chaostrophy

Efforts Did Not Betray.

Kim Donghan (OUI Entertainment), who appeared in Mnet ‘Produce 101′ Season 2, climbed to number 29 with his talent. First evaluations Kim Donghan, who showed a solid and powerful dance with EXO’s Call Me Baby as a center and surely catch the national producers heart. Dance trainer Kahi said that “Donghan as a center will look more pretty.” Since then, during the position evaluation, Donghan who has changed his hair to blonde joined the Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran team to complete the stage with Justin, Lee Jun Woo, Park Sung Woo, Noh Tae Hyun and Kim Tae Dong.

Then he transformed once more. During the concept evaluation, unlike his charismatic appearance and dance ability, he showed a cute and refreshing stage with ‘I Know You Know’. Unfortunately, the team with Kim Donghan placed at 5th. During the 3rd Elimination, he was ranked at 29th place. 20 people were eliminated from the show. Kim Donghan, who we met after he was eliminated, expressed that he is sad that he couldn’t meet the trainees again after 6 months. “It’s sad that I can not be with them anymore than I’ve eliminated.”

Q: You were eliminated at the rank of 29th. What are your thoughts?

Donghan: “Although there are things I’m sad about on being eliminated, I’m more sad about having to be separated from the 101 trainees that I’ve spent time with while practicing every day for the last 6 months. The amount of affection that has been built up during it is quite large. It feels like I’ve graduated from school. Although it’s really hard during it, I miss it once I’m out.”

Q: What was your goal rank when you first started?

Donghan: “I was determined to at least stay as part of the remaining ⅓ of 101 trainees. I predicted my rank to be 33rd, so I was satisfied in receiving 29th. To be honest, I wasn’t given that much time on TV compared to the other trainees. I’m very thankful towards fans who supported me through watching only my fancams.”

Q: You were called out for ‘having a short amount of screentime’. You were probably more upset than anyone else.

Donghan: “It doesn’t really matter to me personally, but I had a hard time seeing my parents or people from my company feel sad about it. Even if I try to be greedy for screentime like everyone else during the recordings, there were times where I was completely edited out when I saw the broadcast.”

Q: Then is it favorable to have more screentime?

Donghan: “I wondered whether my rank could have gone up if I had a bit more screentime. I was a bit sad to hear people say ‘Why did he go up’ during the 2nd rankings when I was ranked 35th.”

Q: How did you feel when you got 35th?

Donghan: “The 4-panel screen pops up largely. I felt even more anxious because the people on the screen were ones I was friends with and grew affection for. It felt like I was stepping on them to go up, so I started to tear up when I stood up and saw them.”

Q: Have you been able to experience your popularity?

Donghan: “Since I haven’t walked around yet, I haven’t been able to experience it. (Laughter) Just a few months ago, I was an ordinary person. But after someone like me came out on TV once, people started to cheer me on and even set up subway ads, so it feels like a dream. Although I’m thankful for this interest to a point where I can’t express it in words, I feel like it’ll all disappear once I wake up.”

Q: Other trainees from your company were eliminated first.

Donghan: “Since my company isn’t big, we came out with the thought of letting people know about our company, but I was able to last the longest. The trainees who came out with me felt envious.”

Q: How was the dorm life with 101 trainees?

Donghan: “Since there were only guys, it felt like an all-boys high school after gym class.”

Q: We could smell the scent even just by watching the broadcast.

Donghan: “Everyone packed deodorant as to not be of harm to each other. We all worked hard to get rid of the smell by taking out our deodorant. (Laughter)”

Q: I feel like there were probably power fights.

Donghan: “As a matter of fact, I was really worried prior to joining. I thought that since it’s all guys, there would be a lot of fighting, so I would have to be careful, but everyone’s really innocent. Even when picking the center, rather than say that they want to do it, there were more instances where people would give it up for each other, so it took awhile since we were all watching out for each other’s thoughts. Rather than be competitive, it was more a system of collaborating, so I was really sad when we had to separate.”

Q: The person you became the closest with?

Donghan: “Although I was friends with everyone throughout, I hung out with Maroo Entertainment’s Park Jihoon the most. Since we were both ranked B in the first ‘나야 나’ evaluations, our ties continued from there.”

Q: Was there a song you wanted to do during the concept evaluation?

Donghan: “To be honest, the song I liked the moment I heard it was ‘Open Up’. ‘I Know You Know’ wasn’t bad either. Since I wanted to show many sides of myself before getting eliminated, I think ‘I Know You Know’ was perfect for that.

Q: Your hair color constantly changed.

Donghan: “At first it was black, in the middle it was blonde, and now it’s close to being white. As long as there’s no specific problem, the staff didn’t have many objections against changing styles like that.”

Q: If you had to choose something you’ve gained from participating in ‘Produce 101’?

Donghan: “I’ve now gotten used to looking at the camera and have realized what I should do in order to do well during a performance. Although it was probably the same for everyone, my singing and dancing abilities improved rapidly. It was really a good opportunity for us. It’s now important to see how well we can use those abilities on each of our paths.”

Q: What was the hardest thing?

Donghan: “When the missions would come out, we would get lessons the day right after, so we would have to learn the lyrics and dance on that day. We would have to hold onto the sheet of lyrics and memorize it for the whole day, but that was really hard. Everyone stayed up on the night of our mission revealings. It was hard for me since I’m a bit slow on memorizing, but I was able to improve throughout the course of missions.”

Q: I heard you performed as part of a dance team in Daegu.

Donghan: “I was in a dance team for a little more than a year. It was a dance team created with students from another school. Since the reactions were pretty good, we went to a lot of various school festivals. While doing K-Pop cover dances, I was able to set my direction towards my dream as I heard the cheers from the audience.”

Q: When did you meet with your current company?

Donghan: “It was the fall of 2015. Although I auditioned for many companies, I didn’t make it. Then I went to a dance competition and caught the attention of my current company’s CEO.”

Q: There’s a lot of talks about your company on not being very affluent.

Donghan: “I didn’t know there were reactions like that. Since we can’t look at our cellphone during recordings, I heard about that later on, but I thought it was rather a good thing to have at least become a topic of conversation somehow. Because the reason why I came out in the first place was to have people know about our company.”

Q: A word to your fans.

Donghan: “The love you guys have given has given me strength to the point where it feels like a dream. I will work hard in order for that dream to continue on. Thank you so much.”

Q: Any plans for the year?

Donghan: “I’m back to being a trainee. Rather than have any specific plans, I’m looking forward to the day that I can debut.”