IZONE News and Discussion Thread

The interesting thing to see is that izone is a slightly different case from the other Produce groups as it's the last if you don't count BigHit collaborations like enhypen, it will be curious to see if CJ will try to kept them around/permanent.

Smaller agencies (non-big3) that used to bank on using Produce seasons' to get free exposure is now gone.
It's gone back to the pre-Produce days when unknown companies again will have a difficult time getting massive free attention by a big media/channel. Although the brand is still valid for the Japanese market with JO1 and the sibling boy group to come.

 

I*ZONE is a temp group like I.O.I &Wanna one the question should be asking is will 48 members be happy going back to a job with loussy pay while being stared by old people and have to fight to make it into a single look at what happen after produce48 the 48g lost members face it there could be more defecters going into kpop

 

48G members get paid very well. Especially top members which all of them will be and in Sakura/Nako’s case have been way before P48. There will be no fighting to get into singles for them. In fact hasn’t a big deal been made in the past on izones various shows that the Japanese members always have money and pay for stuff because the korean members are broke?

 

LOL Haven't heard about that before but presumably they're all rich now esp. since Mnet gave up their share of profits for IZONE after PD48 scandal. The only reason Sakura Nako and Hii may have more money(in the bank) is because they worked for longer periods as idols than the Korean members. Speaking about money if they go back to 48G, they have to start using their own money for everything (makeup, food, transit, hairdos and etc) while in Korea they have the company pay for everything so their net salary at 48G will be less for sure.

 

Uum this is sarcasm right? lol

 

So to be clear your saying that izone members get paid into the 6 figures right? Because about 6 years ago Sasshi was estimated to be getting paid almost $700,000 a year. That’s not including her transportation, housing, etc which 48G most definitely pays. They also don’t have to be in a dorm and share rooms etc. I’d say when Sakura returns it’ll be close to that considering she will finally get her solo activities back and she’ll be a top tier member. I might be getting old information but don’t kpop members tend to not get paid well?
I’m not sure on the sources accuracy but I thought kpop group members make around 10% of total profit that they split among members. So let’s say that they made $3,000,000 for their last album. $300,000 of that is split between the 12 members - that would leave about $25,000 per member. (That’s not including if the members have to pay back for training - which I’ve heard is the norm in kpop) So in order for them to make more than a top tier 48G member they would have to make a huge profit - probably around a BTS level which if your looking at just physical album sales you might think they do but they do not have the activities that BTS has in the global market so I’d think probably not.

source AKB member salary: https://aramajapan.com/news/gossip/female-idol-estimated-annual-income-ranking/2303/https://aramajapan.com/news/gossip/female-idol-estimated-annual-income-ranking/2303/

For reference BTS salary https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a27633114/bts-net-worth/

 

Why would ppl want to compare the 3 jline with 48g top tier member paycheck? Not to mentioned with sasshi, one of the top member that loaded with jobs offers and job position in 48g itself, that have done extreme showing skin looking gravure. Is all the the 3 jline are a top tier member from the begining to begin with, and comparable to sasshi lvl? Most of 48g members money are not coming from their music, and they'll split members profits based on how much they participate in songs that they featured in their albums, basicly they don't have much income from it, by solo job offer, yes, and it's been said by members many time in the past 'i couldn't remember', and even the recent comment about hii from the team 8 members also talking something similar bout that, like wearing an expensive item etc, in terms of income, media exposure, idol training, and schedules etc, imo, i don't think the 3 jline having a bad deals atm inside a group with less members than 48G like izone, they can stay if they wanted to stay, or they can go back if they choose to go back, it's their own life, there must be something god had prepared for them wherever they choose to go

 

Gosh this ridiculous debate will never end
Kpop the paradise of idols where money flows and girls are necessarly happy Vs 48g (to not say Jpop) world where idols are poorly paid, forced to go 3/4 nude and are in a miserable situation

Seriously, 2 years after, you guys are still full of such stereotypes ?

Luckily, the exemples that counter this crap are abound.

 

Back to usual topic

IZ*ONE @ AAA 2020 (recorded on 25th, streamed on Today)

if the video does not show watch the video here

Anyway, they won 2 awards: Potential Award and Best Musician - Female award @ AAA 2020

Potential Award

if the video does not show watch the video here

Best Musician - Female
(Mod edit: removed dead video link)

From NTV's Best Artist 2020

if the video does not show watch the video here

( watch all of them before being deleted by Youtube )

 

firstly sorry for my broken english.
and dont trust those salary/net worth estimate coz it can get pretty far from reality.
u dont need to be as big as BTS to make more than that .kang daniel get around 1 million usd for a year just from an endorsment alonewhen he's on wanna one & a group like winner and ikon make alot of money with around 100-300k sales .
from my experience k-pop is not only about sales it's about popularity that can translate into brands some group can make more than a group with more sales.
kpop earning is highly dependent on how much the agency taking the share , participation in the album production(it can be a big buck even it doesn't sell like a million sales or something) ,concert,event & endorsement deals(this pays big considering most kpop endorment make the idol use the product exclusively . some extreme example is when blackpink is endorsing samsung when a fan ask for a selfie at a concert they dont want to take a photo/video with any phone except samsung) pretty sure thats apply to iz*one too for cologram and molak for sakura.
concidering the history of ioi & wanna one member earning when they're in the group iz*one not taking a bad deal unless AKS A.K.A verna take a big share out of the j line too.
and the "you have to pay training debt" only apply to small agency which some of the member are in but the majority are in a medium-big agency . pretty sure some member make more than that some less idk about j line coz idk the standard of jpop contract
but at the end of the day it kinda unfair to compare it now with the covid and everything coz we can't see what they really could achieve with concert and some endorsment that require travel to brands event and stuff.

 

Not sure if you've noticed the abundance of "Justice for Sakura" hashtags a couple days ago, but it's obvious that the girls aren't treated as godly as some people might think. To clarify for those who didn't see it, there was a screenshot going round from a conversation (probably kakaotalk) from some OTR staff people, who didn't know where to put Sakura and said stuff about her standing out too much.

They purposefully put her on the side, or place her outside the symmetry of a shot so she gets overlooked.



We all know how popular Sakura is. She placed second on Produce and even if you don't believe in the ranking because of the rigging scandal, you can see it based on how quickly her slots sell out, how much her Chinese fans especially pre-order, how recognisable she is now in both Japan and Korea, etc etc. It seems they don't want a Japanese member to be the center of the group.

There's two things I agree with here;

One is that AKB48 members probably don't have to worry about their pay. The Korean members have said that they remember, when they went on their first trip as a group for IZ*ONE CHU, they were shocked that the Japanese members could afford paying for snacks for themselves and other members without having to think much about it. Japanese idols get paid right away, in 48G even as Kenkyuusei, although members in the past have said that it's not a lot unless you are a senbatsu member.

The other thing is that Korean members have trainee debt they have to work off once they debut. The longer you're a trainee, the higher your debt, and the less successful your group/career, the longer you go without pay for your work.

That being said, I.O.I members were only active as part of that specific group for 6 months and all of them have reportedly been able to pay off their trainee debt during that period because I.O.I was successful enough. They weren't even active as long as IZ*ONE, and only had 2 mini albums + 4 non-EP singles. Pinky/Kylkyung/JieQiong was a trainee for 5 years and 5 months before I.O.I, which means she would have accumulated quite a lot of trainee debt. They reportedly received about $109k USD each (out of the roughly $8M that I.O.I made during their active period).

If IZ*ONE's pay is in anyway similar to that of I.O.I, the girls are getting paid just fine right now. But I don't think that's the only thing that matters.

In IZ*ONE, Sakura is considered among the top batters and I don't know what everyone else thinks, but if the last Sousenkyo hadn't taken place in Nagoya during the same year as SKE48's 10 Year Anniversary, Sakura would have at least placed second. In IZ*ONE, she's purposefully pushed aside so she doesn't attract all the attention. Nako and Hitomi barely get to sing and just stand there awkwardly during ballads – in AKB48/HKT48 songs they don't get a lot of individual lines, but the songs are sung by everyone together, so at least they're doing something.

I enjoy IZ*ONE but I do want the Japanese members to come back to 48g. They want to write songs? Shouldn't be much of a big deal – I'm pretty sure I remember Sashihara Rino and Yamamoto Sayaka writing lyrics. There isn't really much else that they get to do in IZ*ONE that they can't do in AKB48/HKT48.

 

So far it seems it's just Minju who has been tested as a result of Bitto from UP10TION testing positive. The group appeared on Saturday's edition of Music Core and everyone involved with the broadcast is being tested including Minju who's a regular MC:
https://www.mk.co.kr/star/hot-issues/view/2020/12/1232147/

(According to the article today's (12/1) edition of SBS/MTV The Show has been cancelled and there's some concern about the 2020 MAMA Awards show next Sunday.)

 

They will resume activity as scheduled
https://n.news.naver.com/entertain/article/609/0000364734

 

Some much happier news about Minju - she's been selected as '2020 Special New Actor of the Year' by the Korean movie magazine 'Cine Rewind' for her part as Soo-yeon in the movie 'Eoje Ileun Modu Gwaenchanha' (English title: 'The Fault Is Not Yours'):

http://www.mncn.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=24345

 

IZ*ONE 'Panorama' MV Teaser 1
https://www.vlive.tv/post/0-20166435

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

I've avoided talking about this topic when it was fresh. Didn't want to seem combative or insensitive to Sakura's fans, but I've always felt like this was a over reaction.

Sakura talked about how OTR helped her when she brought up wanting to compose music and released her song relatively quickly, considering she went from knowing basically nothing about composition. How they wanted to reward her hard work and improvements in dance, and made her a part of the swan dance break. They let her and the other members take creative control of the oneiric theater and she got to do Red Velvet's Monster. They tasked the Jline to challenge lyrics really early on in Izone's career.

And yet they thought her pink hair stood out too much, so they move her away from the center and twitter explodes with "justice for Sakura" and railed against how OTR is always mistreating her. I can understand not being happy with what they did, and maybe it's because she's the most popular member, but I tend to think her fans are a little oversensitive and reactionary.

 

I think people could disagree with my opinion. Because Sakura always got much attention in the group, when she got "less treatment" than she usually had, people would think that OTR mistreated her.

 

And yet they wanted Sakura in the group she get a lot of camera time even during produce 48

 

It's common with solo fandoms to cause for the division between the group fandom at large, carry over from produce and constant grudge at resulted rankings.

I believe this was a wise move at the time and likely still is; the resulting group from Produce 48 is a Kpop group as opposed to SOL48 or sending Korean trainees to a 48 offshoot. CJ/AKS likely wanted it to ride the Kpop wave and thus do well in Korea (as a base for any Kpop group); possibly having Korean center mitigated the backlash resulting from Korea-Japan tensions beginning in 2018. (Korea still holds some uneasy feelings towards, especially recalling how Koreans had accepted Japanese Twice members yet attacked Sana for her commentary on Japanese new era)

There is also the narrative pushed by the show as well that the Japanese trainees were not trained as well as the Korean ones (for the field of being a Kpop idol); this point could be used to argue depending on what you are looking for in an idol; Japan/AKB focuses more on an entertainer's personality/variety skills, whereas Korea and the West values performance ability; singing/dancing.

Also being run like Kpop group means CJ/OTR would like to keep members roughly at the same attention level because it becomes an issue for many groups when it's 1 member that out shines the group that often leads to failure; many of the resulting groups post Produce. Though I'm unsure if the original agencies aren't still getting them gigs on the side; Yujin/Yuri on King of Masked Singer, Minju on MBC and other solo promotions.

As for Nako and Hitomi, they get more shine of cute concept stages/songs (which are often the b-sides) and ballads are often split pretty fairly (as you can with 12 people and none of the Japanese members being one of the lead vocal); Nako is occasionally allowed to belt high notes though (Ayayaya Stage). Hitomi was credited for Merry Go Round which is the best song from their recent comeback Oneiric Diary.

IZ*One seems to follow the recent Kpop trend of having the youngest being the center.

Sakura is most popular in Japan/China by hi-touch and albums. (it's also reasonable to assume Sakura already has a sizable fandom pre-produce)
Chaeyeon appears to be popular everywhere else due to her dancing/relation to Twice/Itzy/Sixteen.
Wonyoung ranks highest out of the group in almost all idol popularity reports since produce (maybe the bump of being center).

 

Everything will be solved in 5 months. Sakura back to the great HKT48. No problem.