twinning

sorry about missing yesterday's post-- i was genuinely so exhausted from yesterday that i took a shower and immediately went to sleep, lolz. and i was on such a good streak, too... ㅠㅠ 

anyway. i have a writing idea to share~ 

a while back, i found a post on tumblr sharing survivor from dbsk and rescue from kat-tun, explaining that they felt vaguely similar to each other. and coincidentally, were released around the same time. of course, they're contemporaries in the jpop male idols space, so their higher-ups might want to them to directly compete with each other in sound, but that's not what i want to explore.

i want to draw a cohesive narrative between the events of don't u ever stop and mirotic. yes, the former is a few months before the latter, but please stay with me here~

let's start with kat-tun's don't u ever stop, as i'm on a kat-tun roll right now, and it comes first after all!

kat-tun doesn't 100% have established lore or much of a storyline across of their music videos, aside from a general rebellious feel and a feel of... disconnect. perhaps this is just confirmation bias for my own thoughts on what they could be, and it's just drawn from marketing how amazing they were at the time for rookies, but there's a sense of being above in their music videos, in an inhuman way. real face shows a different world, keep the faith shows them running away(... from something...), lips has a vampiric feel.

and what is going on with don't u ever stop?

it's an interesting mv, has more of a story than the rest of them, if i'm being honest. the entire thing is nearly six minutes long, with two minutes dedicated to introducing the members in various scenes. they all have a photo of a person of interest, and strangely, their reflection or appearance... warps, for lack of a better term. it glitches, as if part of them is digital, or a façade, and not of this world. 

with akanishi, we are introduced to our main setting. a strange club, in the middle of a dark space. it's massive, with multiple floors and a sizable dance floor and bar. but strangely, everyone but kat-tun is still, staring into shining glass orbs. kame catches akanishi's gaze, an orb shatters from far away, and the music starts.

most of the music video follows them breaking these orbs, with the folks who are holding them also glitching in the way that kat-tun's appearances were in their intros. an occasional dance break here and there, until the end shows them cornering someone dressed in all white, sitting in a chaise covered in velvet, looking through the orb at everyone else. it breaks, the person ceases to be, and everyone in the club is normal again. kat-tun leave the club, their appearances still warped and strange, and go their separate ways.

the first thing that my mind went to was souls. i thought that somehow, these orbs are showing their souls or are tied to their souls, and the main person who's able to see everything through their special orb (or whatevs) is able to control them somehow. like a botnet, in a way. by breaking these orbs, kat-tun are freeing these people and ultimately ending the source of control, which prevents future occurrences.

but why don't they have orbs, too? why do their appearances continue to warp despite them being the most free out of everyone? at first, i thought of it as some sort of secret society thing. they don't have orbs, because they know about the orbs and their effects, and are equipped to handle situations regarding them.

or, somehow, they and the original mind controller are similar. similar abilities, perhaps even a similar otherworldly species. perhaps they're in rebellion against sustaining themselves on the will and souls of others, despite needing them in some way. or perhaps they, too, were taken by the controller, and that final warp was the rest of their soul returning to themselves. i'm not sure.

i will also add as an aside, that there's a line that shows on screen in the introduction: we are the ones who will break the rules of fate. or something like that, i don't exactly recall. in that sense, perhaps the orbs are fates. destinies that people are tied to. by breaking them, kat-tun frees everyone for good.

in regards to lyrics... i've tried to understand translations? but there's two things going on at once, and i can't synthesize them as well as i'd like. but they also mention perseverance and rebellion, so there's that. 

anyway. i dunno. those are just my thoughts.

then, of course, we've got dbsk. already named the rising gods of the east, it's no wonder that some of their discography also has an otherworldly feel. sure, they originally had a boy-next-door debut and a lot of their releases are actually rather casual, but their godliness wasn't completely ignored! rising sun with the feel that they're in communication with another realm (i wanna write a whole post on it at some point if i remember), purple line with... strange purple lines that aren't explained, and the iconic mirotic, of course.

this is heavily abridged because... not as much happens? not to say that it isn't as interesting, of course. the boys walk down this strange hallway, get captured and separated into strange rooms, resist, and free themselves. ultimately, their captor is destroyed by their OVERWHELMINGLY AMAZING LOOKS, and they dance, because yaaayyyyyy. and then their eyes glow at the end for some reason. this ends up being the last korean mv they release together, so who knows what might have been planned for the next mv and if it would've connected to this.

again, i also feel as if there's something to do with souls here. not to mention, their captor just... disappears in a ball of light. she's some sort of ghost or spirit. there's a veeeeeeeery slight fantasy twist here, as mirotic is all about being spellbound. 

but why are their eyes glowing? i still don't quite understand that. sometimes i think that they absorbed her soul / abilities / what have you. she turned into light, their eyes lit up. they're under her spell, then she's under their spell. it lines up both story-wise and within the lyrics. 

now, how could the two be connected?

my main idea was that first! they could have the same goal. perhaps part of an international organization with the same purpose of freeing souls. kat-tun freed the people in the club and destroyed the controller, which is a net positive. tohoshinki did that too, in a way, though it appears that their method was more discreet and was more of a surprise for the captor. in that sense, they'd just be different factions, right? and perhaps tohoshinki consuming their captor's soul just means they go about it differently. and then there could be this interesting side dilemma of consuming souls vs. not consuming souls as someone who needs them, despite actively fighting against those who cause pain with such powers. eh!

there's another approach i thought of, though, where we could consider them rivals. i did pick up on how kat-tun seems to be encouraging freedom while tohoshinki sort of catches the captor in their own spell, a storm of attraction, so to speak. so... what if kat-tun were the ones focused on freeing souls, while tohoshinki just happened to do this in order to secure more souls for themselves~? their captor wasn't aware of their shared appetite, and so, she was consumed as well. the plot thickens.............. insert a protag and a crazy love triangle here.

i guess it just depends on whether you see kat-tun and tohoshinki better suited as comrades or enemies. while enemies would add more narrative tension, ultimately it would be cooler as a fan to see them work together. 

and realistically, in regards to their overall group personalities, they'd be switched! i think kat-tun would fit the rival role better, considering their bad / rowdy boy status, while tohoshinki are more cool / "clean" for lack of a better term.

what do you think?

sotd: chau chau by delispice