Recap: "A Pink's Showtime" Ep 7 – A Trip down Memory Lane

Previously on A Pink Showtime, the fine ladies in pink enjoyed a rather stormy trip to the city of Chuncheon. Now that they’ve had their fun, it is back to work mode as they prepare for their Japanese activities. With a new chapter in A Pink history soon to unfold, now is a better time then ever to look back to their beginnings. This week is going to be a real trip down memory lane filled with dancing, hip hop and a random circus performance.

Chapter 1 – I Know What You Did 4 Years Ago

It’s a new day and once again the ladies are lounging…wait…what is this? The members are gathered together in the recording studio, reading something very seriously. A Pink is being serious, I’m scared, someone hold me. Anyway back to being serious, the members have gathered to prepare for their Japanese activities. Today they will be recording the Japanese version of “No No No.”

While the other members read over the lyric sheet outside, Bomi is inside the recording studio busily recording her sections. She doesn’t seem too pleased with her first attempt and goes again. Eunji is next in the recording studio and she seems to have little problems with the new Japanese lyrics, singing them with aplomb.

Recording done for now, all the members gather around the sofa. They start to talk about how it feels to debut in a new country and how it feels weird to sing in a different language. Eunji then asks the rest of the members what “Weird” in Japanese is. Even during these breaks, the members appear to be keeping up to date with their Japanese.

At that point, the Q Cam rings in with a question. We want to know what kind of songs the members sang during the pre-debut auditions. You know what this means? It’s time for a trip down memory lane, take a moment to look back at their beginnings, to make sure they debut in Japan with the same mindset they had during their Korean debut.

Chorong is the first to talk about her audition process. Unlike some of the other members, she passed through the audition thanks to her dancing skills, beating out over 23,000 other participants during Cube’s open auditions. She talks about how she always wanted to be a singer but had no idea how to reach that goal. To make matters worse, Chorong was located quite far away from Seoul and had actually never been to the big city by herself until her audition.

However, she wanted to try something before it was too late and so applied for the audition, with the mindset that this would be her first and last attempt at it. Obviously the rest is history and we get to see Chorong during her audition, dancing to 4Minute’s “Hot Issue.” (Pretty good at it I might add. It would be interesting to see A Pink do something similar one day)

We now know that Chorong demonstrated quite some talent in the dancing department but what about singing? Chorong then remembers that she sang Navi’s “I love you” during her audition, which she then proceeds to sing out loud, helped out by Bomi. The rest of the members also join in and we get a mini sing a long going.

Bomi is next and she sang J’s “Like Yesterday.” Eunji then asks her to sing it and Bomi obliges. She also gets her phone out to play the backing track. She gets her pencil microphone ready and then…misses the first beat due to nervousness. However, she recovers quickly and sings along. Unfortunately she misses the beat again and keeps forgetting the lyrics. Eunji teases her, telling her that she’s changed.

Now it’s Nam Joo’s turn and it appears that her audition was quite famous. The rest of the members chime in and say that they all saw it, with Naeun saying that Nam Joo’s dancing was most memorable. Eunji gets ready for the inevitable by moving the coffee table away. Nam Joo steps up and reenacts the dance she did during her audition. However the two conservative ladies, Chorong and Eunji, aren’t pleased by Nam Joo’s sexy gestures, telling her that she was wild and brazen.

Nam Joo is undaunted by these accusations and continues to dance away to the music, exuding confidence from every movement. We can see why it was so memorable.

Naeun is up next and she too seems to have done something interesting. Ha Young immediately proclaims that she remembers what Naeun did during her audition, with Chorong saying that she did something pretty back then. Naeun claims that she didn’t know how to do anything back then. She talks about how her original dream was to become an artist but she did like singing and dancing. Naeun then tagged along with her cousin to an audition where she also got an application form. She decided to try it for the sake of it, singing and introducing herself to the judges. The rest of the members are amazed by this, especially given Naeun’s rather timid personality.

Ha Young reveals that she went through the auditions when she was just 14 years old. Ha Young admits that she was really brazen back then and asks whether the members remember their first meeting. Nam Joo clearly does, re-enacting Ha Young’s fevered dancing while Naeun claims that Ha Young threw away her glasses as she was dancing.

The members want to know why she threw away her glasses. Ha Young says that they were getting in the way and they were starting to steam up from her passionate dancing. Ha Young then re-performs her introduction dance, with the rest of the members looking on in embarrassment (Chorong in particular has a hard time watching). Nam Joo also notes that Ha Young’s dancing has really improved over the years.

Eunji is up next but she tries to weasel her way out of it, saying that she didn’t really have a trainee period and claiming that all of this is rather alien to her. Unfortunately for her, Chorong does remember her pre-debut days and talks about how Eunn Ji tried to dance during her audition. Eun Ji tries to stop them from remembering that rather dark period but to no avail as Chorong gives us a simple glimpse into Eun Ji’s amazing(?) audition dance.

Unable to avoid it any longer, Popping Eun Ji shows off her audition dance. Ha Young claims that Eun Ji was quite pleased with her efforts. Eun Ji reveals that her friend in a dancing club taught her these moves rather hurriedly.

This is all rather meaningless thou. We all know why Eun Ji got picked and that’s because of her golden vocals. She sing’s Big Mama’s “Yeon” with her signature vocal style. Ha Young says that her voice has changed slightly since when they first met. Despite that, we can hear why Eun Ji got picked as she gives an impassioned performance, reeneacting her audition days

(With Bomi providing comedic lip sync performances)

Now how about an audition video montage?

Yeah great time for a montage.

We’ve now had a look at their past but how about something a bit more recent? The Q Cam buzzes in again and asks about A Pink’s first unit group, Bomi N Nam Joo. We want to hear them sing “My Darling” live, something we haven’t seen before. Bomi and Nam Joo talks about how BnN came to be. Bomi reveals that BnN wasn’t actually formed as a unit group. Instead it was a project group formed as part of Brave Brother’s 10 year anniversary. Unfortunately, as we all know, they never performed this song on stage.

Now is a great time to correct that travesty. Bomi And Nam Joo take center stage with their water bottle microphones. For a group that has never performed this song before, they are pretty damn good at it. Unfortunately, Bomi gets her lyrics wrong again (Which Nam Joo points out during the song and Bomi asks her to ignore it).

Chorong asks them when their next song will come out. Bomi says she always wanted to be in a project group with Nam Joo. While all this is going on, Ha Young is looking rather disappointed. That’s because Ha Young and Bomi used to be an unofficial Hip Hop duo, calling themselves Y.O. The group was formed one night when they couldn’t go to sleep.

They gathered up every pair of glasses in the house and took some trendy looking jacket photos. They also made a little song as well, the lyrics for which are just Bomi and Ha Young introducing themselves.

Bomi then asks if the other members have another member that they want to form a unit group with. Eun Ji mentions that she talked about forming a unit group with Bomi several times. Unfortunately, Eun Ji has been much too busy lately.

Ha Young then talks about how she talked about this with Naeun. They have already performed once together at a fan meeting, a rather interesting looking walking stick dance. Bomi then claims it’s better to be all together as a group. Chorong, however, remembers the fact that Bomi was quite enthusiastic about being in a unit group before and punishes Bomi for her switcharoo. Nam Joo also asks Chorong if she wants to be in a unit group, to which Chorong replies with a firm no.

A new questions arrives to break up their impromptu self praise session. The Q Cam was quite surprised by the Hip Hop performance A Pink gave during their Japanese showcase episode and wants to know who the best rapper is within the group. Chorong and Bomi are already out of their seats and pulling some cool hip hop moves (I’m sure there is a word for this but Hip Hop is like Andromeda to me, foreign and impossible to get). Bomi and Nam Joo are the strong candidates, having already demonstrated their rapping talents in previous episodes. Ha Young exclaims that they are really bad at rapping despite their love for it.

Chorong claims that A Pink is the only group without a proper rapper. Nam Joo corrects her and says that Chorong is their rapper, calling her Park Sniper. Chorong then scolds her, telling her that they would get cursed at if they mentioned this elsewhere.

The beat then starts to play and Chorong starts off. She raps about the rising cost of living, “Give me 50 cents~ Give me $1, 50 cents is not enough, stuff costs too much these days~ Need at least $1 to go to the mart~”

Bomi is up next but Eunji stops her, telling Bomi and Nam Joo that they will be last. Why? Because they are the aces within the group. Instead Eunji starts off while the rest of the members move as far away from Bomi as possible, trying to avoid a battle with the self proclaimed Queen of Rap. The Queen then takes matters into her own hands, accepting Eunji’s advance and telling everyone that rap is all about confidence.

Bomi then hands the baton to Naeun. The show helpfully(?) explains Naeun’s 3 major handicaps. One is her natural fear of variety shows, second is her slow learning speed and finally she is heavily dependent on positive reactions from others.

Bomi dutifully obliges on the third condition, dancing away in support of our timid goddess. Naeun raps about the difficulty of rapping. The other members suggest that she should rap in English instead (While Chorong seems overtly excited on her own.)

Naeun then raps about apples before hurriedly passing the mic over to Nam Joo.

Nam Joo raps about connecting rings while pulling some sweet moves, after which she passes off to Ha Young.

The other half of Y.O, Ha Young then takes the mic. Meanwhile Chorong continues to dance away while worrying about her own image (Wondering how she’s going to get married at this rate). Ha Young then starts reciting one of Yong Joon Hyung’s songs. Unfortunately the others members are not pleased by this attempt.

Thankfully for Ha Young, Nam Joo accepts her attempt and tries to help out. Ha Young then asks bitterly asks the rest of the members if they couldn’t just help her out. Chorong immediately tells her that she couldn’t help her out.

Eunji is the last one to take up the challenge and she plays Yoon Mirae‘s “Black Happiness,” a song that she always liked. The rest of the members then tease her for selecting one of her favourite songs, despite appearing like she was going to avoid this challenge entirely. Eunji initially refuses to join in but after a bit of encouragement from the members she begins her performance. A rather short performance that ends with Eunji punishing herself on the sofa.

The A Pink rap goddess, crab Bomi, steps out to give us an encore to end this rather interesting session.

The Goddess of Rap then gets the crowd going with her smooth skills.

Chapter 2 – The A Pink Circus Trope

It’s now later in the day and A Pink have now collected in the practice room. The members all position themselves around the room and warm up before their choreography practice session. How exactly do they warm up? They warm up by piling up on Naeun, because why not?

Enough joking around now, back to work. A Pink’s first practice is “My My” and my my, it has been awhile since I’ve seen this song being performed. Bomi calls this the diet song and it’s easy to see why. Really large gestures and a lot of moving about. The members collapse on the floor once the song is over.

The Q Cam then rings in with another question. They want to know who the most flexible member is. This time, the strong favourites are Naeun and Eunji. The Busan lady denies this fact but the members point out that she has very flexible ankles. Eunji then, rather painfully, demonstrates her rather flexible ankles. Just seeing it makes me cringe in all sorts of ways.

The members then split their legs to demonstrate to their flexibility. Chorong tries to do a split but is unsuccessful. Nam Joo completes a successful split but then Bomi sits in front and pretends it’s her legs rather than Nam Joo’s. Bomi then tries to do a bridge but the rest of the members are too busy looking at Chorong just lying on the floor. Exasperated, Bomi calls out for attention.

Chorong then confidently claims that she too can do a bridge. Eunji asks her to do it but Chorong then timidly claims that it might be hard due to her age. Still she gives it a shot but then stops to protect her belly being exposed. Eunji boasts about the fact that APink is very thorough about not exposing too much skin. Using the microphone belt as protection, Chorong leans back and completes a perfect bridge. Unfortunately, that’s the extent of her abilities.

Bomi then claims that she could crab from one side to the other while in the bridge position. The rest of the members ask her to do it and Bomi dutifully obliges. She forms a bridge and then starts to walk towards the other side, reminiscent of the girl from “The Exorcists” (Or at least that’s where I think I saw it).

Eunji’s competitiveness then gets the better of her and she too attempts the bridge walk. She one ups Bomi by walking with crooked ankles as well, much to the shock and horror of everyone else. However, she doesn’t manage to get very far.

While the other members attempt other feats of flexibility, Nam Joo quietly goes to the side of the room and forms a nice solid bridge. Nam Joo then proceeds to walk across the room with relative ease.

They decide to do one final test, the difficult hand stand. Did I say difficult, what I actually meant was easy as Eunji immediately goes upside down on her hands. Ha Young also successfully completes a hand stand using the wall as support. Meanwhile Chorong and Eunji continue to go on their hands while Bomi looks on in amazement.

Now to combine all these acts together for a little circus performance.

We’ve now had a test of flexibility and rapping skills but now how about a test for cuteness? The Q Cam thought likewise and rings in to ask the members to show off their cutest dance moves. Good thing that A Pink has plenty of songs to draw from.

Naeun goes first and dances along to Bubibu. However, Bomi stops her, saying that it’s just pretty and not cute. Eunji tells her she has to puff up her cheeks and Naeun responds perfectly to this request. Great GIF material here and I suspect there is more to come.

Eunji is next to show off her cuteness but she unfortunately stops midway owing to the fact that her gestures are more threatening then cute.

Chorong then prepares to show off her cuteness. Eunji vows to pay close attention to her, just to see how cute Chorong really is. Chorong then decides to pick “You U” but Eunji stops her, repeatedly telling Chorong that her current moves aren’t in the least bit cute.

Spurred on by this, Chorong gives us another amazing GIF moment (Sort of like a Kodak moment, only more moving and less expensive)

How about another one?

It’s now Bomi’s turn and she decides to take the “Baby talk” path, singing a song in the most baby like manner imaginable.

Meanwhile, Nam Joo and Ha Young stand to one corner of the room, their expressions darkening with each passing performance.

Nam Joo then decides to pick “Hush” as her song of choice, a rather interesting choice since it’s not what you call a “cute” song by any means. How will Nam Joo make this song cute? She makes it cute using baby talk and exaggerated arm movements.

While the other members enjoy themselves, Ha Young remains fixed in place and looks like she has aged another 5 years in the last 5 minutes. Chorong, however, seems to have lost her sanity as she continues to snigger uncontrollably in the background.

To make it easier(?) on Ha Young, the rest of the members sit down and get to ready to watch their junior give them a cuteness overload. The other members provide Ha Young with words of support, telling her she’s naturally cute because she’s the youngest, to be confident and to pretend that she is just 2 years old. Will these words of support actually work?

Ha Young takes their words of advice to heart and acts like a very large 2 year old baby, before collapsing into the arms of Nam Joo.

Today is Q Cam day because we now have another question. This time it’s a sexy dance competition. The Q Cam has split the group in 2. The Sexy Dance masters, Bomi, Nam Joo and Ha Young in one corner and the Dance trainees, Chorong, Eunji and Naeun in the other. The audition dancer, Chorong, is clearly unhappy about being placed in the trainee team, refusing to participate in this competition out of spite.

Bomi on the other hand is complaining about her clothes, her saggy exercise pants not very helpful in a sexy dance battle.

The teams split up and begin to discuss their strategy. Chorong proposes that their team go down the comedic path. The trainee team take first blood, Eunji taking off her shoes and lighting up the dance floor with her trainee partners.

Meanwhile the Sexy team watch on with nary a concern in their eyes, not at all fazed by the trainee team’s first attack. It’s all out war now.

The music starts to play and Eunji steps forward. The sexy team then play scissors paper rock to decide who will teach Eunji a lesson in dancing. Bomi is picked and she heads out. Eunji takes first blood by dancing the salsa then starts to gradually approach her competitor. Eunji then decides that the best form of dance attack is a physical one.

Eunji proceeds to attack Bomi with her hands. After being told she can’t attack people with her hands, Eunji then attacks her with her head. At this point, the dance party turns in an actual fight with Eunji declaring victory over the retreating Bomi.

Next up is Chorong Vs Ha Young. Chorong immediately takes the upper hand with some very aggressive hand banging. When I say aggressive, I do mean aggressive. Ha Young appears to have no realistic response to our dear leader’s passionate head bobbing. Just as Chorong lies down to finish this battle off, the music stops.

Chorong is then dragged off the floor by a quick minded Naeun with Bomi admitting defeat.

However, the sexy team still has one last hope. Nam Joo steps forward to regain their pride. Up against her will be the rather reluctant and timid Naeun. Unlike her peers, Nam Joo immediately goes on the offensive with some aggressive moves.

Naeun then retaliates by…boxing? The sexy team complains about the trainee team being too violent.

Nam Joo then begins to deliver the final blow as the song reaches it’s climax but not before Eunji races out to be a monkey.

At this point, Naeun has left the floor and warns her leader, saying that the floor is a scary place and to be careful. Nam Joo and Eunji the dancing monkey continue their battle but Nam Joo’s energy is too much for our poor little monkey and she leaves the floor in defeat. The trainee team looks defeated and Nam Joo heads back to her team for a victor’s welcome.

But this isn’t over yet. H.O.T’s “Candy” begins to play and the trainee team bounces onto the floor on their bottoms. Ha Young from the sexy team also responds, dancing along to a song that was released in the same year as she was born.

Chorong moves out to counter the young junior, going for the cute tactic to counter the boisterous junior. The battle rages on and is only stopped by Chorong’s unfortunate stamina depletion.

The whole group then moves out to dance together, a fitting ending to an exhilarating dance battle.

Once the song stops, the members drop down to the floor in exhaustion. Bomi begs the Q Cam to stop ringing. Meanwhile Eunji is scared about being scolded by her mother for acting like a monkey again, to which Bomi asks if Bomi would get scolded every single day. Chorong, however, is worried about what effect this would have on her chances of getting married.

Tune in next time for the final episode of A Pink, where tears will be had and a surprise gift. No idea what it could be but everyone loves a good surprise.