An Outlet - Part 9

4 April, 2021.

I've developed interest in yet another KPOP group. This time it's a boy group called THE BOYZ.

This marks the third group after BTS and IZ*ONE (I absolutely ADORE and support Seventeen too but I think my feelings for these two - now three - groups are sliiiighly higher).

Being an avid follower of KPOP, I obviously knew that such a group existed and even when I started hearing their names way too often, I didn't feel compelled to get to know them or hear their songs.

The only impression that I had of them or rather their songs was that I really liked "No Air" and "Reveal". I think this has a lot to do with the fact that there have been A LOT of rookie groups that I've come across ever since I started following KPop that it gets really tough for a group to stick out, at least to me.

Another reason is because after Produce48/IZ*ONE's debut, I had become much much more interested in girl groups (existing as well as new ones) and there are lot of good ones out there. But when it came to boy groups, I personally couldn't look beyond the 3rd Generation. Even though I look forward to ATEEZ and the Big 3 boy groups' performances, they never really caught my complete attention.

Enter THE BOYZ.

As I said before, I had definitely heard of them and at one point, their name was everywhere when it came to collaboration stages, especially Juyeon. I had also heard of them doing well on MNET's Road to Kingdom (RTK) but even though I had followed the prequel series Queendom, I didn't feel compelled to follow the boy group version.

So how did I get into them, you ask?

Well, I really like watching reaction videos and around mid Feb, I decided to watch a reaction video for THE BOYZ's MAMA Performance. I was really impressed with their stage and by that time, Juyeon's face had caught my attention. The comment section was ofcourse full of praise for the performance/members and there were a lot of comments asking viewers to also watch their RTK Performance.

I was like why not? So I watched their RTK Reveal Performance and I guess that was it. I was truly mesmerized and couldn't help but replay several parts of the video multiple times!! It was THAT cool! Even though they have so many members, it felt like each of them brought something different to the table and were important to the group.

I then felt compelled to watch their other RTK Performances and let me tell you, these talented boys deserved to win the show and advance to MNET's Kingdom. The creativity in each stageeeeeee! Wow!

Since then I have heard all of their songs, watched a lot of their content (and believe me, THE BOYZ have put out A LOT of content) and now consider myself a fan. I get the same feeling as when I first got into BTS's work/activities.

Because of THE BOYZ's performance, I got interested in watching RTK performances from other groups as well and now I realise that this show is totally for me. This show combines my liking towards competition shows and extravagant performances and I totally loved it!

Now with my new found interest in THE BOYZ as well as RTK's format, it was imperative for me to follow MNET's Kingdom.

RTK was a competition where relatively lesser known boy groups got to compete with one another and gave one group (THE BOYZ) the chance to advance to Kingdom, where they will now compete with popular groups instead. Obviously, you can't have BTS, EXO or Seventeen here but the current lineup includes:

-> BTOB (Cube Entertainment, popular in SK)

-> IKON (YG Entertainment)

-> SF9 (Members are well known actors as well, popular in SK)

-> STRAY KIDS (JYP Entertainment)

-> THE BOYZ (Winners of RTK, popularity growing rapidly in SK)

-> ATEEZ (a rookie group with rapidly growing international popularity)

Now that I look back, I would've preferred to have at least 2 more groups but nonetheless, this is still a really interesting line up.

Kingdom premiered on 1st April, 2021 and the first round was an introduction round. Each group was to perform/reinterpret a song that got them to become winners of a music show but they had to showcase their performance in only 100 seconds.

Here's my ranking :

Rank 1 - THE BOYZ (The Stealer) and Stray Kids (Miroh)
Rank 2 - IKON (Rhythm Tha)
Rank 3 - SF9 (Good Guy)
Rank 4 - BTOB (Beautiful Pain)
Rank 5 - ATEEZ (Wave)

The actual ranking is
Rank 1 - ???
Rank 2 - ???
Rank 3 - BTOB
Rank 4 - SF9
Rank 5 - ATEEZ
Rank 6 - ???

I'm really surprised cause I cannot see any of of the remaining groups being placed as 6th.

Since this is mostly based on fan votings, I won't be too surprised if THE BOYZ end up being the ones in last rank but I'll definitely be disappointed. I'm 100% rooting for them to win the competition regardless.

Having said that, I'm really curious to see what the show has in store for the upcoming episodes. Can't wait!!