October | 2021 | Wretched and Divine

I normally don’t write rant posts but I am enraged!!!

Girls Planet 999 is a girls trainee survival show based in Korea where 9 girls will debut. 33 Korean, 33 Japanese, and 33 Chinese girls participated in the show, hence the name Girls PLANET. So, tell me why 6 out of the 9 girls who made it in the final group were Korean, and the last 3 places were J, J, and C. That’s false advertising; the show should have been called Girls Korea 999. But let’s backtrack a bit. There’s a lot of context that needs to be provided.

1. WTF was that Voting System?

The show started with a Cell voting system in which one Korean, one Japanese, and one Chinese girl formed a cell. Voters would vote for their favourite girls individually as well as cells. Cells were eliminated, not individual girls. So if there was a popular girl with two lesser talented girls, all three girls would stay on. Do you see how problematic that is? Because of this stupid cell system, the girls that stayed on the show were unbalanced in terms of capability and skill. Some of the very talented girls were eliminated because their cell had fewer votes.

Afterwards, they got rid of the Cell voting system and they switched to voting for 3 Korean, 3 Japanese, and 3 Chinese. Then it was 1 Korean, 1 Japanese, and 1 Chinese. The final lineup seemed pretty good. The top 9 trainees were all talented. Then when it came to the finale, you could only vote for one girl. That’s normal; I’ve watched a number of trainee shows before (Chinese trainee shows, mind you). Here is the problem. Votes from Korea represented 50% of the total votes, and international (100+ countries) represented 50% of the votes. There are significantly more international voters and people who watch the show. I read that the show isn’t even that popular in Korea… You might think “Well this is okay because the show is Korean so why shouldn’t Korean voters make up 50% of the total votes?” Here’s the thing: Korean voters voted for Korean trainees. In the interim report, 8 out of 9 girls were Korean, and one was Chinese and in the last place. They were not voting for talent. I’ll say this right now: Some of the Japanese and Chinese girls are far more talented than some of those Korean girls who made it in the final group. I have my favourite Korean girls, of course, but are ALL 6 girls of the 9 are the most talented, and in that order? Heck no.

With the voting system, 10~ international votes equals to one Korean vote. So you could vote for the entire week but it wouldn’t even be the same as just one Korean vote. Again, you might think “So what? This is still a Korean show”.

THEN DON’T INVITE 66 FOREIGNERS ON THE SHOW. This leads to my next point.

2. Evil Editing and Mistranslations

I cannot speak for Japanese trainees, but Chinese trainees were mistranslated and made out to be villains. An eliminated Chinese trainee said that she was denied an interpreter and could not use a translating device even though she had one. From the start, there were communication problems between the girls. But also between the girls and the audience. Cai Bing, who had ranked in the top 9 since the start of the show, was mistranslated in the subtitles and fell off the ranks. CB was not one of my top picks but I feel that what happened to her was unfair.

Apart from mistranslations, there was evil editing. I’ve read comments that say “It’s not evil editing because the trainee actually said X”. Um actually, it is evil editing because those people fell for the mistranslations and believed those words to be the truth. In every episode of the show, Chinese trainees were portrayed as villains while Korean trainees were portrayed in a positive light. Japanese trainees weren’t shown very much in general, so they were cast aside. Before episode 1 was even released, the show released a trailer that showed Fu Yaning being rude to Choi Yujin, and it showed that the mentors were displeased by her remarks. That trailer had millions of views before the show had even started. But when you watched the actual episode, those two mentors actually liked FYN’s performance and praised her. They did not react in the way as presented in the trailer, but the audience was led to believe that. Later on in the show, we see that FYN and Yujin are actually good friends. An eliminated Chinese trainee even said that FYN had said something else. It really wasn’t that serious as it was made out to be. But before the show had even started, FYN received a lot of hate for this edited clip. FYN was not my top pick, by the way, but I still feel that it was unjust.

There was also the matter of showing Su Ruiqi yawning and Liang Jiao repeatedly going to the bathroom during practice. They did not show Korean or Japanese trainees “slacking off” so why did they focus on the Chinese trainees? SRQ was definitely not the only girl to yawn and Liang Jiao was definitely not the only girl to go to the bathroom (obviously). But do you see how the editing made these things such a big deal? Like why were those things even shown?

Anyways, pointing out every single thing would take forever, so let’s move on.

3. Using Foreign Trainees For Views (And JUST For Views)

Back to my first point on why it is problematic to invite two-thirds of the trainees from other countries but not debut them, only one Chinese trainee made it in the final group (and this girl was consistently number 1 and 2 before the 1-pick voting) and the Chinese trainees overall were painted in such a negative light. Fu Yaning brought the show a lot of views and attention due to her “rude behaviour” which was in fact, edited.

Yurina, who was consistently in the top 9 before the 1-pick voting, didn’t even debut in the end. Yet her popularity brought the show a lot of attention.

4. The Show Taught Me That Talent Does Not Matter

Due to the voting system with 50% Korean vote and 50% international, you just need to be Korean to have a high chance of making the final lineup. And I want to emphasize that I have my favourite Korean girls. Choi Yujin, Kim Dayeon, Seo Young Eun, and Bora were my favourite K girls, by the way. But you cannot convince tell me that the top 6 girls are the most talented of the 99 in that order. I am glad that Shen Xiaoting, Sakamoto Mashiro, and Hikaru made it in, but I also think that they deserve higher ranks. Definitely. And some of the other girls were robbed.

Anyways, it felt good venting about this stupid show. I will not be supporting the final group. I’m sorry, but with how bad the show was, they can kiss their international audience goodbye. And you know what? Good riddance.