Queendom Puzzle Episode 2 - REACTION

Thnx. I just checked it out. It's not bad, but it didn't blow my mind either. Her vocals did though 😁

crispy chicken

Hwi-seo - "....I wouldn't be surprised if she's even good at rapping" Check out her Hey Mama cover!!! Girl can rap!

Ah great! Hadn't noticed they uploaded 2 versions. Thnx again 👍

crispy chicken

Got ya. I don't really expect people to read my novels so I just wanted to make sure :) You need to watch the "Full Cam" videos. Those are the uncut versions, no reaction shots, all one camera. It's basically what the girls in the studio would have seen.

Marcel Wannieck

Thnx for the info, although I already had read it in your essay 😁 I had already watched some of the performances on youtube though, in the hopes of it being the uncut (no reaction cuts) full performance, but they still were cut and looked the same as in the show. So I stopped watching them. But since you pointed out some will be longer I might go watch them later 👍

crispy chicken

The performances that felt really short to you did so because Mnet didn't show them in their entirety. Soojin's cover of 28 Reasons was cut in half for example. She had an entire dance break that Mnet just cut from the episode.

Marcel Wannieck

I won't get into the scores because it's the contestants who voted, so they could easily have different reasons for voting other than quality, therefore I can't really agree or disagree. Ju-ri - "what's wrong with her voice?". I think ppl were just surprised about her singing tone being lower than her usual talking voice. Not that it was bad or anything. - I think she did pretty good. The performance lost a bit of energy towards the end though. Yeon-hee - I can see the Dahyun resemblance. - Mnet still trying to hype up the Rockets 🚀 vs the Bullets 🔫 'rivalry'. - Now THAT's how you do a new outfit reveal! - I think all the girls are getting more and more stingy with giving upvotes (probably because they already performed and got some downvotes). The standards are also getting raised. - She did very well imo. Very professional. Still had some nice sharp moves even with the broken shoe. I really enjoyed her performance. So-eun - "Would be nice if they covered Dreamcatcher". I agree, but apart from Lapillus' cover a month ago (and Rolling Quartz) I don't think any idol has officially covered DC in their whole 6.5 years of existence... 😔 - Her performance was ok for me, but short like you said. Soo-jin - Like I expected, it's so nice to see you recognize all these songs now 👍 - She did great. No critiques here. - She has a great name too 😭 Seo-yeon - (G)I-dle's leader is So-yeon (소연). "So" has the sound like in "go". This girl's name is Seo-yeon (서연). "Seo" has the sound like in "or". - What a refreshing attitude. And attitude is as much part of being an idol as their singing and dancing ability imo. Mi-ru - With 13 years of experience I expected just a little bit more. It was still good though. - The song did get a little bit boring for me though. Yu-ki - First part was great. The second part lost all the energy for me and I didn't like the dance and performance that much. Third part was good again. Sang-ah - So good to hear CLC - So good to hear Tomboy 😋 - Personally I didn't like her rapping voice that much. That's just my opinion. She certainly has the attitude but her rap wasn't as strong imo. Ye-eun - All 3 rappers back-to-back? Really Mnet? - Her performance was one of the best. So confident. I do think she can sing better than this, and I was hoping to hear her rap (not a fan of this song). I guess she keeps that in reserve. Hae-in - Her voice is so sweet. I'm melting 🫠 - The 2nd part was ok for me. Although she is one of the older idols here and therefore could theoretically pull off more mature concepts, but it still isn't her strong suit imo. - I wonder if this disappointing result, or the competitive nature of this show was the reason of her leaving. Very sad that she left though 😢 El-ly - Very confusing editing where they show both Chaerin's and Elly's intros first. - That passionate fan is very similar to Joy's (Red Velvet) legendary fan. You should look that up some time cause it's pretty funny 😁 - I think most of these girls will probably have sung this song in a noraebang/karaoke. - It was very short. She didn't seem nervous and looked like she was enjoying it. Too bad for that tiny mistake. Chae-rin - So, the Rocket Punch girls got low votes and then the last member said she felt she had to do extra well for them. Meanwhile, the Cherry Bullet girls got high votes which made the last member feel like she also had to do very well 😅. Seems like it doesn't matter what your members do, they will be pressured anyway 😅 - Yeah, her vocals were ok, but the performance was lacking for me. Joo-E - Taeyeon channeling Siyeon: Yes baby yes - "24 hours" is a popular Sunmi song - I expected a little bit more considering she also performed solo in a recent program (The Second World) and did very well there. Here she had to everything herself though. Hwi-seo - Great voice. Great performance, I wouldn't be surprised if she's even good at rapping. Ke-i - Excellent vocals (as expected of course, but she's also human, so she could've gotten nervous for example) and excellent performance. I always dislike it when lower ranked contestants don't get to choose. It seemed to work out fine here fortunately. One thing to remember with these shows is that all girls are used to be told what to do when performing with their respective groups. Their performances are usually made for them. And now in this show they suddenly get (some) artistic freedom. Just like in previous Queendoms it will be interesting to see how the girls will grow with that artistic freedom. It's one of my favorite things about this show actually. Seeing contestants discover more about who they are as (individual) artists, what they want to perform, and how to perform it.

crispy chicken

Hands Up is hands down my fav Cherry Bullet song 😄

crispy chicken

Strangely accurate

crispy chicken

yes daniel you're not alone, yeonhee does give dahyun vibes cause she looks a little like dahyun 😭 my rocket punch girls deserve better

bboshaki

And Mnet succeeded at painting Bora and Jiwon as evil, after that episode the girls received so much hate on social media especially Bora it’s crazy

Maureen

Thanks Marcel. I know there is a subtle difference but it was too difficult for me to describe. I’m just a novice with Korean so thank you for the detailed explanation!

Jared Mathews

- I fully agree with the comments about Dohwa's skirt. When you do something like that, the outfit that's revealed underneath should at least look noticably different. And as we shall see in a few minutes, another contestant actually understood that assignment! - Juri (Takahashi Juri 高橋朱里), born October 3, 1997. Originally debuted in 2011 in the Japanese idol group AKB48. She graduated from AKB in 2019 and then made her Kpop debut as a member of Rocket Punch that same year, after she had made first contact with Kpop when she competed in Produce 48 in 2018. - Performed song: Heart Burn by Sunmi (2022). - I wonder if Juri dyed her hair orange specifically because of this cover - The general vibe was there but idk, the performance felt a bit stiff? I don't know Juri that well but from what I've seen here she seems like a very bubbly and lively person and that didn't really come out here. It's like she was trying to copy Sunmi's demeanor from the original MV but didn't quite nail it. Ended up with very static expressions. Yeonhee (Kim Yeon-hee 김연희), born December 6, 2000. Debuted in 2019 as the leader of Rocket Punch. - Performed song: Dumb Dumb by Jeon Somi (2021). - Two Rocket Punch members back to back! - I can't even imagine the panic that must flood into your mind when you're just about to start and your shoe opens like that. - Yes, THAT'S how you do a mid-performance outfit change! - YEONHEE GIRL WTF CALM DOWN - Even with her shoe open, to me it looked like she was performing with full force. - Yo wtf is up with that score - Damn, that shoe didn't just open, it straight up broke. - Soeun (Park So-eun 박소은), born October 26, 2002. Debuted in 2020 as the main dancer and lead vocalist of Weeekly. - Performed song: 28 Reasons by Seulgi (2022). - That felt incredibly short because the Mnet cucks just cut out half of the fucking performance! Here is the FULL thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=018r5a_QGpo - The entire dance break is missing from the episode. This is also evil editing btw. It's not only creating fake drama, it can also be obscuring the most important parts of a performance. - And there is no excuse for it. They waste so much time with unnecessary fluff but then remove the stuff that actually matters? They could EASILY fit all 15 FULL performances in this 2 hour episode if they wanted to. But obviously Mnet doesn't want Soeun to win, so they don't show her fully. - About the performance itself (including the bits that were not shown here), it was very good! Not mindblowing or anything but that dance break was a highlight. - Soojin (Lee Soo-jin 이수진), born December 12, 2001. Debuted in 2020 as the leader and main dancer of Weeekly. - Performed song: Flower by Jisoo (2023). - And again, two members of the same group right after each other. - Before debuting in Weeekly, Soojin competed on YG's survival show Mixnine in 2017. Sadly she was involved in a car accident which forced her to drop out. But tbh, Mixnine was a whole accident in itself. The group that was supposed to debut from it never did. But I won't get into details now. This is not the place for that. - Unfortunately, the original Flower already does nothing for me. And this cover is the same. It actually starts out really nice with those tango-ish sounds. But when the actual song starts, it's just the same: a song and performance which I personally just don't vibe with. - You keep asking why when someone downvotes. A thing I've noticed is that the girls get way harsher in their judgements the longer this recording session goes on. Maybe it's because they're all getting tired on this very long day, maybe they're starting to think about their voting more strategically. It could be a lot of factors. But I'll also say that the average quality of the performances in this episode is not as high as in the first episode. - Unlike Soeun's performance, this one was not cut short by Mnet. No, you didn't miss a tango dance break. That would have been a really cool thing though! - Seoyeon (Yoon Seo-yeon 윤서연), born August 6, 2003. She was actually the first member of tripleS to be revealed all the way back in May 2022. However, her actual debut on a song and album was with Rising in February 2023. And she's also part of the subunits +(KR)ystal Eyes and LOVElution (upcoming). - Performed song: Cherry Talk by tripleS +(KR)ystal Eyes (2023). - No, Soyeon and Seoyeon aren't pronounced the same. There are two different „o“ sounds in Korean, ㅗ and ㅓ. ㅗ is a deeper, more closed off sounding „o“. This is what (G)I-DLE Soyeon has in her name: 소연. ㅓ on the other hand is a more open, ligher and airier „o“. This one gets transcribed with „eo“ in the Latin alphabet. This is the one that tripleS Seoyeon has: 서연. (Important: there is no „e“ sound in there at all! It's just there to differenciate it from the other „o“. This applies to Yeoreum's name too, which you've started to pronounce as „Yereum“ for some reason) The difference in pronounciations can be subtle if you're not familiar with the language but it does exist. You need to consider that the Korean alphabet literally has double the amount of vowels compared to the Latin alphabet. There had to be compromises. And once again I will take this opportunity to recommend you learn the Korean alphabet. It's really easy (took me two days) and it helps a ton with pronounciations! In my humble opinion, every serious Kpop fan should know the alphabet. Even if you don't know the language itself at all, just being able to decypher the letters makes so much content more accessible! - But to get back to the topic at hand, I like Seoyeon a lot! tripleS is one of the very few groups where I watch more content beyond the music. They have a daily vlog series called Signal and since Seoyeon was literally the first one, I had ample time to get to know her. From the first two weeks with her alone in the Haus, all shy and awkward, to now where she's so outgoing and effortlessly funny with 13 other group mates. She's gone through a huge transformation! - Ok, now Mnet is starting to get really weird with their editing. Showing the score before the performance, what was that about? - And of course they also cut out the prechorus. Lovely. Here's the full thing if you want to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_y7LtTCtd8 - Seoyeon is by far the candidate with the least amount of experience and yes, it shows in her performance. Even though nothing went wrong per se, the score makes sense to me. But I just love her attitude. Seoyeon is never going to win this show and she knows it. She's just here to have fun, see great performances and learn a lot. This is her first time on a surivial show and I really think it's going to help her improve so much. I mean, just look back a year, when she first started training. This girl could not dance at all. And now she's here! If she keeps this up, she'll go quite far in her career. And I know she will, she has that drive in her. - I would actually love to know what the other tripleS girls would have been like on Queendom Puzzle. Be it the dance machines like Hyerin and Nakyoung (Bibi's sister) or someone like Chaeyeon who already has eight years of idol experience. Or Kotone, just to spite Mnet 🤠 But on second thought, they would probably just edit Kotone out of the show like they did on Girls Planet - Miru (Shiroma Miru 白間 美瑠), born October 14, 1997. First debuted in 2010 in NMB48, competed on Produce 48 in 2018 and graduated from NMB in 2021. Unlike her friend Juri, Miru hasn't gone into Kpop yet, instead releasing solo music in Japan. - Performed song: Shine Bright by Shiroma Miru (her solo debut, 2022). - The singing was good but imo the performance could have been better if she used the space and moved around the stage. She was alone there and with her just staying in one place the entire time it makes the performance seem quite small. - That moment when Juri (Japanese) needs some help in her Japanese from Suyun (Korean) - I think another factor is that the Kpop industry is very different from the Jpop industry. It's much harsher and the standards for performance are way higher. It's easy to feel overwhelmed. Yuki (Mori Koyuki もうりこゆき), born November 6, 2002. Debuted in 2021 as the main rapper and lead dancer of Purple Kiss. - Performed song: Who Cares by Yuki herself. This is not really a full song. Before Purple Kiss debuted, all seven of them released an individual debut trailer with an original one-minute song performance. This one was Yuki's. - I'm not entirely satisfied with this one. The original song is just over a minute long. Since this round required a two minute performance, this had to be extended somehow. So when Yuki said that she wanted to show her skills as a rapper, I was hoping that she had written a new rap verse that really shows her improved skills since predebut. But she went with a dance break instead. Which was overly long and not that impressive in my opinion. I may sound harsh but I know what Yuki is capable of and that's why my standard for her is so high. - And the mistake in the lyrics (which she wrote herself, mind you) is not helping. - Sangah (Yoon Sang-ah 윤상아), born September 4, 2002. Debuted in 2021 as the main rapper and lead dancer of Lightsum. - Performed songs: Black Dress by CLC (2018) and Tomboy by (G)I-DLE (2022). - Damn, Cube is actually allowing one of their idols to acknowledge CLC's existence? To even cover one of their songs?? - Ah yes, the classic Mnet editing style of repeating the most minor of mistakes at least three times. And it's even funnier here because I just watched the full version of the performance and you can't even hear the mistake there. - The English rap in Tomboy still makes no sense but I'm here for the vibes. - This was good! Obviously it's tough to stand in the shadow of giants like Yeeun and Soyeon but Sangah pulled it off. - Yeeun (Jang Ye-eun 장예은), born August 10, 1998. Debuted in 2015 as the main rapper of CLC and just recently made her solo debut after Cube dropped CLC like some pile of trash. Those fucks. - Performed song: Cherry Coke by Yeeun (2023). - I'm willing to bet that Cube is petty enough to not even let Yeeun perform a CLC song. - Sadly I don't like the original song much. It's not great at showing off Yeeun's skills. - I'll admit that this performance is better than the original song and Yeeun is one of the most comfortable people on stage here. But I'll also remain with my opinion that a different song would have been way better at showing us her biggest asset: her rap skills. She barely did any rapping here. - Haein (Yeom Hae-in 염해인), born May 19, 1995. Debuted in 2014 as the lead dancer of Laboum. - Performed songs: Fresh Adventure (aka Journey to Atlantis) by Laboum (2016) and she used the instrumental of Laboum's Between Us (2018) for the dance break. - Yes, this is a thing that happens sometimes. Kpop groups perform for enlisted soldiers, probably to boost morale or something. This is actually how Brave Girls went viral in 2021. A video compilation appeared of them performing Rollin for the military and the soldiers went fucking WILD for it. - I don't know, maybe purely instrumental dance breaks just don't get good results here? That's just a guess. Yes, I would have preferred her to sing parts of Between Us as well but this is a REALLY low score. - You like her? Well, I'm sorry but you won't see much more of her because she's the other one that dropped out next to Chaeyeon. Seems like she just realised what kind of a competition this really is. And with the low score she got, she probably thought „nope, this isn't for me“ and left. And honestly? Good for her. Why subject yourself to something you know you're not gonna enjoy? And now we're going into the weirdest bit of editing I've ever seen on an Mnet show. And that's saying something. So, Chaerin is introduced as the next performer. And then they just randomly switch to Elly because „she's also nervous before her stage“??? Continue with a bit about how people don't know her because everyone just focuses on Yoojung and Doyeon in Weki Meki. Like, okay, but what's your point? Then it's Elly's performance but we don't get the score, instead going immediately into Chaerin's performance and both scores are revealed together. I'm sorry but that's not even evil editing. That's just stupid nonsensical editing. The flow of the episode is thrown off so much and it makes for a very weird viewing experience. Anyway. - Elly (Jung Hae-rim 정해림), born July 20, 1998. Debuted in 2017 as a vocalist of Weki Meki. - Performed song: Sonata of Temptation by Ivy (2007) - And in addition to the editing weirdness before the performance, Mnet again doesn't show the full thing. Here is the full performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Vv3zTop8I - I actually really like this one. Elly is hella charismatic, great stage presence, good vocals. I don't get the low score. - Chaerin (Park Chae-rin 박채린), born March 13, 2002. Debuted in 2019 as the main dancer of Cherry Bullet. - Performed song: Bicycle by Chungha (2021). - So because of the asinine editing courtesy of Mnet, Chaerin doesn't even get a proper introduction. As soon as we were supposed to get to know a little about her, they just randomly switched to Elly. - Of course, Mnet cut this one short too, so here's the full thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHtEww4DmF0 - However, even the full version doesn't really help this performance. Chaerin has the disadvantage that her own group mate Jiwon also covered a Chungha song. And while Jiwon really embodied the spirit of Chungha perfectly, Chaerin doesn't. And it's not because of the little mistakes. It's the whole thing overall. The energy is way too low, she doesn't have the necessary charisma here. I read a comment somewhere saying that it looks like someone woke Chaerin up that morning and told her that she's going on Queendom Puzzle where she has to perform Bicycle. Obviously that's a very harsh assessment but I don't entirely disagree. This is one of the few times where the low score is sadly completely justified. - I know that Chaerin can do way better than this. This just wasn't the right song for her. - JooE (Lee Joo-won 이주원), born August 18, 1999. Debuted in 2016 as the lead vocalist and lead dancer of Momoland. - Performed song: 24 Hours by Sunmi (2013). - Taeyeon, behave yourself 👀 - JooE was probably like „I wanna do a sexy performance. Who's gonna stop me? My agency? What agency?“ - This is interesting because it goes so completely against the image she had in Momoland. There she was always known as this super bright, ultra positive cute girl. And that's still true of her own personality. I understand why this performance rubbed some people the wrong way. - I don't think it's that bad and I believe that she could really pull this concept off. But it's obvious that she needs help. Having to do everything all by herself is a huge disadvantage. - Hwiseo (Jo Hwi-hyeon 조휘현), born July 31, 2002. She made her debut in 2022 when she joined H1-Key for their first comeback after one of the original members left. - Performed songs: Rose Blossom by H1-Key (2023) and Tomboy by (G)I-DLE (2022). - First of all, HWISEOOOOOOOO 🔥🔥😍❤️🥰💓🤩🔥🔥 - I'm sorry, this girl just completely stole my heart here. Huge crush going on rn - „Looks like she's about to perform Tomboy or something“ lol - But I'm not sure if we needed both H1-Key members to sing Rose Blossom. Yes, I know this song is huge in Korea. But it still would have been nice if Riina did another song, like Athletic Girl for example. Show more of the range of H1-Key. - HER EYES. AAAAAA. - And just like that, Hwiseo entered my top 7 and I now have a hard bias in H1-Key. And all that from the girl that really did not stand out to me at all in the first H1-Key song she was in. Hwiseo is amazing. With just this one performance she has made herself one of the three girls that will always remain in my top 7, together with Nana and Bora. - And it kinda makes sense. While Hwiseo only debuted about a year ago, she trained for 9.5 years! That's Jihyo levels of training time. - When you're so close to perfection, you start to wonder what you could have done to get those last few missing points. I relate to Hwiseo here. I got 99 out of 100 points on the final oral exam of my apprenticeship. And I don't know where I was missing that one last point. I even asked my teacher who gave me that score and she couldn't tell me either. - Kei (Kim Ji-yeon 김지연), born March 20, 1995. Debuted in 2014 as the main vocal and lead dancer of Lovelyz and has also made a solo debut in 2019. - Performed song: Destiny by Lovelyz (2016). - oof, the voice. Gives me chills. - But I need to be honest, I was expecting more. Especially after the INSANE performance Bora gave us last week. Destiny is a much easier song than My Sea, plus it's a Lovelyz song that Kei has been singing for seven years now. Add to that the fact that Kei didn't sing the whole thing live and relied on the backing track a couple of times, including during the chorus. But let's wait and see. Unlike Bora who went full force from the word go, I believe that Kei is playing her cards close to her chest. She's not showing us everything. Not yet. - Yeah, not surprised about the score. The girls here know what Kei can do and that she didn't show it all yet. And with that we're done with the first round of performances. No, I'm not going to rank them all. There are 28 of them and this comment is getting way too long already! - „How much stuff does Kei have in her back?“ Microphone transceivers. If you look closely, you'll see that all of them have those. - Look at Mnet attempting to create drama by showing the girls who voted them up or down. And failing because everyone just takes it in a really professional and almost wholesome way. - What the hell is an „ethnic flute“? - AYO RYAN JHUN YOU IDIOT. YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOON. WHY THE HELL DID YOU DISBAND BUGABOO? YOU HAD A GOOD THING GOING ON THERE AND YOU RUINED IT. Just goes to show that you can be the best producer but still know jack shit about managing an actual group. Man, this sucks, bugAboo were so great. - No, signal song performances are always intended to be seen before the show. You're good. They're probably not even going to show the whole performances in the show itself, just like the other Mnet shows. - Oh wow, that's a really old photo they're using of Bora. - Cherry Bullet just hold all of the power here. As they should. People need to stop sleeping on them. And by „people“ I mean their own agency. Come on FNC, why so few comebacks? Why do these girls get more survival shows than albums? - Looks like pretty much everyone got the song they wanted. That's a first. - The whole team selection process had a really weird vibe about it. Both Jiwon and Bora seemed like they really didn't want to be there. They were probably instructed to pick one, drop one, in another attempt from Mnet to create tension. As if the „dropped“ candidates aren't worthy or something. When in reality it's just two teams being formed. It would have been much nicer if Bora and Jiwon were allowed to just form balanced teams without thinking of „dropping“ people. But there just had to be this annoying element of tension in it. - I'm very concerned that Mnet are going to use this to paint Bora and Jiwon as some kind of villains. And then Bora misses the win AGAIN. - I don't even understand why they were obscuring Jiwon's last pick. We already saw the performances, we know who is in which team. - To be completely fair, you don't know most of these girls all that well and you definitely didn't know them when you watched the performances. I would have been very surprised if you had remembered the exact team compositions. - Being picked or dropped doesn't mean anything. You're just being divided into two teams, that's all. - Hm, not sure about Bora's decision to put all three rappers in one team. It's quite imbalanced that way. And coming from the person who talks about the importance of the team balance. - As long as you watch Korean content, you will NEVER escape the MBTI. Not even if you restrict yourself to the music only because NCT Dream's next album is called ISTJ. And you guessed it, that's one of the 16 MBTI types. - If you want to understand, just take the test yourself. Takes about 15 minutes: https://www.16personalities.com - This just shows that the „dropped“ team is not necessarily worse. I mean, you got Kei and Hwiseo together on the same team! - Come on now Mnet, don't make this the Cherry Bullet vs. Rocket Punch show. - This preview snuck up on me. I didn't even realise it was a preview until it was almost over. You picked up on it way quicker than I did. - Tbh, this episode felt weird. From the really strange editing during the performance part to the unnecessary tension in the team assembly. I hope it gets better next week. - Hey, I have actually followed H1-Key from the very beginning and Hwiseo still surprised me. And a little thing on the pronounciation of her name: You tend to say „Hwisoo“. Try pronouncing it as „Hwi-saw“. That's much closer to how you actually say it. Same thing with Yeonhee. You're saying something like „Yoonhee“ but that's an entirely different name. [insert propaganda about learning the Korean alphabet bc it's really easy and an immense help with pronounciations] My vote for this week: - Hwiseo. Do I need to explain myself? - Nana. She might not be my ultimate no. 1 anymore but she still owns my entire soul. - Bora. I desparately need this girl to win. - Yeoreum. Dance machine. - Yeeun. While Cherry Coke isn't my favourite, I am well aware of her skills and this group could use some of that. - JooE. Yeah, 24 Hours wasn't perfect but I know what she can do! - Suyun. She might have struggled with the ultra high pitched vocals but man, does this girl have charisma. Her presence and my knowledge of her from Rocket Punch contributed here. Honorable mentions go out to Jiwon, Yeonhee and Kei. If I were to vote again, they might even make it in. It was a VERY close decision.

Marcel Wannieck

"Seo and So are pronounced the same even though they are spelled differently." Eh, not really. There is a (very subtle but real) difference. I'm gonna copy a part from my comment that I'm still writing as I haven't finished the episode yet: There are two different „o“ sounds in Korean, ㅗ and ㅓ. ㅗ is a deeper, more closed off sounding „o“. This is what (G)I-DLE Soyeon has in her name: 소연. ㅓ on the other hand is a more open, ligher and airier „o“. This one gets transcribed with „eo“ in the Latin alphabet. This is the one that tripleS Seoyeon has: 서연. The difference in pronounciations can be subtle if you're not familiar with the language but it does exist.

Marcel Wannieck

Yeah, I never knew there was a military billboard either. Also, my bet for Bora's downvote is Kei. Chaeyeon is a given since she said she gave everyone a down. I feel bad for most of the 2nd ep performances. Everyone did seem to get more critical as things went and honestly I thought some were better than ones that got higher votes early on. For this episode my fav hands down is Miru. It may not be entirely for the right reasons in terms of competition but the longer it gets since I first got into kpop the more moved I am by acts of kindness (since I see so much of the toxic side in places like Twitter)and there was such a gentle sincerity in Miru that she automatically has me rooting for her. Also hoping Elly does well bc everyone including me sleeps on Weki Meki too much. Am glad those stages are finally done though. Quick question, are you considering reacting to SWF 2 when it comes out? I think it's sometime late August when it airs. I'm particularly excited about that since Lia Kim is participating

Laura

Chaerin is a very talented girl and even though I'm tired of FNC sending their groups and especially my girls Cherry Bullet on these types of show instead of giving them promotions. At least this give the opportunity to show more of Chaerin outside of her acting skill. I remember watching Cherry Bullet - Hands up MV and being mesmerized by this girl, she had so much charisma in it. And I'm sure that once she gain more confidence she will be insane and blow our mind just like she did in the SNAP performance video.

Maureen

I don't wanna be mean, but the evaluation performances this ep got me thinking they are just a bunch of jealous ****** (insert the word you like), who use the tiniest mistakes to excuse their downvoting. That's why I usually prefer boygroups; LeSserafim, New Jeans and GFriend the only gg I find somewhat okay.

Beppeli

Seo and So are pronounced the same even though they are spelled differently. The seo in Hwi-Seo and Seo-Yeon are still pronounced like the English word so. The order that mnet shows us the performances isn't the actual order that they performed in but it does seem that contestants were less likely to upvote someone later on in the round. My opinion is that once you already performed and got your score it's easier to make the choice to downvote someone else to keep your spot. Take Hwiseo for example, besides Chaeyeon I can think of 3 people who had the most to gain by downvoting her. The current 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. If any of them upvoted her they would likely be conceding their place. Now we don't know who actually downvoted who except Chaeyeon :) but this is a competition and ranking high in this does have rewards associated with it. Juri - I thought she did well but she didn't do anything to differentiate her version from the original so I think that may be why she got so few up votes. Yeonhee - I was really impressed with her performance. I think she at least deserved more up votes than down votes. I would have expected in the 18-20 range. Soeun - I was disappointed in myself for not recognizing her outfit earlier. I'm going to blame it on lack of screen time in the first episode. Mnet only showed half of her performance in the show and in my opinion the second half was more interesting. Soojin - I liked it. Again Mnet cut out like half of the performance. I enjoyed how you clowned yourself into thinking she was performing somebody else's kpop song called Flower :) Seoyeon - I can't believe Mnet showed us the results before the performance! When I watched this later with my friend I warned her to look away until the performance actually started. If Seoyeon can barely walk in those damn heels how do they expect her to dance in them? I liked her personality and the performance was cute but I agree with her expecting to get 0 votes. My expectation of Queendom Puzzle is that it's different from Produce and Girls Planet because those shows are for trainees and amateurs to improve their base skills and Queendom Puzzle is for experienced contestants whose groups have either disbanded or are lacking popularity to get a second chance. Anyways I'm sure she'll improve during the show and I look forward to seeing more of her. Miru - thank god Miru is here to balance out Chaeyeon. Just remove 1 up and down vote from everyone to see the real score :) I enjoyed Miru's performance. Her vocals were better than I expected but I think she got most of the downvotes for the choreography. I don't think the choreo was up to current kpop standards but her stage presence was excellent. I loved how Taeyeon was like I know Miru doesn't know Korean well so let's have her friend Juri say something to her. Then Juri started speaking to Miru in Korean and when she switched back to Japanese Suyun had to help her finish her sentence :) Yuki - She performed her solo song Who Cares from her debut trailer. All 7 Purple Kiss members had short MVs for original solo songs to announce the members pre-debut.(hint hint). Since the original song is only like a minute and a half and Mnet told them they were allowed 2 minutes she added a dance break. Despite the small mistake at the end I think she did a good job and got a fair score. I feel like most of her down votes came during the dance break section because most of the other contestants can't claim to be a better rapper than Yuki but many of them are main dancers and can easily justify a downvote when comparing their dancing to hers. Sangah - I'm not sure if she knew Yeeun was in the show when she picked her songs but I don't think the song choices worked out for her. Also I would have liked her to promote some of Lightsum's music instead of just doing a Cube medley as Yeoreum put it. I liked her in the snap performance more. Yeeun - Loved the helicopter reference at the start. I really liked her performance but I'm still not a big fan of Cherry Coke as a song. I'm just hoping for more screen time as she got almost nothing in the first episode. Chaerin - Bicycle was too difficult of a song for her I think and the performance was a bit of a mess. Again she was good in Snap so I'm looking forward to seeing more from her. Elly - it also reminded me of road to kingdom. Both Golden Child's performance and the Boyz Shangri-La performance as that also incorporated the moonlight sonata. I thought her performance was fine. I'd maybe give her 7 or 8 upvotes. JooE - She impressed me on Second World so I know she can sing. I don't think Sunmi's 24 hours was the right song for her. She could have shown off the super sexy concept better with a different song. I respect her for doing this alone and I love her personality but I didn't like this performance. Hwiseo - My favorite performance of the episode by far. Her live vocals and stage presence and dancing were all great. My only disappointment was that she took off that cool leather jacket with the spikes :) As I mentioned at the start of this essay I think she deserved more than 23 upvotes but it's a competition and I think she couldn't have gotten any more even if she somehow managed to do even better. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mnet for the first time ever for introducing me to her cover of Hey Mama! I know you don't take requests so maybe something to enjoy on your own time but damn this girl is incredible. I didn't check out H1-Key before this show but now I have a bias! I hope someone lets her know that Bora didn't pick her because she was too good and didn't want to have to share the spotlight/main vocal position with her. Kei - I've loved Kei since the matchmaking episode with Hwasa on Queendom 1. So I expected more from this performance than what we got. With Mnet showing us the first 30 seconds of the performance at the end of the last episode I got it into my head for some that after the opening she was going to switch songs and do something shocking. I love Destiny but I always associate it with Oh My Girl because that's the first time I heard it. I thought Kei did a good job but I wasn't sure why she choose to not sing parts of the song. I complained about Wooyeon not singing half of Taeyeon's song so I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't a little disappointed that Kei didn't sing several parts of her own song. I don't think the dancing was too intense to need to lip sync but what do I know. Part of me wonders if Kei chose to not give it her 100% to be able to show improvement and growth during the show. With Bora I'm worried that she'll struggle to top her first performance since I assume most of the songs Mnet picks for the rounds won't be as vocally challenging as My Sea. With Snap I think Kei picked it knowing that she would be directly competing against Bora as the main vocalist of each group and I prefer Kei's version of Snap to Boras. I'm rooting for both Bora and Kei because I prefer groups with multiple main vocalists. The Puzzle Studio Segment - I'm glad you were able to trick yourself into forgetting the lineup :) Watching while already having memorized the lineups from watching both Snap and Charismatic so many times definitely drained any suspense out of it for me. I enjoyed seeing the reasoning behind why they picked who they did. I loved how Bora heard Snap and was like oh it's a rap heavy song so I'm going to take all 3 main rappers so the other team can't have any. I appreciated Dohwa's attitude when picked since it's just a different team. Calling it the Drop team doesn't actually mean anything. It's just team 2. Also with Bora not choosing Kei and Hwiseo the drop team still has a good chance at winning. As a plory I appreciated Bora recognizing Yuki's talent. Overall with the teams I'm very happy the ranks didn't play too much into it. All 4 teams have someone from tier 4 and 3 teams have someone from tier 1 so there was a good mix. It makes me feel like Bora and Jiwon were thinking this through instead of just taking all the 1's and 2's and calling it a day. Top 7: Yeeun, Yeoreum, Yuki, Nana, Kei, Bora, and Jiwon Hopefully with the individual performances over I'll be able to stop writing an essay on every episode :) Thank you so much for the reaction as always and I look forward to next week!

Jared Mathews

These point system are about as useful as DBZ / DB GT power levels.

KyrainMcLeod

I loved how both strategic Bora and Jiwon were when thinking about their picks and drops. For Bora it was more of who do I need to help complete this song and if I choose this person we may clash since we have similar skills. For Jiwon it was more who were the charismatic (bold or confident) performers that catched her eye and vocals.

Justin Beasley

Thank you for still getting the reaction done today despite the neighbors construction! I appreciate that you had to adjust your schedule to make time for us.

Jared Mathews

What a fun reaction. Thanks! Lol you forgetting you already knew the lineup was great. It's easy to get so into the tension that the show builds up. If some performances feel short, it's probably because mnet cut them short. The full cam videos have the whole thing, so for example, there's a whole minute more of 28 Reasons by Soeun (the girl who covered Seulgi) Hwiseo also took me by surprise. Both of the H1-KEY girls did, actually. I'd never checked out their music until now, so I'm glad they're in the show Miru is so incredible. She's the unexpected contestant that has me falling for her Mnet also released a ten minute video of the first groups getting to the Puzzle Studio building and hanging out. It's cute and sweet Thank you for uploading the episode today despite having difficulties. I'd been looking forward to watching your reaction for it all week, so thank you so much for your hard work :D

Aegiey

Tier one was almost what i predicted i just hope than next time Kei will move up again and i want to see Miru and Juri at least on a Tier 2

fabrice maire

Kei great as expected deserve many up vote but still less good than Bora .

fabrice maire

Hwiseo great surprise nobody i'am sure predicted a resulte that good . nothing to said she great let's see where how she can grow .

fabrice maire

Wow I cant imagine the pressure some of them have, as a fan I'd much rather have a fun showcase of their talents and mixing into new teams, like Girl's Re-verse.

bravemoomoo

JOEE first so much respect for her to continue her career without any manager or staf since the disband of Momoland . but i thin k she got lot of downvote because despite the fact than many girls said than Joee is sexy ( because of her very short outfit ) in fact Joee is well know and popular for being bubbly , fun and Cute with her pigtail and her baby face . seeing her like that look like a dissonence in a matrix . not every body can kill a sexy concept even some very popular idols . that why i thin got a manager could be necessary for this kind of reason . it's good to be free to do what you want but she's not free she seems unleash .

fabrice maire

after that they became carzy harsh the festival of review bombing Elly ,Chaerin got to many undeserve downvote .

fabrice maire

DG if you want react on LABOUM and made a spotlight episode i think you will enjoy they're last songs at the end of the career Laboum got mature or dark songs . like BETWEEN US ,TURN IT ON

fabrice maire

yes we got that every year on military some GG who struggle to be on top made they're career performing in various base in a country some groups became very popular thanks to the support of the soldiers . usualy the GG who perfomre are the most "sexy" Girls day , Sistar ,Brave girls ,Fiestar ,Besties ,9muses ,EXID but sometime a cute group make an huge impact on soldier . during they're era Laboum and Lovelyz got a same concept so they end as a rival .

fabrice maire

HAEIN first i use to love laboum i was in military during they're era i see groups like Girls day ,Laboum , Exid a lot on military. Haein is cool i 'am sad than she left the show after that . she didn't deserve that low vote her song was quit good and Journey to atlantis was a very popular songs back in a day like "Rollin " for Brave Girls .

fabrice maire

Yeeun will be for sure in a final line up . mostly because i think she's the most versatile girls on a show she can nailed any kind of concept the girl crush concept fit her but she can be also very cute and shy , or very feminine with her song Barbie deserve all upvote .

fabrice maire

Yuki she forgot one line of her lyrics but she did a great job , she as a great stage presence and her song is great . to me she deserve 15 upvotes . DG purple kiss cameback with a new performance video call LOVE IS DIE if you got time to react on it one day that will be cool .

fabrice maire

Miru got a great song and voice but she look a little be nervous and her dance look like she as a bug . again i know but i will said that for all of them it's not an amzing performance but that don't deserve less than 10 up votes .

fabrice maire

yop that why i love Miru so much i loved her in produce 48 in a blink of eyes . Bora is super nice but Miru this girl is an angel in leather jacket .

fabrice maire

nop DG her name is Seoyeon not like our girl from (g)idle . but don't worry i'am horrible with name to . and many people are like us . she did great despite the fact than she never had a peirod of training . she didn't deserve less than 10 up vote . they're way to harsh .

fabrice maire

Soojin deserve to me maybe 16 up votes her version of Flower was so cool.

fabrice maire

no DG i think we don't need to find a reason for why this girl down vote another one . sometime they got legit reason but most of the time they just downvote an potential rival or threat for them .

fabrice maire

I agree with you DG i want a see somebody cover a Dreamcatcher songs i never see that in any survival show or show since they're debut and i watch pretty much all show .

fabrice maire

Yeonhee performance was lit she deserve more up vote she did a great job ,choose a great song and can manage her shoes malfunction .

fabrice maire

I have often defended MNET for their "editing" but what I hate with them is the fact of setting up rules that can create tensions. when Bora and Jiwon went to select their team it was not necessary to mark Pick and DROP they don't want to drop anyone they just choose a team. the same it is not necessary that the girls are the list of people who have downvoted them. it doesn't change anything in the end because the girls know what they're getting into.

fabrice maire

like i said nobody deserve less than 10 upvote nobody crash and made a very bad performance . some forgot they're lyrics , some got outfit malfunction , other mess with they're choréo but nothing very big .

fabrice maire

the girls completely lost all objectivity after the first 12/13 performances / I think a lot of girls downvote girls who could be threats to them. even Bora got tougher. I think the girls realize it too but despite the fact that they are idols they are the least legitimate to vote because they cannot do it in a completely objective way. since they are in competition

fabrice maire

Yuri is a mood maker like many japanese idols i think that could be great if she end in a final line up .

fabrice maire