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(Written February 27, 2025)
Welcome to YG Treasure Box, where I have no idea what to expect. I’m hoping to see familiar faces among the trainees and judges. Still holding out hope that Mad Clown will pop up in another one of these shows. It feels good to be recapping again. Let’s dive right in!
We get our opening title sequence, and these boys look disturbingly young. Yes, I know we have children in entertainment in the US as well, but the K-pop machine is a very different beast. This is going to be an uncomfortable watch, isn’t it?
We open on the YG
Entertainment building, which looks like it’s still under construction.
We get voiceovers from the trainees, talking about how they’ve always dreamt of being signed to YG. We learn that BigBang, Winner, iKon, and Blackpink are with YG, and the fact that I know who three of these groups are means that I’m impressed. Wary, but impressed.
The trainee voices tell us that once they were finally signed to YG, they faced huge expectations and pressure. Their friends kept asking when they were going to debut. Just a thought, but maybe get new friends. Seriously, they’ve been watching these survival reality shows too and know it’s not that easy, right? Tell them to back all the way off.
We get footage of the nearly
400 employees coming into work. Jennie
from Blackpink shows up, and the employees nod as they pass her and keep going,
like she’s Joanne from HR. Imagine
seeing Billie Eilish at your job and giving her a cursory nod in the hallways
as you hurry because someone just said there were bagels in the breakroom.
We see YG Entertainment CEO Yang Hyun-Suk exit an elevator. Fun Fact: four years after this show airs, he’ll be sentenced to six months in prison for blackmail and threatening an informant. Isn’t K-pop FUN? I’m so GLAD we’ll get to see him working with LITERAL CHILDREN on this show.
We cut to a production team meeting in preparation for this show, in which an employee says, “The main producer is recently more into good looks.” The team dutifully writes “GOOD LOOKS” at the top of their list.
We then see CEO Yang looking
over trainee photos and saying, “These boys are the gems we have in our YG
Treasure Box.” This makes me feel kind
of gross. I need all the showers. Is it to late to switch to Love is Blind
recaps?
No, I can do this. Deeeeep breath.
They watch videos of the trainees performing and pick out the best-looking ones. Good looks are all they’re considering, and I’m reminded of how many handsome but tone-deaf singers wound up on Boys Planet.
We cut to the training center
and practice studios. Our trainees
arrive. We get screen text saying they
practice for twelve hours each day. The
one who has trained at YG the longest is – hey, it’s Bang Yedam!
We know he’ll make it to the final group, then leave three years later and have a successful solo career. In this show, he’s 17 years old and has been a YG trainee for six years. We get a clip of him performing at age 11 on another survival show. This guy’s a lifer.
We also get a shot of Yedam at age five, singing with his songwriting father, who’s playing the guitar. The song is John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” I feel a pang because that’s the first song I learned to play on the guitar. And the last. I apologize to the memory of Mr. Denver for the way I butchered his song and reassure him that I quit the guitar right after that.
Back to the present, and we see Yedam with his vocal trainer. I think the show is telegraphing that he’s going to make the final group. I’m even more convinced of this when we follow him to school. He helps keep the classroom clean, and he studies hard. We’re told his classmates see him as an ordinary guy, but they have to be aware of the camera crew that suddenly showed up in their already crowded classroom with all their lenses focused on this allegedly ordinary guy. Yedam is one of the top students at his school, which is pretty amazing, considering he trains at YG for several hours a day.
We watch him practice
choreography, and he pulls fellow trainee Doyoung up to join him – hey, that’s
another future Treasure member!
As we watch them dance, Yedam’s voiceover tells us the same heartbreaking story we keep hearing on these survival shows – he’s tired of watching the other trainees debut and leave him behind. He’s ready to show what he can do.
It looks like our trainees
are being separated into teams, and Yedam is on Team A, or Treasure A. This team has seven members, and we’re told
that they seem the closest to debut. A
YG Employee tells us that the company invests over $100,000 USD per
trainee. Wow. I don’t know if that’s per year, but
considering it sometimes includes room and board if they live in the dorms, I
can see it. We get a breakdown of the
costs: food, transportation, foreign
language classes, acting classes, debate classes (?), and fitness
training.
No wonder entertainment companies churn out new groups every year. They want a return on their investment. This also explains why K-pop idols don’t make very much money unless they become massive BTS-levels of popular for a long time. They begin their careers in massive debt.
Sorry about that. If you read enough of my recaps, you know I have a bad habit of scraping the sparkly purple frosting off the business of K-pop to reveal the unpleasantness underneath. I’m done now. Here’s the spatula and a vat of Duncan Hines. Back into the frosting we go!
We now learn that Treasure A is the only team that gets all these privileges from YG. They’re the ones the company sees the most potential in getting their money ba – I mean, in becoming successful K-pop idols.
Reality intrudes again when another member of Treasure A learns just how much the company has invested in him. He does not look happy. It’s not just a financial burden, it’s an emotional one. And he’s still just a kid. Hey DoorDash, I need more frosting over here, now.
We get more rehearsal
footage, and hey, there’s Junkyu!
I almost didn’t recognize him without the blonde hair he had in Shining Solo. The dance coach tells him his moves aren’t sharp enough and that he tires out too easily. As they keep rehearsing, Junkyu has trouble focusing. He’s a beat behind the others. Hours and hours of practice is mentally as well as physically draining. After several hours of this, it must be really hard to concentrate.
Mercifully, they take a break before Junkyu just collapses. The others goof around and do backflips, but he looks like he has no energy left.
In a confessional, Junkyu tells us he’s been a lot less confident since Mix Nine, another survival show that not only featured other future Treasure members and several members of ATEEZ, but also Jaejun from TAN. That show had over 100 contestants, and just reading the Wikipedia page about it is exhausting.
We now cut to a one-on-one counseling session in a conference room, which is not the warmest of environments. Junkyu is struggling to express his feelings. It can’t be easy with a camera crew right there in the room, zooming in on his face. He’s understandably unable to be honest and vulnerable in this situation, and he doesn’t have the option of smashing the camera without incurring more debt to the company. When he returns to practice, he’s clearly not feeling any better. And I thought mental healthcare in America was a mess.
We now jump ahead to D-Day. I’m not sure what event is planned, but the YG staff is dressed formally and looking serious. “It’s finally the big day!” the screen text tells us.
Treasure A Team arrives and files into a large practice room. Okay, so this is a monthly assessment. I was expecting something bigger, like maybe proper counseling sessions that aren’t televised. (I know, I’ll stop. Pass the frosting.)
Junkyu looks seriously stressed out. It gets even worse when the Treasure B Team files in. This is going to be intense. Most of Team A is laughing and joking, but nobody on Team B is even cracking a smile. Team B does not get the attention and financial support that Team A gets, and they look determined to rectify that today.
We get a flashback to get to know Team B better. Their ages range from 16 to 19, and for some, this will be their first evaluation. They are all beginners. Right away, I recognize future Treasure member Jaehyuk.
We learn that most of these trainees got here through street casting after school, which basically means being recruited right off the street. That’s how Jaehyuk was recruited, and he was quite popular on the street. (Sorry, that came out weird.) SM, JYP, Woollim, Cube, Yua Hua, and Pledis all chased after this kid, and I can see why. He has such a sweet face and smile.
We now return to our future felon CEO Yang Hyun-Suk, who tells us that good looks are so important to him when signing trainees, even K-pop superstar Rain didn’t make the cut. Rain. You know, the legendary K-pop artist, actor, model, designer, and all-around amazing guy. We met him back in the I-Land recaps. CEO Yang is telling us that RAIN didn’t meet YG’s standards. It’s a huge testament to Rain’s ability to forgive that he hasn’t used his considerable wealth to have the YG Building bulldozed, paved, and turned into municipal parking.
We watch the YG scouts do their street casting thing, which involves staring at students as they leave school at the end of the day. I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable watching this if they didn’t keep telling us over and over that they are focused on finding really good-looking childre – I mean kids – I mean, oh for Pete’s sake, let’s just fast-forward through this part.
The newly-recruited Team B members are brought to the YG Building for an assessment, and most of them are awful singers and dancers. It’s almost like recruiting kids solely based on their looks is a bad idea. Will they improve enough to shine when we return to the present for D-Day? Well, Jaehyuk is in this group, so I sure hope so.
But the flashback isn’t over
yet. We watch Team B member Hwang Heo
get called out of rehearsal and into a conference room, where he’s told it’s
just not working out and he’s being cut from the group.
“So I can’t be here anymore?” he stammers. For one awful moment, he stares at the door like he’s desperately wanting to go back on the other side of it, where his dreams are. Then he breaks down in tears. What’s even worse is that we’re seeing this from several camera angles, which means there’s a whole camera crew in the room with him as his dream gets destroyed.
Impossibly, it’s going to get worse for Hwang Heo. I looked him up. He went on to do another survival reality show, using the stage name #RIVER. He was eliminated in the very first episode on that show as well. There’s not enough frosting in the world to cover up this heartbreak.
We see another Team B trainee get cut, but the translators don’t give us his name, and we only get a few quick scenes. These poor kids were scouted off the street and had their hopes built up for nothing. The next time a scout walks up to a potential trainee, I hope the kid’s armed with pepper spray.
Team B is upset about losing
two of their new friends, but back into dance practice they have to go. They are interrupted again when a YG employee
brings in another trainee to replace the two that just got chopped. I’m assuming they just pulled him out of the
car trunk they threw him into when he was walking home from a Korean Boy Scout
meeting.
His name is Ha Yoon Bin, not that it matters because he won’t make it into Treasure, at least not the group we know now. It’s complicated. All of this is complicated.
Another new arrival is tossed
into the mix, and wait, is that our own future Treasure member Jihoon?
I think so. He looks very different here. (checking Wikipedia) Yes, that’s our guy. Fun Fact: this is not his first survival reality show either. He was on the show that brought us Stray Kids, along with future bandmates Bang Yedam and Doyoung. I say “fun fact” like this whole process was actually fun for them. I do know better.
Finally, the flashback ends,
and we’re back at D-Day. Now we meet
Team C. They’re called the Junior Group,
and they look so young, I want to show my age by stomping onto the set and
yelling, “WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?!”
The screen text actually describes them as “toddling” into the assessment room. Their average age is fourteen. Someone needs to go to jail for this.
We get another flashback so we can get to know our team of toddlers. They arrive at the YG Building in school uniforms. They practice their team greeting: “We’re cute and pretty Treasure C!” Out of this group, Kim Jong Seob has already won a talent show. (He won’t be in Treasure, but happily, he will go on to be in the successful group P1Harmony. I love their song “Killin’ It.”)
These junior trainees goof
off in the rehearsal room until a stern-looking YG rep with serious Mom Energy
sticks her head in the door and scolds them to get back to work. Once they settle down and focus, we can see that
some of them are remarkably talented.
Even more than the B Team. Future
Treasure member Jeongwoo has a heavenly singing voice. I didn’t realize how young he was compared to
the rest of the group when I watched Shining Solo.
Finally, the flashbacks are over, and we’re back to D-Day for the assessment. We only have a few minutes left in this episode, so I’m not sure how much of this we’ll get to see.
Hey, I just realized that our
future Treasure chaotic dresser Choi Hyun-Suk is in the room! He’s on Team A. How did I miss that big gorgeous smile? I should have recognized him by the way he’s
glamoured up that plaid shirt with some jewelry.
He’s been our Style King from the very beginning.
CEO and Main Producer Yang Hyun Suk returns before we can get too comfortable. The trainees all leap to their feet and bow to him. They are all now very, very nervous. He takes a seat and calls out to Bang Yedam, who steps forward. CEO Yang announces that YG is launching a new group.
“Any guess as to how many members?” he asks Yedam.
Since BigBang and Winner both started with five members, Yedam guesses five. Our CEO confirms that he’s thinking of five members. Really? Treasure was originally supposed to be half its current size?
The trainees do not look
happy. The odds against each one just
got worse.
CEO Yang concedes he may go as high as seven, but that’s not much better. And wait, where are our Japanese trainees? I don’t see Asahi, Haruto, or Yoshi (our beloved K-pop anime vampire) anywhere.
We’re told that over the course of the show, there will be monthly assessments. We get some preview clips, including warnings that we will see eliminations. I know. I’m a survival show veteran by now.
We will also see the teams get re-grouped, possibly several times. And hopefully, we’ll see someone hop a plane to Japan and bring back our missing members.
The current assessment
begins, and this is frustrating because we only get a few seconds of each
performance. We start with Team A. They’re high energy but not very coordinated. CEO Yang is disappointed. Not a good start.
Team B looks a lot better, but again, we only see a few seconds. This is frustrating.
CEO Yang isn’t impressed with Team B either, and since we’re not getting the full performance, I don’t know if I agree with him or if he’s just being a jerk.
Now our Juniors.
The ten seconds we see look a bit uncoordinated, like Team A, and CEO Yang tells them it was no good.
This feels like such a letdown after all the flashback buildup. Why can’t we see the whole evaluation? This reminds me of the first rankings in Episode 1 of No Mercy, where we just had to take the judges’ word for it.
After the harsh reviews, our CEO says, “All three teams are a complete mess.” The trainees lower their heads in shame. Honestly, I don’t think they looked THAT bad, but maybe we didn’t get to see the worst parts of the performances. Based on what I’ve seen, they don’t deserve this scolding.
There are 22 trainees in the room now, and CEO Yang says he doesn’t think he’ll be able to pick five band members out of any of these groups. So he has more trainees that he has kept hidden until now. Are these our Japanese trainees?
Yes! From YG’s branch in Japan, we’re getting seven more trainees. And they will be competing with Teams A, B, and C. CEO Yang calls for Treasure J Team to enter.
Now we cut to a flashback, because of course we do. These shows cannot exist without grinding the momentum to a screeching halt every chance they get. We see Incheon International Airport. This is the most excited I’ve been all episode. Here comes the J Team!
At first, we only get quick
glimpses of some of their faces. I think
I see Asahi. Then, we finally see them
lined up in the D-Day room.
Again, we just get a few quick glimpses of their performance. I think we’re actually seeing preview clips for the next episode because suddenly there’s a few seconds of a rap battle, right out of nowhere. And then the episode suddenly ends, leaving me blinking at the screen.
Okay. Well. That was abrupt. And kind of a bummer. But Treasure’s fans on Tumblr warned me. I know the heartbreak will get worse, especially since after I posted the intro, I got this comment from Tumblr user jeongjeongii:
Already warning u this so freaking traumatic😭...... u know the competition was too high.....and the way YG was behaving with trainees, mainly team A, was not helping I literally cried for hyunsuk ........
What? Oh no. What’s going to happen to Hyun Suk? I’m also concerned by another comment from aplateoflasagna, who writes: Live audience/fans were encouraged to vote but YG made the final decisions and it gets brutal.
This is clearly going to get
a lot worse. Before the next episode,
I’d better stock up.
See you next episode.
Episode 2: CEO Yang breaks my brain.
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