ILLIT’s Alleged Pre-Debut Concept Further Sparks Plagiarism Suspicions
On October 11, 2024, it was reported that former ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin submitted court documents that evidenced HYBE had formulated ILLIT‘s concept and debut based on her own conceptual plans for NewJeans.
According to page 9 and 10, a HYBE internal employee revealed to me that ILLIT’s creative director asked for plans detailing the conception of NewJeans during the conception stages of ILLIT. The employee then revealed that, soon after, the conceptual plans for both groups became identical.
— Min Hee Jin
Netizens went back to ILLIT’s pre-debut concepts revealed through R U NEXT? in order to dig deeper into the story. From the beginning, it seemed like Belift Lab had planned to link the concepts of ENHYPEN and ILLIT together. The tagline for R U NEXT? was “BE THE ORANGE.”
Many linked the random phrase to ENHYPEN’s album Orange Blood. The album continues ENHYPEN’s vampire lore as told by their webtoon, Dark Moon.
Orange is an important but rare color in the Dark Moon series. One of the higher class vampires under Dardan, Lara, was given a huge part in the story. Fans theorized that Moka was meant to represent her, or that the ILLIT members would be tied in to the story through her. Lara’s eyes were orange.
In the Dark Moon world, red capes were also worn by the higher class vampires. R U NEXT’s promotional material showed girls with red capes.
A similar imagery of girls with red capes were also teased in Dark Moon.
An initial name for ILLIT and or their webtoon was also teased to be Ruby Moon. The color and theme deeply suggested a crossover with Dark Moon or a vampiric lore. Later on, the webtoon was named Summer Moon after ILLIT debuted. Comparatively, Summer Moon suits the girls current magical concept more than a vampiric one.
Netizens believe that ILLIT’s original concept leaned more towards dark fantasy rather than bright and magical. During R U NEXT? itself, many of the performances the girls took part in also leaned towards a darker style.
- If you watch R U NEXT?, there were trainees that perfectly suited this concept, so I feel like it’s even more of a pity. There’s definitely a market for such a niche concept.
- Why did they change it? This looks good.
- This or that, they all are meh, but at least this isn’t plagiarism…is it?
- This is way better than being a copy…
- Yunah got so popular even with their current concept, but she would’ve suited this so much.
- This lore is way better than promoting as copies.
- Even if you might think this concept is tacky, concepts are all about how you pull it off, so I think they would’ve done a good job with this. Why did they change it?
- No, but they should’ve gone with this. It looks way better and fans can understand the lore better.
Of course, many groups go through concept changes and changes in plans before the final debut. A dark fantasy concept would have suited the group perfectly, seeing how well they portrayed these concept photos in a dark forest!
