Hello everyone,
So I’m going to start a series of posts where I review a show called A2K. This is a K-pop based reality survival show. There are many shows like this in K-pop and is often how new K-pop groups are formed. Each one is different but it is normally a group of people who are chosen to compete against each other by singing and dancing to win the chance to debut in a new group. These can greatly vary on how entertaining they are but A2K is different to the other ones. Let me explain how..
JYP is a large K-pop company based in Korea that has many successful groups, such as Stray Kids (my personal favourite), Twice, Miss A, NMIXX, and ITZY. They have many more, but those are some popular groups.
They take in people, train them, then release them into a group, who then releases their own stuff. Most groups have a concept they are based around. For example ENHYPEN are based around “Vampires” as a general concept, or ATEEZ who are based around “pirates”. These concepts are either reflected into songs, dances, stages, performances, clothing etc.
JYP is run by a man called J.Y. Park. He also releases his own music-which I’m not a massive fan of. For this show he has travelled to America to find people for his show rather than choosing in Korea. This means the people who audition and take part are very diverse. JYP is working with Republic Records for this show.
In case you hadn’t guessed yet A2K stands for America To Korea, meaning Americans get to go to Korea to be part of a K-pop group. This is how this show is different to regular K-pop survival shows, as they are normally chosen from within Korea or other Asian countries.
Here is the episode I am reviewing in case you would like to watch it before you read some spoilers. Warning it does go for about 30 minutes so you will want to be in a comfortable place. Or you can just read on and not bother watching. Up to you really.
There is an order to how people will be picked for this opportunity. First of JYP will travel to 5 different American cities to watch auditions. This means people travel to these cities to take part in the audition. I’m not sure why I explained that, it was pretty self-explanatory.
The people must go through 3 rounds first of they audition in front of one group of judges if they pass they go to the next judges. If they get through both groups of judges they get to audition in front of JYP himself. You only get to see the people who make it to JYP.
If they manage to pass JYP’s audition round they get a “pendant” where they have to earn 4 "stones” and then that means they go onto the group. Personally I feel it looks a bit tacky. I know what they are trying to do but I feel it would have been better without it.
After they get a “pendant” they travel to an LA boot camp where they train and perform to try to get into the group. If they pass this they can then travel to Korea and prepare for Debut. Easy right?
First we travel to Dallas where we meet 2 different girls. Oh should have mentioned before all contestants are girls because they want a girl group.
First we have Camilla who is 17 years old. She sung Easy on Me by Adele which is no easy feat. Yeah it was a bad joke sorry. She did pretty well but JYP had some advice which was for her to use her full voice when singing high notes rather than her head voice. If you haven’t binged singing videos on YouTube as I have this probably makes no sense but not to worry she understood what she was supposed to do. She did better and got the “pendant”.
JYP would be an awful person to audition for because you can tell these girls are already super nervous because they just got through 2 rounds of judges and really want this. Every time he speaks he’ll be like “your singing was.. “ longest pause in history, he has just a neutral face and the poor girl stood there is getting very pale and looks as though she will pass out. “..Okay, but I would say to work on blah blah blah” She looks relieved until she realises she doesn’t know if she’s in yet. Instead of saying “you’re in!” He just says “come here”, and makes her walk up to the table and she stands there until he grabs a “pendant” and places it around her neck. You can tell they have no idea what this means until he says “you’re in”. It’s just all very dramatic and the poor girls look they are having a very difficult time.
We then met Kendall who is 16. She danced to Dalla Dalla by ITZY. I thought she did pretty good all things considered. JYP was less impressed as her moves were “messy” and “missing precision”. I mean dude she’s also under incredible stress but okay. She absolutely nailed eye contact, facial expressions and just playing a “character” while dancing which is a very hard thing to learn so it was great. He pointed this out too so that was nice. He also let her pale fully before letting her know she got in. He was like “even though you are so lacking in skill, you have great eye contact and facial expressions” and I was just like, how rude to say she’s “lacking in skill”. She did better than I would have done in the same situation so I was happy she got in.
We then travelled to the next city Chicago. Where we only meet one girl before the episode ends and we must watch the next one.
We meet Lexus who is 16. She is my favourite person I’ve met so far. She did ballet for 12 years, so since she was 4 for those of us who don’t like to do math. She sung and danced. She sung “Love You Like A Love Song” by Selena Gomez and JYP was like “you have a great natural voice but you aren’t breathing right” which I mean fair enough you do have to breathe different when singing. She then danced to Dalla Dalla by ITZY (is this the only dancing option???) and wow she was incredible. She was VERY precise with the movements and had great control of her whole body which takes A LOT of practice so those 12 years of ballet did wonders. JYP also let her pale fully before letting her know she was good and got a pendant. I’m not sure why she had to sing AND dance unlike the others who only did one or the other.
Then it was like WATCH THE NEXT EPSODE COS WE WON’T TELL YOU ANY MORE.
I did enjoy the episode and it was okay. I’d recommend watching purely just because JYP’s judging technique is like so harsh. I mean in all fairness I haven’t watched many judging shows. But he literally does the Simon Cowell of just being so unclear on what he thinks. Which I suppose makes for interesting watching. I just want to know about all those other girls that didn’t make it. Especially those who made it to the 2nd round because they had to be okay to some extent. Why didn’t they get chosen?
Stay tuned for episode 2 review!
Have a day!
Proffessor Nutkins
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