haha I was originally going to name this blog post “found my crack for 2018!” That crack was gonna be Produce 48 but it turns out to be Produce 101 Season 2. This post was going to be in the same vain as my Unpretty Star post back in March of 2015 in the conception of the post in my head! I am genuinely surprised at how amazing this show was from start to finish! Unpretty Rapstars wouldn’t have blown up if it wasn’t for Jessie and it’s the same thing here. The show would not have blown up if it weren’t for the people in it.
This is my second edition of thank god I know Korean and that my inconsistent, sporadic efforts of watching korean tv (and mining words while watching and HALF-ASSING my reviews as much as possible) from 2012 to 2015 weren’t for nil. It really would be a pain the ass if I had look up something every 10 seconds or watch it with english subs or japanes subs or something ( IT’S JUST NOT THE SAME)
<-– There’s so many interactions and convos that I loved to BITS in this show including this! unforuntaely I found out ahead of time that daniel’s group won before watching the eps since the mnet performance is already up on youtube since it’s already been over a year.
<- otome at full force!
< – I took this screenshot because they didn't blur his tattoos.
<- OMG Daehi’s handwriting! I took a picture because it looked interesting and unique to me. I notice there’s an OTOME quality to him that I like a lot!
<- mnet’s editing here added to the hilarity. I wonder how jisung felt about the edit.
It was a bunch of coincidences that lead to me discovering my crack! I got to the OMONA lj somehow from googling something that popped into my head. Then I saw matsui jurina and I was like what is she doing there? Then I found out produce 101 was collaborating with AKB48 and their sister groups for Produce 101 season 3. To me that that sounded SO INTERESTING and it’s something that I never thought I would ever see. By see I mean like having a jpop idol perform in front of the teachers of Produce 101. Seeing their reaction was as fun and satisfying as I imagined it to be! (I was sad to hear that yabuki nako’s audition won’t ever be released since it was deemed too sexual and inappropriate or something. I actually know that AKB song –tonari no banana- and I like it alot because it’s catchy and the lyrics are interesting. If you want to interpret the song “that” way you can but I never did. I just thought it was cute and relatable). I was into AKB48 to some extent in 2008 to 2011 since they were being pushed like crazy and I was into Japanese TV and I had my oshimen and others members that I liked and they had the AKBINGO show which could be very funny depending on the episode. However the year is now 2018 and most of the members I liked the left the group so I’m not into them as much though I will forever be Sashi’s fan! I did watch the speeches of the members when the group was at its peak. I do understand the appeal of Japanese idols that even though they may not be good at singing or dancing the fans love supporting them and watching them grow/improve and sometimes cute/fun is enough for the fans. So when I heard about the show 2 eps had already aired so I watched them and I felt very impatient for the 3rd ep and I felt gald I found out about it 2 weeks in rather than before it aired because the waiting game is killing me.
I had seen Produce 101 season 1 and I enjoyed watching it but I didn’t feel compelled to watch season 2 because I figured it’d be the same format so I’d be bored. Also I THOUGHT that I find girl groups more interesting than boy groups so I didn’t want to watch it. Also the IOI group wasn’t much of a success in my eyes with their lackluster debut song DREAM GIRLS (It’s very generic and boring. calling it the poor man’s into the new world (SNSD) would be a compliment) and the other 2 songs that weren’t up my alley. But then I found out that the group formed from the second season was actually successful and I was so impressed by their debut mv ENERGETIC because the song was catchy and the dance was captivating. I’m not into kpop or boy groups but it grabbed my attention and I watched it beginning to end (usually I fastforward 45 seconds, listen/watch a little bit and then stop when it comes to checking out kpop mv and stuff since not everything is going to grab me). In a Produce 48 video that MNET posted on naver/youtube that wasn’t included in the episode they featured ariyoshi risa and takada kenta from the previous produce 101 seasons. So I wanted to watch it because I was curious about this Japanese trainee. I decided to watch it during the 6 days of the week when produce48 doesn’t air. Also I figured it’d make produce 48 easier to watch since the format is nearly the same down to the stuff they make national producer representative say.
Even though I’m watching Produce 101 season 2 a year after its initial broadcasting as opposed to while it’s airing. It worked out better for me in that I love this show so much that after episode 3 or 2 or 4 I knew I had to watch this show every day to finish it ASAP. I’d die if I had to wait a week for an episode. I usually am patient and able to wait weeks or months to watch the next episode when it comes to TV shows… it never really hooks me to that point.
I think the only other male-idol competition shows I’ve seen were the one for WINNER and the one for becoming a member of IKON ( I could not watch the last episode but i hate live-finales anyway.) and Produce 101 season 2 blows both out of the water both in terms of performances and entertainment value.
I’m going to write my random observations, rambling and ruminations about the show.
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I thought it was hilarious when the idol trainees did sexy dance moves during the 1st two eps that made the Lee Suk Hoon (a very talented singer who was on immortal song way back when) feel uncomfortable lol. He’s a guy and he’s not gay so it was awkward…
They had so many ranking ceremonies in this show. I don’t know if they had more than the first season but it seemed like a lot but I wasn’t bored by it. Compared to the 1st season the ranks move more dramatically and unpredictably. I don’t remember being this emotionally invested, shocked, and connected for the first season. It was incredibly sad watching it at times but it’s just the reality of the idol world/television surival series. I sometimes fastfowarded the parts when BoA described the trainee before announcing his name or when they took forever to announce stuff but I definitely had to listen to any and all other talking.
I loved seeing the interactions/facial expressions/reactions/bonding between the trainees. It was evident from the first 2 episodes like when dong-bin got nervous during his bubblegum performance or when people did cringey dances or when lai guan lin and his fellow chick trainee did their dance fundamentals practice routine. I’m sure that was present in the 1st season but I didn’t love it to bits like I did for the second season. Surprisingly I loved the SPORTS FESTIVAL they did for episode 10(?). It was incredibly funny and fun to watch. A big part of the reason why it was so fun is because I got to know these trainees for the past 9 episodes and every episode is usually as long as a movie. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED the part when Jae-hwan started laughing like he lost his mind. I was genuinely jealous and happy that he was laughing and having so much fun rather than shocked. It reminded me of the pure joy and fun one experiences during childhood. Usually when they play game and stuff on korean talk/variety shows I never find it that funny and fast-forward the crap out of it but I savored each second for this show. In the same vain I was surprised I enjoyed watching the arm-wresling ( I loved their interactions like saying something to the opponent to intimidate them ) and the ghost scare prank ( omg daehi screamed with such a high-pitched voice. I love his otome-ness. I also love fujimon’s otome-ness). For produce 48 they did some scare prank too but it wasn’t as interesting or funny ( it was the typical uninteresting crap I expect from korean talk/variety shows that doesn’t do shit for me so I fast-forwarded). I absolutely loved the bonding they showed between the trainees. It was fun to watch and made me fuzzy inside. Something about this show is very special. They were incredibly lucky to have daniel kang and all the other trainees that were incredibly talented or interesting. I was in pure shock when I heard Daniel thought of joining show because jisung wanted to join the show because I thought of the what if’s…. I don’t think Produce 48 could ever surpass this show simply because they can’t have interactions/conversations/lines that are as memorable simply due to the language barrier. Even though the episodes are so long I feel so sad now that I can’t watch it anymore since there’s no more left.
(<—- hilarious!)
I loved the korean-ness of the show. By that I mean the ggal-ching (the thing you put in your shoes to make yourself taller), the lipstick, the cushion. I DID NOT realize Korean guys or kpop guys wear lipstick. for some reason I thought they stopped at guyliner. I was mistaken. I thought the Daniel's lips stood out sometimes but I never connected the dots in my head that that's lipstick. I think he did the gradation lip look at one point and it looked really good (unless that's his natural lip color). I also loved Daniel's blonde hair! That color works so well on him as if he's naturally blonde. I used to think that asians don't look good with blonde hair usually but I realized it just depends on the person and the shade of blonde.
I went into the show knowing that Daniel Kang won and during the first few eps I didn’t get why because he didn’t stand out. In fact he was never the center but sometimes I get the impression he’s the center of the particular performance because he stands out. It was apparent when I saw the 2 sorry sorry performances. People in daniel’s group had star quality and each person stood out while the people in the first group were difficult to remember/differentiate. I also noticed him whenever they put him in the shot for his facial reactions to stuff.
I could say so much more if I took notes or something while watching it but I loved the show way too much to be doing anything like that.
I noticed that in one of the earlier eps that they didn’t sub the second half of the episode. usually they do their editing/post-production thing where they put text on the screen to make it more interesting and fun to watch. most importantly, they add korean text whenever people talk so I don’t miss a word and generate anki cards with ease. I thought maybe they just ran out of time didn’t have time to add in the korean subtitles. I was annoyed though! there are english subs available for this show for anyone who like me is watching this with learning korean as another impetus to watch besides pure enjoyment and joy. I would’ve definitely turned the english subs on for those parts if I knew they existed (so I don’t miss out. english subs is better than no subs… in case the translator catches something i couldn’t catch) but I didn’t bother searching for english soft subs. But I watched one of eps with the english subs on a little bit because that part wasn’t subbed in korean very much but I quickly realized I probably am much better than the translator at korean. i realized the translator misheard 과정 as 가족 which are katei and kazoku respectively in Japanese and went to town with it lol (I’m sure all you anime/drama fansub watchers know what I’m talking about when the translator mishears or misunderstands stuff and then translates with all this confidence and you’re like…. surely you’re aware that you’re unsure yet you translation oozes of unwarranted confidence). Even if you were speed-translating or whatever you call it no fluent korean person would ever mis-hear/misunderstand like this (those words sound so different… bad sound quality or not) especially with the way it was used in the sentence for that particular instance.
At first I thought the lyrics of na ya na is melodramatic with parts like “I’m scared that this might be a dream.”However, later I realized how the lyrics of the song matches the show perfectly and isn’t melodramatic since being a trainee is so depressing. ( lol I pulled up more of the lyrics 너는 내게 너무 예뻐서 꿈일까 난 너무 두려워. guess it is melodramatic but I’ve grown to love the lyrics nonetheless ) In the episodes where they announce everyone’s rankings there’s a lot of surprises and I remember this one particularly trainee was shocked and couldn’t believe his name was called and if I remember correctly he said “is this a dream?” or something along those lines. Then I also thought how the lyrics apply to everyone since you can’t predict the results of the voting as evidenced by all the shocking, happy, and sad moments in the show during the ranking announcement ceremonies. It must be surreal to know you were one of the 11 people who got picked out 101 or 90 something trainees especially since BoA paused for a long time before announcing the name! (Well it’s not her fault). Other than the long pauses that BoA had to place I must say that MNET did a fantastic job with the live finale. I remember the kpop star season 1 finale being crappy in the way that live finales of competition shows are known for…
I thought it was hilarious how they used the dothraki background music from Game of Thrones on dong-ho (apparently he goes by baek ho in nu’est).
I recommend recording audio on clyp.it to ask people online to transcribe for you if you want that. I definitely use it when I get really curious and love whatever it is I’m watching.
Here’s a few of the questions I asked. I asked a lot of questions because I love this show and there’s 11 eps and each episode is at least 2 hours long so there’s definitely stuff I learned from the show.
1 2 3 4 5
I highly recommend this show to anyone who is remotely interested in it! It is hands down my favorite season of the PRODUCE series!
out of the final group my favorites are ji-sung ( i love talk/variety people), jae-hwan (his voice makes energetic that much more powerful), ong seong-wu ( love his unique last name, good looks, and talk/variety skills), kang daniel ( wow he deserves to number one), lee dae-hwi ( i only noticed him in the beginning for obvious reasons) , lai guan-lin ( loved his troublemaker routine with this trainee friend from cube and the part when they played charades and he was like i don’t know what that means and said PASS). So I will be very busy in the future trying to watch all the talk/variety show appearances by the members of WANNAONE (radio star, happy together, snl, WEEKLY IDOL – wow I can’t believe they made them perform nayana at 2x… etc etc LOL NEVER mind snl made them perform it at 8x ) because I want to learn more about them and my MO for talk/variety shows is usually watching the episodes that feature guests who pique my interest.
I decided to look up the meaning of words and take screenshots while watching the show so I can keep watching show instead of pausing to make anki cards. I think this might be more efficient since I’ll make the anki cards later on and just focus on that task instead of going back and forth between watching and making anki cards. Also giving myself that week between taking the screenshot and making the anki card may help in deciding to not add cards that aren’t worth adding if let’s say they use the word 10 times after I took the screenshot (at that point I may feel like I don’t need to make an anki card since I heard it being used so many times or make less cloze deletions). And as always native material didn’t fail me and I got some really cool and useful words/grammar (mostly vocab ) from this show! I don’t understand those people that still do textbooks despite having gained enough proficiency to go after native stuff.
On a random note, I heard that show me the money season 7 is actually 777 which made me think that it’s airing on 7-7-2018 (okay I realize now that the year is 2018 so it doesn’t match up 100% lol) and I got excited and overwhelmed because I feel like I have my hands full with produce 48 because the episodes are so long. But then I realized nothing aired on that day and I find out that the auditions are kicking off on 7-7 and the show is airing in September.
on another random note I love learning Korean from song lyrics especially rap stuff like ZICO because there’s wayaku available (japanese translation) and also english translations available. It saves me a lot of time because the problem is either I don’t know the words or I don’t know how to interpret or infer the intended meaning of the lyrics (since there’s no subject so you gotta infer that and more + any new cool, hip, lingo that I am not savvy on. I seem to have more problem understanding korean song lyrics since korean grammar is more complex than Japanese grammar to say the least lol. I think I read somewhere there’s 10x more grammar somewhere but who knows… japanese has less grammar and keeps it simple but has pitch accent to make up for the difficulty level lol) and I notice this happens way more frequently rap stuff and trying to tackle this with only a dictionary (especially korean korean one depending on the word ) or google is just time-consuming. This is kinda related since wanna one members collaborated with zico for the sub unit song and I mined from the wayaku while referencing the english translation.
random links
https://kpople.com/hidden-meaning-behind-open-up-choreography-produce-101/
No I am not writing to write platitudes about the benefits of making your own deck. I
cks that I found indispensable were the HEISIG deck WITH the top stories and the onomatopoeia decks
e kakitori to write actual Japanese words. I think I have 500 cards in that deck and it’s a struggle because I don’t have stories in all of them and I ain’t copying/pasting from the koohii site so some cards are easy and some are hard etc. I always wanted to go DO THE RTK again with an amazing pre-made deck and now I can.
erse way so that makes remembering the stories easier. I absolutely don’t mind. I live in America so I am used to filth!
onomatopoeia with huge anki intervals. So I did just that by importing these decks, tagging them, and combining them. With onomatopoeia the Japanese dictionary is usually more helpful but English can be helpful/more memorable too so I ran sanseido, wordquery for daijirin, meikyo and the j-e-dict to supplement the meaning to the cards. Then what I did was set up SPECIAL DECK SETTINGS. I made huge intervals so I’m not seeing them every day as you would with the default settings (that’s what it LEGIT feels like) and I made the STEPS a RIDICULOUSLY huge number like 190 years from now. I did this so I could get through the cards more quickly since not all the cards are worth learning whether it’s too easy/common or it’s low-quality for whatever reason which is possible since I didn’t make this. It’s easier for me to hit AGAIN than suspend on my nook ereader. Because I can’t hit AGAIN for the sake of again I only go through NEW CARDS for the day since I don’t actually have the option of pressing AGAIN for a card that I’ve already seen. Once I make it through all the cards I will look for the cards that are due in 190 years in that deck or search for stuff that’s in th
e learning phase and suspend and tag them, then I will change the anki settings so that I can mark AGAIN on future reviews and set the step to something reasonable like 2 days from now. RIGHT NOW I’m still in the phase of going through all the cards since I imported a bunch of crap from a Japanese site.
<– Soyu has been saying some fierce, cut-throat stuff on Produce 48…. I loved how she said this. It reminds me of the lyrics 前髪の造形に神経を奪われて from shiina ringo. I’m sure YOU KNOW someone like that. I sure do it’s damn irritating to be around people with bangs. They always put in a dramatic pause or sound effect before the trainers give feedback to the trainees. Of course as a viewer i try to predict whether they’ll say something positive or negative.
초롱이 ★ ごきげんよう 