ROAD TO KINGDOM EPISODE 2 - REACTION
Added 2022-06-19 11:49:26 +0000 UTCJust in case the video doesn't start for ya, here's a link -
https://vimeo.com/721890989/2062589c78
Comments
A couple things about this season that I haven’t seen in the comments: TOO were at many serious disadvantages from the very beginning. They had a small fan base that only existed at the time because of the show they started from, and they only had one song, so they didn’t have a big discography to draw from or play with like the other groups. A couple members have now left (they are actually on Boys Planet). Golden Child doing T.O.P in this episode is not what I would’ve called a good move. That song is known for being troublesome (as the original lyrics use the n-word and groups that cover it are generally looked at these days as distasteful or fans feel like they are being set up to fail (like when Ateez were forced to perform it at an award show in 2022 and you could tell that they WERE NOT happy. The only time I’ve seen the group not try to put 200% effort in on stage).
I_KPOP_Fan
2023-03-17 06:48:30 +0000 UTCIf you are constantly looking at the way males vs females are treated in Korean standards, particularly in kpop, you’ll never be satisfied. The system is a result of a much wider and longer existing issue with Korean society as a whole, where women are not equal to men. However unlike here in the US, it is rooted in longstanding traditions and beliefs that are slow to change in any aspect, but slowly are evolving, especially in kpop with the hallyu movement. Here in the US people are just assholes and think women shouldn’t or can’t have rights to their own minds and bodies.
I_KPOP_Fan
2023-03-17 05:42:48 +0000 UTCSechs Kies is such a funny name to me because it translates to "six gravel" in German
Marcel Wannieck
2022-06-19 17:07:55 +0000 UTCThe "Everybody" is pretty repetitive but it was exactly the same in the original. Half of the song is "EVERBODY EVERYEVERYBODY" and the other half is dubstep
Marcel Wannieck
2022-06-19 16:49:26 +0000 UTC- Oh boy, I'm not at home which means I'm watching this on a much smaller screen which makes the guys' names much harder to read. The English subs are fine but the smaller Korean subs always include the name of whoever is speaking which is really helpful to me with learning names. Welp, guess I won't be doing that this week 😅 - Yeah, what is it with all the EDM in these shows. I also just started watching Queendom 1 on my own and I was shocked when I straight up heard Deadmau5 in the background. Talk about my worlds colliding. - And now I'm hearing Thomas Bergersen, wth 😂 (the song is Children of the Sun btw, highly recommended. No music video but you could just check it out in your own time) - I bet the TV wouldn't even work if they tried turning it on. - 100% with you about the baby sounds. - It's moments like these when I'm glad that I'm not a reactor. There is just way too much stuff coming out all the time. Even with me just checking everything out on my own, I can barely keep up. Well, I AM listening to well over 100 groups (probably) while also trying to be a full time college student with a job on top of that, so that doesn't help. What I'm saying is, if you gotta push something back a bit, that's totally fine. There is only so much time in a day. - I like this voting system a lot. - Well, The Real by Ateez was their finale song for Kingdom, so it literally did not even exist yet at the time of RtK. But you're right, the outfits look similar. Pretty standard Korean school uniforms. - Oneus are namedropping some really significant first gen groups that were active in the 90s and early 2000s. - H.O.T. (pronounce each letter separately) was the first ever group to debut under SM Entertainment in 1996. They disbanded in 2001. - Maybe that's because it IS a 90s hip hop music video :D - Not sure what the Darth Vader breath has to do with it but aight - I think Leedo is a bit deeper than Mingi. - I could totally see Ateez doing a song like this. But it's also a great fit for Oneus. - Oneus also adjusted the original message of the song a bit. In HOT's original, the bullied kid is implied to have committed suicide by the end because he couldn't take it anymore. But here he fights back and beats the bullies. But he's not exactly happy about it since he had to resort to violence to do it. Fighting violence with violence gets you nothing but more violence. In the end, he's still alone. - TVXQ is another legendary boy group from SM. Debuted with five members in 2003 and they are STILL active today. Just as a duo though. Three members left in 2009 for reasons I'm not gonna get into now. It was pretty messy to say the least. - "They wouldn't call a boy group babies" Meanwhile, the subtitles on the left: "Good luck to our babies!" 😂 - I never watched Dragon Ball. Sometimes I feel left out 😅 - I feel like the camera work on this show is generally a lot better than on Queendom. - And you're telling me that TOO were just a month past their debut at that time? Get outta here! - They haven't disbanded but three members were just replaced seemingly for no reason which is pretty suspicious. - You've reacted to Seventeen before so I don't think I need to give you any introduction to them. - Queendom 2: 2 hour long episodes with 3 performances per episode. Road to Kingdom: 90 minute episodes with 5 performances in this one. Yeah, this is much faster paced. - But I also didn't really mind the filler from Queendom 2. Lets me get to know those members better which is also nice. - I just noticed that I didn't have anything to say on Verivery themselves this time. Oh well. I'll rank em next week. - Peer Pressure. - I'm also the same age as Shinhwa :D They debuted under SM as well (a lot of SM covers today) but are now self-managed under their own company. And yes, they are still together after 24 years. Though their last release was in 2018 but when your group has been around for over 20 years, I think you can afford to slow down your output a bit. Shinhwa is also significant because they were the first ever group that didn't disband when they enlisted in the military. And no changes in the lineup either. It's a bit like Rammstein if you will. - You trying to figure out where you've heard that melody before while the title of the classical piece is literally right there in the subtitles :D It's Swan Lake btw. - Mnet doing an Mnet - And thus, four out of five groups in this episode covered SM songs. Just goes to show how many legendary groups SM has brought forward. - Holy shit Wyatt's speaking voice is so sexy omg Ranking these is gonna be so hard. And I haven't even seen Pentagon and The Boyz yet. Very excited for the next episode. So far I'm loving this show.
Marcel Wannieck
2022-06-19 16:43:52 +0000 UTCsome ONF performance fun facts since they didn't show much of their behind scenes (they have in depth preparation videos on their youtube channel if you're curious though) -the maknae and main dancer U (Yuto) helped choreograph this performance!! (and all the ones they do after). it was his first time teaching choreography to other dancers. -the member MK (Minkyun) who suggested they do Monsta X Alligator was actually on the survival show that formed Monsta X (No Mercy)! even though it must have been tough I think it worked out for the best that he was eliminated and debuted with ONF instead, I can't imagine the group without him. I just love the arrangement of Everybody so much. The way it starts slow and dark and eventually speeds up and brightens up into the original song with the most iconic part of the original song's choreography included. ONF's music is almost entirely written/produced by a well-known team called Monotree (a name you might notice if you look at LOONA's early work), specifically Hwang Hyun who you'll get to meet in the next rounds since he worked on their arrangements for the show also. But even though ONF are my ults, they're #2 this round for me. I won't say my #1 yet.
Neph
2022-06-19 15:28:39 +0000 UTCThey want to be the very best, Like no one ever was? 😋
crispy chicken
2022-06-19 14:33:27 +0000 UTCAwesome episode, but then again every episode will be awesome. - First of, notice that from now on they are performing even without the cheer/support of the other teams, and still I don't really notice. Maybe only that there is no applause after a performance. - it seemed like your audio was not completely synched with the video. Could be on my end though because I always cast to my tv, and because Vimeo doesn't seem to have a simple casting function I end up having to cast my whole screen. Oneus - Nice performance but it was a little bit too static. They stayed too long at the same spot (always at the tables). TOO - the "babies" reference is probably also fueled by the fact that age is a very discerning factor in Korea. Being (even a little bit) older automatically earns you respect but also expectations to be responsible. Likewise, being younger doesn't really get you respect, and you can get ordered around, but there's less responsibility because you are "the babies". Age-wise all these guys probably don't differ that much really, so I agree that the "babies" term can feel somewhat degrading. - in comparison to Oneus the camera work really leveled up (It's over 9000!). - as you mentioned the lighting/strobing was a little bit too much at times, it made it harder to see what was going on, and there was A LOT going on. - why does every performance feel like a finale? 😅 I can also spoil that the level of performances won't go be going down either 😁 Veryvery - I agree that Queendom2 felt way more "dragged out". - Queendom2 was presented as something HUGE, while RTK feels a bit more 'unimportant'. I mean even the name and goal is "Road to...". And like you, I like this way better. And side effects are that you don't have high expectations which leads to getting pleasantly surprised, in every episode. Because of that the impact is even bigger than in Kingdom to be honest. Golden child - Who knew that classical and rap sounded so good together? 🤩 Well actually I did know that (A+ with Enjoy yourself for example) so keep it coming pls. - This whole performance and song has such an epicness about it, I love it. My favourite performance so far. Also the most complete, where everything fit the vibe of the song as opposed to just slapping cool things together (you reading this Michael Bay?) ONF - I like how every group mentions different artists as "Kings". Sure, we don't know how much editing is being done, but still. What if western artists would be given this assignment? Wouldn't they just all mention MJ? But here they mention: G.O.D., H.O.T., Sechskies, TVXQ, BTS, EXO, Shinhwa, Shinee, Seventeen, etc. - Just when I thought the camera+formations were getting a bit static/stale they turn it up a notch and hit us with highlight after highlight. - The "Everybody, every every body" was getting a bit repetitive in my opinion. Looking forward to the next episodes.
crispy chicken
2022-06-19 14:24:16 +0000 UTCconsidering road to kingdom was done over the course of 2 to 2.5 months and they had 7 days to prepare the first preformance many of them probably also had other schedules at the same time, just like in queendom 2 they have to work very hard and and long into the night most likely or wake up very early, so its very hard on them all
Darknexr
2022-06-19 14:13:30 +0000 UTC- I assume most of the scenes where they are discussing song choices are fake and recreations of discussions that went on behind the scenes that probably also involved executives, and were done over a couple of days through messages and meetings. WJSN's meeting for the 2nd round is a perfect example. I think there is no way they waited around more than a week after round 1 finished to start discussing what song to do and that they hadn't already started working on the new version before that. I know it happened more than a week after round 1 because Luda was missing from the scene due to covid. Same with Eunseo being missing during their round 1 discussions. - While it was a good performance, Verivery's performance wasn't as strong as Oneus and TOO. - Yeah, in the future I would suggest Good Girl over something Unpretty Rapstar, since I really don't think you would like Unpretty Rapstar because MNet did their best to make it as cutthroat and over the top as possible. - Shinwha is the longest-running K-pop group around. Truly deserving of respect. - That rap part sealed it for me. Golden Child is the best so far. But the whole performance was breathtaking. They did a lot with this song, and they still had it all work together. - I wasn't expecting 5 performances in a single episode. I guess maybe we won't spend half of next week's episode dedicated to slowly revealing the results. - You will hear a lot of music from random soundtracks in Korean variety shows. - Oh damn, what a start from ONF. - It is very close between ONF and Golden Child, but I got to agree that Golden Child did better. - So right now my rankings are 1) Golden Child 2) ONF 3) TOO 4) Oneus 5) Verivery but still got the Pentagon and The Boyz to go. - I will say that I watched Pentagon's performance like a month ago because I looked through the list of performances and the song that they covered was one that caught my eye and I couldn't wait to see their version of it. - I think comparing Pentagon and (G)I-Dle is fair since they are from the same company so probably approach performances in a similar way.
Dardove
2022-06-19 14:13:06 +0000 UTCmy rank for this episode is the same than you DG 1 GOLDEN CHILD 2 ONF 3 TOO back in a day that was my ranking .
fabrice maire
2022-06-19 14:04:27 +0000 UTC- First we can see already the creativity of each groups . it's more obvious than with the girls . and the level of creativity will got bigger and bigger round after round to reach an amazing peak in KINGDOM . - my bias in that show was ONEUS and DG i got you when you feel an ATEEZ vibe but in fact many BG as rapper with deep voices and many group got a songs with the school violence theme . so ATEEZ is only one group amoung many . every generation as they're leader or king's first gen H.O.T / TURBO /SECHKIES /TVXQ second gen SUPER JUNIOR / EXO /BIG BANG/B.T.S third gen GOT7 / NCT / /SEVENTEEN / WANNA ONE current gen SKZ / TXT /ENHYPEN /ATEEZ / -DG i also got you're analogie with DBZ because KPOP idols as the same kind of mainset than in japanese manga or animation . they want to exceeded themself to beat the best . -
fabrice maire
2022-06-19 14:03:14 +0000 UTC- Bringing back the same hosts as Queendom 1 was certainly a good idea since they were already comfortable with each other. I agree they are better than Queendom 2. From what I heard, Taeyeon did a lot of bantering with the audience during the downtime, but of course, none of that made the cut. - I did see news about TOO/TO1 this week. Seems 3 of the members have left the group and are getting replaced with trainees. I can't see that as being good news like 2 years into the group's existence. - Finally, Oneus gets to go first. - Yeah, this week is going to be brutal for you. Not mentioned is Nayeon has her solo debut on the 24th, aespa is also releasing the English song they did at Coachella on the 24th. - Lapillus is the group you are thinking about. Oh man, is their company so shitty. I have shit on Cube before, but I considered them worse than Cube. I worry about that group. But maybe MLD Entertainment treats their new group better than their namesake group... - I mean, all of these shows are ultimately popularity contests. - Interesting that their first thoughts (besides BTS) are OG groups like H.O.T, god, and Sechs Kies. Will be interesting to see them do a modern take on a first-gen song. - Tiger JK talked about ghostwriting raps for early K-Pop groups and how it was easy money for him because they were often just after 2 bar hooks and adlibs, rather than full 8 bars. - Great start to this round. Felt modern without completely losing that older feel. - Going from first-gen, now to the start of 2nd gen with TVXQ. They are an SM group. - Another amazing performance. If it keeps going at this rate, it might be hard for Oneus to get a good placement as they get forgotten as the first group that went.
Dardove
2022-06-19 13:07:56 +0000 UTCfor dreamcathcer it's more because you start something and if you want understand they're story . you have to react on them often . to keep everything on you're mind . plus JIU ,GAHYEON and DAMI drop ta special clip as they usualy do for they're solo song . you can also react on that .
fabrice maire
2022-06-19 12:41:55 +0000 UTCdon't stress about you're "promise " take you're time we got time and many comeback as to come . ITZY as no comeback so no need to rush about them . you can't catch you're late about every group it's impossible . so do what you want and focus on you're fav . KEP1ER ,LOONA ,BLACKPINK ,DREAMCATCHER we are here for you but also for them at the first place . i personality don't care about ITZY so take you're time .
fabrice maire
2022-06-19 12:38:57 +0000 UTC
