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(Written September 12, 2024)
Welcome to BOSS RIIZE, a show that should go by pretty quickly, since each episode is less than 30 minutes long. Let’s start Episode 1 with a couple of fun facts.
Fact 1: This is the first group I’ve written about that doesn’t have a designated Leader. Shotaro, the oldest member (and incidentally, the only Japanese member), often takes a leadership role, but he’s not officially the leader.
Fact 2: RIIZE has dealt with a lot of anti-fan problems that I covered in the introduction, but at least one of their problems came from within their own management. The original fandom name for this group was SUNZ. That made the band and fandom names together sound like “Rising Suns.” However, no one stopped to consider that “rising sun” is the name of the Japanese flag that is still used by some branches of the Japanese military. The reason that’s a problem is that Koreans mostly remember that flag as the one that was waving when Japan invaded and annexed Korea in 1910. You would think SOMEONE at SM Entertainment would have made that connection.
So instead, they changed the fandom name to BRIIZE. Because RIIZE is pronounced “rise,” the fans understandably thought that the fandom name was pronounced to rhyme with it, and they didn’t understand what it meant. Fans on Reddit finally figured out it’s pronounced “breeze,” which still doesn’t make sense when connected to the band name. Why not words that make sense with “rise,” such as TIIDE or SHIINE? But at this point, SM Entertainment had pretty much had enough of the whole thing, so BRIIZE it is.
Ah, the chaotic, bewildering business of K-pop. I truly love it with a passion.
With that out of the way, let’s hit the road with RIIZE.
Right when the credits hit, I
meet a fellow viewer who posts the following:
I already love this girl and
hope she keeps posting over the course of this series. She’s a perfect example of how the joy of
K-pop connects with people who really need that joy.
We get a super-fast animated
intro set to RIIZE’s hit “Get a Guitar.”
Then we open on a lovely beach in Gangneung. Our boys show up, awkward and nervous in
front of the cameras but excited to be doing their first reality show. (This band was not formed on a survival
show.) They don’t know the name of the
show or what they’ll be doing. They take
a group photo, and then they run to the ocean of sparkling, crystal-blue
water. This is a lovely beach.
They seriously don’t seem to
know anything about the show they’re doing.
I know it sounds unlikely, but given how much control the K-pop industry
has over its artists, it’s entirely possible these guys were just put on a
train to the Gangwon province and told to look happy for the cameras.
The boys spot a sign on the beach with their band name on it. They run the few hundred yards to the sign and then collapse from exhaustion. Seriously, guys? Someone get Julien Kang in here.
The sign turns out to be a voting booth, and they take a closer look. They are clearly ill at ease in front of the reality show cameras. I love these guys, and they’re doing their best, but they’re not great at sounding real on a reality show.
The RIIIZE guys (RIIZE GUYS would have been another great fandom name) try to guess what they’ll be voting on. Boys, you’ve got about twenty minutes left in this episode. Maybe get in there and look for clues.
They find instructions. They have to enter the voting booth one at a time and vote for two members they are most grateful for. They cannot share their choices with each other. They ask the offscreen production crew if they can vote for themselves. They discuss this awkwardly for a while and then decide that voting for themselves would be no fun, but some of them decide they’re going to do it anyway. Again, guys, tick tock.
The voting process meanders on for quite a while. Given the short runtime, I was expecting a faster pace. As each guy goes into the booth, the others guess what the two elected ones will have to do. Get thrown into the ocean? Buy lunch for the rest of the band? Edit this footage into something resembling a storyline? PICK. UP. THE. PACE. ALREADY.
Finally, almost eight minutes in, voting is finished. Whoever edited this should be thrown into the water and forced to swim the 800 kilometers to Japan. The boys are told by an offscreen producer, “During our pre-show interviews, you said you make many band decisions through majority rule.”
We then cut to the interview
session at SM Entertainment, where the boys tell the offscreen interviewer, “We
make band decisions through majority rule.”
Then we immediately cut back
to the beach. I have to admit, I laughed
at that. What made it especially funny
is that I don’t think they were trying to be funny. I hope that those unnecessary, redundant
flashbacks become a running gag on this series.
The show explains what we already know from the series description. The boys will travel and vote for new bosses along the way. We get preview clips of the series that look way more exciting than what we’re seeing now. LET’S GOOOOOOO!
We finally learn who won the first vote. This person got five votes, so I assumed it would be de facto Leader Shotaro, but no. It’s vocalist So Hee. He’s very happy, and I’m happy for him, now let’s hit the road already.
But no, we have to watch a “very fancy appointment ceremony,” right there on the beach. Seriously? Just slap a ribbon on him and LET’S GO.
So Hee is presented with a
BOSS appointment letter and a laurel. He
reads his appointment letter out loud.
We are now 12 minutes into this episode.
If this were a survival reality show, the first round of trainees would
have been cut by now.
The other band members applaud. Sung Chan says, “Wow, they say power reveals the true nature of a person.” Dude, relax. You didn’t install a military dictator. You elected a K-pop idol who’s probably going to decide which of his bandmates have to cockfight over a bag of chicken snacks.
Actually, I may be
wrong. This newfound power might be
going to So Hee’s head. The production
team brings out a nice beach chair and umbrella for him. He gets a cooler of beverages and a nice
blanket while his bandmates stand around awkwardly.
At least So Hee shares his drinks with his bandmates. I’d like to remind him that we have less than nine minutes left in this episode.
Suddenly, something surprising happens. So Hee says something that the translators put on the screen as, “Eon Seok, get comfortable.” But that’s not what one of the viewers heard.
I play it back a few times, and weirdly, it does sound like he said, “Seunghan.” There’s no way SM Entertainment would have allowed that to stay in, unless they were trying to hint that they’re bringing Seunghan back. Is this show playing mind games with us? Because that would be kind of awesome.
So Hee signs his BOSS appointment letter while the others joke that if Eon Seok had been picked instead, he’d be a dictator. They spend a while on this joke, which means they’re either foreshadowing something or this show really does not have a single video editor on the production team.
According to the appointment letter, the tenure of the BOSS lasts until that night. So Hee now has instructions for his team. They must retrieve a safe from the ocean. The safe contains operating expenses for their trip and is floating on a raft just offshore. After the other bandmates get the safe, the BOSS will choose two of them to serve as “workers” during his “regime.” Workers, once chosen, cannot be changed.
Won Bin, my personal bias of
the group, may have been out in the sun too long because he asks, “Is it a good
thing to be a worker?” Of course, Won
Bin. That’s why the BOSS’ term of office
is called a “regime.” Only good things
can come from that.
So Hee must have noticed that
we have maybe six minutes left in this episode, because he suddenly orders his
bandmates into the ocean to get the safe.
The water really is beautiful.
I’d jump in. Anton reaches the
safe first because he’s the only one who actually gets in the water.
The other bandmates decide to
steal the safe from Anton when he gets out of the water so they can present it
to the BOSS and steal his thunder So Hee
can see that Anton actually retrieved the safe, right? It’s happening right in front of him. Whatever the reason, the chase is now on, and
we get more gorgeous shots of the water.
So Hee enjoys his beverage
while watching his bandmates battle over the safe. The show keeps making reference to the face
that the water is Anton’s domain, so I paused it and did some Googling about
Anton because I knew I was missing a reference.
As Anton escapes further into the ocean, he taunts his bandmates, “I can be an otter!”
He finally returns to land,
where other bandmates who didn’t want to get wet are waiting to tackle him.
The amount of actual cash Anton grabbed is two hundred thousand won, or about $150 USD. They’re a little let down at the amount. “There’s no way this is it,” says Shotaro, who needs to zip it before So Hee sends him into the water to look for more. If anyone should be mad about the amount, it’s Anton, who went into the ocean fully clothed and is now standing on the beach in wet jeans.
Time for So Hee to choose the two workers, who will have their names written on the appointment letter. (This is one formal reality show.) So Hee is powerful and demanding, but fair and wise. He decides that the only two who didn’t go anywhere near the water, Won Bin and Sung Chan, will be the workers.
Our workers are ordered to clear away the stuff on the beach while everyone else goes off to rest for a couple of hours. But Sung Chan decides to sit in So Hee’s chair instead of cleaning up, leaving Won Bin to do all the work alone. Won Bin decides that if he’s the BOSS tomorrow, he will have his revenge.
The episode ends here, which is a pretty good cliffhanger. I’m hoping the pace and energy pick up in the next episode. In the meantime, here are other things I’m expecting from the series:
- One of the BOSSes
will be overthrown by the workers, who then go on to form the first anarchic
K-pop group.
- Monsta X will
invade the beach, conquer a RIIZE BOSS, and install Minhyuk as the new
BOSS. Minhyuk’s first official act will
be to ban all cucumbers from craft services.
- Anton will become BOSS and unify power with the girl groups through an arranged marriage with Jennie Kim of BlackPink, ensuring their heirs will rule all of South Korea forever.
History is being made,
folks. I, for one, welcome our new K-pop
overlords. See you next time.
Episode 2: The peasants revolt.
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