Invincible Youth Exercise Video

Though I haven't watched too many Invincible Youth2 episodes since they changed to a game-show variety format, there's still things in it that make me laugh, such as this "Diet and Exercise" video the girls made incorporating dance moves form each girl's respective groups...

Kim Shinyoung sets up the G5 girls Suzy (Miss A), Bora (Sistar) and Yewon of Jewelry to perform an assortment of peculiar exercise moves set to Jewelry's "Look At Me", with hilarious Results! 

Besides its extremely catchy song, the thing I love most about this video is the sheer fun the girls are having putting this together, jumping , skipping and flailing around the countryside for the sake of better health for all!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

T-ara's Star Life Theater

 I finally got around to watching T-ara’s five-part special "Star Life Theater". I began downloading it awhile ago, but then that whole terrible fracas blew up and I just didn’t have the heart to venture there for awhile. But now that some time has passed and everyone seems to be O.K., I thought it was time I check it out, and BOY am I glad I DID- This was really QUITE and interesting and insightful show! 

T-ara’s Star Life Theater focused on the girls work on their single and music videos for their song “Day By Day” as well as the preparations for their subsequent Japan Tour.
They show the girls practicing in the studios, in the dance rehearsal rooms and even their daily activity and days off. They even take the time to visit some girls in their homes and interview their parents and friends, so you really learn a LOT about what goes on “behind the scenes” with the group. You get to see the girls hanging out backstage with their peers like Girls' Generation's Tiffany, Taeyeon and Seohyun (there for their TTS promos), as well as Sulli, Victoria and Amber from uber cool dance group f(x)!

Tiffany gives her eye-smile of encouragement to the girls!

And Sulli, Victoria and Amber of f(x) are there as well!

But even more that this is the insight to the personalities and dynamics of the group. Hwayoung has stated before that she’s always felt like she never connected with the other girls, and here you DO see a bit of what she’s talking about, but watching further, it seems that actually even Qri, Boram and Soyeon are outside of the “core” trio of Hyomin, Eunjung and Jiyeon. Those three have a very close bond between them, so at times it does seem pretty "clique-ish", but what are you gonna do, they were part of the original 5-ara, and have spent the most time together, so of course they would be closest. There's a segment where the camera n crew goes to Hyomin's apartment and she invites Eunjung and Jiyeon for dinner where they talk story, Very fun and interesting, but feels kind of weird because it makes them seem so distant from the other girls.

Other episodes find the crew following the individual girls on their days off- Hwayoung spends hers with her twin sister Hyoyoung (of Co-Ed School and 5Dolls fame) where she gets emotional talking about the bond they share with each other, and in other clips we get to meet Boram's family as well as Eunjung and Jiyeon's mother when they go to each embers' respective houses. In fact, the only one who didn't seem to have any special segment was Qri! There was a really cute segment where Jiyeon and Hyomin were playfully shooting a CM wherre big sister Eunjung  came and watched them with a smile!

Hwayoung and twin sister Hyoyoung

Boram at home with the family

Jiyeon and Hyomin shooting a CM

Soyoen's one was also kind of bittersweet, she says she's always wanted to be a singer (in the vein of Whitney Houston) but singing in an idol group doesn't give her much chance to show her vocal skills. So she really likes songs like "Cry Cry". And it was really sad, during practice (gads, the girls practice for like 10 hours straight, frick) , the girls are rewarded with a late-night meal of pork wraps to eat and re-nourish themselves for the rest of the session, but Soyeon can't because the comeback is coming soon and she has the kind of body metabolism where she constantly has to work to keep the weight off. So sad, she almost looked in tears. And when the interviewer asked who in T-ara can eat and not gain weight, she gestured towards Hyomin, happily stuffing her face. I had to smile, sweet oblivious Hyomin!

I know that T-ara have "rotating leadership", but one thing that struck me watching this is how much Eunjung is really like a REAL leader of sorts. Just listening to her talk about the group’s past and future and you really get a sense of authority in her voice. In fact, she reveals that back in the early days, she actually WAS co-leader of the group! I have to say  I really liked the parts with her. Eunjung's really becoming a favorite member of mine, right there alongside Hyomin!

Remembering Bo Peep Bo Peep: Eunjung

Speaking of Hyomin, besides the dinner she threw at her apartment, there was also this really nice segment where she had a "solo" day and went up to film a new episode of Invincible Youth Season 2, where she got giggly reuniting with her friend Sunhwa (of Secret) who was also there to visit, so much fun watching the two reminisce of their days shooting Season 1!

Hyomin and Sunhwa

The most interesting segments were the parts with Jiyeon. She’s quite candid about her past trials and tribulations and future concerns, and I kept forgetting she's the maknae of T-ara, she seems REALLY mature. In one episode, she took the crew to her apartment, where she said she was going to cook dinner for a "friend", the doorbell rang, and it was IU! So much fun, they kept making fun of each other, accusing the other of being the worse cook, LOL! They met through variety shows and have been very close friends sinc,e and it really shows!

Jiyeon and IU

Later the interviewer was talking to Jiyeon who said that because she was shuffled around so much growing up that she never really had friends. She said that in her life, she only has TWO real friends, IU and Luna.

I was like "Huh? LUNA Luna? Like f(x) Luna?" I typed in "Jiyeon and Luna" into the google search engine, and was happy to discover that it was TRUE!!! So many fan-shot videos of Luna and Jiyeon huddled together like this one at the Idol Olympics, soooo heartwarming:

Then there is this episode of "Come To Play" where the three friends came on and talked about stuff, where we learned that Luna and Jiyeon have been friends since school.

There's this one interesting part where IU is talking about auditioning for some singing contest, and she didn't win, but she said she understood why the girl that DID win won, years later when KARA debuted, she saw Hara, and said, HEY! it's that girl that won the contest! So Funny!   At the end, there is the part where the girls say their thanks to each other, Jiyeon got all emotional thanking Luna, and Luna explained that they're always there for each other. Then Jaesuk wrapped the show up, and I thought, hey, they didn't let Luna give her thanks! D'oh! Anyway, after watching these Star Life Theater episodes, I have to say once again, what a cryin' pityin' shame that all that nastiness had to go down. I really wish things could have worked out, I feel horrible about Hwayoung’s departure. At least, to date, T-ara has gotten back on track, hopefully we'll see Hwayoung in some capacity in the future. All ex-T-ara members come back, right? LOL! Queens Fighting!!

To Infinity and Beyond!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

On The Move with Eunjung

Eun Jung

Been catching up on a lot of older INVINCIBLE YOUTH and RUNNING MAN episodes, and who should guest appear on both shows I just watched at the same time, but T-ara's Eunjung Herself!!!!!

Hyomin brings her sister Eunjung

Eunjung's appearance on Invincible Youth was the first time I ever got to see her out of her usuawl T-ara element, and I was happy to find that she was an exuberant and lively girl, instantly getting into the swing of things with the Invincible Youth cast members and cracking them up with her outspoken ways!

Wrestling with Yuri in the Rice Paddy Mud

Though she admitted to coming onto the show to help her T-ara sister Hyomin (the perpetual "Folding Screen Queen") get more camera time, before you knew it, she was becoming the center of attention herself, and when she got into a playful mud wrestling fight with Yuri, Hyomin was all but forgotten! In fact, as the scene wrapped up, Village Chief Noh even jokingly invited Eunjung to TAKE HYOMIN'S PLACE ON THE SHOW! AHAHAHA! Poor Hyomin!

After that episode I found I had a warm place in my heart for her, and whaddaya know, only a few days later, I'm watching an early episode of Running Man, and when I excitedly wait to see who the pretty female guest is (and MAN have there been many!) who should appear but Eunjung AGAIN!

Eunjung on Running Man Ep#07

She was teamed up with JongKook, HaHa Gary and Joonki, as part of the CHASER group, and it was so cute to watch her running along with the Running Man members like the little sister of the team (there was even one segment where she was wearing a bunny-ears hoodie as she ran along following them around, such aegyo on this girl!) giving the group a much needed feminine touch!

CHASER Team Jongkook, Eunjung, Jongki, Gary and HaHa

Checking on prisoner Jaesuk

JongKook beckons his little sister to follow

Her expressions during Haha and Gary's childish outbursts during their war-room planning made me smile, her bemused face as she watched liek watching two older brothers steal yoys from each other!

Then came the challenge where everyone had to drink lemon juice.  You had to roll dice to see how many lemons they would put into the drink and then down it in a race. Hilariously, when she watched KwangSoo preparing her lemon jiuce, squeezing with his dirty hands, she commented that she wanted cleanly made lemon juice, LOL! So Sassy!

KwangSoo proudly smashing lemons

Eunjung: "Please Don't Use Your Bare Hands"

KawngSoo: ". . ."

For pure adorable expressions though, it was so much fun watching her face as she battled Sukjin in the sour lemon drinking contest, fighting back grimaces and tears to beat him out!  

During the segment where everyone got a chance to boogie down onstage, Eunjung's giggles as she watched JongKook slapstick dancing to his old TURBO songs were so darn adorable! (too bad they either didn't let her have a chance to dance or they edited it out, she woulda been fun) I kept rewinding it so I could hear her laughter! SO CUTE!!!!

Ahhhh, I see that T-ara's Jiyeon's in a later episode, too...gotta check that one out! If it's as fun as this one was (as well as the awesome Charlie's Angels Episode with Hyomin) then I'm in for a real treat!!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

The Sad Saga Of "Hyoderella"

Hyomin being put to task in Invincible Youth Season One

For awhile on episodes of Invincible Youth Season One, it was like the running gag to have Kim Shinoyung Unnie jokingly bossing T-ARAs Hyomin around, and this all came to a head in episode 14 where the girls had to bathe their newly acquired (and very dirty) puppy Yoochiri. Assigning Hyomin all the water duties of bringing in the water, heating up the water and taking out the dirty water, It was like watching an evil stepmother and two evil stepsisters bossing around their Cinderella stepsister! In fact, Hyomin became commonly referred to as “Hyoderella”, LOL! 

AHAHAHA, pretty funny stuff, but apparently this didn’t sit well with the onine T-ARA community, and after a few more episodes of Hyomin being bossed around, we suddenly saw Shinyoung hilariously pretending to be really nice to Hyomin. very graciously asking her to fetch the water... What was the reason for this sudden turn? Well we soon find out the reason is that after weeks of giving it to Hyomin, Shinyoung was getting scolded online! So funny, when she’s asking Hyomin nicely to get the water, the blurb reads, “She gently coaxes her because she’s afraid of T-ara’s fans! LOL

A little later, Shinyoung is grousing about how KARA's Hara’s taking a long time as well, and she mischievously coemes up and sweetly threatens Shinyoung , coyly saying, “Unnie, Are you getting mad at me?” and then turning to the camera and commanding all her Kamilias to rise up and come to arms!!! AHAHAHA!

And By The Way, everything worked out for the girls in that Dog washing episode, and the show ended with the girls all pitchin gin to clean up and then take a well-deserved nap, with the watm and clean Yoochiri snuggling up to sleep in his new mother Hyuna's sweater....

*sigh*...Did I ever mention how fricking terrific this show is?

It's Always Narsha, Narsha, Narsha!

When I first got into K-Pop with KARA and SNSD, my friend Shanomac suggested I would like watching INVINCIBLE YOUTH since it featured girls from both groups. I began simultaneously watching both Season One for Sunny and Yuri and Hara, and Season Two for Sunny, Hyoyeon and Jiyoung. Funny though, as time went on, I began losing interest in Season Two while at the same time began totally LOVING Season One. The dynamics of the show was SOOOO different from the second...the girls seemed a lot more like a family, and they seemed to really care about each other and the community.

And another funny thing that happened was that although I began watching the show for SNSD and KARA,  I began to find myself waiting in anticipation each episode for Brown Eyed Girls' Narsha to appear! I dunno why, maybe it was her no-nonsense personality, or sexy bawdy humour, or the way the other girls really loked up to her like a real older sister, or the way she really bonded and cared for  the elders of the town, but I felt like this was the most honest and truest girl here, and soon enough, she became my favorite girl in the series and my main reason (out of so many reasons) to watch the show! 

So I had a crush on Narsha slowly developing, and things came to a head in episode 7, where the girls threw w Christams party, and for the first time, we got to see the girls dressed in their elegant best! All the girls looked as pretty and chraarming as possible, but Narsha  topped them all, giving off a sultry cool Elizabeth Taylor vibe that just stunned me! 

And I wasn't the only one- the male guests each had a chance to give a present to one member of their choice, and Narsha was one of the ones to receive double gifts! I think that's saying something when you're the opular girl of choice in such an insanely pretty group like G7:

Girls Generation, KARA, Brown Eyed Girls, 4Minute, T-ara and Secret, these girls really represent the luscious cream of the crop! And yet, somehow that 30+ year old lady was the one (along with everyone's fave Sunny) that the guys were fighting over!

Going back to my friend Shanomac, I said I was interested in hearing some of Narsha's music and he set me up with their albums Sound G and Sixth Sense as well as their single  Cleansing Cream... WOW, can you say IMPRESSED? I was BLOWN AWAY! Abracadabra, Hot Shot, Sixth Sense, Vendetta, etc, these songs were killer awesome and I had to go run out and purchase those albums myself and now consider myself a beginning Brown Eyed Girls Fan!

And god, don't even get me started on how frickin' gorgeous Narsha is outside of her Invincible Youth confines! Who would have thought that sweet and sensible girl with the glasses and pigtails was such an unbelievably STUNNING woman? Crush? Talk about totally IN LOVE!!!!

OK, back to more Invincible Youth and more Narsha goodness...
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com