The K-Pop girl group, LOONA, also known as Girl of the Month, has one of the most interesting stories and rises to fame. And they continue to keep the buzz alive between fans—known as Orbits—and non-fans alike—with choices that can sometimes seem curious at best. But let’s start from the beginning.
What is LOONA?
LOONA is a K-Pop girl group under the agency Blockberry Creative and consists of twelve members: Haseul, Vivi, Yves, Jinsoul, Kim Lip, Chuu, Heejin, Hyunjin, Gowon, Choerry, Olivia Hey, and Yeojin. The girls are also divided into three different sub-units—Loona 1/3.
The group debuted in 2016 with a unique process—twelve different solo singles starring each of the members, as well as sub-unit tracks, released during the course of eighteen months. All leading up to their official debut EP [++] in 2018 with the title track “Hi High”.
The hype that the group had gathered via their long debut schedule and with [++] kept going strong for their sophomore release, [xx], with what is arguably one of their most famous title tracks—”Butterfly.” The song gained them massive international popularity—even though it could be said that their fame status didn’t match in their home country.
That might explain why their first music show win arrived four years after their debut, with EP [#]’s title track “So What.” While groups taking years and years to get to their first win is nothing new—BTS didn’t get their first win for three years, after all—the new trend is that, often, groups get their trophies in a matter of days.
Queendom
After two more releases, LOONA took part in the second season of Mnet’s television program Queendom, where established girl groups compete against each other in a series of challenges and performances. After a very successful first season, that saw the triumph of Mamamoo, the groups that participated in the second season included LOONA, VIVIZ, Brave Girls, WJSN, and soloist Hyolyn.
LOONA finished second, losing the top spot to WJSN but gathering enough attention from fans to persuade them to announce their first international tour, LOONATHEWORLD. The tour will kick off in Los Angeles on August 2nd and touch a number of North American cities—San Francisco, Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Louisville, Reading, and Washington DC—finishing up in New York on August 19th. It’s a perfect chance to promote their last release, the summer EP Flip That, which dropped at the beginning of June.
Chuu’s Absence, Explained
Everything seemed to be going well for the group—that is until Blockberry Creative announced that member Chuu will not participate in the world tour via an official note on the group’s fan café, which was reported by Soompi:
“Hello. This is Blockberry Creative. Due to scheduled activities that have been fixed in advance throughout the rest of the year, LOONA’s Chuu will not be participating in the 2022 LOONA 1st WORLD TOUR [LOONATHEWORLD]. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and support.”
It’s sadly not the first time that Chuu has to sit out of a LOONA concert. In February of this year, she couldn’t perform at the [LOONAVERSE: FROM] event, organised at Seoul’s Jangchung Arena. Blockberry Creative released a statement on that occasion as well, which explained that “Chuu will be absent from the […] concert […] due to health reasons.”
They continued stating that they:
“are sorry to tell the sudden news to Orbit, who have been waiting for the performance for a long time and always love LOONA and Chuu. We believe that the health of the artist is the top priority. After a deep discussion with Chuu herself and other LOONA members, we have decided not to attend the concert this time. We all try our best so Chuu can concentrate on her health recovery. We ask for your love and support for Chuu’s full recovery.”
Many fans are disappointed, but hopefully, Chuu will have a swift recovery and be back performing soon.
(featured image: Blockberry Creative)
