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| ▲ This photo, provided by Mnet, shows poster of 'Boys Planet.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by Mnet, shows the press conference of 'Boys Planet.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) - Ninety-eight boys from all around the world has challenged to Mnet's new survival program with the goal of debuting as a boy group.
Mnet's "Boys Planet," which is to air for the first time at 8 p.m. today, is the second season of "GIRLs PLANET 999: THE GIRLS SAGA" that produced girl group Kep1er with Korean, Chinese and Japanese members. It is an idol survival program that can debut only with global fandom votes.
"When I met the participants, they were all bright and cute," Lee Seok-hoon, who are in charge of the participants' vocal lessons, said at the online production presentation of "Boys Planet" on Thursday. "In particular, I am inspired by courage to see G-group friends who came from faraway countries and challenge for their dreams."
Unlike "Girls Planet," which recruited applicants from three countries, Korea, China, and Japan, "Boys Planet” decided to accept participants from all over the world. They are divided into K-group from Korea and G-group from overseas, and compete fiercely.
Lindeup of mentors, who will help participants to improve their skills is outstanding. Singers Lee Seok-hoon, Lim Han-byul and Solji will be vocal masters, choreographers Mihawk Back, Choi Youngjun and LIP J will be dance masters, and rapper pH-1 will be rap masters.
Mihawk Back said, "Since it is a survival program, the war of nerves between K-group and G-group and conflicts within the group will add the fun of watching and serve as a facilitator to develop participants' skills."
He added, "The goal is to make the debut group stand out and shine on any stage," adding, "I hoped mentoring would be a time to improve the skills of the participants even if it felt severe."
"Boys Planet" is expected to be an idol survival program introduced by Mnet after a long time. It followed Mnet's unique audition format, which selects the debut group only with viewer votes.
Following the vote rigging scandal in the "PRODUCE 101" series, “Girls Planet” was also embroiled in a controversy over unjust ballot, so this time it put its life and death on the fairness of the vote.
Producer Kim Shin-young said, "For the first time in an audition program that relies on voting, the entire process from counting votes to calculating results will be verified through independent external organizations. We have separated the production team to secure fairness in the process of calculating voting results."
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Yunhee Cho.)
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