~Episode 3: To the World (2)~

Hello everyone and welcome to the debrief of Kingdom Legendary War episode 3! This week we continue the first round of the competition "To the world" with three other performances: Stray Kids, Ateez and SF9! But, before we start, I want to give a little disclaimer: I won't take into consideration the "unfair treatment" Mnet is being accused of, although a lot of details have been pointed out and fans have been expressing their anger. I just don't want to base myself on speculation, I don't want to get on anyone's bad side, and I don't want to cause harm to any of the participants. I also won't talk about Hyunjin being taken out of the episodes for the same reasons. Now without any further due let's start! 

I. Round 1: To the world pt. 2 

Last week The Boyz had performed No Air (a song of ice and fire), Ikon had performed a mashup with Love Scenario and Killing me, and BtoB had performed Missing you (theatre ver.). My favorite of last week was BtoB. 

Stray Kids

Stray Kids also choose to perform a mashup with "Side effects" from their "Clé 2: Yellow Wood" album and the legendary "God's menu" from their "Go Live" album. When they were debriefing on what song to perform, one of the staff member had suggested they mix god's menu with Hellevator. I was really afraid they'd go for these two songs because like our maknae I.N said, Hellevator is a really good song on its own already, and mashing it up with god's menu would've been a mess. Thankfully, the staff trusted the member enough to let them work with Side effects and God's menu. I really want to praise Bang Chan for the arrangement because the transition between one song to another was seamless. 

Now moving on to the performance. There are a few points that made this performance look incredible:

1. The storytelling.Side effects was all about being in a parallel world where they were controlled, which was perfectly portrayed in the first part of the performance with the members dancing while being controlled by the dancers. And then we transition to god's menu where the tendency is reversed, and the members are now controlling the dancers when they're under the giant white cloth and when they're tied with the read strings. Also, the "Evil" becomes "Live". 
2. The use of the stage. At some point I really thought there were multiple stages because the decor kept changing and made this performance look real. They also really played with the props and the backup dancers, using them at their biggest advantage. 
3. The acting. Stray Kids are known for being beasts on stage. They always use all of their energy to put out the best performance, and here they really added good acting skills to make it look credible. I really wanted to highlight Felix's portion with the bell. In one second the performance could've looked ridiculous if he made the slightest mistake in his part, but he pulled it off and I was really happy. And god knows that it wasn't easy to achieve this result (they were all laughing while rehearsing in the JYP premises). 

However, there are also some points that didn't act in their favour. First, they relied too much on the back up dancers, to an extent where they were outshining them. When the members were in the back controlling the backup dancers who were under the white thing, I wasn't paying attention to the members in the back. Second, too much was happening. I'm sure there are details I didn't catch just like for their meet&greet performance, and the lighting at some point was really dark, making it hard to see every single detail they had prepared for the performance. Lastly, I wish we heard more live vocals. I've known Stray Kids since their debut, and I know they can sing. They just seem to privilege performance and heavy stunts every time, and that's their choice. I know some live vocals peaked at the end of the performance, especially during Changbin's rap, which I really enjoyed. I just want to hear more as I am an addict for live vocals. 

ATEEZ

Ah, Ateez... I'm starting to miss Mingi, especially in that song where he really brings his own colours. But they definitely did a good job. 

First, the song choice. I really like Wonderland, it's my favorite title track of their Pirate series. It's energetic borderline majestic, and the concept was crystal clear. Everything matched the concept, from the arrangement to the decor, passing by the outfits and the props. And the song arrangement was really good, until... until the last part. Did they really have to include those electronic sounds? I HATE IT when they do that. The performance was so epic and the tension was building so much, and then these sounds came in, ruining the climax. 

Second, the performance, and this is where I have really mixed feelings:

1. The performance in itself was complete, but it felt a bit too chaotic 2 reasons: First, the Kraken. Although it fits the concept, I found it too imposing and the stage felt really unbalanced. Second, the unfair screen time. I barely saw Yeosang (that's nothing new but still), and what frustrates me is that the Kraken's time could've been given to him. But no, they absolutely had to include that tentacle... 
2. There were live vocals, and I really appreciated it. That high note Jongho did? Mind-blowing. However, he was definitely forcing a bit, because you can hear it transforming into a little scream at the end, and that's when I started worrying about his vocal cords. 
3. The pirate concept... again. Pirate King, Treasure, Hala Hala, Say My Name, Wave, Illusion, Wonderland, and Answer, all these songs had a Pirate concept. They could've at least tried to do it a bit differently, not that it's easy to do but I guess I was expecting something different. Let's hope they get out of their comfort zone for the next round. 

SF9

Lastly, let's talk about SF9 who performed "Now Or Never" (yes, that's the English title of the song, it's not "Jealous" although the Korean title is pronounced "Jilleosseo" which translates into "Yelled"). 

I'm really frustrated about this performance and I know the members are too. I really love SF9 and I know they're capable of a lot more. I saw that they were trying really hard to pull out the best performance possible out there, but a lot of things didn't work, making the whole performance look a bit too messy:

1. Technical problems happened when they tried doing the acrobatic movements which is why Inseong was limping at the end of the performance.
2. The facial expressions could've also used some work, apart from Taeyang and his gorgeous acting, I could feel the other members were not at ease with the stage, nor with the backup dancers.
3. The storyline wasn't really clear to me, and if you don't understand the message behind the performance it means that it wasn't well constructed. 
4. Not all the members had the opportunity to shine. Apart from Taeyang who showed us his dancing and acting skills, the other members whom I know can dance and sing really well didn't shine as much as they could and I really don't want the public to think that this is only what they can do. I think this was mainly due the members lacking confidence in themselves, and passing last didn't help because all the other performances were really good. 

I really hope that for the next round SF9 members will be more prepared and more confident in themselves, because that's what I felt lacked on this stage: confidence. 

II. Round 1 final rankings & my personal one

It was announced that the contestants would be "graded" as follows:

• Votes by the six competing groups (25%)
• Votes by a panel of 30 experts (25%)
• Domestic and global fans vote (40%)
• Video view count (10%)

I personally find this pretty fair, and I'm glad we have a mix of experts and fans voting. And you have to understand that the fans are basically the fuel of the artists, so it's normal (to me at least) that they have a bigger voting power than the experts.

Now, without getting into the details, the final ranking for this round is as follows (from 1st to 6th):

• Ateez
• Stray Kids
• The Boyz
• BtoB
• Ikon 
• SF9

Apparently these are the rankings based only on the 6 groups votes and the experts votes, it didn’t take into account the votes of the fans and the views on the full performances videos.

Now here’s my personal ranking:

• BtoB
• Ateez
• Stray Kids
• The Boyz
• Ikon
• SF9

III. Episode 4 preview

Next week it's the start of Round 2: "Reborn". For this round, the contestants will have to cover each other's songs, and I'm here for it! I tried as much as I could to guess who will perform what song, but it is really hard to tell (I guess I'll have to wait for the actual episode to be released ^^'). But what we do see is that Ateez will have the privilege to choose who they want to switch songs with, Minhyuk of BtoB will rip his shirt off, and Rowoon of Sf9 will be back on stage! 

That's it for Kingdom Legendary war episode 3! I'll see you next week for episode 4 :) Take care until then. 

Love, Swan