Deep Studio Entertainment officially confirmed that the first member of their new boy group, SUPERKIND (슈퍼카인드), is an Artificial intelligence idol named Jung Sae-jin (정세진). The debut trailer for Saejin comes out on January 22, 2022. This also confirms that he will be joining the group.
Ryu Ki-Hyun, the founder of Deep Studio Entertainment, committed that they were going to release a virtual K-pop idol named Jung Sae-jin. Jung Sae-jin was inspired by the 1998 virtual singer Adam.
Deep Studio started looking for “real” trainees for their virtual idol project at the beginning of 2020. This was done to help the project do better. In December 2020, it was revealed that this was to find out what fans wanted from an idol and how they wanted to interact with them.
People quickly noticed Saejin’s visual on the official SUPERKIND YouTube channel. The reason is that this first AI idol, who is also an active member, looks a lot like ASTRO’s Cha Eunwoo and NCT’s Jaehyun. Some of the people who watched him even though he was a person.
I was wondering why SM had not snatched up this guy, for visuals alone. Then I realized, he is AI.
Ryuuji – Youtube
Because Saejin is an AI who played the center, rapper, and vocalist in SUPERKIND, there are many pros and cons. Deep Studio Entertainment explained they would try something different from what the rest of the Kpop industry was doing. They also said that SUPER KIND would have a great future and be known worldwide.
AI idols are not a new idea in the KPOP music industry. In 2020, BTS used AI to replace SUGA, who was hurt and couldn’t go to the MAMAs. While in the 4th generation of the KPOP music industry, Aespa & Naevis’s song “Next Level” was one of the biggest K-pop hits of 2021.
Back to Sae-jin. Many netizens were not delighted because the idea and production of Saejin’s introduction video were copied from that of many other groups, like NCT and The Boyz. It’s strange that this company wants to create the image of the most unique boy group in the K-pop industry but then gets all of its “unique ideas” from other boy groups.
But, even though people had different reactions, many netizens still hope that the group will have a successful debut and reach all of its goals in the future.
