here's gonna be the personal rank thread!

liv's personal ranking for Kingdom round 2!

tl;dr
sf9 > stray kids > btob > ateez > ikon > the boyz

while it seem to be a rank of arrangement (best to worst), it's actually more than that! I'll elaborate more

also, personal scoring-wise, the gaps for rank 2-4 are pretty close

1. sf9

still flawless. best arrangement. absolutely no pet peeve

but as always, there's gonna be room for improvement. some scenes, like the firethrower, are not needed; it kinda breaks the fighting scene. also they should've made it clear that the stolen item is a crown

granted they're making a fighting scene in like, couple weeks. it's not an easy choreo. but seeing discontinuity in fighting scene is not exactly fun, especially for gamers who are used to control the fight with their own controllers

also, sf9 and btob included, can everyone in Kingdom stop copying tbz's first-person angle? not only it looks like a copycat,

10-50% of the world population had motion sickness! please be more considerate, we don't want a headache while enjoying your performance

2. stray kids

so far there's only 2 performance in RTK-Kingdom that made me feel the angst

A. pentagon - shine/spring snow
B. skz - I'll be your man

surprisingly from the first note, I can feel the angst and tragedy way before I realize what is their concept this round

if you guys also feel sad during skz's performance, please let me know! i can't be the only who got totally affected from the painful anguish in skz's I'll be Your Man! >///<

anyway!

finally, a performance that put a heavy emphasis on emotion! they deliver so well I'm in love

btw kudos for skz to make the "you" a gender neutral one! since they used a "deal with the devil" concept to save that cute boy, we can assume skz's I'll be Your Man is more like a general song a father can even use to convey their love to their family .... it's so touching

pet peeves!!

a. that constant note in seungmin's first part

please stop. that's not the chord. unless you guys want to portray dying heartbeat in an EKG machine but that's definitely NOT a heartbeat

once again, the curse of perfect pitch prevented me from enjoying the show

i can accept the dissonance in jeongin's and han's part but NOT SEUNGMIN'S PART. THAT BEEP IS ANNOYINGLY OFF-TUNE I HATE IT why are you guys keep doing this to me first All In and now I'll be Your Man

b. the audio in general

when the audio got released, I can be sure that the music is clearly performance-centered

how should I say it

skz's I'll be your man. and NCT's black on black. unless you're watching the dance, the music won't make sense. as a Spotify looper, I hate it

some parts should be a bit more bombastic as a build up, but all the bombs only comes from changbin and han's powerful rap. honestly, it's a bit .... weird?

anyway aside from the emotion being perfectly evoked, I think it would take me a long time to love the audio for this one

also, for the round 3, i hope they got their arranging game back!! r1 and r2 is kinda .... not the best skz arrangement, so far. we all know they can do waaayy better than this. I'll be waiting, boys!!

c. blurred concept

just like the arrangement, there's a repeat offense in--

skz's kingdom round 2, and it would be the blurred concept

Ravi VIXX (concept king in kpop), had told us the key for a strong Kingdom/RTK performance:

make sure the audience can guess the concept from the first look

and for skz's, it usually took 1 min until you reach eureka

1 minute is far too long for a concept to click in the audience's mind. You should've taken, at max, 15 seconds to deliver the concept to the audience.

An excellent example is verivery's PHOTO (rtk r2). in 5 seconds, you know the concept is "nightmare"

so when stays started to tweet "Oh, guys, the concept is: deal with the devil to get the child back!" in realization,

this is NOT. GOOD.

because that means they have failed to deliver the concept to the general audience. it becomes a meaningless-but-pretty performance

overall, i can say changbin is the one carrying the whole performance. he successfully evoked the sadness from the audience.

second most impactful would be felix's "cause all i hear from you are cries" DAMN THAT'S A POETRY

3. ateez

KINGDOM CONCEPT KINGS ARE BACK!! seriously, they always deliver the clearest concept from Intro Stage until now. when it comes to conceptual performance, they deliver it to the general audience THE BEST.

also, finally there's one song in which I like Jongho's high note

honestly, since i haven't watched the behind, IDK what pop culture that inspired ateez's rhythm ta. I was thinking about ... money heist? some dystopian universe, that's for sure.

"the disease is human emotion" damn that's a strong line bro

also, BLACK-HAT MAN!! YOU'RE BACK!!

what makes ateez the kingdom-concept-king is not only because they successfully deliver their concept to the public, but also the little details. the easter eggs.

good concept-delivering makes your performance amazing, easter eggs keep them rewatching the stage. GREAT JOB!

pet peeves:

a. the arrangement
while ateez's rhythm ta is genuinely good, they suffered a lot in the middle part. the whispers in the first chorus makes a lot of sense; you're silently inviting people to revolt. but the second chorus? that doesn't sound like a proper build up

basically, there's almost no build-up from the first chorus; everything kinda lays flat UNTIL the zeppelin (this is Wonderland's zeppelin, right?) comes after hongjoong's speech. it's kinda weird to rely on zeppelin for a build-up, though ....

also, while the last chorus already contains more hype, I don't think the mastering is good, though; the audio sounds a bit muffled (just like tbz and btob's audio case)

wish they put more care towards the audio quality, not only the props :(

while the mastering is awful,

kudos to this round's sound engineer who managed to fix the settings for Jongho's mic! for the first time in forever, I actually like his high note, it really suits the song!

b. the camerawork + positioning

once again, ateez's problem lies in the camwork. for this round, there's two groups trying to portray a festive ending. and since ateez performed right before btob's amazing rock concert, their festive scene fell flat in comparison

but i think this is more because of the camerawork and positioning, though. for BTOB, the camerawork is carefully crafted so the stage always looks PACKED despite there's not that many people. for ateez, the stage looks half-empty. They should shoot closer/let the people disperse

either way, because of this fatal mistake when they shoot the ending, the festive scene falls really flat and empty. it ... sadly, reminded me that Covid-19 is still happening, and there is a distance.

i guess that's the main reason why I ranked them as the third.

again, camerawork is a vital part in Kingdom/RTK. there's no live audience, so wrong camerawork can ruin even the best concept. and sadly, ateez fell into the same mistake

ateez's stage director-nim, we'll wait for your next work!

4. btob (finally the last group to review!)

back door rock+mature version! i thought it would take around 5 more years until skz write a sexy song but ... here we are! with peniel and minhyuk's rap parts! thank you for noticing the 20+ fans!! that's so wild and rock!! THANK YOU!

while the stage is well-used and i ended up stanning changsub despite minhyuk's abs, there are couple of notes that made me rank them 4th. but as I said earlier, rank 2-4 are so close to each other

anyway

FINALLY A FESTIVE CONCEPT IN KINGDOM! LONG LIVE FUN PERFORMANCES!

(nothing could ever beat ONEUS becoming Jeon Woochi in LIT when it comes to festive performance in RTK-Kingdom but hey, we gotta take whatever we can take )

btw more kudos to Changsub and Eunkwang's vocals! Back Door's prechorus is hella tricky; often Bang Chan himself either cracked his voice or resort to harmonizing, back when skz promotes this song in music shows. This song's original high note is as high as Hellevator (Bb5)!

pet peeves:

a. audio

just wtf is wrong with this episode's audio. literally half of the contestants are not serving our ears with the best audio quality, esp around the end. also the arrangement ... felt lacking. like something is missing but IDK what. can't pinpoint the reason

you know when something makes you feel so itchy? yeah. that. that's how I feel when it comes to this version's of back door. maybe the lack of chorus, maybe it's something else ... but the middle part kinda suffers while the beginning and the end is almost perfect

also forgot, the part where no one sings at the last chorus? bad idea.

watching the performance without anyone singing makes the festive atmosphere felt emptier. you're suppose to have a party, but no one is shouting along with you... that's too sad. again, reminding me of covid

b. lack of BD's key point

yes, i know BTOB is not a dance-oriented group. but seeing the iconic knocking being treated ... like that ....

the chorus meant to be done together, intricately. it's a form, a playful game. i'd rather see a conga than ... that ....

how should i say it ....

so many people, who only watched dance cover of BD, doesn't realize that the knocking part is actually not "ridiculous", it just has to be done in a formation. BD is all about formation. and taking the formation away is just ... it makes me feel weird

well, that's all for my ranking!

halfway through kingdom. 3/5 rounds done. all i can say is:

the top RTK stages are still better, somehow

wish we got more iconic stages in round 3! see you guys in 3 weeks when we're back to performances!!