#1: The Beginning of 'Wanna One' Part 1 (Produce 101 Season2)

     

Nowadays, I have seen that lots of the teenagers, both in Thailand and some countries, have developed their interests in singing and dancing. Some of them just do it as a hobby and interests. On the other hand, since several famous south korean entertainment companies had open a global audition in some countries such as Thailand, China, Japan, Malaysia and USA, some people have trained themselves so hard and go for an audition to become k-pop stars!

South Korean music industry is the place that some of the Asian teenagers are dreaming to be the part of as an idol singer. However, in order to gain popularity and become the top idols, Becoming an artist means that you are taking risks, since getting to debut doesn’t confirm that you are going to be successful in this career path. Also, you have to sacrifice your privacy, freedom for strict training programs and to compete among other trainees. The behind story of being a trainee has been revealed through the TV program on M-net (South Korean TV channel), "Produce 101 Season 2".

Produce101 season 2 (프로듀스 101 시즌 2), which starts the first episode on April 7, 2017, is a survival reality show on M-net. The public (called national producers) will be able to choose their favourite 11 trainees among 101 trainees from different entertainment companies via online and live voting (in the final episode); the voting is only available for South Korean citizens. The final 11 contestants will get to debut as a boy band name ‘Wanna One’. Also, The band name has to get the most votes from the public as well.

The program consists of 11 episodes which starts by evaluating individual trainees, ranked from A to F level, according to the ability and stage presences from the prepared performances. After the grade evaluation, the EDM theme song ‘나야 나 (Pick me)’ has been revealed to the trainees to prepare for the first public appearance on the M-countdown (Music program broadcast by M-net). The ‘center’ position was given to Brand New Music’s Lee Daehwi.

However, their ranking can be increased or decreased depends not only on their talent and popularity but also their effort and rapid progress. Moreover, each episode has different evaluations which are very interesting and enjoyable.

         
The first evaluation for the contestants is group battle evaluation. There are 16 groups consisting with 7 members each. The group perform 8 songs from the famous senior groups; Super Junior, 2PM, SHINee, BEAST, Infinte, EXO, BTS, Seventeen.

      

Here are example videos of group battle evaluation between Boy in luv (by BTS) Team 1 and Boy in luv Team 2. Which one is your favourite performance?

Team 1

Team 2

        Second evaluation; position evaluation, is the mission which  the trainees will be able to show their specific talents or to choose the position they want to take either vocal, rap, or dance position. In this stage, there will be 12 groups remaining but the members in each group are not equal depending on their selective position.

                                                   

Let's check out this cool performance from one of the dance position teams!

 

 

The third evaluation is concept evaluation, which is the most interesting one for me. we have rearranged the member to 7 people per group with only 5 groups left at this point. Five famous producers will individually produce a song, in total 5 songs, in different genres. The public, known as national producers, can choose a song that they think will suit their favourite trainees via online voting. Those five songs are:

• Show Time (Nu Disco) by ASHTRAY & KINGMAKER 
• I Know You Know (Synth-pop/Funk) by Shin Hyuk
• Open Up (Future EDM) by Devine-Channel
• Oh Little Girl (Hip Hop) by Veethoven, Oh Sunghwan, Kiggen, and ASSBRASS
• Never (Deep House) by Triple H

           Even  though my favourite concept evaluation song is Never,  
I decided to introduce the song that got the first place in this evaluation, Open Up.

 
To know more about the rules, after each evaluation, there will be the ranking announcements, or the elimination in total three times in episode 5, 8, and 10. In addition, the contestants who receive the most votes in each evaluation with gain benefit points, which will increase individual's ranking and make them survive the elimination.

 
Lastly, the final evaluation; debut song evaluation. the last 20 contestants (10 people per group) will have to choose between two songs, Hands on me (by The Underdogs and DEEZ) and Super Hot (by Ryan Jhun and Fredrik Figge Bostrom). They are also able to choose the individual position and need to create their own choreography to perform during the last episode. The 'center' role of each team has been chosen by internal members, and the result will revealed in the beginning of the performance.

Here are the debut song evaluation's performances:

Hands on me (Center: C9's Bae Jinyoung)

                    Super hot (Center: Ador & able's Ha Sungwoon)

After performing those debut songs, they had perform a special song titled 'Always' that remembrances their good times and memories together throughout the competition.

   And now, the moment we have all been waiting for, the announcement of the last 11 contestants as Wanna one members. During the announcement, I am very very excited and stressed out at the same time, since my favourite, Cube’s Lai Kuanlin, got a very low rank from the recent rank announcement, I really want him to be able to join Wanna One. So I held my breath during the last minute pause of the announcement.. praying...and...finally I heard his name!! great he can make it!!

Here are the list of the 11 final contestants (Wanna One members):

• 1st place (the center) - MMO’s Kang Daniel
• 2nd place - Maroo’s Park Jihoon
• 3rd place- Brand New Music’s Lee Daehwi
• 4th place - Individual trainee Kim Jaehwan
• 5th place - Fantagio’s Ong Seongwoo
• 6th place - Brand New Music’s Park Woojin
• 7th place - Cube’s Lai Kuanlin
• 8th place - MMO’s Yoon Jisung
• 9th place - Pledis’ Hwang Minhyun
• 10th place - C9’s Bae Jinyoung
• 11th place - Ador & able's - Ha Sungwoon

(cr. in pic)

        Here comes the end of this article, I would say that Produce 101 Season 2 would not be as successful as it is now with Produce 101 Season 1 (female version with the band name 'I.O.I'). We will be talking specifically on Wanna One on the next week’s.

Thanks for reading!! If you guys find this article interesting, having questions or want to fangirling with me, feel free to share on the comment section.

See you next time~