Taemin of SHINee will serve the rest of his military duty as a social service agent beginning Friday, announced label SM Entertainment. 　 He enlisted as a member of Army band in May, but his depression and anxiety disorders, for which he has long been treated, have worsened recently. It has become impossible to pursue proper treatment while serving his duty, the army decided, and from now on he will try and focus on improving his mental health. 　  In October last year, the Military Manpow

Korean rock musician Han Kyung-rock, a bassist in the legendary punk rock band Crying Nut, will celebrate his birthday with a three-day online concert next month. The musician will be hosting “2022 Captain Rock Day,” featuring 100 artists. The event will kick off on Feb. 9, but the exact time has yet to be set. “Captain Rock Day” is an annual event that gathers big-name artists who represent the indie music scene in Hongdae. As the event has grown in size, it has come

 The cable channel tvN is scheduled to release a special version of its variety show “Not Hurt You” (unofficial translation) with eight dancers from Mnet’s “Street Woman Fighter” on Jan. 27. The leaders of the eight “Street Woman Fighter” dance crews -- YGX’s Leejung, Lachica’s Gabee, Want’s Hyojin Choi, WayB’s Noze, Coca N Butter’s Ri.hey, Prowdmon’s Monika, HolyBang’s Honey J and Hook’s Aiki -- will

To ensure success, pop culture NFTs should come from titles with a solid fan base

Kakao Entertainment released well-known author Cho Seok-ho’s new series “Call Sign” as both a web novel and a webtoon on Friday. “Call Sign,” one of the most anticipated projects of the first half of the year, revolves around a rookie firefighter who has the ability to save others’ lives by putting his own life at stake. “In our world, there are many people who put all of their passion and whole heart into saving other people’s lives. Similar to

“Baby Shark Dance” a YouTube videofeaturing the titular song and playful choreography, surpassed 10 billion views Thursday. Beloved by both children and adults, the two-minute video tells the story of a shark family going on an underwater hunt. The English-language version of the video came out in June 2016, soon after its success in Korean in 2015. The English version of ”Baby Shark Dance“ record far exceeds the 2.3 billion views of the Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee&rs

Krafton’s battle royal shooter “PUBG: Battlegrounds” topped the most played games chart on Steam, a digital distribution platform for PC gaming, Thursday. According to Krafton, the number of concurrent users doubled after the game switched to free-to-play mode Wednesday, recording a maximum number of 660,000 users. “Under the new theme of ‘Battlegrounds for all,’ we believe that the switch to free service allowed many users from various backgrounds to enjoy

Special Delivery (Korea) Opened Jan. 12 Action Directed by Park Dae-min Special delivery driver Eun-ha (Park So-dam) mainly works for a criminal group. She delivers anything that cannot be delivered legally. One day, Eun-ha receives a mission to deliver Seo-won (Jung Hyeon-jun), a young boy that a criminal group is chasing after. When she decides to save him, she becomes a target of not only the crime group, but also associated corrupt police officers. The Policeman’s Lineage (Korea) Ope

　 The music video for Ateez‘s “Wonderland” surpassed 100 million views on YouTube, according to agency KQ Entertainment on Thursday. 　 This is the band’s first video to reach the milestone. 　 The song is the main track from its first studio album “Treasure Epi.Fin: All to Action,” from October 2019. The LP topped iTunes K-pop chart in six regions and its top albums chart in eight regions at the time. 　 The tune that reminded fans of the group’s spirited

Max Changmin of boy band TVXQ became the first artist from S.M. Entertainment to hop onto the January music chart craze with his second mini-album, “Devil.” The album, which dropped Monday evening, touches on the different colors of music. In a press conference on Thursday, the singer said he embarked on a journey of tunes and melodies while preparing for his new solo while he had been away from music for nearly two years. The musician added that he wanted to musically show that a

Global streaming service Netflix has confirmed the casting for its original series “Goodbye Earth,” Thursday. Actors Yoo Ah-in, Ahn Eun-jin, Kim Yoon-hye and Jeon Seong-woo will star in Netflix’s new apocalypse movie, according to the company. “Goodbye Earth” revolves around the stories of individuals who are left with only 200 days to live before an asteroid hits Earth. The series is a highly anticipated project. It is director Kim Jin-min’s third Netflix

The KBS Symphony Orchestra appointed renowned South Korean conductor Chung Myung-whun as its first-ever conductor laureate, according to the orchestra on Thursdsay. Chung’s tenure began this month. Conductor laureate is an honorary position given to a conductor who has international repuation or contributed to the development of the orchestra. This is the first the KBS Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1956, has awarded the title. The news came days after Chung saved the orchestra&rsquo