#pd48

We start off toward the end of episode 3, at 1:58:30.

Lee Seungki comes out to introduce the next song, and as you have already deduced from the above paragraph, it’s Peekaboo.

The two teams come out and introduce themselves.

LTR: AleXa, Jurina, Yiren, Gyuri, Gaeun, and Eunyeong. Sorry that my screen shots are so low rez -- I’m doing my best, fam. 

Team 1 Introduces themselves as “Peeka-chu.” (In Korean, “chu” is a slang word for a kiss, hence the A*pink song Mr Chu and the f(x) song Chu.) 

LTR: Kim Yubin, Kato Yuuka, Kim Dahye, Hong Yeji, Shitao Miu, Lee Yujeong

Team 2 introduces themselves as “Kiss Blowers.” 

I don’t know what’s up with all the kisses -- it’s not a direct reference to a lyric or anything, so I guess they’re just flirting for votes, and I say, get it, girls. 

Seungki talks to Jang Gyuri, and at mention of her name, there are loud male bellows from the audience. Those loud male bellows always make me like 10% uncomfortable. Seungki asks, Does she have any smack talk for the other team? Gyuri smiles and says, “Please yield this match to us.” Hong Yeji, who is somehow only 14 despite being possibly the tallest person on stage at the moment, replies, “We’re younger than you. We’ll show how energetic we can be.”

And then…. It’s showtime! By which Seungki means it is most definitely not showtime! It’s time for a flashback package! Woot!

Let’s see how rehearsal went for Team 1.

The members:

Jang Gyuri, Fromis9 member, who landed in F and was most recently ranked 14th, is the main vocal.

Bae Eunyeong, who landed in B and was most recently ranked 30th, is subvocal 3.

Lee Gaeun, our Pledis queen, who was always an A+ girl and was most recently ranked 1st place, is subvocal 2. 

Wang Yiren, future Everglow visual, who landed in C and was most recently ranked 7th, is subvocal 5.

Matsui Jurina, queen Jurina, who stayed in B and was most recently ranked 12th, is subvocal 4.

AleXa, who landed in C and was most recently ranked 86th place (ouch!), is subvocal 1.

We left off with the lingering question of, is Wang Yiren the right choice for center over Jang Gyuri? 

We pick up with Mary J Lee helping the girls decide who should be their center. There’s a whole weird flashback-with-a-flashback, but the gist of it is that Mary J Lee says that Wang Yiren needs to sparkle more and asks if anyone wants to challenge her for center. Gyuri challenges, and they both audition. We find out that Gaeun thinks Gyuri should potentially take over, while Eunyeong continues to prefer Yiren. Ouch, Eunyoung! No loyalty to your label mate, huh? In the end, Mary J Lee says they both do well but thinks Yiren should stay the center.

We head over to vocal lessons, where we find out that Gyuri became the main vocal since there isn’t anyone much better in her group. What we’re hearing of her voice in rehearsal sounds really great, actually. Singing without accompaniment, she goes slightly off key, but it’s hard to sing without accompaniment, and Soyou gives her a lot of praise.  She says she’s going to rehearse a lot. Don’t rehearse too much, Gyuri. Drink some throat coat tea and take care of yourself.  

We see them at dress rehearsal, and now Gyuri’s voice sounds shaky. She says she’s losing her voice, and it’s her fault for not taking better care of her throat. ARGH. The fact that this happens every season on these shows drives me nuts. She says there’s nothing she can do now, but I hope that at least she’s putting herself on complete, 100% vocal rest. No whispering. Friends, if you ever lose your voice, don’t whisper!! Don’t even clear your throat harshly. Hot liquids only, and drink lots of slippery elm tea. Trust your unnie -- I talk for a living, and used to lose my voice all the time until I figured out what to do.

Ok, the show starts. Here is PD48 Editing’s blessed edit of the performance. Definitely check it out, because the MNET editing on this one is particularly atrocious.

My thoughts: 

Alexa, Jurina, Yiren, Gyuri, Eunyoung, Gaeun

Vocally, this was almost flawless. You’d hardly know that Gyuri was having trouble with her voice, except for a slight scrape on one of the high notes, and on one of the last “Yeah yeahs.” Honestly, it’s barely noticeable. It’s not really any worse than the slight scrape Wendy herself has on the same note in this performance. Gyuri has a really nice vocal color and hits those ad libs with confidence. In fact, I was so surprised by how nice her voice was that I have raised my estimation of her significantly. I had gotten the impression that she was one of those idols who was only popular because of her looks, and this performance showed me she really has talent.

AleXa sounds fantastic, too -- I’m so glad that we get to keep AleXa in the land of Kpop, no matter what happened on P48. As good as she sounds, though, she looks kind of... off. Like she's trying too hard with her facial expressions or something? I've heard that she was working around a leg injury, so that may explain it.

The others do their jobs properly, even on the cheesy sing-talk-rap thing in the middle. I've listened to this song a million times and the Korean rap sounded pretty right to me -- I couldn't swear to it, but my ears sort of nodded. Yes, my ears nodded. That's what I meant to say.

Dancewise, I think they do really well, though as usual the camera work seems designed to prevent you from being able to see the dancing. The choreo isn’t unusually difficult, Boombayah style, but it requires precision, especially in the bridge, where they do the arm trick. (Did you ever notice the arm trick in this choreo? I’m a big fan of this song and I still somehow missed the arm trick the first few times I watched this choreo. The viewer has to be lined up just right for it to work, but when it works it’s cool.) I’m not a dance expert, as you know, but they looked good to me.

Stage presence wise, I think they’re all did just about equally well, especially if you watch their fancams. It’s a tough song to pull off and they did the thing. I even was won over to Jurina -- this is the first time I’ve seen her look natural in a performance. She fit here, somehow. 

However, when you watch the full performance, some of the girls sort of fade away in the group. I feel like AleXa’s overall presentation kind of suffers from her being a few inches shorter than the rest of the girls -- if there was more variation in height it wouldn’t matter as much, but having just one girl be several inches shorter than all the rest was kind of noticeable. Not fair, I know. I’m really short myself, and I don’t hold it against her, but it does affect the optics in a way that I think Koreans in particular would notice. I looked it up and AleXa is 149 cm/ 4'11, which is quite short. Maybe that’s why she works best as a soloist.

It is also a little odd how little of an impact that Gaeun had if you watch the full performance. She’s apparently Subvocal 2, but you don’t hear or see much of her in either version of the edit. I think it’s a combination of the choreo shoving her to the back -- sometimes quite literally -- and the camera man preferring to show Gyuri whenever possible. I watched Gaeun’s fancam and she did great, so I don’t know why we didn’t see more of her. It’s almost as if the show couldn’t hide the fact that she almost was center and was really popular? But also didn’t want her to win…? Hmm.

Ok. Deep breath and let’s talk about the MNET edit, starting at 2:05:20 .

I had a feeling that the tiny scrape in Gyuri’s vocals would take over the whole performance, and it does. We approach the vocal run -- fine, fine, fine, fine-fine fine-FINE -- literally five times. 

The first time is at 2:06:06 and it takes almost a full MINUTE before we actually hear the final “FINE” with the scrape in it. In the meantime it’s all flashbacks about how Gyuri’s worried about her voice. Then we hear it, and we hear it SIX times. Then the episode ENDS! It ends on Gyuri’s horrible, horrible, unforgivable, slight vocal scrape, x6. 

MNET WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS. 

Well no, it doesn’t END there -- there are several minutes of preview of some of the other teams, including a few seconds of Wonyoung wiggling around at the beginning of Very Very Very, and some pixelated members of the other team. and then they give the current standings of the trainees. I’m not going to concern myself with their new ranking since we’re going to have a big vote off in episode 5, and we’ll worry about it then. There’s also a preview of Sakura getting yelled at while tears run down her cheeks. 

Anyway! Let’s go on to episode 4! We’re doing great. Here’s the link.

After a brief recap, the episode dives back in to the challenge mission, reminding us, of course, about Jang Gyuri’s vocal scrape. We go right the fuck back to the whole damn “fine fine fine….” vocal run, and hear the problematic “fine” FOUR more times. That's a total of ten. We jump ahead to the gym bathroom Results Zone and see all the girls crying at the results, and then jump back 20 minutes to see why they’re all crying. Thanks, MNET! Thmnet. 

If you are watching along, you can skip to 2:17. This time we get to watch the whole performance. I’m struck again by how pretty Gyuri’s voice is, and Alexa’s as well. We have to hear two more instant replays of “fine” -- so that's 12 times now, THANKS-- but at least this time they show the whole performance. The show is presenting the tiny problems as if they're the end of the goddamn world and it’s driving me nuts because if you just watch the unedited video, it’s so minor. 

The judges say they’re proud of her for not giving up. Backstage, Gaeun kindly tells Gyuri that she did a good job -- WHICH SHE DID -- but she shakes her head and says she was terrible. She interviews that she’s mad at herself.

She didn’t know that if she sang a high note all day it would strain her voice. Hey, vocal trainers, who failed this girl? I’m remembering all those trainers who said to “practice hard” and “do it 100 times.” Did anyone tell her to take care of her voice by not overusing it? I’m guessing not. 

Anyway, that's behind us now, and it’s time for the second group!

GROUP 2

As the girls take the stage, we hear AFUCKINGGAINHOLYSHITWTF Gyuri’s tiny vocal scrape on "fine". That’s 13 times now we’ve heard it, and I assume we'll hear it again in the future. Anyway the girls in team 2 think that maybe they can win since team 1 made a mistake -- but maybe not, since team 1 is full of popular pretty girls.

Let's see how their rehearsal went! 

Here’s team 2: 

Hong Yeji, 16, one of the CNC girls, the one who fell down in her video evaluation and then fell from B to F, is ranked 76th.

Kim Yubin, 16, one of the CNC girls, fell from B to D and is currently ranked a very low 93rd. OUCH.

Lee Yu Jeong, 14, future Lightsum member and C-class mainstay, is ranked 48th.

Kim Da Hye, who auditioned with I Don't Like Your Girlfriend and fell from A to C, is ranked 89th.

Shitao Miu, 17, who wore the hat on her waistband in her Mister audition, stayed in D and is ranked 45th.

Kato Yuuka, 20, who auditioned with Funny People and rose from C to B, is ranked 73rd.

When we left off, we met the team (which was chosen by Yubin) and learned that Dahye is actually fluent in both Korean and Japanese. That’s about all we know about this team.

When we catch up with them, we find out that things aren’t going well. Dance teacher Mary J Lee has told group 2 that they made a lot of mistakes and that they’re likely to lose to team 1. And poor Shitao Miu is having a lot of trouble with the choreo.

She’s obviously starting to cry a little, but she does keep trying, and I appreciate that about her. The mental exhaustion of being away from home and not being able to consistently speak your first language just makes everything more difficult. 

Mary J Lee asks her what’s wrong -- not unkindly -- and Miu gives a really mature answer, I think. 

“I’m upset. I’m mad at myself for being unable to catch up. It makes me cry. I’m causing other members trouble.” 

Later on, leader Yubin kindly tells Miu, “We didn’t get a compliment, but I don’t want you to blame yourself.” The other girls stroke her hair and make consoling noises, and Miu says that the other members’ bright energy cheered her up. Aww! 

Over at the vocal lesson with Soyou, who I am currently a bit annoyed at, we find out that Yeji is the main vocal.  She is, to my ears, a bit pitchy. Yeji asks Soyou if it’s ok to sing it in falsetto, rather than with full voice (the translation calls it “original voice”), and Soyou says she can, but it will probably make them look a bit bad. 

We see that Yeji is practicing over and over even in the dorm -- great plan, definitely sing it over and over and over and over until your throat is raw. Her teammates tell her that rival Gyuri sings the notes in full voice, so Yeji has to, too. 

Dress rehearsal doesn’t go well. The judges make faces. 

Jeremy's doing a "red" concept.

Dance Bae tells Yeji, “don’t worry, just sing.” Jeremy tells Yeji, “you need more confidence.” Then the Wizard of Oz tells Yeji she’s had the power within her all along! 

It’s time for the actual performance. For whatever reason, that blessed angel PD48 Edits didn’t make an edited version of the performance, which is fair, it must have been a lot of work and they did most of them. 

Here’s the full version, MNET edit and all. 

This is Hong Yeji’s fan cam, which is a lot less irritating to watch than the MNET edit. Obviously it’s not a full cam but since she’s center, you can see a lot. 

Yuuka, Dahye, Yubin, Yeji, Miu. Hidden: Yujeong

Yubin, Yuuka, Dahye, Yujeong, Yeji, Miu

Yujeong, Yuuka, Yubin, Dahye, Yeji, Miu

Well, first off, Stylist Unnie needs a thorough talking to. Who said that translucent thigh highs were a good look for Yeji and Yujeong? Especially considering that Yujeong is 14…?!? For one thing, they're a bit too sexy for a 14 year old. For another, they dig in to your inner thigh, which isn’t a great look, and they’re just sort of… I don’t know, inelegant and discordant.  They look unfinished. Red Velvet didn’t wear translucent thigh highs. They wore high boots sometimes, which were definitely opaque! I understand that boots might be outside the budget, but why not just completely opaque tights? ARGH! 

Anyway, to the performance itself. It’s so hard to even have thoughts without being able to watch the whole, uninterrupted performance. The MNET edit chops it up so much it's hard to take it in. But overall, compared to Team 1's performance, this felt like the store-brand version of the performance to me.

Dance is so hard to evaluate because the camera doesn’t show their legs 80% of the time. I think they mostly did fine fine fine fine-fine fine FINE. Dahye would sort of forget to dance when it was her time to sing, and sort of overdanced certain steps. There may have been other issues, but it's hard to know.

Vocals-wise: Yeji does her best, but her vocals are overall kind of shrill and pitchy, even if she can hit that high note. I’d rather listen to the Gyuri version, scrapes and all, than the Yeji version. There’s more to life than high notes. Dahye does a good job on Subvocal1, and really no one in the team embarrasses themselves or anything. It just felt less tuneful that the first group. Also, the rappers’ tone was a little… I don’t know, off? Just not as pleasant to listen to. 

Stage presence-wise, I thought they were inferior to the first group overall. Yeji looked confident, but almost like she was just looking into the mirror in her practice room rather than at an audience. Poor Dahye seemed to be fighting with her hair for a lot of the performance. One bright note, though, was Miu. After all the trouble she had rehearsing, I was curious how she'd do and checked out her fancam, and you know what, I think she actually had the best stage presence of all of them! I’ll be durned. 

Shitao Miu understood the assignment.

Since Yujeong has since gone on to maybe the biggest success of this group, I went back to watch her fancam too. She does a totally fine job, but I think she just looks too young to take seriously here in this kind of mature song. She commits fully, though, I’ll give her that, and does a much better job than you'd expect a 14 year old to do. 

I think the worst performer (stage presence-wise) in this group is Yuuka. I feel bad saying that, but she just has this totally bland smile the whole time. Like most of the Japanese trainees, she’s great at looking directly into the camera the entire time, but she looks like she’s just marking the steps in a rehearsal, rather than performing on stage. 

The MNET edit is pretty kind. The judges are especially complimentary toward Yeji, saying she's born to be on stage.

AFTERWARDS

When the performance is over, both teams come up on stage. Lee Seungki asks Jurina which team did better, and she says "ENHH?" which everyone loves. Then, through a sweetly smelling cloud of sugar, she says, "I think maybe team one?"

Then Seungki asks Miu, "how do you feel?"

She pulls a piece of paper from out of her jacket and begins reading in what sounds like phonetically transcribed Korean.

"I won't look back. I'll run looking forwards."

It's cute, and everyone applauds. Seungki says the ever creepy phrase "Vote for your girl!" and the audience votes.

The judges talk amongst themselves. Group 1 went out of key, but they did have a better "aura," so both teams have pros and cons.

top row: Alexa behind the onscreen caption, Jurina, Yiren, Gyuri, Gaeun, Eunyoung bottom row: Yubin, Yuuka, Dahye, Yeji, Miu

Kim Yubin, leader of group 2, acknowledges the popularity gap, but still is hopeful.

The editors reveal the votes starting with sub 5 and work up.

Main vocal: Jang Gyuri 78 Hong Yeji 92 Sub 1: AleXa 4 Kim Dahye 26 Sub 2: Lee Gaeun 74 Lee Yujeong 98 Sub 3: Bae Eunyoung 28 Shitao Miu 116 Sub 4: Matsui Jurina 110 Kato Yuuka 102 Sub 5: Wang Yiren 54 Kim Yubin 40

Yuuka voiceovers, "If we were in Japan, Jurina would win by a win by a lot, but since this is Korea, I wanted to win." That made me glad she came pretty close, even though Jurina still won the battle.

Eunyoung is pretty sad at how low her votes are. Presumably AleXa is too, but we don't even get to see her react to her getting the least votes of the entire night. Don't worry, AleXa.

The underdog will strike back!

Everyone is astonished when little Lee Yujeong beats the extremely popular Lee Gaeun, and when Hong Yeji beats the extremely popular Jang Gyuri.

For those of you who don't want to do the math -- group 2 wins!

The group 1 girls cry.

Jang Gyuri is in that stage of misery that is beyond crying, and she comforts the others as best she can.

We're not allowed to see Alexa, you guys. She is kept carefully off screen.

I don't know why team 1 lost here. I'm not saying that they should have won, exactly, but it's just that I thought they would. Maybe they were sort of held back by AleXa's visuals not living up to Korean standards. Maybe Gaeun was literally hidden too often in the choreo. Maybe there were a lot of AKB48 fans in the audience. Maybe the other team really did that much better. I don't know!