haseul

Full Video

This chapter is rearranged from

"The Fate of the Moon: The Darkest

Year in LOONA‘s History"

Earlier this year, Kakao M were announced as LOONA’s distributor, and this was

generally accepted to be a good move for LOONA inside Korea. It should have

meant LOONA getting onto the front page of Melon, as well as having their music

video on the 1TheK YouTube channel.

2019

Merely days away from LOONA’s comeback, Korean fans

questioned Kakao about the album preorders that were

selliing out quickly and found some thing strange ..

Kakao M notified them that XX albums would be

delayed, as the number of preorders exceeded the

number they had stocked.

The distributor had severely underestimated

the demand for LOONA and postponed the deliver.

This meant the first week sales and music show scores would be affected.

In addition to the unprofessionalism with the physical

albums, the distributor also managed to mess up the

digital sales of the album outside Korea.

When fans tried listening to XX album on Spotify, it was nowhere to

be found. Or rather, The distributor created a new page for LOONA

with 0 monthly listeners and uploaded XX under a new artist page,

instead of their existing page with thoudsands of listeners. On the

GooglePlay page, they released XX under “Vamos a la Playa” AND

“Loona”

Furthermore, The distributor decided to release [X X]

on iTunes as an album for a few hours, right before it

could reach #1 in the U.S, which would make LOONA

the first non Big 3 girl group to do it, the album was

completely disappeared off iTunes.

An update from Apple let fans know that it was the

distributor decision to removed XX album from iTunes

because they wanted the songs to be bought as

singles.

At the end, Kakao M announched that the limited

edition of XX would no longer be produced. Nowaday,

all 4 versions of XX album have never been reprinted,

with small amount of copies that were originally made

are resold at high prices.

With the scarcity of physical albums

due to the delay and all the

unexpected issues

Butterfly by LOONA never got the first win.

On February 25, Blockberry announced

Haseul’s first hiatus due to a family

emergency.

At the end of March, the # teaser was uploaded with

“Burn” in big red letters at the end, teasing the story

concept for the next comeback.

Fans were speculating over a possible comeback in summer, or for the release of

their ballad album, or even their Japan debut that had been mentioned before.

In May, “La Maison” , the aniticipated ballad album

finally got its video teaser.

The message promised the album would

come. Not now, but perhaps someday

“Delayed but Someday”

In July 2 months after Haseul’s hiatus, she officially

returned. LOONA finally had their first full group

Butterfly performance in moths at a festival where they

won the CF Star Rookie Award.

But during these months of uncertainty over a comback

date, the only LOONA content were schedules VLives,

festival performances, dance covers, and some variety

apperances.

BTS - Fire, Dance Cover

NCT - Cherry Bomb, Dance Cover

GOT7 - Eclipse, Dance Cover

The dance covers followed the theme of buring (Fire by

BTS and Cherry Bomb by NCT 127), and LOONA wore

t-shirt with B#RN logo, leading fans to believe that

Burn’s comeback would come very soon.

On July 9th, KCON announced LOONA would make

their first U.S apperance at KCON LA in August.

LOONA’s hugh following in the U.S and internationally

hyped their LA appearance-selling out their merch the

quickest, drawing the largest crowds, and the loudest

screams.

[KCON2019] LOONA walking through crowds

[KCON2019] BTS - Not Today, Dance Cover

[KCON2019] LOONA - Butterfly

KCON 2019 became known as “LOONACON”

The Leaving of LOONA’s creative director and A&R

In August, Jaden Jeong (LOONA’s creative director and A&R) left the Blockberry

Creative. He envisioned the LOONAverse as 45 parts, from solo songs to sub-units

to official comeback singles. But he didn't get to see his vision all the way through

due to creative differences with Blockberry Creative's new management who

wanted to put "less significance" on the LOONAverse. "I found that we just didn’t

align as we had before," Jeong said. In August, he left the company, with LOONA's

repackaged album, X X, being his last project with the group.

A Blog post from Jaden Jeong after he left the company.

According to his blog, “A certain album that I had

completed, I just deleted it, Ballads and lyrics that did

not come out to the world” It’s stil unknown whether La

Maison will be released one day or if it even still exists

in Blockberry’s offices.

While fans were still mourning the loss of the creative director,

LOONA’s silence, and no comeback news.

Another Big bomb is about to drop

Blockberry’s parent company was facing a lawsuit against a company called

Donuts, the second-largest shareholder of Blockberry Creative filed a lawsuit

against Blockberry’s parent company Polaris, for not returning their deposit given

for the predebut project and for not upholding a contract where LOONA would

promote Donut’s live streaming app.

Back in 2017. The Japanese tech company, Donuts, claimed that, after it invested

3.5 billion won, Polaris did not fulfill their contract. Polaris collaborated with

DONUTS in 2017 in order to help grow and foster the LOONA project. The company

received 400 million won to be used as a deposit towards a space lease. Although

Polaris was able to pay 40 million won, the company was ultimately sued for failing

to repay the remaining 360 million won.

The news stated rumors of bankruptcy and the possibility of

LOONA’s disbandment.

#SAVE LOONA

Fans quickly trended “Save LOONA” on Twitter, jump

starting a movement to do just that and show their

eternal support.

#SaveLOONAis trending #6 in the U.S@loonatheworldsay what you need and Orbits will get it for you legitimately just communicate with uspic.twitter.com/Jyxxnx97WL
— Joy | Founder of HGLLC (@suddenlyatpeace)October 17, 2019

The same night, all solo albums, all subunit albums,

and all full group albums charted on iTunes around the

world.

XX reached #1 in the U.S, 9 months after release,

making LOONA the first girl group outside the Big 3 to

accomplist it.

But still, no news from LOONA to say they would be

okay ...

Teaser

After a long wait, LOONA finally

announced a cryptic teaser titled

“365.”

365 was revealed to be LOONA’s new single dedicated to fans “Who waited for them a long time.”, as well as a fan event “Meet & Up” where 365 would be performed for the first time the day after.

365

“365” is a fan song

with a message that

LOONA will shine as

moonlight for 365

days to the fans who

waited for them a

long time. The song

is a poetic R&B

ballad based on a

piano instrumental.

Its first stage was

showcased during

“LOONA Premier

Greeting: Meet &

Up”.

A song that dedicated to orbits

"Fans who waited for them a long time."

긴 어둠이 와도
Even when the long darkness comes
눈부시게 떠올라
I will rise, dazzling bright
오직 너 하날 비출게
To shine on you and only you
You 넌 나의 중심
You, you are my center
나의 모든 날들을 전부 모아 다 네게 줄게
I’ll collect all of my days, give them all to you
Cuz you are my only one 
Cuz you are my only one
단 하나의 Orbit
One and only Orbit
나아가고 또 멈출 곳은 내겐 너뿐이니까
The only place for me to move forward and to stop, for me it’s only you

“365” reached #1 on ths US iTunes chart, making LOONA the first kpop girl group and second kpop group after BTS to have both an album and a single place that spot.

At Meet&Up, the girls of LOONA remarked about the time they weren’t promoting, how much they missed Orbits, and everyone cried.

It would also be the last time fans saw Haseul, as her long hiatus was announced after Meet&Up

At the end, LOONA had the final # 1 of the decade on Billboards World Digital Songs with the fan dedicated ballad, “365.”

Fans think everything that happened during XX was purely

coincidental because of poor management and misfortune.

The "Save Loona" movement showed the power of digital

sales, and Orbits went ont to continue the tradition of

charting every new song and album on iTunes since.

All the obstabled faced together have forged the strongest

bond between LOONA and Orbits.

All of these matters are big enough to draw attention to a

major player in the KPOP industry, who will eventually

change the future of LOONA forever.