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iTeen is a project to develop future young entertainers! Kids and juniors aged 11-18 are selected as I-Teens. They are working as singers and actors with professional training for singing, dancing, and acting

NOA Entertainment (now known as Fantagio) collaborated with Kids Planet Entertainment (An Agency for Model Kids, this is the agency that handled Moonbin, Chani, Chanwoo & SinB.) and started this program.

On Oct 2009 these two companies made a joint venture to open a 1st Generation Idol Group, which later was called as i-Teen. Auditions were held from October to December 2009.

Moonbin, Chani and Chanwoo auditioned and made the cut together with other mini DBSK kids Yoon Jung Woong (mini Jaejoong) & Kim In Hwan (mini Junsu) that were in the same Agency with them. They trained and did monthly evaluations together with the other people who also passed.

The Original 2010 I-Teen Line Up was finalized in December of the same year.
From L to R
Lee Jaesung 이재성, Kang Chanhee 강찬회, Kangsan 강산,Kim Hankyul 김한결, Moon Bin 문빈, Jung Chanwoo 정찬우

- Chanhee, Moonbin and Chanwoo are known as the mini DBSK

- Kangsan, Moonbin and Chanwoo are known as the Young F4.

Pretty solid child stars who already had a fanbase.

A lot of trainees joined and left. Some because of personal reasons, some because they didn't pass the monthly evaluations. They were set to debut on 2014, but Chanhee, and Chanwoo, left Fantagio by then so they didn’t get to debut.

I'll make a separate thread for those trainee's that didn't make the cut. And some i-Teen trainee's that are now into another idol groups. So as you can see binnie was the only one who stayed from the original lineup. That's why he trained the longest among the boys.

Also there was a running joke last year when the company was in shambles and the CEO resigned, that Binnie is one of the few oldest employee that remained in fantagio. So you can really understand why he broke down during last year's Starlight Concert.

So Yeah! Before ASTRO came to be, the remaining i-Teen trainee’s underwent a survival program.
(9 remained at this point)
Bin (dance/vocals)
Rocky (dance/rapper)
Sanha (vocals)
Eunu (vocals)
JinJin (dance/rapper)
JunYong (dance/vocals)
Jaesung (vocals)
MJ (vocals)
Wontak (vocals)

For 8 weeks, they performed in Lotte World’s Rising Star. The challenge is they have to come up with a new presentation every week, preparing atleast 2-3 songs and create their own choreography to dance to it.

They have to compete with each other, being in sub units. While also cooperating with each other so that no one will get cut off from the team. As mentioned by ASTRO on their reality show OK!Ready this was the hardest challenge they ever encountered. Everyone worked extra hard.

It was really the toughest challenge for the boys. They have to do well to earn their spot in the group. They have to come up with atleast 3-4 choreo and practice it in just 5 days. No wonder astro now can easily memorize choreography. They've been doing it since pre-debut.

The Rising Star ran through the whole months of January and February. During this time Fantagio was already picking out the members that would get to debut in their currently unnamed Boy Group.

We actually learned about who are the members that got selected when a Photo Test cut of the said member was posted on their site.

The 1st person that got the spot was Rocky, this Photo of him was uploaded on January 17, 2015. A few days after their 1st performance in Lotte.

Fantagio was a bit cryptic about the next member. It was actually Rocky who introduced him. On a series of photos asking people to guess who it is. We all knew right away it was binnie.

This Photo Cut of Moonbin was posted officially inducting him as a member on January 23, 2015.

Every week fantagio released their pick for official members, this time it was Sanha who got announced by uploading this pic of him. It was on February 4, 2015.

The next one was our Visual Eunu. It was posted on February 17, 2015.

Actually after Eunu's announcement, fantagio didn't release anything about the members. We only got these 4 as the official ones. As well as on iteen videos released these 4 are the members that are present.

We were waiting for Jaesung, Jinyong, MJ, and Jinjin to be announced. By feb we already noticed that Wontak was not present on any updates posted by fantagio, so we assumed he didn't pass the monthly evaluation or left to pursue another passion.

Then by April 4, 2015. A Photo Cut of JinJin was finally uploaded. We now have 5 "official" members. But we already had an inkling that the other 3 will be announced soon.

We didn't get a photo announcement after Jinjin's. I was actually sad when i noticed that Jaesung was not present on the videos and updates that fantagio posted anymore. Cause he was one of the original line up like binnie and was soo talented.

Then around August 14, 2015 Fantagio announced the groups name which is what we now call our beloved boys "ASTRO" in addition to this news they also confirmed that the boys will be introduced through a web drama called TO BE CONTINUED. https://twitter.com/moonbinmemes/status/1169617017298571270?s=19

We got the confirmation we want for the official members of Astro by that time. And we noticed that Jinyong was not part of the group anymore. Fanmu did sort of made a statement that time that he failed the evaluation, and decided to focus more on school.

So by that time already got the confirmation that these 6 boys are the official members of ASTRO.
Their drama aired from August 18 to September 3, 2015.

After the drama aired the boys embarked on a nationwide showcase tour from Sept - Dec called "Meet U Project" where they held 20 shows all through sokor, and had 2 fan meetings. They mostly perform covers, while also singing songs from TBC.

Their CEO actually had a condition before letting them debut. That is if they get 10,000 friends in Kakaotalk, they will be able to debut early. Which they successfully achieved by the end of December 2015.

Then around January 20, 2016 we got an announcement that ASTRO will be having a docuseries called OK! READY prior to their debut showcase. I encourage every new aroha to watch it. Y'all enjoy predebut astro. They're so adorable. The series ran from 01/21/16 to 02/18/16

And finally our Astro got to debut on February 23, 2016. There was i believe a total of 1500 fans who attended the debut showcase. ASTRO asked for fans to send in suggestions for fanclub names in the fancafe, and they chose their favorite and announced it at the debut showcase.

AROHA was a name suggested by a fan that ASTRO loved and picked. So basically Astro named us, and gave birth to us.

I will be ending this thread with this video. Welcome new Aroha's.