Ko Younha appeared on Lee Jieun's Palette.
There is a long history between them, not all of them positive, but I won't recount that today.
Among other things, the former owner of Edam Entertainment asked Younha what junior she was paying attention to, and Younha mentioned aespa, specifically Karina.
IU then praised the vocal abilities of Karina and aespa.
IU had defeated aespa's Savage with "Strawberry Moon", which prevented the return of SM to supremacy for 3 years.
If IU did not defeat aespa back then, aespa would have seriously challenged BTS, and SM might still be kicking today.
However IU had inflicted a very serious defeat to aespa, from which it did look like it would not recover, and it did extend Hybe's domination of Kpop for 3 more years.
3 years later, BTS is not going to return until 2026, NewJeans has imploded, and IU herself was seriously defeated by the hands of her ex Jang Kiha and Bibi.
For the first time in her career, there is fear on the eyes of the Singer who had Undermined Kpop for 15 long years.
Lee Jieun knows aespa has something to pay her back , and appears to know that her days of terrorizing KPop at will seem to be ending.
It seems aespa, and SM, have finally recovered the supremacy it lost to BTS back in 2017.
