Live In This Moment

my thoughts on boys planet final lineup

okay so i'm aware that im posting this kinda late, but i blame that on school exams and the overwhemling workload as finals looms closer and closer.

but anyway. 

so a lil history on how i got hooked onto boys planet: i was originally not going to watch the show or anything, buT i ended up kinda watching the last few episodes because of all the iconic moments that kept popping up on my fyp. 

and on second thought, i didnt know jiwoong was in boys planet! i've heard of his dramas before (roommates of poongduck 304) and i was super surprised. so yeah after that i kinda went all out. mainly for jiwoong, yes, but i soon got hooked onto other contestants as well. 

before we go anywhere, lets talk the name. 

what. the. hELL?? no offense to anyone who likes it, but what the HELL is zerobaseone? like i think this was one of my biggest disappointments. imo, the name doesn't do justice to the members. 

anyways. 

lets start, shall we?

for those that didn't make the lineup, mine were pretty much similar to a lot of other people: keita (*sob*), jay (*sob*), seowon (*SOB*), and hui (*sOB*). 

i loved seowon because of his cute personality, and for some reason i really loved his voice. i didn't really have any high expectations though, so i wasn't too surprised when he got eliminated. 

i'll talk more about hui later. 

keita and jay were SO CLOSE T-T. i def did not see keita dropping out of top 9, which is probably what surprised me the third most.

now you might be wondering what surprised me first most and second most?

first most was zhang hao ranking FIRST. like, i kinda expected him to make the final nine either way since he's placed well in all the other rounds, but FIRST?? i did not see that coming, AT ALL. but im not upset about it :)) he will go down in history as the first foreign idol to place first in an mnet survival show!

second was jiwoong dropping five ranks. i was kinda surprised at this because he's placed fairly well in all the other rounds, i mean, lets be fair he was THIRD in the 3rd survival round, right behind hanbin and zhang hao, and then he dROPPED? fiVE? rankS?? idk, still glad he made it tho, def would've been kinda sad if he didn't as he was kind of most of the reason i started watching the show. 

as for the rest of the lineup, i predicted most of who would make the top nine.

zhang hao and hanbin were a given, except i thought hanbin would place first and zhang hao would place second. i didn't expect jiwoong to place third (i was thinking maybe fourth-sixth but like def not eighth), taerae, yujin, and matthew i fully expected to make top nine, but i wasn't sure what ranks they would be. (ricky was also one of my like newer faves towards the end of the show, so i was also really hoping he would make it, but i had my doubts)

i didn't expect keita dropping out of top nine (*sOB*) or matthew jumping all the way back to 3rd after his *somewhat* drastic fall from 4th to 9th (but he's done pretty well so i expected him to make top 9), and what i definitely didn't expect was gunwook rising seventh places to place in top nine. while i had hopes that hui would somehow make it, they werent very high. i love hui as a pentagon member, but i just felt that his age and history in the industry was a hinderance to his probability of making the final lineup compared to other contestants. while it's kind of sad that he didn't get this "clean slate new opportunity burden relief" we were all kind of hoping for, i'm still pleased that he managed to make it all the way into the top 18. i had high hopes in the beginning, but as i watched the other contestants and the shift in ranks, i kind of saw it coming that he wouldn't make top nine. anyways, i'll look forward to seeing him back with pentagon and continuing activities there.  

but. 

but.

and i cant believe im saying this bUT

i'm pretty happy with the overall lineup. i think it was well deserved and expected and while im still sad that some of my other favorites like jay and keita didn't make it, it is what it is. i had the chance to watch the final ep livestream for like the last few minutes from when the announced the final member (han yujin) since my timezone meant that i was asleep when it was airing and in first period at school when it finished airing and people were goING oFF in the chat about keita and jay not making it and wow some people were SUPER mad (which, tbh i would've been too if i wasnt confused with the whole situation at that time since i was like half awake too). but whatever ends up happening to zb1, i'll support the members wholeheartedly and keep up with my other favorites who didn't make the lineup. 

(hoping the fandom name isn't something completely werid tho...)

anyways, i had fun watching this show and ill be honest ive never been this invested into a survival show so it was pretty big of a deal for me.

zb1 ftw! (pls don't disappoint T-T) i wish all the members of the new group good luck, and i look forward to seeing the other contestants and their activities as well. 

big thanks to all the contestants, it wouldn't have been possible without them. 

final rankings:

zhang hao
sung hanbin
seok matthew
ricky
park gunwook
kim taerae
kim gyuvin
kim jiwoong
han yujin