September 21, 2015

CHOU | Got Work? I GOT7

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By VICKY CHOU

I have to admit – I have never actually finished watching the Harry Potter series in its entirety, let alone read all seven of the fantastical novels. For some unknown reason, I am simply unable to sit down in front of my computer or laptop for two or three hours straight and watch a movie, and not just Harry Potter movies, but all movies in general. Even when I was watching The Hunger Gamesand Pitch Perfect in the comfort of my home back in Queens, I found myself constantly moving my cursor onto the video to see how far into the movie I was. Yet whenever I come across a Korean variety show on which my favorite K-pop idol or group appears, I whine and groan when I realize that the episode is coming to an end.

With that being said, the variety show that I am currently obsessed with is Weekly Idol, and the episodes that I have most recently watched are those in which GOT7 guested on. As some of you may know, GOT7 debuted last year, but as someone who is extremely biased and does not give rookie groups much attention – which is horrible, by the way, and something I should really fix – I finally watched their Weekly Idol episodes last week, and I’m glad I did. For one, GOT7 didn’t seem like rookies at all; they were not awkward, but rather confident in their skills. And I love the way Doni and Coni, the two hosts of the show, interact with them – and with mostly every other group as well – because it always leaves the audience dying in laughter.

From the very beginning of the episode that aired on May 14th of this year, when Doni and Coni asked each member to introduce himself, I couldn’t help but laugh at how BamBam would speak in his native Thai tongue and make the hosts pause for a momentary bewilderment. And when BamBam corrected Doni and Coni on how to pronounce Wat Phra Kaew after being completely confused as to what attraction the hosts were referring to, I died at Doni and Coni’s reactions and their playful accusation of how BamBam acted confused on purpose in order to showcase his Thai skills.

After the introduction, the group and the hosts proceeded with the famous Random Play Dance game. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is basically a game in which a small part of the group’s song is played and the group has to dance accordingly to the snippet. Sometimes, only snippets from one song will be played, while other times, snippets from different songs will be played, but the same rule applies. I don’t want to spoil too much, but Doni and Coni quite literally broke GOT7 up based on who made mistakes in the game until a new group named GOT5 was formed. I’m sure you guys can guess how many people were – jokingly – kicked out of the group.

From there, the variety show ended with the hosts helping GOT7 rewrite each member’s profile. This is another one of Weekly Idol’s special corners, during which the hosts verify certain aspects of each idol, including but not limited to the idol’s height, talents, hobbies, etc. As a new fan of GOT7, I was surprised to learn that Jackson used to fence while Yugyeom used to house dance, and both of them won championships in their respective fields prior to becoming idols.

If there is one major thing that I was disappointed with, it was that in both of the GOT7 Weekly Idol episodes that I watched, Youngjae was not featured in either of the Profile Rewriting corners. In fact, Youngjae barely got any screen time at all. While I understand that it might have been because his parts were not as entertaining as other members’ parts, I think the editors should still have left some of his scenes in the episodes so that fans who like him and fans who wish to get to know all of the GOT7 members, like me, can learn more about Youngjae as well.

And with that, I would like to briefly comment on one more member of GOT7: Jr. Is it just me, or does he really look like Daehyun from B.A.P? Or are they really related in some way that I just don’t know of?

I guess that’s all for today. I should probably go back to finishing the remaining Harry Pottermovies and figure out if Snape is on Harry’s side or not. Six more to go!