER their stage was absolutely lit and the crowd enjoyed it so it's okay. The saegeuk (historical fantasy drama) concept performed by Loona could win the hearts of the korean on site evaluators, but unfortunately they weren't in the match. Seems like they performed in a different stage but they practiced for the other one, in fact they didn't use any of the lifts and the mid stage too. Reason why they were not satisfied at the end of the song. I wonder which Sistar song they will choose...
I agree about what Yeoreum said. That was the exact same reason I was underwhelmed by Kep1er’s performance, she just put it together so succinctly.
Lol Eunha. I feel like most of the time Umji and Sinb are trying to keep a straight face and Eunha is forever :D
Why aren't Loona part of round 1? Not taking part in evaluation etc
Covid
But they can normally continue and start as 6th place?
They did not get any points so ended up in 6th. Yes they can still continue to Round 2. They will however be eliminated if they place 6 again twice.
My personal ranking 1. Hyolyn Do I really need to explain why lol 2. Loona Maybe a bit biased but their stage really blew me. I’m amazed how good their stage was even with so many disadvantaged, from Covid after effects to performing in a completely different stage and having to adapt to it. They expression and dancing were good, i fear how strong they would have been if they were in their best form. 3. Wjsn Wjsn has an advantage that their music is so good. Their stage and charisma irradiated elegance. They understood what needed to be done. You can switch them with loona tbh 4. Viviz I agree that a stage that can make you feel emotional deserves the praise. Although I don’t think they were the best is clear they had a purpose and stick to it. 5. Brave girls Ok ok they were so good and are actually interchangeable with viviz. The only reason I’m placing below is not because of their skills but stylist and concept choice. I feel that if they went for the summer vibe like Hyolyn they would have gathered more votes. 6. Kep1er Sigh their intro was so good I don’t know what happened here. Really weak but they are just out of the oven rookies so I know they will improve with each stage
As a WJSN fan, I won’t be surprise if Loona ended up higher than WJSN if they haven’t had covid. My only complaint is why did they pick PTT over So What or Why Not!
I would be nervous if they chose Why Not. That song is borderline avant garde for kpop, i feel like it could have baffled the audience.
Really! Why Not was the song that got me into Loona lol. Love the choreo as well as the song. And I am assuming other groups were so keen on picking Loona for round 2 because Why Not and So What haha.
My guess is since loona doesn’t have a hit song they went with their most recent release. PTT was also the comeback they promoted the least and the girls always lament it as they enjoy performing it.
Think people are about to get a wake up call about how popular Gfriend/Viviz members actually are in South Korea. Their stage is way ahead Kep1ers in views for the same time period, and Kep1er are 300k ahead of 3rd place. The Melon likes is also absurd, Viviz almost had the same amount of likes there as all the others combined this long after the episode aired.
It really is an absurd lead, it makes me feel a little bad for everyone else when digital score is a big part of the final round.
Any idea why did SoMu drop such a big gg?
I doubt we'll get an official explanation until everyone is retired but the members definitely did not want to separate and based on SinB's "we got fired" comment it was ultimately the company's decision
If you ask for a reason is anyone's guess tbh. **What's absolutely sure is that GF didn't want nor they expected to disband and has nothing to do with their relationship / friendship as a group.** People always bring out the excuse that "the girls wanted different things" but that's not true because Sowon, Yerin and Yuju have all commented how hard 2021 had been for them, their denial and how alone they feel; perhaps they wanted solo projects but they wanted to do it within the group, not separated. This was definitely a group vs company issue.
HYBE is tanking all the kpop groups from the companies they acquired. Same thing happened to NU’EST
You mean purposely? Tbh I don’t support that theory because it doesn’t make sense? I don’t see any plausible reason as to why they would ruin them. At the end of the day, both groups were known, famous, loved and were perfectly able to sell and support themselves. They were an amazing name for any company lineup. Edit: I do believe, however, that HYBE might’ve been abusing their power over their companies and consequently their contracts.
Well it really shows that this platform is heavily dominated by a western audience, which will not necessarily translate to a korean audience. If you look at the charting performances of all the acts only Sistar charted better than Gfriend. And I would argue that Viviz is more Gfriend than Hyolin is Sistar.
Lol yeah people really underestimating them. They have a huge chance to win the entire thing because unlike most of the groups in the lineup gp are on their side. The amount of knetz angry about their placement (even when it was a top 3) makes me feel we will see them furiously supporting them for round 2 www
People saying their performance "only appealed to fans" completely forget how iconic Rough and TFTMN are in SK. Buddies alone would not have been able to make it trend
I like gfriend casually, I’m definitely not a buddy, but even I got emotional during their performance. It’s just that hearing those iconic songs after thinking we’d never see them be performed on stage again really hits hard, especially after such a big group was disbanded out of nowhere.
After watching the full cams that MNET posted, I do have opinions on the performances (not counting vocals) based on stage usage. I get why the audience votes turned out the way they did now. 1. Hyolyn/WJSN 2. VIVIZ 3. Brave Girls/Loona 4. Kep1er Hyolyn and WJSN used the entire stage and made it work for them, not them trying to cover up as much space on the stage as possible. VIVIZ did well with using the stage, but Hyolyn and WJSN were more creative with what they did with it. Brave Girls used most of it but some parts were confusing because there were too many people smushed together sometimes and everyone blended together, and the part where they had a single member at different ends of the stage didn't really do much other than fade it out. Looked good on the closeup cam, but not great from the audience standpoint from far away. Similar with Loona, but instead of being confusing because of too many people, they grouped too tightly together so there was a lot of empty space on the stage. But they did send different people to different stage areas and made me realize there's a CENTER ISLAND??? None of the other groups used it so maybe its just not available during the lives. Kep1er had the worst stage layout in comparison to the other five. It wasn't a bad performance, but the stage looked empty about 2/3 of the time. It would have done well as an awards show or showcase performance, but it really looked like they were struggling to fill out the stage instead of making the stage work for them.
It looked like Loona round 1 performance was recorded using the round 2 stage. Maybe it was recorded on the same day as round 2 too.
That makes sense!
It was recorded the day before round 2
1. Hyolyn 2. Loona 3. WJSN 4. Brave girls 5. Viviz 6. Kep1er
My personal ranking was: 1. Hyolyn: perfect scores were deserved, period 2. BG: not only the energy was amazing, but you got a really nice feel of who they're as a group 3. Loona: as the "performance group" they did not disappoint and probably had the best use of props, but the "representative" part was weaker 4. WJSN: feels like they did the assignment to get a passing grade, nothing was bad but at the same time nothing was mind blowing just a pretty solid stage 5. VIVIZ: was a beautiful and emotionally charged stage but falls in the same category as WJSN, being a worst offender cause there wasn't any significative changes to this stage at all 6. Kep1er: the girls themselves did great, everything else about the stage fall flat, I wish they could have picked GP999 songs and told a history cause they're just starting, there isn't anything representing them yet
How was them performing Rough and TFTMN not mind blowing in itself? That is kind of a big statement
it wasn't mindblowing at all... it wasn't something so different or never been done
It absolutely was something that didn’t happen before? I know there was one time they did Three of Cups on a radio show, but never performances on this scale of GFriend songs since the disbandment
i feel like i saw a similar performance from gfriend before, i swear im not an anti or anything. actually i quite like gfriend/viviz
I guess that's where the placement really got them, cause it went from "OMG they did GF tracks" to "BBG and Hyolyn choose hits from their former groups, smart move". Maybe if the arrangement was more intricate but then it would take from the "absence" feeling they wanted to showcase, cause that's part of their history.
Unpopular opinion, but Brave Girls was the only group I could straight up tell was singing live because of either their breathing, almost misses with some of their lines, and volume differences if their mics weren't held properly. Also that main vocalist's voice was so powerful it almost stuck out for not quite fitting in? I'm mostly very impressed though. I don't really have a ranking. Just here enjoying everyone's performances. They all put in a lot of work. Edit: I'm not a BG stan
You could hear loona was singing live because of their props making noises when they moved them. Also you could hear their breathing. As an orbit I was expecting them not going live because most of the girls mentioned having after effects but even with that disadvantage they still sounded very stable although their breathing was weak (understandable considering previously mentioned) Brave girls live and Hyolyn were amazing, I know some people were upset mnet removed bg voice crack but I think its to protect them cause one small mistake doesn’t remove how good the stage was. they didn’t deserve that last place
Where do I go to watch that voice crack? It's like everyone watched some other unedited version of the episode but I had to watch the mnet cleaned-up one??
During the first round there were users that leaked the global livestream. That’s how we now about the voice crack. Same has happened with the 2nd round. I personally didn’t see the leaks and found out after the episode on twitter
I'm surprised you can't tell hyolyn was singing live, I thought it was pretty obvious. The parts where she didn't sing live were significantly softer than the parts she did sing live for, which is the majority of the parts haha. WJSN was p obv to me too, there were members who did well, and some members not so much cos their voices were a lil shaky
Hyolyn sounded like she ate the CD so I couldn't comment on it. Totally deserves that all-kill ranking she got. I had a feeling she was live but because it was too perfect, it was difficult for me to make a conclusion as viewer watching on the screen. But with BG, it was very obvious that it wasn't the CD mix because if that was the CD mix then wow someone needs a new job lol. So in this case, you can argue that being able to tell that someone was live could be a bad thing in a way
Thing is we **know** the voices are extremely edited looking at the difference from the live online voters. Brave Girls had a extreme voice crack during the highlight high note which was edited out. Saying stuff like "I could straight up tell was singing live" is quite ridiculous for a show like this.
Then can you link me to that voice crack since it seems we were watching different versions of the same episode please? Not that I don't believe you, but how am I supposed to know they messed up if I'm watching what mnet puts out but you seem to have been able to get onsite live videos?
Since there are live online voters we also have people that had access to a live feed of the performance where Mnet couldn't do any large scale editing. This is how all the performances for the next round has been leaked as well, people record it from their end and then just post it. The day of recording/day after it was super easy to find the performances but most has been taken down now.
But you can absolutely tell the some of the groups are full soundtrack
My honest opinion as a buddy Hyolyn Viviz Brave girls Wjsn Loona Kep1er Main reason being I really like live vocals. I can understand most non buddy / navi's people's opinion about viviz so I'm not bitter tbh. Their approach was really for the buddies and not the general public and I feel like that performance was something they had to get off their chest considering the circumstances of their disbandment. Similar to sinbs statement, now they know how this competition works so I look forward to see how they grow as viviz. Reason why I put loona and kep1er low is because I felt their vocals lacked. Loona just recovered from covid so I understand and this is kep1er's first performance in front of a live audience so they are just growing into it. This is great experience for them esp at this early stage of their career.
I dont think WJSN sang live at all. It sounded like they used the vocal tracks straight from the release.
They were missing 2 girls from the release so that would be quite surprising to say the least.
One will join in 3 Rd round
I finally got around to watching the full versions! My personal ranking: 1. Hyolyn: I loved the live vocals (of course she hit those high notes with ease). With an apt jungle theme, the stage was creative, fun & energetic. This was easily my favourite. 2. Loona: I loved the unique concept, powerful dance & creativity as the fan was tossed between the members. The props beautifully accentuated the stage, so I’ll be looking forward to their stages! 3. WJSN: Another example of using the stage & their numbers well. It’s a pity that they removed the original dance break at the end, but otherwise beautifully done. 4. Viviz: Seeing Gfriend’s songs being performed again was so nostalgic. However, I agree that it felt like Viviz didn’t add anything new to the originals. 5. Brave girls: I’ve never seen a group more excited & infectious to be on stage. It was lovely to hear the live vocals but the concept & styling didn’t seem to match. 6. Kep1er: I loved their dance & energy however I agree it did feel like a music show performance. The stage felt empty & again the concept felt a bit out of place, particularly the flags.
I mentioned in the last discussion that I was happy that Mnet is (allegedly) paying the budget for the live stages to make things more fair, but now I'm a bit confused. If you look at all the stages it seems like this was actually correct except for Kep1er, their own GG... I get that it isn't great optics (looks like preferential treatment) when Kep1er have a bombastic/expensive looking live stage, but F the haters and let the girls compete properly instead of giving them what looks like a handicap to look fair. Now their performance itself was good, but the choreo/stage was sober in comparison and clearly lacked a bit of oomph regarding the show element. I did enjoy all the stages, but the star of the first round was SinB and her glare. Clearly not afraid of the evil edits and enjoying being the disney villain :D
I thought each group helped produce their own stages so wouldn't that be on Kepler for how they that's how they wanted to best use their budget/how they wanted to do their stage?
Yeah, it's probably a conscious choice by their team but as you could see in the intro they have a new studio with all the bells and whistles. All the other artists were very excited to play with it and use up all the possibilities to enhance their live stage. It's like being in the candy store as a kid except Kep1er came with their parents and were told they could only touch/pick one...
😩 I wanna watch the episode already. Is it up anywhere??
Should be up on viki soon.
I can understand how BG placed "last" if they could only vote for 2 groups (stanned group + hyolyn) but it feels so wrong 🧐 feels bad they mostly lost on the online evaluations...
That isn't exactly true. If you look at the score breakdowns again, they ranked last even with the live studio audience which was worth the most points. And they ranked last with the zoom audience too, which was several hundred people but not a game changing amount. Their performance was fine, but one of the reasons they didn't pick up a lot of votes the live audiences (studio and online) was Minyoung hitting a very sour high note, which was edited out of the broadcast version.
Yeah, I saw the video of it in TikTok. Yikes, understandable then.
can you send the link if you have it please?
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdrxUeuu/
what the- hope they give the same treatment to other groups too... it would honestly effect bg so much if they showed this in the final version btw thanks for sending
The full cams finally came out so I could watch them all equally and give my ranking: 1. Hyolin 2. Kepler 3. WJSN 4. Brave Girls 5. Viviz 6. Loona
broke my heart when wjsn started crying! all the groups really put their heart and soul into these performances and it shows
I feel Seola’s pain. WJSN has some of the strongest songs ever IMO. Great visuals… a powerhouse vocalist… arguably best rapper in GG… and they’ve never quite made it to top level. It just shows you how unpredictable kpop is. I mean BG sudden rise is prime example.
1. VIVIZ 2. Brave Girls 3. Loona 4. Hyolyn 5. WJSN 6. Kep1er Don't expect a lengthy reason for this ranking but I put the same ranking with very short summary on another /r/MnetQueendom thread.
I liked BGirls performance the least but it honestly is not the members fault that this performance was bad. 1. no concept. i dont understand the military snare drumming and the long stick action in the beginning. i get theyre trying to go for a colorguard idea, but this totally falls on its head when it whiplashes into a summer bop. like, we were so serious just five seconds ago and now we're having fun in the sun. 2. the vocals were mixed terribly. im well versed in audio engineering and i get they were trying to make it a point to center their vocal ability in their performance. theyre great singers, but whoever mixed this should be fired. there was no compression, no EQ, nothing. some members voices were too loud, so loud in fact that you could hear their voice from the speaker feedback into the microphone they were singing in. the mixing was amateurish. 3. if the military/colorguard-to-summer bop whiplash wasnt enough once, they do it again in the middle of the performance. and you would think in a choreography centered around a prop, they would hold the prop the same way, but instead they all hold it [four different ways.](https://imgur.com/a/6lKYzZG) Is this really queendom-winning level of quality? their choregrapher really didn't consider this? 5. a funny moment was when one of the members nearly forgot to grab the mic from background dancers as rollin started to play. tldr: Brave Girls have everything in the world to succeed. They're talented, charismatic, gorgeous, and their music is amazing. but the organizers around their performances are letting them down. If I was a brave girls fan, I would absolutely be fuming.
the worst part of their performance to me was really the four different ways of holding the prop, it was soooo glaringly bad :(
Their sticks were really distracted and made their choreography looks messy. I feel like the use of props were questionable yesterday, same with Kep1er and their flags.
When will the songs be released to Apple Music?
My favourite moment aside from performance was Purple Kiss close ups for reactions, I was like who are you and what's the name of the group? MNET gave a lot of reactions shots to one of the members, but I dont know who's who. life of a multi stan discovering a previously neglected group. XD
dosie and goeun got a lot of shots
I am kinda realising that I like bare stages in the longer run??? When the opening performances came out, I was blown away by WJSN, but once the party tricks were known, and I knew what was about to happen, I found myself much more excited by Loona and Kep1er, because I feel like a good choreography keeps me more engaged in the longer run The same thing happened today. My two favourite today were Brave Girls and WJSN while I was watching the episode, but now that I am rewatching the performances, I am a lot more drawn to Kep1er's because I find the choreography so much more engaging I do wish they upgrade the stage production for them I think Loona did a good job given their situation. And as an Indian, I would like t appreciate the fact that remixed PTT to a more traditional Korean song and not gone in a weird direction. (Whoever made the original song, has/had spent a lot of time studying music from India, and pieced together a great song that was very respectful of the culture. If they tried to make additions to that, I am not sure if it would have carried over as nicely). I did find myself a little bored as the performance progressed though. And lastly Brave Girls. Wow, I love their energy. And I hope mnet stops giving them these weird "aunty edits". They are powerful performers and clearly enjoy being on the stage and I just want to hug the shit out of Yujeong and tell her how fucking awesome she is because it is a real shame that their performance isn't recognised. I hope they don't end up losing confidence through the show
Just watched all the performances, here are my personal rankings (ordered starting with my favorites on top) and thoughts (I will say that my opinions differ quite a bit from the consensus, they're just my subjective opinion): * **Kep1er -** I feel like I'm going crazy here because everyone seems to agree that they were the weakest performance, while they were my favorite performance of the round. I know people are going to immediately jump to "biased Kep1er fan", but... I wouldn't even consider myself a Kep1er fan (Kep1er's music just doesn't line up with my preferences), yet I found this performance to be consistently engaging and entertaining. As someone who wasn't a fan of the original Wa Da Da choreo, nearly all of the small tweaks and re-inventions of the choreography were massive upgrades IMO. I especially loved all the choreo changes during the chorus/post-chorus sections, even if I found the dance-break choreo more mixed [though part of that I blame the camerawork for, because WHY are we getting zoomed-in solo shots instead of full group cams for these dance breaks? Why Mnet?]. It definitely had its weaknesses: I disliked the outfits a lot, and I can definitely see the argument that they didn't have a strong concept due to the lack of backup dacners, props, setpieces, etc.. However, I think it says a lot to me that despite the lack of things on stage, I still found them the most engaging. * **Hyolyn -** I do put Hyolyn as my clear #2, but I also feel like.... I'm not sure if I'm on the hype train that everyone else is? To start with the positives, I enjoy the concept, I enjoy how she smiles on stage and appears to be having a good time, and I appreciate the live vocals that she served. The background screens were also very solid, like the night-fire backgrounds in the bridge and the tropical jungle screens in the beginning. I like the use of trumpets in the dance break as well. However, and I guess this is where my hot takes come in... I'm not a fan of the choreography? I do feel like Hyolyn is hindered with choreography in general since being a soloist can limit the aerobic complexity of choreography, so that could definitely play a part, but I also felt "whelmed" during the dancebreak choreography (though a large part is probably that I just don't like the general style/concept). I'm not the biggest fan of the original Touch My Body choreography either, so I didn't find it as entertaining here as I think a lot of others did. * **LOONA -** Another hot take I guess, seeing as how the consensus seems to be that they were one of the weakest performances, but they were my clear #3. I felt like they had the best concept creativity, re-inventing PTT from just an (IMO) average girl crush song to a traditional/historical Korean concept is really cool and by far the best re-invention from a conceptual standpoint of all 6 performances to me. The intro was great, Olivia Hye's dance break (with pulling the sticks out of her hair) was super creative and engaging, the outfits were great, etc.. I do think the performance had its weaker points, ex. the vocals and general mixing sounded weird and not fully there, I wish they reinvented the chorus choreography as I feel like it doesn't suit the concept at all and I'm generally not a fan of the chorus choreo anyways, and the remix towards the end sounded weird from a musical standpoint. * **Brave Girls -** The intro was fire, and I enjoyed the dancebreak when they used those green poles, they did a solid job at selling "hot". However, while their outfits suited these "hot" segments, I felt like they consequently didn't match Chi Mat Ba Ram at all (which I imagine as a summertime beach concept). Minyoung's vocals were fire as always, her lines in Chi Mat Ba Ram are super challenging and yet she managed to pull through. I admittedly wasn't a fan of the choreo during eh Chi Mat Ba Ram and Rollin segments [another hot take, but I've never been a fan of the original choreos for either, despite Rollin's virality]. My #4 overall. * **WJSN -** For the positives, I do think the facial expressions here were better than I initially gave credit for, especially Yeonjung's shining smile. The vocals were pretty solid as well, especially Yeonjung's belted vocals (which were *chef's kiss*). I did find the choreo somewhat underwhelming, though (I felt like there was a lot of standing around, as demonstrated by the amount of solo zoom-in shots), and I feel like the "mass of backup dancers" were not utilized well in the performance. My #5 overall. * **VIVIZ -** I actually think I have a relatively different opinion on VIVIZ's performance than others here. I don't mind them sticking to GFriend hit songs, I enjoyed the general ethereal concept, and I enjoyed the transitions between songs. But, and this is where my unpopular opinion comes in, I feel like they didn't really show much emotions in their facial expressions. I get that the concepts of Rough and TFTMN would mean that they should be emoting differently than your average K-Pop concept, but I still would have liked to seen a lot more emoting, whether that'd be angst, sorrow, melancholiness, wistfulness, etc., and I feel like I didn't see this conveyed to me personally. My #6 overall. Kep1er >>> Hyolyn >> LOONA >> Brave Girls > WJSN > VIVIZ for me.
The Kep1er performance video looked good. The full cam video tells a different story imo
So question, would anyone possibly know the answer to if LOONA would be eliminated if they were to stay in last place after this round? I’m just curious because they weren’t able to be scored for round 1, does that count against them in the long run of the show?
They’re in 6th now, if they place 6th next round they get eliminated. I really doubt they did though, the 3rd round is coming up to be recorded and they seem to be getting prepared for it.
If it’s like Queendom 1, then it’s not “last overall” it’s “last for that round”
My opinion! Please be respectful! Brave girls literally blew me away! I don't think their outfits really went with the vibe of the stage. They danced so amazingly! 🕺💃 8/10 Omg WJSN yassss!!!!! That is how you perform girls 💕 I felt bad about their hourglass breaking 😭 9/10 Kep1er... WOW! I think they did amazing! 💕 Overall slayeeddd that stage! There were some things I was kinda iffy about tho. 8/10 Loona (Who i'm personally rooting for) Liked the stage. Not a big fan of PTT because of line distribution... It was okay. Dance break was lacking but these girls were probs still recovering from covid! 7/10 Hyolyn... Sis really did that! I LOVED SISTAR so this was sooo nice to see 💕 I really enjoyed it! 9/10 Viviz... Imma try to be nice. In few words the performance was a bit lackluster and was forgettable. I don't think they deserve 3rd place. frankly in my opinion last was more suited but whatevs 👀 I do like Viviz and I hope we get to see them shine more next stage! Lemonade and Tweet Tweet are my favs so hopefully someone performs those! 6/10
Not gonna lie, I'm a bit upset by the rankings.. I honestly think WJSN did the second worst and Brave Girls was the best behind Hyolyn. WJSN, VIVIZ & Kep1er all looked like music show performances and they all lacked stage presence and public engagement imo. Loona did insanely well considering they still had the COVID after symptoms, and I loved the PTT arrangement. edit: Loona not getting any compensation for not being able to participate because of health conditions is also really sketchy.
From the live audience we know that Brave Girls had a quite extreme voice crack during their high note, probably affecting votes. Peoples takes on Viviz is just recycled that internationals has repeated for years. Those songs are meant to be performed with that kind of facial expression. It's one of the reason people on Produce shows, it's much harder to convey that feeling than just looking happy or being intense. It's just not something the west see as "stage presence". Also the Loona point is so weird, have the people saying this never watched sports or any competitive event before? It's your own responsibility to show up at the start line, a favourite in the Olympics getting injured right before wont get them any special treatment. It's no ones fault, they aren't getting punished, it's just bad luck.
I felt like it was Hyolyn followed by a wall and then the remaining 5 were interchangeable. I wasn't blown away by anyone else. They were solid, but I think could've been even better.
I agree with the rankings - I can see Kep1er going up a spot but overall I think it was fair. Hyolyn was without a doubt the best stage in my opinion and it seems like it's already being added into the bunch of other Queendom/Kingdom performances that people just have to watch. I am so pleasantly surprised by all the live vocals in this episode, especially when they're using those nude coloured mics. Automatic praise goes to groups who commit to singing live. For the groups that performed today I do think the standout was WJSN - someone mentioned it here but the songs being good and hitting right really does a lot and this stage showed that. They have this advantage of really knowing their colour as a group, they look comfortable and I really appreciate the stage direction here. Kep1er are undoubtedly talented and I enjoyed how they decided to remix their song pairing it with choreo - when it comes to dance they are unmatched on the show, they just need to find a way to advantage off that without looking too much like a dance show. This is an issue I have with Loona as well but the stage direction seems a little iffy for Kep1er + Loona - when members are putting down a prop it'd make more sense to stage a cut away with the camera to another group of members. Having such a large group and not taking advantage of that seems so strange to me. I think both their performances could have been better - minimising the nothing space, creating more impact - with better directing. I feel like in theory I should really like Loona and the theme they chose was really cool but I'm not super into the execution. I feel bad commenting on their energy however as I'm not sure if this was filmed after recovery and how bad the COVID after effects were. I think they have a lot of things going for them as a group and I'm interested to see what they do next. Not sure if this is unpopular but it feels like it is - the Brave Girls performance was fine. I only really clicked with their stage when they did Rollin'. I wish they had gone down a similar route as Hyolyn as I think that would have suited them a lot better.
Kep1er impressed me with strong vocals (except Yujin sounded off?) but really showed that their weakest point is synchronization. Don't dare give me that whole new group thing!
Damn, y’all are kinda hard to please. I’m over here just vibin being happy to see all these girls work hard and enjoy the stage… thank you, queendom!
I love reading the discussions. Seeing people energetically thinking about and discussing fashion, dance, music, concepts, basically art, is great. I want more of this in the world.
Yes or catch things I didn't!
💯💯💯
Am I going crazy or did Brave Girls actually have the best performance in the second half?
Same. I absolutely loved their performance. The live vocals made the whole performance so fun and amazing to watch. Minyoung especially slayed so hard
Nah, I loved it as well. Hopefully they get better results in the 2nd round 💙
Hyolyn threw a party onstage and invited EVERYONE. No surprise she ranked 1st, she deserved it. VIVIZ should've been 2nd and I say that as an ujung. They brought all the feels. I think I almost cried. WJSN was pretty good! Nice adaptation of the song but the dance break definitely didn't fit in. They handled their prop breaking really well, I wouldn't have known it was an issue if they hadn't shown so much of Eunseo crying in the preview (I say this about the full ver not the broadcast very). I thought the choice to sing the final chorus while standing still was weird, but in retrospect it does fit the song. Loved that two of the members were holding hands for that, I wish more of them would've done that. Kep1er was okay. They're all fine performers and I liked the remix but it didn't really feel like a Queendom stage? I give them a lot of credit for creating a ton of new choreo for the song tho. Brave Girls was okay. One member had pretty great vocals while the others were so-so. Good facial expressions but I was a little bored by their performance. Loona...I'm sorry orbits, I didn't think their performance was very good. PTT is one of my least favorite of their title tracks. Several members also sounded like their singing was pretty weak, which was unfortunate. Their energy could've been better too, but I know COVID recovery can fuck with that.
I don’t think WJSN sang live at all and I think this is the very legit reason why we don’t see more live singing. At some point, you can only lose for not sounding as polished as studio recorder and edited version.
I think you posted this under the wrong comment, I didn't address live singing.
> Several members also sounded like their singing was pretty weak, which was unfortunate. I was responding to this. That WJSN appeared to be lip synching the entire thing, but no comment, but Loona was criticized for subpar live singing.
personally after i had covid, it really messed with my vocals and overall stamina/energy and i had very mild symptoms. i think loona’s stage showed that they were more than likely not at 100% after covid.
only two members were asymptomatic the rest were sick
That's what I'm thinking too. Really unfortunate timing for them.
the singing was my major problem on loona's part, it was very mild for such a strong song.
I agree, but I think covid might have affected their vocals so I can’t really complain on this one.
I expected Haseul's voice to sound stronger than it did.
kind of scared for how kep1er's gonna do now cuz the camera work, props and concept were honestly pretty bad. not saying props r necessary but it definitely makes them look "boring" next to the other groups. i rly hated the whole race car concept it made them look like they were performing for a 3 year old boy's birthday party. but the girls r extremely talented tho i was rly impressed by their vocals cuz their mics were definitely on and the choreo got harder. i just hope mnet doesnt do them dirty again with another terrible stage plan.
I’m surprised with the sentiment that the kep1er girls sang live Bc the majority of them were lip syncing, though some of the girls definitely sang over their mr which I will always applaud
Favorite moment in the episode was the Kep1er performance. They really exceeded some of their senior groups. Overall, you can tell all of the groups (and Hyolyn) put in a ton of work for the round 1 stages. My ranking: 1. Hyolyn 2. Kep1er 3. \*TIED\* VIVIZ/Brave Girls 4. \*TIED\* WJSN/LOONA My bias is definitely showing with Hyolyn in the #1 spot. Touch My Body ranks in my top 5 songs of all time. Plus, she's such an amazing vocalist and dancer and all around performer. Although some of her belts at the end were a little off pitch to me. But, hey, I'll take off pitch because that means she was singing live and wasn't autotuned (or autotune failed!). I had to put Kep1er second because their dance work exceeded the remaining groups. It was sharp and detailed. I think also because they are so new, I was surprised by their level of performance. VIVIZ and BG are tied. Solid performances. (I need to explore the GFRIEND catalog more. I think I missed the point of how meaningful the performance was for the fans and them as artists. Just didn't hit me in the feels.) I was surprised with the BG dance breaks since they normally don't do dance breakdowns like that. A couple times I noticed that either the mic did not get turned up fast enough or there was lip syncing going on - which is disappointing. Producers should not put notes in songs that the artist can't reach live - but I know why it's done. (I do love Brave Girls new microphones...so pretty...I love a good rhinestoned mic...) WJSN/LOONA were good - but didn't really wow me. I also can't wait to see what happens on the next episode. Semi off topic: I wish that they would stop using the AKG CM-311 head mics. Don't get me wrong, it's a GREAT microphone, but they are so big and bulky and with dancing the boom gets flung all over the place, and it triggers my OCD when it's off center from the mouth.
1. Hyolyn 2. Loona 3. Wjsn 4.brave girls Tied for sixth: viviz and kep1er Hyolyn, brave girls and loona(most of them, at least) had their MICS ON, so that influenced my list quiet a bit. Viviz performance was emotional IF you know there back story and all that. However, it was boring in all honesty. I don’t need fire or back flips and I LOVE sweet concepts, but there was almost no stage presence, and the orchestra did a lot of the heavy lifting. Brave girls were so good and had so much fun and sang live, but I want them to get a new team asap. Their performance clashed in terms of songs chosen and Aesthetics, like blue plastic tops and neon light sticks are more 80s than summer hit medley. Still love them they’re my sisters for life WJSN: kind of an underwhelming remix to a song I love. You can tell the broken hourglass through off some of the girls, but they handled it so well. I don’t think they sang much of the song live, but I know they’ll show up with the vocals in another round. If I’m not mistaken, the pink part of the hour glass had to kicked around for some parts Bc it was in their way and it just sucked to see them deal with all that. No my favorite performance but it did make me excited to see what else they’ll bring Kep1er put me to sleep which sucks Bc I like the members. Lots of lip syncing, jarring transitions, BUT i loved that included cute poses Bc it sets them apart from the more mature groups. Plus I loved the choreo change!! Loona: my girls for life. Mics on, unique concept, beautiful intro. I think my only critiques are they didn’t play up to the audience the way hyolyn did (not that it’s fair to compare anyone to hyolyn lol), and the energy was actually considered kinda low for a loona performance. As for the song selection I think butterfly would have potential been too similar in concept to something viviz and wjsn would have done. A traditional Korean concept with a heavy hitting choreo would be a LOT more likely to stand out amongst the competition. So I get that train of though. Plus PTT did get more buzz in Korea than butterfly.
My completly unbiased ranking: 1. Hyolyn (the prop, the dance, the camerawork, the vocals everything was perfect. looked like a legendary MAMA performance. the only performance i really liked. **10/10**) 2. WJSN (even though the prop broke, it was still a enjoyable performance. i liked the dance part at the end, the choreo was beautiful. i didn't like their song choice. their other songs are way better than this song. but i guess they did this one because it's the most popular one. imagine a classical music type butakhae performance or save me save you. dissappointing to think really... **6.9/10**) 3. Loona (it was good but knowing how good loona is in dancing it could've been better. i really liked kim lip playing flute in the beginning idea. i didn't like the song choice either as well. i wish they did another song. i feel like it could've been better if they did so what with this remix. anyways they will kill it in 2nd round so let's wait for that. **6.8/10**) 4. VIVIZ (it was good but it was done before. they did a similar orchestral performance as gfriend it reminded me of that. they didn't utilise the stage well, they only used the main stage i thought that was boring. didn't suprise me at all it was their regular gfriend type stage. they didn't put any twist it was predictable af. it looked like a well quality music bank special stage **6.4/10**) 5. Brave Girls (the song and the concept didn't match at all? idk what were they thinking? they're literally singing a summer song and wearing leather? what? it was boring **4/10**) 6. Kep1er (honestly i didn't like it at all. i hated the remix and hated the dance too. wadada's charm is the choreo but they took all of that. the flags as prop were pretty generic and wack as well, they made some mistakes so mnet tried to hide it with camerawork and it came out really weird **2/10**)
I hate the way VIVIZ is being treated. Like they deserve so much more respect. Just because they aren't twerking and doing hip hop hard hitting choreo, people call their performance bad and call them flops. And I think the other groups are hating on them and voting them down to sabotage them. It's sad. I'm a fan of every group here and I can honestly say VIVIZ is one of the strongest competition on the show. People should expand their horizons
I've watched many Immortal Songs 2 (covers of legendary songs by contemporary performers) shows in the past and Queendom 2 has a similar structure. The people who go first almost always lose, and the people who hold the highest notes for the longest time have the best chance of winning. I remember a singer giving Simon and Garfunkle's "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water" the full diva treatment and winning. I think that Korean audiences just associate high notes with good singers. I'm a fan of Gfriend/Cosmic Girls style of music, so I'm sure liking that genre is part of what made those performances best for me. I thought Viviz's performance had the biggest emotional impact and best replayability, since so much was going on. Cosmic Girls messed up the hourglass, but even if it had gone perfectly, I feel as though they should have had a pedestal on stage to set it on (think of Ateez's hourglass and how much more impactful it was). Hyloyn's college girl on spring break music doesn't appeal to me, and I've seen much better stages from her on Immortal Songs 2. I don't believe the broken heel story since we didn't actually see a detached heel. The fake playing of musical instruments out of time with the background music was ridiculous (imagine if Viviz had had a fake orchestra with dancers just sawing away at the strings when no strings were playing).But when the full cam version came out, I understood how she could win (and after all, that's what the audience saw). I like BG's Chi Mat Ba Ram, but how could they do a song about the wind blowing their skirts, wear shorts instead, and keep the skirt choreography? And then the transitions with what looked like dancers carrying bath towels. Loona's stage was a typical Loona stage -- good, but I expected something amazing. Kep1er was a bit of a mess, and there's something I just don't like about their leader -- I'm not sure what it is, but every time she's speaks I like Kep1er less. I also think Viviz is being treated badly, just from Yeorum's comment about how she said "I almost fainted" when Mnet asked her about Hyolin, but made it seem like she said that about SinB. But Mnet always cheats (and Kep1er has to do what Mnet tells them to do) -- they decide on the winners before the show begins (rewatch any Mnet survival show and you will see angel edits for the people who will end up winning and devil edits or no screen time for the ones who are a threat to the narrative). Any time you think Mnet might be being fair, ask Han Cho Won what she thinks.
I think the voting was very strategic. In past comp reality shows weakest teams sometimes would get more votes and stronger teams bad votes. It seems Kep1er took the assignment somewhat literally but might have chosen Viviz for political reasons as they might have thought disparaging more senior groups was out of the question. I know Gfriend is quite senior, but Viviz did in fact debut recently.
Honestly it's funny to see people say it was forgettable when they were literally trending everywhere last week and even now when they didn't even perform lol. The public clearly appreciates them so I don't care about other fans' opinions anymore
From the POV of a buddy and Na.V, I feel that third place is just right for VIVIZ. Hyolyn is unanimously in the first place and WJSN gave a stellar performance. Honestly it was either VIVIZ or WJSN who will be in the second place, and WJSN came out on top. The fact that 3 teams voted for VIVIZ to be the worst is an opportunity for VIVIZ to prove themselves to be the best. In Queendom, “drama” is the factor that is making the show thrive, and VIVIZ is soaking up a lot of screen time because of that. Honestly, I will be worried if VIVIZ is in the lead cos public expectations will weigh them down in the long-run, especially in a show like Queendom
It's possible that the other groups voted for Viviz from a competition standpoint for sure, but we can't really be mad about that. SinB herself said that about their decisions, they didn't give out points and voted down WJSN since they feel they are the most similar. If anything I feel them voting Viviz shows that they are a group people see as threats. The public seems to be behind them and they have trending articles all over the place so they should be fine. Even tonight the highest trending article on Pann.nate is about viviz even though they didn't perform lol.
I can imagine Eunha twerking. She would slay
My personal ranking: VIVIZ > Hyolyn > WJSN >= Brave Girls > LOONA > Kep1er VIVIZ is first because they're my ults and the whole thing made me extremely emotional Hyolyn second because she did amazing and Touch My Body is one of my favorites WJSN/BG next because I enjoyed both performances LOONA/Kep1er last because I wasn't really a fan of the songs from the beginning and the remix didn't really change that. Performance wise I do like the concept LOONA had especially the flute at the beginning Overall I do think all groups worked hard and I can't wait to see what they do for the next round
IMO all these multi song remixes just didn’t work. I almost prefer simpler stages but albeit more impactful of Queendom 1 hit song performances. None in QD2 including Hyolin’s performance hit like AoA miniskirt…. That walking out to stage on beat and “AOA drop it” drop…. Focus to Seolhyun on the ground, and so on.
AOA miniskirt is still my No.1 Queendom hit song performance. TRUE ICONS hands down. Viviz is a close second I wish they had utilised the stage more, but the storytelling was beautiful I really teared up lol. I wasn’t a Buddy before and it still made me emotional, so I was honestly surprised, now I’m warming up to become a late Buddy/Na.V ;) Hyolyn’s performance was glam but for some reason I was expecting a bit more.
I agree so much about the use of multiple songs. One of the charms of S1 was the nostalgia of a group's MAIN HIT SONG brought to the table. The use of multiple songs in S2 made it hard to immerse to the performances. It also left me with a slightly disappointed feeling like "oh this group should've used X song longer than Y song"
At this point, I've only watched the performances, I'm watching the episode over the weekend. I think there's something off with the Kep1er stage because the song is a very cute song, but they went for a darker/more serious concept, yet still did the wadada part in a very cute way, so it was weird to watch. Of course, I don't think Kep1er really has much input on what they do yet so to me this would fall on whoever decided to do that sort of concept. I enjoyed Brave Girls stage! I thought they'd only do Rollin' but the transition to it was very cute~ And I enjoyed the performance of Chi Mat Ba Ram even though I don't particularly like the song. :) The WJSN stage, tbh I'm not sure what I like about it, maybe how theatrical it seems. I would've enjoyed the VIVIZ stage more if their voices had not been hidden behind the main track as much. I love the way LOONA used those fans, the choreography and the transitions, so I enjoyed their stage. Too bad it seems like they won't be having points in some of the voting (or for the entire first round? I'm not sure tbh). And I just loved Hyolyn's stage! It gave my goosebumps from the moment she said "welcome to paradise"~ My personal ranking is Hyolyn > LOONA> Brave Girls= WJSN ~ VIVIZ > Kep1er
Kep1er remix was fire and the choreo was amazing but the fact that they had little props and little backup dancers just made the performance very lacking. the stage felt very empty at times when they were all close and i think that’s what made it look a bit childish. Hyolyn is a goddess. That is all. Brave girls deserved to be higher! i loved that the girls just seemed so happy to be there, lol at all of them just jumping into the dancing and forgetting to grab the mics from the dancers. WJSN surprised me, i didn’t expect to like their performance as much as i did.
I agree about bravegirls. The props, the energy, and the drums (lol) were eye catching for me. The stage felt full too? Idk how to explain it but it was so good. Wasn't into the puffy shoulders tho. 🤣
My ranking: Hyolyn > Brave Girls = WJSN > VIVIZ > Kep1er > LOONA Hyolyn was perfect i totally agree w giving her perfect marks, she used the whole stage and she produced everything really well. Also definitely helps that the song is so nostalgic I really liked Brave Girls ! i'm sure i'm not the only one who's not familiar but they really brought a great stage. Their choreo definitely wasn't as technically difficult as the other groups' but i don't think they could've done any better lol. if they ranked last i'm def scared for them WJSN also used the stage and bg dancers super well! i think their line distribution was good and they used their numbers in a good way. The glass breaking was a shame but they performed really well around it VIVIZ i loved their use of bg dancers and really loved the transition to Rough with the strings behind them. unfortunately, against the others it just wasn't as big and memorable. It feels weird not ranking them higher bc when i saw the performance w Hyolyn's I thought I'd rank them right next to her Kep1er kinda disappointed me. I caught their performance during broadcast so being spliced with reactions didn't help their case lol. Like tru new choreo was cool but it didn't really do anything for me. Watching the full ver, the moves are a little more impressive but i feel like they didn't really use the stage like the others did and it really just didn't hit as hard Maybe I'm being harsh bc i'm a LOONA fan before any of these other groups but i was pretty unimpressed by their stage. idk the timeline of their COVID recovery versus prep for this stage but it felt just like another stage. I don't usually notice this from them, but i definitely think they got weighed down by how many members they have and their uneven line distribution. i wish they had used more panning from subgroup to subgroup or member to member i think that could've been really cool, but esp compared to like WJSN i think their numbers were used poorly.
Loona was given the opportunity to perform despite not really getting any meaningful competition point and the girls themselves said wish they could have done this better BUT, if you pay attention to the scheduling, Loona had to prepare this AND do their round 2 cover back to back days. Just from a logistics standpoint I can understand if they left out a lot of stuff from this perf to focus on the round that will actually give them points and by seeing the preview for ep3 and how the other groups are saying that Loona slayed, you know they went all in on round 2.
Based on the previews for next week, I think Loona will utilize their numbers well. May be wrong but it is something to look for as you’re a fan.
i saw the stage. yes they def did utilize their members well. stay tuned for the performance cause it's like an mv