Someone said the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men often go awry.
The best laid plan of Mr. YG to promote Baemon as the successor of BlackPink went awry, thanks to
1) the delay of Ahyeon, whatever the reason might have been.
It is very similar to the rivalry of GFriend and Twice. GFriend threw a wrench to Twice, completely upsetting Twice's plans.
No one paid any attention to GFriend, but while Twice was preparing for Cheer Up, GFriend's Rough dominated the digitals.
The only reason Twice was able to shake off GFriend was 1) Cheer Up was the bigger hit and 2) the then owner of Source Music began to put his own idiosyncrasies to GFriend's activities.
Few people put too much hope on Illit.
The departure of Yongseo, for whatever reason, robbed it the only member who could speak English.
So it had 2 Korean and 2 Japanese trainees, plus one who was little more than a fish out of the water.
However, it did have a YG trainee, Minju, who is said to have a voice quite similar to Rose of BlackPink.
Minju is said to be in the debut squad for what later became BabyMonster. Given her training years, she trained with all but 2 members , the two Thais, when she was in YG and Rora of BabyMonster had said that she does know a member of Illit.
>Rora: I have a close acquaintance among the ILLIT members. I am rooting for them as colleagues. We will perform with our own hip-hop vibe. There are many prominent people among the 5th generation of idols, so we plan to work hard without giving in. I will not be discouraged and trust the members.
That close acquaintance must be Minju.
It is unknown whether she is talking with BabyMonster members, but she would know them as the back of her hand (except for the Thai members, of course), while YG and BM do not know the other Illit members.
Although Illit is from Hybe, it was , I have to say, released with not too much expectation, to play second fiddle to NJ and LS.
However it did become the chief rival of BabyMonster, and for this round has completely robbed the luster of its re-debut.
A lot of money awas invested on launching BabyMonster, while much less effort was pjut into Illit.
But right now the advantage is with Illit, and given the way YG operates, it is unlikely for BM to quickly release a new song to neutralize the Illit threat.
This unexpected rivalry, which would have been avoided if
1) Baemon had debuted earlier and sailed way , way past Illit
or
2) YG never accepting Minju, and not giving her a chance to learn about the YG Way.
A fight which should never have taken place to begin with will drain Baemon a lot.
Illit , which started with a much less expectation, intended to be a staple in Japan when LS and NJ were unavailable, has climbed the stairs fast enough to be a hindrance to YG's newest act.
With the change of Kpop scene, the rivalry between Illit and BabyMonster would unfold differently from that of GFriend and Twice.
However, given that the distraction of Illit would be quite long and serious, it will significantly hinder BM's chances around the world.
