YG Treasure Box, Episode 5: Things get kind of dark.

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(Written March 7, 2025)

Welcome back to this bewildering show.  Jeongwoo has been kicked out of Treasure 7.  It appears more carnage is on the way.  Let’s get to it.

Time to find out who the next challenger will be.  BlackPink appears again on the screen of the Ice Castle Stage and announces it will be … Choi Hyun Suk!  Our future Treasure Style King!  I guess the aegyo thing he did at the talent show really won BlackPink over.

Hyun Suk strolls out onto the stage, ready for battle.  (please don’t pick Haruto please don’t pick Haruto) He tells the announcer his specialty is rap and dance.  (please don’t pick Haruto)  He picks Junghwan.  DAMMIT.  I didn’t mean for him to battle another Treasure guy!  Ha Yoon Bin was RIGHT THERE (still looking as confused as ever, I might add).  I should have been more specific.

Junghwan’s reaction

 

So now Hyun Suk and Junghwan will have a dance battle.  The rest of the trainees backstage are betting on Hyun Suk over the underdog Junghwan.  I love both Treasure guys, but I’m pulling for Hyun Suk, the only guy I’ve ever seen wear a vintage cardigan over a skater/punk outfit and totally make it work.  He was born to be seen.

We get a brief flashback in which Hyun Suk introduces himself as a 3-year trainee.  We see clips of his audition for YG and his practice sessions over the years.  He gets assigned to Team A and earns the respect of his fellow trainees.  He then hits a series of poor reviews and bad feedback, including not making it onto the Treasure 7 Team.  After this flashback, it’s going to be a total bummer if he loses this battle.

Speaking of which, it’s showtime.  The song is “Lie” by BTS.

They’re both spellbinding.  It’s a passionate performance, and they’re both amazing.  I can’t choose a winner.  They finish to cheers and enthusiastic applause, but the general consensus among the trainees is that Hyun Suk performed better. 

The audience “votes” (don’t get me started on that again), and now it’s time for Junghwan to choose the gold or silver card.  He chooses the silver card, which once again turns out to be CEO Yang’s card.

Our CEO picks up the mic, and then he surprises me.  Before he gives his opinion, he wants to see the results of the audience vote.  The gold card flips to show that the audience voted for Hyun Suk.  So if the CEO’s vote is different, then Junghwan picked the right card.  This is no way to put a K-pop group together, but we’re only fifteen minutes into this episode, so I’ll refrain from launching into that rant again.

The announcer tells us the audience vote is “meaningless,” which I’m sure makes the employees feel great.  He asks CEO Yang for his vote, and the CEO chooses Junghwan.  The audience and the trainees backstage do not look happy.  I can’t argue with CEO Yang because I thought both trainees were great, but after seeing that flashback of Hyun Suk, only to see him lose again, I’m gutted.

Just as I’m hoping Hyun Suk is able to find some consolation in the fact that the audience was on his side, we see him breaking down in tears in a confessional afterwards.  “I want to do better, but I can’t,” he says, and I just want to give him all the hugs.  God, what these trainees go through.

Okay, now for the next heartbreak.  BlackPink appears on the screens again to choose the next challenger.   It’s future CIX member Kim Seung Hun.  Our Treasure 7 vocalists are extremely nervous, because he’s one of the best singers in the group.

Seung Hun takes the stage.  He challenges Junkyu.  I now have an entire kennel of dogs in this fight.  Come on, Junkyu!

The song will be “Beautiful” by Crush.  When we see Seung Hun in a practice room, looking at how Junkyu has arranged the song, and he sees that Junkyu has given himself 20 lines, while the challenger only gets 12 lines.  Atta boy, Junkyu!  If this show is gonna use gimmicks, then you fight back dirty!

But wait.  We go back to the battle stage, and Seung Hun is changing his mind.  What?  We just saw flashbacks of him rehearsing “Beautiful.”  This show has the worst use of flashbacks I have seen on any of the shows I’ve recapped.

Okay, so now Seung Hun chooses to battle Mashiho.  

We’re getting another flashb – NO.  NO MORE FLASHBACKS.  I am not getting invested in another flashback just to come back and find out that Seung Hun has changed his mind again and wants to challenge the announcer to a yodeling battle.  Let’s keep moving forward.

Here we go.  Seung Hun vs. Mashiho.  The song is “D” by Dean.  The stage looks incredible.  Let’s goooo!

I love this.  I love the song, the set design, the singing.  I love all of it.  They both deserve to win.  The stage crew deserves a raise and all the awards.  This performance is sheer K-pop heaven.  Put them both in Treasure.  I don’t care.  They both deserve it.

The audience is enchanted.  The trainees backstage can’t pick a clear winner.  Honestly, if I had to vote, I’d just flip a coin.

The voting ends, and Mashiho has to choose the silver or gold card.  Again, just flip a coin.  He chooses the gold card.  Given the odds, since CEO Yang has been the silver card the past two times, he could be the gold card now.  But Mashiho’s betting on that.  He wants to put his fate in the hands of the CEO.

He’s right.  The gold card is the CEO card.  CEO Yang cuts right to the chase.  He chooses Mashiho.  It’s another punch to the gut for Seung Hun.  The CEO says that Seung Hun overdid his performance.  But we see that the audience vote went for Seung Hun, so the CEO can go pound sand. 

I feel so sad when Seung Hun cries onstage and says he just wanted to be acknowledged by CEO Yang.

This is a gut punch.  I realize that all of the trainees have been saying the same thing all through this series – they just want one word of approval from CEO Yang.  It’s like a group of boys trying desperately to win approval from their father.  They don’t care what the audience thinks.  They just want to be acknowledged by the father figure who really seems to enjoy being in this position of power.  I feel incredibly sad, especially since a lot of these kids are living away from their actual parents.  Especially the trainees from other countries.

Why does the business of K-pop have to suck so much?

Seung Hun is still crying onstage.  The announcer puts his arm around him, but the only one Seung Hun wants reassurance from is the CEO, who is sitting RIGHT THERE in front of the stage.  The trainees backstage are fighting back tears because they know exactly how he feels.  But CEO Yang says nothing.  Not one single word, at least not on camera.  Still crying, Seung Hun turns around and leaves the stage.

When I started recapping this series, one of Treasure’s fans on Tumblr, aplateoflasagna, wrote in my comments section that the reason CEO Yang went to prison is because he was threatening a witness to prevent that person from going to the police with evidence that a member of iKON had done drugs.  So even when CEO Yang does do the fatherly thing of trying to protect one of his kids, he goes about it all wrong.

Okay.  I have to shake this off, or I won’t be able to finish this episode.

Two more battle left.  And the next challenger is … Yoshi!  

We’re moving forward pretty quickly now.  Yoshi chooses to battle Ha Yoon Bin the Perpetually Confused.  That oughta wake him up.  But now I’m the one who’s confused because we are RACING through this.  We get just a few seconds of a performance that looks and sounds fun, but then we cut to CEO Yang making his decision.  I only get to hear Yoshi rap for a couple of seconds.  Then we learn that Ha Yoon Bin wins the battle.  We’re done.  The whole segment took ten seconds.  My head is spinning.

Yoshi’s performance.  Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

 

Yoshi is now sobbing backstage while the other trainees try to comfort him, and he doesn’t even know yet that he’s pretty much been edited out of the show.  What the hell is happening?  Why didn’t we get to see this?

Now the fifth challenger is about to be announced.  But first, the show wants to jump to a flashback of three days before this competition.  What?  No.  It’s just one of the trainees rehearsing.  I don’t care.  I fast-forward through it.  This is really frustrating. 

The next challenger is Wang Jyun Hao, the Taiwanese trainee.  He chooses to battle Bang Yedam.  We’re doing to get to hear them do the Justin Bieber song “Love Yourself.”

We get another flashback, but I skip through it because I don’t care.  This is valuable time we could have spent watching Yoshi’s performance. 

We return to the battle.  Yedam vs. Jyun Hao.  We get yet another flashback.  Nothing important happens in it.  Back to the battle!

They both bring attitude to this, and for the most part, they both sound like native English speakers.  They pour their expression into the great lines like “My mama don’t like you, and she likes everyone.”  Man, this is a great song.

In fact, I think that’s the problem here.  Instead of focusing on the performances, all I can focus on is what a great song this is.  It’s so specific and personal, it’s easy to believe Bieber wrote it himself (which he didn’t).  I think Yedam made a mistake when he chose a song that has the potential to overshadow the singer. 

Everyone does the voting thing.  Yedam chooses the gold card.  It’s CEO Yang’s card.  It’s been the CEO’s card every single time.  The CEO chooses Yedam. 

Looking at this series so far, I feel like Yedam is the favorite son, and the father figure is pushing him through to the end.  Yedam definitely has the talent and deserves the success, but after everything I’ve seen this episode, I see parental favoritism at work here, and I know it must be affecting the other trainees.  Those of us with siblings know that our parents must have a favorite, and we pretty much know which one it is, but our parents are supposed to deny it.  CEO Yang isn’t denying anything, and he’s not denying it in front of all the other trainees.

With that, our battles are over.  The sixteen trainees backstage who didn’t get to challenge are frustrated.  They’ve lost another chance to be really seen.  They even envy the challengers who failed.  I wonder when Yoshi will find out that his challenge didn’t even get seen.

But apparently the challenges will continue.  The announcer tells us there’s still a chance to beat the two Treasure 7 members who weren’t challenged – Haruto and Junkyu.

Haruto and Junkyu, who thought they were getting off scot-free.

 

And the episode ends.

Honestly, I’m amazed anyone puts themselves through the K-pop trainee program, but it’s not like we Americans don’t have the same mentality.  We also chase fame and buy lottery tickets, even though the odds of success are slim to none.  It’s just that after seeing this episode, I can’t help thinking of the psychological damage –

No.  No no no.  Frosting time.

I seriously want to buy a can of frosting right now and eat it by scooping it right out of the can with my fingers.

What a strange, ugly business K-pop is.  See you for more of it next episode.

Episode 6:  Now things get kind of awful.

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YG Treasure Box, Episode 4: I swear this is rigged.

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(Written March 5, 2025)

I’m excited!  Our ten finalists, or maybe they’re not finalists, because no one’s been eliminated and a few of them won’t make it into the final group anyway … okay, whatever these ten trainees are, they have an assignment!  One hour to pick a song and put a performance together!

Our trainees from Wild Idol would roll their eyes at this assignment, because at least our YG trainees get to do this indoors without being rained on, but let’s focus on this show.  Welcome to Episode Four!

Right away, we hit a snag.  The judges look at the current team and say there’s no rapper.  What are they talking about?  Haruto is in this group.  The judges collectively shrug and call the ten trainees back into the room.

CEO Yang tells this group that he’s still determined to get a 5-person group out of them.  You can almost hear the air being sucked out of the room.  But then he tells us this weird plan of how he’s going to go ahead and choose five now and make the remaining five battle it out for two more places, for a total of seven.  The group needs a few minutes to process this. 

Okay, so let’s see who the guaranteed five are for now.

First, Bang Yedam.  The poor guy has been fighting back tears this whole time. Maybe this will give him a chance to breathe.

Second is … yaaaay!  Haruto!  The judges must have remembered that he’s a rapper, and they need him.

Third is our own Junkyu.  I just love how expressive he is.  Two spots left.

Yedam, Haruto, and Junkyu

 

Fourth is Ha Yoon Bin, the future Zero/O-Wave guy.  We were so close to having all five be future Treasure members.  He still looks like he has absolutely no idea what’s going on. 

Fifth and last is Junghwan, future Treasure maknae.  Everyone is surprised.  Trainees in confessionals say he’s the last one they expected to make it.  It sounds mean, but in their defense, Junghwan is currently ranked 22^nd. 

Ha Yoon Bin and Junghwan

 

I want so much to push Ha Yoon Bin back into the line and replace him with Jeungwoo.  I can’t imagine what the judges were thinking.  At any rate, our remaining five who didn’t get picked will now have to battle it out for two more spots.  They are future Treasure members Jeongwoo, Mashiho, and Jihoon, as well as Taiwanese trainee Jyun Hao and future CIX member Seung Hun.

CEO Yang checks his phone and says, “It’s now exactly 8:20pm.  Meet me back here at 9:20pm.”  They are expected to have a full performance ready, and the clock is ticking.

They quickly gather and scramble to find a song.  They manage to narrow it down to “all pop songs,” which is not helpful.  They start throwing out names.  Sam Smith.  Michael Bublé.  Michael Jackson.  They listen to “Treat You Better” by Shawn Mendes and several other clips.  They can’t seem to find a song they all know.  And one of them doesn’t speak Korean well, which I guess is why they’re going through songs in English.

Twenty-five minutes go by.  Our boys are getting VERY stressed.

Finally, Seung Hun suggests an iKON song called “Love Scenario.”  I pull up the video.  It’s a bouncy, playful song.  As long as Jyun Hao can handle the Korean lyrics, we should be okay.  The only problem is that all five of these guys are singers, and they need someone to do the rap.  Hey, guys:  Hyun Suk and Yoshi are still in the waiting area.  I’m pretty sure in exchange for a trip to Starbucks and some fashionable thrift store attire, one of them would volunteer.

But then the Japanese trainee Mashiho, whose first language is also not Korean, decides to step up.  The others go with it because they have thirty minutes to divide up the parts, learn the choreo, and maybe rehearse.

Time’s up.  Back to the practice room we go.  Our boys look confident.  Let’s do this.

Interestingly, Jeongwoo is doing the rap.  He’s good.  I wonder why he switched that with Mashiho. (According to the trainees in the waiting area, Mashiho’s pronunciation is perfect when he sings in Korean.)  There’s not much choreo.  Each one just bops along and waits for his turn on the mic, but to be fair, they didn’t have enough time to learn the choreo. 

CEO Yang seems to enjoy the performance, but once it ends, he has them all turn around while the judges decide.  Honestly, I can see why Mashiho will make it into the final group.  I’m willing to bet he’s one of the two chosen right now.

When the trainees turn back around, the CEO tells them it was really close.  The 2^nd and 3^rd places were one vote apart.  We get the names.

The first one is Mashiho.  No surprise there. 

Now for the final one.  But before we can get the name, we’re getting a flashback about Seung Hun, so I’m assuming he’ll be the final one.  We learn he’s been working so hard for two and a half years at YG, and the CEO has never complimented him once.  That’s a long time to be ignored.  We see that it’s taking a toll on him.

Back to the present.  CEO Yang reads the name.  And it’s not Seung Hun.  It’s Jeongwoo.  Yes, Jeongwoo deserves the honor, but my heart still breaks for Seung Hun, and the placement of his flashback feels really cruel.

We now have our Treasure 7, and I can’t get over how young they look.

To review, our Treasure 7 Team is:

Haruto.  Japanese trainee, future Treasure rapper.

Ha Yoon Bin.  Our Zero/O-Wave guy who still looks confused.  His facial expression had not changed once this entire series.  Is he okay?  Did he wander onto this show by accident?  Are his friends and family wondering where he is?

Junghwan.  Future Treasure maknae and headphone collector.

Bang Yedam, who hasn’t smiled once in two episodes.  For the sake of his own mental health, I can’t wait for him to join Treasure so he can leave it and enjoy a solo career.

Jeongwoo.  Treasure crooner extraordinaire.

Mashiho.  Japanese singer who will temporarily be in Treasure.

Junkyu.  Future Treasure member and Expression King.

Now, our stunned Treasure Team 7 goes to the waiting area and is greeted with hugs and applause.  Everyone is emotional, not just from being chosen or not chosen, but because their teams are being split up.  Some of these teams have been working together for a couple of years, and in the case of the A and J Teams, living together in the dorms.  Everyone’s lives are changing.

I’ve seen enough of these shows that I’m used to seeing the tears, but seeing Haruto cry as Yoshi hugs him really gets to me.

Thankfully, we move ahead to the next rehearsal day, and it looks like no one has actually been eliminated yet.  The Treasure 7 Team has their own practice room, and the remaining 21 wait in their own rather crowded room.  The trainees in the crowded room are rather nervous, with no idea of what’s about to happen next. 

A new YG group manager enters to talk to them.  She has a big announcement.  “From now on,” she says, “you will prepare for a one-on-one battle.  Not all 21 of the trainees here will get to challenge the seven.  Only five will be selected for a chance to compete.”

So it looks like the Top 7 will get switched out more than once.  This is exciting!  Now that they know they’re not going home just yet, the remaining 21 have their spark back. They will have to do video assessments to compete for one of the five spots.  “Show us your skills and charm!” the manager says.  

Now the 21 trainees start anguishing over what they can do for their talent.  They have a two-tiered challenge.  First, get one of the five spots, then successfully challenge one of the Top 7 for his spot.  Just writing that down feels overwhelming.  And it looks like the talent needs to be something other than singing, dancing, or rapping.  Like a talent show-type talent.  At first, I can’t believe these guys can’t think of anything to do, and then I realize I wouldn’t know what to do for a talent show either.  I guess I could properly iron a shirt.  That oughta wow the judges.

Let’s see what these guys come up with.  We move ahead to Video Assessment Day.  The Hallmark Card people could make a ton of money in Korea by making “Happy Video Assessment Day” cards to send to trainees.  They could make a whole line of K-pop themed cards with messages like “Condolences on your evil edit,” or “Sorry you got eliminated,” or “Good luck on your next survival show (tenth time’s the charm!)”

Where was I?  Right.  Talent show videos.  Our guest judges will be watching the videos on a monitor in a separate room.  Who are they?  Please welcome BlackPink!

Style King Hyun Suk is up first, and I have no idea what he’s doing.  It looks like an aegyo thing while eating a jelly candy, like he’s on Sesame Street.  The BlackPink girls are laughing, so I guess it’s working. Next up is future Ciipher member and Boys Planet contestant Keita.  He does a flapping mime dance that is pretty funny.

We move quickly through the other trainees because they each only have two minutes.  Asahi demonstrates his facial expressions.  Jihoon does vocal impressions.  Yoshi makes sound effects.  BlackPink makes fun of Yoshi’s animal print jacket.  BlackPink is now my least favorite K-pop group.

When the auditions end, we don’t learn right away who the five winners are.  Instead, we get a quick few seconds with the Treasure 7 Team who are choosing their songs for the D-Day Battles.  Junghwan chooses “Lie” by BTS.  Yedan chooses “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber, which is a great song for showing off your vocal ability.  I can’t wait to hear Yedam sing it.

We now go back to the 21 trainees, who are listening to a song that the Treasure 7 Team has already recorded.  (These two teams have been BUSY.)  The song is called “Going Crazy.”  We only hear a snippet, but it’s a fun dance beat.  I’m guessing that tomorrow, the 21 trainees will all get copies of Treasure 7’s debut EP and learn that it’s already gone double platinum.

Suddenly, something awesome happens.  We see a stage being assembled and an audience filing in.  We’re getting a real live show!

I am so excited.  Live shows in front of an audience are my favorite part of these survival shows.  LET’S FRIGGIN DO THIS.

We’re told that the audience consists of 100 “Treasure Makers,” which probably means they’ll be voting for the winners.  However, Treasure fans on Tumblr have already warned me that CEO Yang makes the final decisions, so I’m taking these audience votes with a huge pillar of salt.

We jump right into the show with Treasure 7 performing the signal song.

The song is a forgettable little dance bop, but I don’t think the song is supposed to stand out.  It’s supposed to be a platform for the Treasure 7 members to show what they can do.  And they are impressive, especially the vocalists.  Yedam, Jeungwoo, and Junkyu really stand out.  I love their voices.

The song ends, and an announcer comes out.  Holy crap, this stage is amazing.  It looks like an ice castle.

The announcer introduces our Treasure 7 Team.  Then we learn that the 100 Treasure Makers are all YG employees.  Ooooookay.  Now I get it.  So when CEO Yang overrides their votes, they’ll know to keep their mouths shut.  I bet their voting devices don’t even work.  They’re probably mini-calculators with the batteries removed.

The announcer explains the rules, but they’re kind of confusing and involve cards, so let’s just see how this plays out.  We learn that the 21 challengers don’t yet know which five of them will get to challenge the seven.  They also don’t know yet that BlackPink was judging their talent show, so I’m guessing we’re about to get eliminations when some of them just die of embarrassment. 

BlackPink appears on a screen to reveal that they have determined the five challengers.  

The trainees react in shock.  They’re huge BlackPink fans.  The first challenger the group announces is … Kim Yeon Gue.  Oh, okay!  Who?  (scrambling through my notes)  Here we are.  He’s a future member of the groups ATBO and TheCrewOne.  He will not wind up in Treasure, but it looks like he’s going to try.

Yeon Gue walks out onto the stage and is told to pick which Treasure 7 member he wants to battle.  He chooses Jeongwoo.  Wow.  One of the best vocalists out of all the trainees.  That is ballsy.

These two now go to a waiting area backstage.  They’re both awkward with each other, even though they’re friends who came from the same team.  The circumstances are very different now.  Friends get pitted against each other all the time on these shows, but this feels especially rough.  Maybe it’s because outside forces didn’t choose this – Yeon Gue chose it himself.  There’s a hint of betrayal behind it.

Now to the stage.  They’re going to sing “Stay” by BlackPink.  I like that there’s a live band behind them.  Let’s do this.

Okay.  Let’s assess.

My opinion isn’t based on the fact that I’m a fan of the final group.  This is just what I really think.  Jeongwoo is a way better singer.  Yeon Gue does have a lovely voice, but it doesn’t come close to the soulful passion in Jeongwoo’s voice.  And Jeongwoo’s expressions are better.  He makes eye contact with the camera and the audience.  Yeon Gue spends most of the song staring at the floor.  When they stand up and move to the music, Jeongwoo looks more comfortable in his own skin.  He’s a natural performer, still needing more polish, but clearly a star.

The YG employees press the buttons on their toy calculators to stall for time while CEO Yang makes up his mind.

We’re then told that there will be switch-up rules, and either the Main Producer Card or the Treasure Maker Card determines the win.  Wait, what?  This makes no sense, unless they just want to make it looks like there’s a chance the employees will override the decision of the CEO.  Which will NEVER happen.  I hate when these survival shows do gimmicky stuff like this.  Wild Idol did this a lot, and it drove me nuts.

On the screens behind them, a gold playing card and a silver playing card appear.  One represents the results from the audience, and the other from the CEO.  Jeongwoo gets to pick the card, and I get to mutter under my breath about how stupid this is.

Jeongwoo chooses the silver card, because it really doesn’t matter since the CEO is pulling the strings anyway.  The announcer says the silver card just happens to be (prepare to be shocked) CEO Yang’s card.  I’m sure it would have been CEO Yang’s card no matter which one he chose.  That’s why they don’t tell the trainees which one is which until after they choose.

In case I’m not being clear, I really REALLY hate this.

Let’s get this over with.  CEO Yang is asked to give his choice.  And he chooses …

Yeon Gue.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I knew CEO Yang and I have a history of disagreeing on pretty much everything, but again, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  I demand to know how the audience voted.

The rest of the challenging trainee group is excited, telling us in confessionals that they feel better about their chances now.  Well, of course.  Because they’ve just learned that apparently you don’t have to be better than your opponent.  You just have to hope that whatever CEO Yang is spiking his drink with will make him hallucinate a TOTALLY DIFFERENT performance than the one that is ACTUALLY TAKING PLACE – 

Let’s just get through this.  The audience card is revealed.  They also chose Yeon Gue, which I refuse to believe, unless they’re on the same homemade bathtub amphetamines their CEO is taking.  Judging by the surprised looks I’m seeing in the audience, those little voting devices are truly not connected to anything.

Jeongwoo keeps a brave face until he joins the others backstage.  Then he lets the tears fall.

Back onstage, Yeon Gue does not look happy.  I don’t think he expected to beat his longtime friend, and now he realizes what a stunning blow that friend is reeling from.  It’s not really Yeon Gue’s fault.  It’s the way these shows are set up.

The episode ends here.  Stay tuned for the next episode, in which I’m guessing Bang Yedam will lose his spot to a challenger with laryngitis.  See you then.

Episode 5:  Things get kind of dark.

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