2nd gen felt new because Kpop was starting to get overseas
3rd gen group concept were an inspiration of 2nd gen group but more polished and elevated you could felt the influence of each 2nd gen had on each 3rd gen group but 3rd gen group were enough to be different to not look like 2nd gen group neither
4th gen felt like the generation of experimentations, a lot of companies tried to try new things and bring something new to kpop
we got the whole Y2K/futuristic/cyberpunk/virtual concept with Aespa
Newjeans brought the 2000's nostalgia
G-idle brought back the female empowering/sexy concept
But is it me or 5th gen feel like the generations were company are starting to become lazy and doesn't want to make any effort anymore
It's just the start of the gen so it's still soon to speak about it
but we already have 2 of the most expected debut of this debut of gen with Illit and Babymonster
and ILLIT just feel like they copycat Newjeans
while Baby monster feel like YG is trying to get their Blackpink 2.0