Scatter_88mil

Lost count on how many times they've gone back and forth to Japan this year. They've really got to slow down on the promotions - seriously. It's not like they'll fade away into irrelevance in the blink of an eye like some 'nugu' rookie group >___>

I have huge concerns on exactly how honest and how much they'll reveal regarding the controversy that effectively has become a permanent stain on them. The fact that this is being broadcasted by Mnet is particularly bothersome, as CCM and Mnet channel are both under Mnet Media (and no prizes to guessing who's the nutcase in charge). What they say has a very high chance of being regulated and filtered, actually - and may possibly be disregarded by the public as lies again as a result. Also, the timing - there still is a noticeable amount of disapproval of T-ara (particularly in Korea, which is distressing as T-ara's main income of revenue is from activities in Korea) and it may raise up some undesirable attention in the online community and media again. Looking at Kim Kwang Soo's record, he's no doubt the type that brings up unnecessary attention very often and this has proven to be quite damaging to T-ara at times, while also increasing negative attention from netizens and the public in general. All in all, I won't cross my heart and hopes on this entirely yet and will give a full judgement how credible this will be upon watching it myself. Remember people, the members have a gun pointed at their heads almost 24/7 and they very well know even the slighest mistake of crossing KKS in any way will lead to very undesirable consequences. Don't put your hopes too high yet.

Yea, as others have said, I'd have to fully agree that she is more suited with 5dolls, despite the heavy damage it received a couple months back (if anyone remembers, the Soomi-Eunkyo-Chanmi case). The grim reality however, is that some of the current members' contracts are supposedly expiring next year at the earliest and I fear that some of the original members' days in T-ara are numbered - something I personally suspect that Boram and Qri especially may have already acknowledged. If this is certainly the case (assuming CCM is somehow able to keep it up for that long anyway), then we're seeing T-ara become something akin to After School or even AKB-48 - same group in name, but continuous change of member lineup. What CCM does not seem to realize is that most fans had become used to the original 6 members in particular (and Hwayoung to a degree) and if either one of them leaves, there could be a serious drop of fandom numbers. That also goes to say, it would be terribly awkward amongst the members if Dani joins - hell, 6 of the members are now in their early to mid 20s and if anything, they're being given a 24/7 job of being babysitters. This has been used countless times during early in the year - "Why fix something that's not broken?"

5dolls and T-ara's Dani reveal cute selca "Uncle fans hypnotized" Considering the awfully young age of Dani and Shannon, the title is rather...I don't know, disturbing or at least quite misleading when one looks at it.

Having fans in Russia does not necessarily equate to being popular in Russia itself.

Well that escalated quickly. I'm curious as to how this'll turn out and see whose side the public will take. Hell, for all we know, the producers will likely have SBS's backing and going up against a broadcasting company (one of the biggest ones in Korea, to be exact) isn't going to be a walk in the park. Hell, these companies have just as much influence in the showbizz as the Big 3 agencies do because they decide what's shown and what's not - and will very likely play hardball. I really doubt Eunjung's the only one who made the decision to sue these guys. Which goes to say, any publicity is good publicity for that whacked company >__>. I really doubt Eunjung thought of this on her own, or even prepared for it in the long run.

How on earth does Boram look 'sexy' when she looks like she's been starved for God knows how long?

So they finally get a holiday? Now that's something. But then again, Chuseok is only three days long so it's a bit rich to call it a 'holiday'.

This heavily reeks of publicity stunt, considering this is coming from CCM and I think a lot of people here already know that CCM has quite a track to lie very badly (seriously, who would actually believe that the T-ara members' accounts got hacked at the time of the controversy?). It's not like the T-ara members said this themselves, either and CCM's known to actually pay reporters extra money to write about T-ara in a positive light - even Jiyeon herself confirmed this at one point. Consider the timing, guys and girls (someone in the forums had also posted in the Discussion forums a print screened picture showing that the Mirage single has a very, VERY low rating - you think CCM would stay still upon seeing that happen?).

To my knowledge, this is more limited to T-ara's fanbase - not the general public as a whole. Downloading a song for casual listening doesn't account to 'supporting' a group, much less loving one. Any well-known idol group can hit the charts high up in rank regardless of quality of the material or scandals (and from what I recall, DBD's ratings a while back actually plummeted in Melon). There's a difference between haters and the general masses.

I don't think the Korean public would really be too concerned about that since T-ara's main location of revenue is Korea itself and the number of international Kpop fans not so thrilled about T-ara is still considerable. T-ara isn't SNSD, 2NE1 or KARA, the only three girl groups that can still earn a huge amount of money and support from abroad even if they only do one comeback in Korea per year.

This may be a wild guess but has anyone thought that Soyeon may have withdrew on her own or CCM pulled her out deliberately? If you all remember, the scriptwriter for Haeundae Lovers clearly blamed CCM and KKS for poorly handling the scandal. KKS very likely would have been pissed to see someone smart enough to know who's at bigger fault here. Not saying it happened, but the certainty is possible. CCM's one hell of a shady company, after all. I don't see antis or the general public are the only ones to point fingers in regards to T-ara.

I really don't think this should come off as a surprise - after all, this is a drama production here. If someone's part of a nasty scandal, there's no doubt that the staff are bound to cut off all ends. Regardless of how 'greedy' of SBS for ratings and such, keep in mind that dramas are meant for entertaining the masses of viewers. Not pissing them off. I'd even say SBS is playing safe here and had it been any other group involved in such a scandal on par with what T-ara went through, it would be no different. On the other hand, one should also note that at least Soyeon gets a lighter workload. Filming for a drama and doing performances for a song at the same time period is NOT easy and very taxing - Jiyeon can testify to that just fine. I believe the difference between what Big Bang got in through in comparison with T-ara is that how the overall situation was handled regardless of the severity of the crime and double standards - I don't know enough about YG but Daesung stopped all activities for somewhere around half a year and went the usual path a celebrity would have done (apologize ASAP, followed by volunteer work) but in the case of T-ara, the apology came rather late and CCM's laughable statements didn't help one bit except make them receive a further amount of public anger. Personally, I still think there's a certain chance that some form of bullying (or rather outcasting/ostracising) may have occurred a while back. As you mentioned in your articles, they've been put in a hellish work environment and the only crook responsible for that is none other than KKS.

Oh goodness, what have they done to Qri's hair.... I thought that grey/green/blueish color was extreme enough but this one takes the cake. Definitely not a common occurence to see a Kpop idol with green hair >___>

Has anyone even thought that amongst those 30k, a portion of them are likely to be just your average Joe or even antis? The MV in YT is also plagued with them and last time I checked, roughly a third of the like/dislike bar was RED. Regardless, the MV and site was bound to gain attention from all sides. Not just the fans.

4 MVs? Are you effing kidding me? -_____- *Facepalm* Oh boy oh boy...

"After they release "Sexy Love", they plan to greet the fans and public and promote vigorously until the end of the year." *Facepalm* Let's face it people. They're still going to have it awfully difficult even after this scandal dies down. I'm honestly shocked to see so many people here are more concerned with when Sexy Love will be released (and for some, want it released ASAP) when it's becoming clear that the members' health is going to take a serious toll on them. Having a comeback can wait but the well-deserved and PEACEFUL vacation they so need cannot. They've already done 2 comebacks so far - add in Sexy Love, that makes it 3 comebacks and 4 if you one includes their activities in Japan prior to DBD. It's not like the public is going to forget about them so easily like some rookie group from a 'nugu' agency.

It's long overdue since they finally stepped out and suffice to say, I'm relieved to see something positive happen out of this mess. They have indeed given off that some form of internal conflict had occurred. I'm curious as to how they managed to get this out due to KKS's idiocy and his dictator-like ways though. Must've been a hard one. Now...if only people can start pinpointing who's the real deep root of this mess as the writer for Haeundae Lovers has mentioned...such a lousy way of handling the crisis is simply untolerable and I hope this serves as an example that fans and the public as a whole should start getting more rough towards KKS. The man is an absolute disgrace.

The idiocy of KKS/CCM has now gone up to the point I actually can't help but laugh. The more CCM gets itself involved, the more ridiculous, stupid and even clownish it gets. Whoever's in charge of the PR department must've been a circus clown or watched way too much TV. Right now, it's best T-ara takes a longer pause from group activities because clearly, this doesn't look like it'll end anytime soon. "Hwayoung ended up being kicked out of the group and their agency Core Contents Media tried to explain, but in the end the controversy did not disappear easily." More like slandering Hwayoung and trying to dodge all forms of responsibility itself while T-ara gets the majority of the public and anti's verbal artillery barrage of fury >____> For those think KKS should fix this, drop it. Even if he tries, it's only going to make things a lot more hairy and as far as I'm concerned, whatever he says is about as credible as the garbage spewed out by the North Korean government.

Comes off as a no surprise even one bit. To be optimistic, I do hope that such news does wake up the eyes of some fans on how cutthroad the K-entertainment industry really is because it always has been for years - it's just that things were always kept under the rug. 2012 has effectively opened a whole new page in regards to that - starting with Open World Ent. and then the 5dolls issue. I'm expecting a lot of crap to continue to hit the news as the year goes by. This is clearly going to be a long haul.

I fullyheartedly agree with this writer. This person just made my day. The sole, deep and biggest root of this entire mess, even dating back since as early as 2010, is none other than KKS and CCM as a whole. The antis and the public as a whole had been goaded to pointing their mud at the wrong people and it's about time SOMEONE has finally pointed out exactly who is the largest to blame - the most retarded agency of Kpop. As I had said long before, KKS has practically fed off from both the antis and fans flaming each other so he himself won't be getting the full brunt of the blame while making the only cash earner of the company take the biggest flak. This is why I believe both the antis and fans should stop acting like WW3 just broke out and start pinpointing the full blame towards this bloody company that more or less no longer holds any credibility and should even have its rights of managing idols stripped away indefinitely. It's pretty clear that both sides have a common enemy - that is, KKS/CCM.

>___> Well I'll be damned....things are gettin' hairy again. 2012, most drama-filled year of Kpop. Lol.

Says the one who can't wait for T-ara to have an American debut, in which chances of that happening are more or less zero

@xbot - Even still, going up against one of the three largest broadcasting companies of the whole country is a pretty dangerous game and they're likely to play hardball if attacked at - this is a whole lot different from going up against entertainment agencies, who RELY on these three companies to show their artists in front of the screen of millions. Although it would be ridiculous for CCM to make a fuss about this, it IS CCM after all. Known to make some of the most dumbest mistakes in Kpop that is worth noting down and it wouldn't be surprising if they did something stupid and make the whole situation a heck lot worse. Just look at how they handled Hwayoung's departure and the circumstances surrounding it. It's not exactly surprising that both KBS, MBC and SBS themselves are likely to see T-ara in a pretty negative aspect like the public does, aside from ratings and profit - if this is the case, then it's probably their way of saying 'F U!' to CCM while T-ara is part of the collateral damage.

T-ara aside, 2012 looks pretty bleak for even the largest broadcasting companies in Korea, considering MBC and KBS ended up having their own employees go on strike earlier this year and now SBS gets itself dragged into this. Considering KEMA happens to also have links and cooperates with the South Korean government (as seen earlier in the year), sh!t just got real. It's only a matter of time that pathetic company known as CCM starts making a big fuss about it and as usual, probably will make things worse >____> I'm gettin' tired of this drama. We actually might as well say Eunjung and the whole of T-ara are really in a drama itself - except there's no cameras and staff around.