New and old Kpop fans alike can agree that learning a new group can be very daunting. From duos to a fully fledged, 10+ member group, things can get a little confusing during the learning process.
LOONA (stylized as LOOΠΔ) is an upcoming, twelve-member girl group that every Kpop fan should get to know! However, even their “pre-debut” process has been quite extensive. With almost 30 unique music videos, three pre-debut units, various promotions, modeling for the brand “Innisfree,” and 360+ “LOONA TV” episodes, it’s no doubt that even just looking at the group’s YouTube channel can be overwhelming. So, where does one start?
I am here to give a simplified walk-through of the group’s members, their back story, their unique (and detailed) debut concept, and the highlights of what to check out! Follow my lead and you’ll soon become a LOONA expert— even before they officially debut!
Way back in October of 2016, Blockberry Entertainment, a subsidiary of Polaris Entertainment, initiated themselves as an official company for the first time to the public through a post on Naver. At the same time, they revealed their plans for a new kind of girl group and announced the 18-month long pre-debut project that would lead to their debut sometime in 2018.
LOONA is also known as 이달의 소녀 (Idalui Sonyeo) which translates to “Girl of the Month.” The name was tied to the concept that each of the twelve members would be revealed individually each month and release their own solo music and MV. All of the pre-debut songs released by LOONA would be streamed and sold as digital tracks. After a few members released their solo tracks, those same members would then come together to perform as a sub-unit. Each sub-unit promoted their title tracks on music programs for a period of time, and their songs were sold on physical mini-albums as well, some of them with various versions. After the sub-units were done promoting, the process would begin again with more members being introduced individually.
Around the same time as gaining the copyright for the name 이달의 소녀 , BlockBerry also trademarked 이달의 소년 (Idalui Sonyeon) which translates to “Boy of the Month.” This has given fans the feeling there will be an upcoming male group from BlockBerry Creative who will debut with a similar pre-debut concept.
The group’s icon is actually made of the first Hangul letter in each syllable of their Korean name. When rearranged, it creates the name LOOΠΔ in Romanized letters which acts as the group’s international name.
Now, let’s learn about the 12 members of LOONA! This list will be in order of when each member’s music videos were released, along with their ultimate sub-unit. Each music video title has the corresponding music video attached in the link.
1/3 SUB-UNIT:
Heejin
Age: 17 (Birthdate: October 19th, 2000)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Rabbit & Bright Pink
Sub-Unit: 1/3
Music video: “ViViD” released on October 4th, 2016.
Hyunjin
Age: 17 (November 15th, 2000)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Yellow & Cat
Sub-Unit: 1/3
Music Video: “Around You” released on November 10th, 2016.
Haseul (Leader)
Age: 20 (August 18th, 1997)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Green & Bird
Sub-unit: 1/3
Music Video: “Let Me In” released on December 15th, 2016)
Yeojin (Maknae)
Age: 15 (November 11th, 2002)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Orange & Frog
Sub-unit: 1/3
Music Video: “Kiss Later” released on January 15th, 2017
(not featured in “Love&Live”)
ViVi
Age: 21 (December 9th, 1996)
Nationality: Chinese
Representative Color and Animal: Pastel Rose & Deer
Sub-unit: 1/3
Music Video: “Everyday I Love You” released on April 16th, 2017
LOONA 1/3
ODD EYE CIRCLE SUB-UNIT
Kim Lip
Age: 18 (February 10th, 1999)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Red & Owl
Sub-unit: ODD EYE CIRCLE
Music Video: “Eclipse” released May 22nd, 2017
JinSoul
Age: 22 (June 13th, 1997)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Blue & Siamese Fighter Fish
Sub-unit: ODD EYE CIRCLE
Music Video: “Singing In The Rain” released June 25th, 2017
Choerry
Age: 16 (June 4th, 2001)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Purple & Fruit Bat
Representative Fruit: Cherry
Sub-unit: ODD EYE CIRCLE
Music Video: “Love Cherry Motion” released on July 27th, 2017
LOONA ODD EYE CIRCLE
YYXY SUB-UNIT
Yves
Age: 21 (May 24th, 1997)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Burgundy & Swan
Representative Fruit: Apple
Sub-unit: yyxy
Music Video: “new” released November 27th, 2017
Chuu
Age: 18 (October 20th, 1999)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Peach & Penguin
Representative Fruit: Strawberry
Sub-unit: yyxy
Music Video: “Heart Attack” released December 27th, 2017
Go Won
Age: 17 (November 19th, 2000)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Eden Green & Butterfly
Representative Fruit: Pineapple
Sub-unit: yyxy
Music Video: “One and Only” released on January 29th, 2018
Olivia Hye
Age: 16 (November 13th, 2001)
Nationality: Korean
Representative Color and Animal: Grey & Wolf
Representative Fruit: Blood Plum
Sub-unit: yyxy
Music Video: “Egoist” released March 29th, 2018
LOONA yyxy
The members of LOONA have been active throughout their own series of videos called “LOONA TV.” There has been over 360 of them since the first one that was posted back on October 12th, 2016. They range anywhere from 20 seconds long to a minute long (with a few of them being 10-12 minutes long). They usually show the girls messing around, buying gifts for each other, or preparing for their music videos, photoshoots, and pre-debut promotional events.
After delving deeper into research on the group, I came to notice unique patterns and themes. These include “mirrored” tracks, connected members, patterns of repeating animals and fruits, and something called the LOONA-verse!
The mirrored tracks would include songs released (usually duets or a solo member featuring on another member) in-between the “official” releases. They would include: two of the same songs with slightly altered lyrics, two songs with the exact same theme, one song acting as an intro for the second song, or both songs having the same melody and lyrics but being an entirely different genre.
Some of these include:
Haseul & Yeojin’s “My Melody” vs. Heejin & Hyunjin’s “My Sunday”
ViVi’s “Everyday I Love You” vs. “Everyday I Need You”
LOONA 1/3’s “Love and Live” vs “Love and Evil”
Kim Lip’s “Eclipse” (Produced by Cha Cha Malone) vs. “Twilight” (Produced by Daniel Obi Klein)
ODD EYE CIRCLE’s “Girl Front” and “ODD Front”
ODD EYE CIRCLE’s “ODD” and “ADD”
On top of those tracks, quite a few acoustic versions of title songs were released alongside the original. Many instances of play-on-word connections like Go WON’s “ONE and only” and Choerry’s “Love CHERRY motion” are seen. Chuu’s debut song “Heart Attack” became a big deal for its music video with light, romantic, homosexual themes. Chuu is seen having a little crush on her fellow member Yves, whose own song lyrics, interestingly enough, mirror the lyrics of “Heart Attack.” According to fans, “Heart Attack” was heard being played at various pride celebrations around South Korea.
The LOONA-verse was first mentioned with the release of the second sub-unit’s (ODD EYE CIRCLE) music video for “Girl Front” on September 20th, 2017. The description of the video explains the creation of the first subgroup, LOONA 1/3. It mentions that the “3” in the name consists of HeeJin, Hyunjin, and Haseul. Yeojin joined to add “/” and ViVi joined to add their “1,” creating LOONA 1/3.
ODD EYE CIRCLE, consisting of Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry, has a darker concept video with hard-hitting, techno-influenced tracks. Within the music videos for “Eclipse,” “Singing in The Rain,” and “Love Cherry Motion,” various moons are seen, as well as a unique color pattern that fans began to connect to each member. The word ODD was to represent the unique style of these three, as well as the fact that ODD looks like three moons stacked upon each other. The teasers for the sub-unit also revolved around moons, and eclipses were seen within each member’s eyes.
Finally, the third and final pre-debut sub-unit, LOONA yyxy, made their debut through “love4eva,” released on May 30th, 2018. It was filmed in Budapest and featured Grimes, a famous Canadian songwriter and music producer. The description of this video seems to be pulling the band together finally, showing how each of the solo members have joined together to make a sub-unit, and now the sub-units will combine to “create a world.”
While LOONA 1/3 sang about the excitement of first love, LOONA ODD EYE CIRCLE followed up with a sense of courage to go after that love. LOONA yyxy rounded it out beautifully within their album’s tracks by singing of how sweet and luminous their fulfilled love is. However, yyxy member’s solo tracks (noteably “Egoist” and “new”), interestingly enough, showed themes of self-worth and staying away from negative relationships.
Through various video descriptions and hints dropped within each MV, fans have found a unique thread that connects some members to others. It seems as though the LOONA-verse consists of three alternate universes of some sort that will collide and complete the beginning of LOONA’s story for their official debut.
On top of pre-debut promotions with LOONA, members Hyunjin, Heejin and Haseul were contestants on the YG Entertainment’s competition program “MIXNINE”. Heejin made it all the way into the top 9 finalists until changes were made by the company and the group did not end up debuting as planned. Recently as well, within another video description, it was revealed that a ballad album, entitled LOONA Ballad, was in the works and is planned to be released in 2019.
There is no doubt how much great music there is to explore through LOONA, even before their official debut! A huge variety of music styles are present, from broadway-exque showtunes to jazzy electro-swing and provocative pop melodies with EDM chorus beats.
Still feeling overwhelmed, however No worries! I’ve broken down the most viewed and popular music videos from LOONA, as well as a few more unique tracks you simply must check out. Click the link below to see an easy to follow playlist
BlockBerry also seems to be fairly set on keeping LOONA open to the public, not only by their song choices, but also by their use of English. Many of the official music videos have been translated and subtitled in English. The song “LOONATIC” by ODD EYE CIRCLE is fully in English and was created to be the sub-unit’s “international” title track.
The official YouTube channel “loonatheworld” dropped a teaser video on June 10th showing the whole group performing together for the first time. Entitled, “(LOONA) go into Orbit,” it revealed the date of the group’s premiere greeting concert “Line Up” to be August 19th, 2018! This is likely when their debut music video will also be released, and fans are ecstatic at how soon it is! Check out the teaser below!
Finally, in preparation of their comeback, the group announced on July 9th that their official fandom name will be “Orbit.”
Due to the extensive “prep work” for their debut, the detailed concept for the group, the numerous music video and song released and more, LOONA has already earned a dedicated fan base and is considered by many the most anticipated girl group of 2018.
I hope this has helped a few people bloom into new fans and has shown the incredible thought, detail, and hard work that had been put into making the debut of LOONA! Are you ready to stan these twelve amazing and talented girls?
Did this help you learn more about LOONA? Are there any questions that weren’t covered here? Are you excited for their debut? Let us know in the comments!
CaptainMal has been into Korean Entertainment for seven years now, since 2010. She travels to conventions in her area, showcasing her “Kpop Game Show’” and occasional Kpop cosplay. Although her favorite bands are INFINITE, Super Junior, and VIXX, she boasts a love for a huge variety of artists. Other than Kpop, CaptainMal loves Disney, 80’s rock, Daft Punk, Gaming, and Orange Juice.
Media: BlockBerry Creative