REACTION to ROAD TO KINGDOM EP.07

Can't speak on the Pentagon performance since I'm not Egyptian but as someone who's half Arab half Indian I can say that Verivery's performance was fine. They didn't use any religious motifs or anything with cultural significance (we don't see Jasmine as a sacred icon of our culture per se, she's really just a cartoon character and them wearing her outfit was tacky but not at all offensive. We were never 'oppressed' over cultural elements that they used like the magic carpet and genie lamp. It was all pretty much just movie motifs, no harm whatsoever.

Fana Shafeeq

I found Pentagon's performance fine - as in ancient Egypt concept is all that it is - and they really did a lot of research + Pharaoh was used as a simbol for king (yet again) and I found that really cool. Verivery's performance was slightly problematic to me - not at first because I thought it was just Aladin concept, but then people pointed out you can see mosque behind (and I went back to check), so I can understand that one wasn't entirely fine. But I didn't find anything wrong with Pentagon one?

RisingSunbebe

Stan twitter is essentially a bunch of children mostly from formerly colonizing countries that yell at Korean idols (Korea having been a Japanese colony until the 1940s) for wearing costumes. There are plenty of people that the act of *rapping* by idols is culturally insensitive. It's a very intellectually lazy pastime.

LUC_Rambler

Seems to be the consensus. Stan twitter is always going to be an international embarrassment and deserves no attention. Being a Native American, there happens to be a lot of advocacy on behalf of our demographic that I simply do not care for. Decor and costumes don't affect us, but poverty and being wiped from the history books do. Comments regarding how we're "dumb drunks" and "savages" are hurtful, and somewhat common in areas surrounding the reservation I grew up in. Evoking the Native fighting spirit in a performance or having a Native-inspired outfit, on the other hand, just comes off as an acknowledgement. A-OK with me.

LUC_Rambler

as an arabian i found the pentagon and veriverys performance okay we arabs don't take an offence to people dancing or wearing our clothes and doing arabian concepts. it the opposite we enjoy that our culture reaches different counties. so i think it's fine because we didn't suffer from these things like how some other races suffered. so it's not as sensitive as some cultures are. the only thing that arabs will find offensive is if you drag religion into things. i hope that helped. i really enjoyed your reaction and sorry for my english <3

Alanoud Cloud

Yes And they did an AMAZING job like always tbh 😌

Omayma

For Oneus's performance on the show, there is also a Come Back Home Concept Film you can watch. This might also help to explain the concept of the music video and their newest song coming out on the 19th

Mel Foster

I commented this on another RTK reaction and I just wanted to share my sentiments here as well. When it comes to VeriVery's performance, they definitely are capable of so much more but when they said it was going to be based off the Aladdin parade scene I was picturing something much more grand and over the top, the stage felt a bit empty set wise and there was too much going on yet not enough going on at the same time if that makes sense. The costumes for the female back up dancers looked..cheap and the mismatched thing did not work well at least in my opinion. It became more about the movie concept rather than their performance. For TOO, I didn't like their stage at all, I actually ended up skipping through it :l the arrangement was fine I suppose but the "young gangster/punk" concept felt really cheesy and a little too much for me, I didn't like the styling as it felt amateur but also really stereotypical. I do like TOO, I plan on getting into them more after this show too but this stage was my least favorite from them so far.

Cat R

Yeah I saw him talking about this saying he was really worried, but he did a lot of checking.

Betakitten

kino did a lot of research and read about the culture for the follow stage because they wasn't sure if they could stick to that concept and he wanted to show pentagon's strength without being disrespectful, and i saw a lot of people (fans and non-fans) saying that they did a good job with it so you don't have to worry about that

mick is right regarding tbz- basically when tbz did that line thing where they were holding the branches, the branch was supposed to bloom more and more with each person. there were only about 4 members doing the line thing, meaning as soon as they were out of the camera's shot they had to find the next branch on the ground and literally sprint behind the camera to get to their next spot in line before the camera got there. if you watch the fancam there is a bunch of smog on the ground so juyeon wasn't able to find the branch with the flowers on it in the like five seconds he had to find it so he had to use his bare branch (which broke the whole blooming thread thing) i could hardly tell though, they're so hard on themselves and it makes me so sad :( he did so amazing the entire performance except for that tiny mistake that nobody even noticed :( their performance was beautiful though i love them so much

Holly

My personal rankings for this round definitely went 1) ONF- It's Raining. I REALLY overall just loved the performance and energy of the stage, it's unforgettable to me. 2) The Boyz - Quasi Una Fantasia. Our moonlight boy really outdid himself with the concept for this stage. (He and Younghoon were injured throughout parts of RTK, hence why Younghoon had the parts with the flower and the tree, and why Kevin didn't dance the whole performance.) 3.) ONEUS - Be Mine. I LOVED. THIS STAGE. Everything about it was so good and I really think had ONF and TBZ done anything differently I would have placed them higher. 4)..... Verivery- GOGOBEBE. I didn't like this concept AT ALL (you can find twitter threads on why it was problematic) but I guess I preferred the song arrangement. 5) Pentagon - Follow. I didn't like the performance OR the arrangement much at all. I am a huge fan of the original version of the song, and I just... didn't care for the remake, 6) TOO- Hard Carry. Chan's braids were a big no-no from the start, plus the prevalence of... various stereotypes that I feel don't need to be pointed out. Overall, found their version of it... less than. IDK why, because I've thoroughly enjoyed them throughout the show. But it didn't do it for me.

mick mick mick

So- for the... cultural appropriation... comments. This round was not it for me for several of the groups, namely TOO, Pentagon and Verivery, for the reasons you pointed out. It's just... its hard to watch at this point, and to see that no one is LEARNING from these issues that happen basically weekly at this point. I'm beyond tired of the whole thing. As for Juyeon and the "mistake" from what I understand is, if you noticed, he's the first person in line with the bare branch, and he has ~3-5 seconds to run off camera, grab the next branch, and move to the next place in line- and from what I know, he couldn't find the branch for his second spot? Correct me, anyone, if I'm wrong, but I think that was what caused the problem in the Quasi Una Fantasia performance :(

mick mick mick