Welcome back to another edition of SB Week in Review! Here’s everything you may have missed this week:
Serious News
- Actress Kang Doo-ri passed away this week. Initial reports said she she had been killed in a car accident, however further reports revealed that she was found dead in her apartment from what was most likely a suicide. Our condolences to the family, may she rest in peace. If you are feeling distressed, there are local helplines you can call.
- Rookie group ZEST were found innocent of the sexual assault allegations raised against them on social media earlier this year.
- IU and Chat-shire just cannot catch a break. This week, an artists based in San Francisco came forward with suspicions that Chat-shire‘s album art was plagiarized.
- Running Man came under fire this week for reportedly plagiarizing one of their games from a Japanese variety show. Officials promptly released an apology.
- Kim Hyun-joong and his ex-girlfriend finally met this week for paternity testing. It may be a vain wish, but hopefully this saga is actually drawing to a close this time.
- The 2PM lawsuit against the director who abruptly canceled filming of their “My House” MV came to a close this week with the court calling for reconciliation.
Comebacks & Debuts
Queen Yoon Mirae returned with a single ballad, “This Love.”- SM is keeping up with the holiday cheer with Winter Garden as f(x) and Red Velvet released their holiday singles “Wish List” and “Wish Tree,” respectively. We can still anticipate the final special Christmas track “Christmas Paradise” from Boa on December 22.
- Keeping up with the holiday releases, 2PM’s Taecyeon released the self composed song “Be My Merry Christmas.”
- Jellyfish Entertainment also released their holiday track, “Love in the Air,” featuring Vixx, Seo In-Guk, Park Yoon-ha and Park Jung-ah.
- AOA‘s Choa released her anticipated solo track, “Flame,” as part of FNC‘s new re;turn series.
- Ku Hye-sun collaborated with producer Choi In-young to release a remake of “A Day Without Sound.”
- Hyorin (Sistar), Jooyoung, and Bumkey dropped a special collaboration track and MV “Love Line.”
- Cheetah is back with “Star Wars” — which appropriately dropped on the same day that Star Wars: the Force Awakens hit theaters. Unlike the SM collaboration, “Star Wars” appears to have no official tie-in to the franchise.
Teasers & Announcements
We can expect a G-friend comeback in January. Hopefully with safer stages this round.- April will release a special winter album, Snowman on December 21. They’ve already released the MV teaser.
- After 15 years, Turbo will return as a trio on December 21 with a whopping 17-track album, and ton of collaborations. This week they dropped the first teaser as well as the track list.
- Winner will finally be making their return on January 11. Rejoice!
- iKon will return first with what is technically their debut album, Welcome Back, and two new MVs on December 24.
- FNC is taking a page from the SM playbook by establishing their own rookie academy, “Neo School.” they also released images of three potential members for their upcoming boy band.
- Starship also teased three members of their upcoming 12-member girl group WJSN: Bona, Da-young and Cheng Xiao.
- Shin Dong-yeob and IU will MC for this year’s SBS Gayo Daejun.
- Speaking of Gayos, MBC’s Gayo Daejun is looking promising with Exo, Infinite, Shinee, A Pink, BTS, AOA, Red Velvet and more already confirmed in the line-up! Check out the other acts here.
Other News
- Following his surprise marriage announcement, U-Kiss‘ Eli has closed all social media accounts.
- Lee Min-woo (Shinhwa) and Go So-hyun announced the end of their relationship this week.
- Although DIA has already debuted, members Chae-yeon and Cathy have temporarily left the group to take part in Mnet‘s new survival show Produce 101. The show began broadcasting this week.
- Though they dominated digital charts this year, YG announced that Big Bang will not attend any year-end awards shows.
(Osen, Naver: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Nate: [1] [2] [3] Pann, Insight. Images via Starship, YG, Twitter)
