The time has come for us to bid farewell to another of our idol oppas heading off to the military. Fans of our March Madness winner, JYJ‘s Jaejoong, would have seen this coming for a while, since he mentioned his plans at his Japan solo concert last year. The exact date is still unconfirmed, but it’s estimated to be somewhere around the end of this year. The idol-actor made this statement at the production press conference for his upcoming drama Triangle, delivering both the good news and the bad.
Triangle will probably be my last work before my enlistment. I don’t have an exact time frame on my enlistment but JYJ will be releasing an album in the second half of the year. I’ll be leaving after I conclude productions for that.
So the good news, JYJ will finally be releasing their long-awaited album, after focusing on their solo activities for the last three years. It’s astonishing to realize that their last comeback was with “In Heaven” in 2011, although they technically haven’t been away from the scene since Junsu and Jaejoong have remained active with their respective solo albums which met with critical acclaim. Considering that their own individual styles have diverged quite a bit from the group’s, it’ll be interesting to see both of them return to their JYJ roots, together with successful idol-turned-actor Yoochun. With the constantly evolving K-pop landscape, it’ll be interesting to see how the ever-so-fickle K-pop audience responds to JYJ’s comeback after three whole years.
After which, the entertainment industry will suffer a significant loss of talent as Jaejoong bids farewell to his fans and heads to the military. He will be the first of the original TVXQ group to start doing his time, and Junsu is also rumoured to enter shortly after Jaejoong.
When asked about his desire to perform on music programmes, Jaejoong replied that it frustrates him to have to hide himself although he wants to meet his fans and perform for them. Fans have expressed their anger with SM Entertainment, that they continue to cock-block JYJ from promoting on broadcasting stations through music and variety shows, although the lawsuit has already come to an end.
Will we get to see JYJ appear on broadcasting stations at least once before Jaejoong heads off to shave his glorious head of hair? Only time will tell; meanwhile, let’s enjoy the only ever broadcast performance of JYJ, to swim around in nostalgia-land for a bit.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJFKL-O95As]
