Assistant Manager Kim Hates Idols Chapter 510 - Surprise Appearance (2)

The title track of the new album Dear. My_, titled ‘Scene’, completely flipped the atmosphere from the previous slower-tempo digital single ‘Drifting’. From the beginning, the planning intent for ‘Scene’ was as followed:

 

The choreography difficulty and formation transitions should rival ‘Alight’, but the happiness and ease felt in the expressions should be like ‘With List’, The sophistication of the outfits should recall ‘Bright’, while the color palette should evoke the sandy fields of ‘End’. And finally, add a spoonful of the friendship from ‘On A High Note’!

 

Even I knew it was an outrageous request. If I had just babbled with my mouth and done nothing, I would deserve to be cursed out.

 

But I, Kim Iwol, took responsibility for the words I spat out through dense planning documents and endless PPTs.

 

As soon as September arrived, Spark claimed the spot of autumn’s first guest, arriving faster than the changing leaves.

 

≫ A boy group that brought a cinematic MV reminiscent of 20th-century films.

People are saying it feels like a fan-made movie edit that carefully chose a film scene matching the song and cut it together, thanks to details like the film-camera-like color grading, dramatization, scene composition, and symbolic imagery.

The group scenes, which are inevitable in an MV, also blend perfectly with the drama scenes because the backgrounds and colors match so well without standing out awkwardly.

└ How does a music video somehow smell like paper and film?

  └└ Considering the title is a film term, it was probably intentional.

└ I’ve never had a preppy look in my life, so why am I feeling nostalgic? ㅠㅠ

└ It’s strange since Kim Sparkler, a Korean high schooler, grew up wearing only non-woven fabric blazers and non-breathable PE uniforms in a Korean high school.

└ The fact that Father, who’s dyed his hair exclusively cool tones since debut, went with brown hair really shows how huge a decision that was.

 

≫ My favorite part of Spark’s new music video: the letters sent to each friend arrive in forms that suit them individually

The paper airplane was already such a classic fit for Cheonghyeon, so it felt a little less fresh. However, I loved how they picked an apple and turned it over to find writing on the surface, or how the blurred, bled-out ink on a rain-soaked newspaper turned into a letter if you only read certain letters.

(Photo)

My number one pick is Seongbin in glasses, sitting on a one-person sofa with a shawl draped over his shoulders while unfolding a wet newspaper.

└ Jeong Seongbin is the 22-year-old who suits antique furniture best in the world. Anyone care to disagree?

└ The sequence of movements—holding the newspaper → shaking off the water → lightly pushing up his glasses → unfolding the newspaper—felt incredibly elegant.

 

≫ A song like an autumn night with falling shooting stars, and a video like a field of reeds

└ The beat isn’t slow, and the song isn’t particularly calm, but it has this inexplicable seasonal feeling.

└ It’s both hilarious and fascinating that so many people swear they could hear reeds rustling during the stretch right before the highlight where they only show landscape shots one after another, even though that scene literally has no sound effects at all.

└ Are you telling me there wasn’t the sound of Choi Jeho letting out a sigh while puffing out white steam from his mouth?? I seriously can’t believe it.

  └ There was never any visible breath in the video, what are you talking about? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ The Sparklers are collectively suffering from hallucinations.

 

≫ Spark consistently talks about friendship, but the form of that friendship is different every time.

Joowoo, who wants to see the friends he made in childhood and sends letters after time has passed, and the story of spArk members living their separate lives only to return to their hometown to find the friend they shared a scene of their life with? It triggers something in my otaku heart.

└ ‘Even if we seem to walk different paths, I wanted to show that the core of what we cherish remains unchanged regardless of the passage of time’… Kim Iwol, you genius.

└ Wait, this is actually connected to With List????

└ Depending on how you look at it, it could be. People are currently split between the ‘Parallel Universe’ interpretation and the ‘Inside Joowoo’s Dream’ interpretation.

└ Crazy. No wonder they kept putting in that end-of-the-century static noise.

└ ‘End-of-the-century noise’ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

≫ You want to enjoy a ‘No two Preppy Looks are the same’ lookbook?

Watch Spark’s music show stages, where they serve up a different flavor of Preppy Look every day.

Even with just school-uniform materials, they mix jackets, knit vests, neckties, and blazers in all kinds of combinations. They give us rugby shirts (styled prettily, important ★★★★★★), varsity jackets, and everything else.

Glasses? They have them in every color. All you have to do is look. Try it, try it.

└ If you get the fit or width of chino pants wrong, they look awkward and genuinely terrible, so the fact that they paired them with perfectly fitted blazers deserves huge praise. bb

└ Honestly, a tie on Lee Cheonghyeon is a foul play… it’s a total winning item.

└ So that’s what a varsity jacket is? It’s basically a baseball jacket ㅋㅋ Learned something new.

└ I loved how they captured different details for each member’s character even when wearing school jackets. Especially Choi Jeho in a hoodie + jacket, the ultimate ideal PE Major student.

└ Look at the added explanation ‘styled prettily’ for the rugby shirts ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ True, if you pick wrong, it just looks like a golf outfit.

└ Suede Kiyeon… I’m speechless at the beauty…

 

≫ Summary of reviews from Sparklers who received the album!! Sparklers who haven’t decided which version to buy, refer to this!!!

First, the concepts for each album that were released on the detail page:

Magazine: Fashion magazine cover shoot concept + school-look photobook.

Magic: Snapshot concept cover taken while throwing confetti + a school-look photo book with more conceptual outfits than Magazine (The shawl and coat outfits that were on the board recently are in the Magic ver.!).

Maniac: Athletic club concept cover + casual photobook.

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And new info revealed with the physical album release:

It was notified beforehand that the ticket-shaped PVC film included as a bonus has a different color for each version. If you shine the film on the album cover, you only see ‘M’, ‘a’, or ‘i’ in the version info (This album title is Dear. My_).

The elements visible on the cover when looking through the ticket are different for each album.

Magazine (Red) shows accessories from the MV, Magic (Yellow) shows confetti, and Maniac (Blue) shows photos stuck on the cabinet doors and walls.

If you combine all three layers and process them in grayscale, you get the digital cover image for Scene.

+

Someone asked to add this in the comments, so here’s an update!!!

If you overlap two bonus films from other albums and place them on the back cover of an album, a drawing of a black matchstick appears (ex: place yellow + blue tickets on the back of the Magazine album).

Since ‘Dear.’ is on the spine and ‘My’ is on the cover, people are guessing that the ‘_’ is Spark, represented by the matchsticks.

└ I, I just… I thought they were giving us tickets from the MV to invite us…

└ I thought the album was just using lots of colorful stickers and materials because it had a decorating-journal concept, but then I found out it was all camouflage. That’s terrifying.

└ Since the relationship between the members in the MV is friends, matchstick (spark) = Spark = Friends. This is too moving.

 

***

 

Thanks to filling it with photo books, bonus, goods, and things to analyze, the album became a hot topic in various communities. In a way, we had somehow succeeded in fulfilling the order of creating something that maintained a youthful sentiment while also giving off a mature atmosphere appropriate for the release season—a request as contradictory as making a warm iced drink.

 

The process hadn’t been easy. Especially Kang Kiyeon and Choi Jeho suffered a lot.

 

Why were those two struggling when it wasn’t even a ballad?

 

“Doesn’t something feel lacking?”

 

“No, Kiyeon. You’re cooler than before…!”

 

It was because their body growth had almost changed the lines of their dancing. The rumors were true—people who danced for a long time or at a professional level were sensitive even to changes as small as 1 centimeter or 200 grams.

 

Park Joowoo praised him sincerely, but Kang Kiyeon didn’t look entirely satisfied. After all his pestering about wanting to reach 180cm while he was growing bit by bit, he was now acting quite haughty.

 

Still, since it was true he was struggling with his dancing, I didn’t scold him. Instead, I became his exclusive monitoring agent, pouring out praise and feedback throughout the entire choreography practice.

 

Surprisingly, Choi Jeho grew too. Not like Kang Kiyeon who grew like a beanstalk, but exactly 1cm.

 

The height listed on Choi Jeho’s profile had never changed before. He was the type who debuted in his completed form.

 

So, the moment I felt Choi Jeho had gotten taller, I thought my sensors were broken. But the display on the stadiometer proved that my eyes were working just fine.

 

‘They do say the growth plates in the spine are the last ones to close.’

 

If injuring his back had also affected his growth plates, then it made sense why the Choi Jeho from before hadn’t grown any taller. Since he was naturally skilled at controlling his body, he didn’t struggle as much as Kang Kiyeon, but even Choi Jeho needed time to adjust.

 

“Congratulations on growing one finger-joint taller than yesterday. I hope you don’t grow any more.”

 

“Don’t you think your words are totally contradictory?”

 

“I’m not joking. If you grow any more, we’ll have to seriously consider updating your profile.”

 

Korean society had a tendency to obsess over what was considered ‘standard’, so once someone exceeded a certain point, people would start saying they were too tall or that their height threw off the group’s balance.

 

If he grew just 2cm more, Choi Jeho would hit 190cm. If that happened, Kang Kiyeon would have to hear again that there was a 10cm difference between him and the tall members. What could be more depressing than that?

 

So, I poured premium bottled water ordered online into the most expensive bowl in the dorm and performed a ritual of gratitude for Choi Jeho’s back staying strong, praying for his hard-working growth plates to rest in peace. If the god of calcium had any conscience, I hoped they’d stop blessing Choi Jeho already.

 

Despite the anxiety leading up to the comeback, the two eventually succeeded in regaining their original form before the showcase. As a reward for completing this sudden task, they acquired even more powerful dance lines and an imposing aura. We filmed vertical fancams for each member in the practice room, and those two were unusually terrifying.

 

With the grown dance line in tow, we promoted well on music shows. At the channel where I was an MC, they even hung a message in the waiting room: ‘Congratulations on the comeback of our lovely maknae Iwol and spArk!’ I was startled to see balloon decorations and a cake prepared.

 

“When did you prepare all this?!”

 

“You should celebrate as much as you can whenever there’s something to celebrate!”

 

It had been discussed beforehand that I would step down as a music show MC once the ‘Scene’ promotions ended. Gratefully, everyone expressed their regret, but the writers, who had seen me busy traveling between Korea and overseas during the tour, said they would happily support my new beginning.

 

And to commemorate my MC duty during Spark’s performance week…

 

“Mr. Iwol! Your outfit today is truly wonderful!”

 

“Thank you! I got so excited about finally showing everyone my main job again that I ended up coming on stage dressed like this!”

 

…I ended up acting out a skit where I fumbled with my script while standing between seniors, wearing a ridiculously over-the-top stage outfit, just like during my flashy MC debut.

 

So this was the mandatory trial awaiting someone about to step down. The final mission given to one preparing for retirement! For a very brief moment, I seriously considered if I should cancel my resignation from the MC post.