Girls Planet 999 might have ended 6 months back, but the show has managed to stay in the news nevertheless. ‘Girls Planet 999: The Girls Saga’ was a survival show created by Mnet. Mnet has previously produced survival shows like Produce 101, Sixteen, I-Land, Street Woman Fighter, and many more. The shows have given us world-famous idols and groups like TWICE, Wanna One, Enhypen, and now Kep1er. Girls Planet 999 launched with an aim to debut a nine members girls group, Kep1er. The show’s concept was global in nature. Hence contestants were selected from South Korea, Japan, and China.
The show had a whooping 99 number of final selected contestants. Three groups were created with 33 contestants in each. These were the K-group, C-Group, and J-Group. K-Group was made up of 33 contestants from Korea. C-Group had 33 participants from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. And J-Group had 33 Japanese contenders. The competition was no wonder cutthroat for the final lineup to only have nine members. The show had viewers divided during its airing itself. Many had already decided on their biases and expected certain members to debut. The show’s voting pattern especially came under fire. The show has ended, and the final lineup has debuted, but fans keep debating how things could’ve been different if vote distribution was fair.
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Kep1er And Its Current Members
Kep1er debuted with its final nine contestants. The group’s name is after the astronomer Johannes Kepler. Since the name of the show was Girls Planet, the name was suggested in line with the astronomical reference. Some of its members have been in the K-Pop industry for a while now.
The members of the girl group are Chae-Hyun, Bahiyyih, Yu-Jin, Da-Yeon, Young-Eun, Ye-Seo, Hikaru, Mashiro, and Xiaoting. There are 6 Korean members, 2 Japanese, and one Chinese member.
Kep1er debuted on 3 January 2022 with their EP, “First Impact”. The title song, “Wa Da Da” saw its first win within ten days of release on the M countdown. The group has been received quite well, and the members are very loved by the fans too. Additionally, The girls are currently a part of the Mnet’s reality competition show Queendom, competing with veterans like Brave Girls, WJSN, and soloist Hyolyn.
The Vote Discrepancy of Korean and International Voters’ weightage on Girls Planet 999
Girls Planet has seen a variety of voting systems for its run of 12 episodes. In the first round itself, 45 participants were eliminated. Planet top 9 were selected by both mentors and viewers, and those members had the power to shuffle their cells. The first voting period required voting for three cells. Planet top 9 were based on individual points.
After the show ended, Mnet released the votes that each contestant got. Now, the thing is, the votes were divided 50/50. Votes from South Korea held a 50% weightage, while 50% were from the rest of the countries, which include China and Japan. Hence, votes from South Korean viewers held more weightage than the ones from international voters. It is maybe for this reason that the majority is of Korean members in the group.
Although it is important to note that it was a Korean survival show, the debuted group will hold its promotional activities within South Korea. That way, it is only fair that there are more Korean members. But Kep1er’s global appeal would have increased if more representation was given to the foreign contestants.
However, the show has ended, and we have Kep1er’s nine members. But just for the books, let’s see what would have been the current members’ ranking or who others could’ve debuted had the vote-counting been fair. It’s interesting to note some of the current members would’ve ranked higher even if votes were counted equally and in favor of all contestants.
Let’s Check Out The Rankings Of The Members And Also The Contestants Who Could’ve Been A Part Of Debut Group Kep1er:
9. Chae-hyun: Kim Chae Hyun, who ranked 1st, would actually be no. 9 if the vote counting was done differently.
8. Hikaru: The member ranked at 7th position in the finals. Had it been the other way around, she would’ve placed in 8th place.
7. Su Ruiqui: Yaning would have also been a part of the final lineup with 6th place instead of finishing at 12th as she did currently.
6. Fu Yaning: Yaning would have also been a part of final lineup with 6th place, instead of finishing at 12th like she did currently.
5. Shen Xiaoting: Xiaoting ended up 9th in the final lineup. However, her votes would’ve placed her at 5th position.
4. Choi Yujin: Yujin was in 3rd place during the finals, but her votes put her in the 4th position.
3. Seo Yeong Eun: Young Run should’ve been 3rd place. But because of the counting, she was placed in 5th place.
2. Sakamoto Mashiro: Mashiro should’ve been 2nd member of the lineup. Instead, she was 8th.
1. Heuning Bahiyyih: Bahiyyih was probably the one with a lot of international fans. But she ended up taking the 2nd position, while she could’ve been 1st in the lineup.
If these final votes had been taken in consideration, Yang Ye Seo and Kim Da Yeon couldn’t have been a part of Kep1er.
It is a fact that most of the survival shows like Girls Planet has some sort of rules for voting that messes up with the real-time popularity of a contestant. It might seem unfair to some, but the voting patterns are decided on a lot of parameters. It’s our choice to support it or not, but they are made keeping the big picture in mind.
