Korean Showbiz: The Slacker Girl Group Is Forced to Work

[Girl group / group darling / universally adored / entertainment industry]

Warning: The group-darling, universally adored setup means there are many male leads. If you can’t handle ambiguous relationships, please don’t read on. (Sorry!)

To make a splash, P Entertainment carefully selected seven Chinese members to form a girl group.

At first, they were only meant to go through the motions.

The company was small, and competition among fourth-generation girl groups was fierce. The girls themselves had little hope, and even the fans weren’t focusing on them.

They had planned to keep coasting along like that.

But Jiang Jinsui couldn’t stand watching things go on that way, so she took the team’s future into her own hands. She produced their first full-length album after their debut single, and that album made their name overnight.

Netizen 1: “You’re saying this song, ‘God,’ is theirs?”

Netizen 2: “This girl group is a hidden gem. You need them in your life.”

From then on, the company handed Jiang Jinsui the responsibility of writing their songs.

Jiang Jinsui: “I just thought we couldn’t keep coasting forever. I never said I’d have to keep writing all the songs.”

So Jiang Jinsui decided that since they were already in it, she might as well lead the group all the way to the top.

Jiang Jinsui: “I thought we agreed we were going to coast?”

Bandmates: “Don’t coast. We’ll coast for you.”

Not everyone is coasting. They started out struggling because they were a small company supporting two major groups, which left them short on funds. Jiang Jinsui had to start writing songs, while the other members also proved incredibly capable. They had the looks and the talent, and they could act and bring plenty of personality to variety shows.

The company’s ambitious goal is to create a second SEVENTEEN, except with fewer members.

The two groups are similar: a senior-junior group, and the male leads come from the senior group.