Rookie Girl Group Gets Accused Of Copying aespa

Fifth-generation girl group Izna has gotten entangled in a plagiarism controversy once again after being accused of plagiarizing NewJeans’ album design for their debut mini-album, N/a.

This time, izna’s label Wake One Entertainment has been accused of copying aespa in their official merchandise.

Netizens brought up this issue after noticing posters of izna’s official merchandise at their pop-up store event at Lotte World Tower Mall. The poster included a preview of their official photocards, which appeared too similar to aespa’s.

Many online comments pointed out that the photocard previews shown in the poster looked exactly the same as the photocard previews of aespa’s Karina and Giselle from the group’s “Better Things” photocard set. So, technically, izna’s official merchandise poster contained pictures of the aespa members on it, which would be a serious copyright violation.

Netizens were left baffled by this debacle, while some thought the company deliberately moved to create buzz around Izna’s activities.

• “No way, LOL. Do they think that keeping Giselle and Karina’s photos on their official goods will go unnoticed? They were blatantly caught copying. Yet, they roasted ILLIT badly.”
• “Despite knowing what happened with the public’s opinion regards to ILLIT, they’re still doing this. Even if it’s considered noise marketing, doing it twice is too stupid. I feel sorry for the idols…”
• “Isn’t it obvious? Why are people downvoting?”
• “Huh, now that I’ve seen the picture, it’s real…What the hell?”
• “???? It seems like they did it on purpose because the hottest topics right now are aespa and NewJeans.”