Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, Netflix’s eight-episode build-a-band reality show, was filmed in 2022, as HYBE, the South Korean mega entertainment company that also built BTS, partnered with Universal Music Group to create a Los Angeles-based, globally-sourced girl group from the ground up. The training and development systems established by HYBE in Korea to fuel the ranks of K-pop talent would be applied, professional coaches would be employed, and after a year of preparation, the group’s lineup would be revealed. KATSEYE is that group, and 2024, the release of this series coincides with their debut EP. But if you wanna catch all of the casting, selection, training, toil, competition, and heightened reality-style emotions that went into the process before seeing and hearing who made the cut, Pop Star Academy is giving you a front row seat.     

Opening Shot: “Can you guys make some noise for KATSEYE?” An announcer shouts, and a willing crowd of mostly Gen Z and Gen Alpha female fans raise their voices and phones.

The Gist: “Two, three, four, five, six, seven! Sha-ka-ka! We’re not moving on until every single one of you gets this step!” The giddy exclamations and joyful tears over being picked to participate in HYBE and UMG’s training and development program quickly wane once the first round of trainees enter an LA dance studio. It’s a group of 14 young women from all over the world, whose audition tapes led them to this moment. But now it’s real, and it’s difficult. They will train for a year with the program, establishing baseline fundamentals in the areas of dance, vocals, visual performance, star quality, and educational aptitude. Their progress will be regularly assessed by a group of professional evaluators, who will also make arbitrary decisions on elimination. And at the end of it, HYBE/UMG will have chosen 20 individuals out of an original 120,000 submissions.

There are not 20 people in KATSEYE. Only six. Spots will only be locked in after the year-long training and development program, and in conjunction with an eventual survival-style competition reality show, Dream Academy, that will include fan votes toward elimination. But as HYBE’s T&D manager Missy Paramo explains, the competitors in the early stages of Pop Star Academy are not privy to those raised stakes. In this part of it, their established skill sets are quantified – some have come in as trained singers, others as dancers, and still others as “underdogs” with a certain, as-yet-undefined “it factor” – and the daily training sessions build muscle, muscle memory, and a definite sense of how tough things will be. After a pointed but fair evaluation by former BTS performance director Son Sung-deuk, the hopefuls look drained of color and basically terrified.

“No matter what got said today, it takes time to build a mental strength to endure the industry,” Missy tells them afterwards. “This is – it’s just hard. It’s hard to work in this industry.” And this is only the first month! And as one elimination hits early and remaining trainees like Sophia (Philippines), Daniela (USA), Naisha (Brazil/Spain), Lexie (Sweden), and Iliya (Belarus) bear down on practice, Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE projects how it’ll shake up the group with even more internationally-sourced talent. 

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dream Academy, the competition-based reality show acknowledged in Pop Star Academy as the next step in the development of KATSEYE, streamed on YouTube in 2023. (OBVIOUSLY if you don’t want any spoilers on the final roster, don’t follow that link.) Dance Moms: A New Era just dropped on Hulu, and while its participants are younger, the factors of drama and expendability are pretty equal to Pop Star Academy. Netflix also features BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky, about the rise of the YG Entertainment-created girl group powerhouse. And BTS, whose global success is a reference point for the music industry people involved in the KATSEYE project, just keeps cranking out BTS-adjacent content. 

Our Take: The group of young people we initially meet in Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE are a happy jumble of excitement and big dreams aspiration. Many of them have devoted their socials to replicating the dynamic dance moves and huge hit songs that define pop, not just the kind with a K in front of it but worldwide, like the selections from Robyn or Dua Lipa we hear throughout the docuseries. And they finally made it, past hundreds of thousands of applicants and through detailed music industry casting sessions, to be in Los Angeles and part of the US version of HYBE’s well-known training and development center. But at the same time, Pop Star Academy purposely does not make its contestants across the board distinctive. While there are a couple brief background vignettes, the series places most of its early emphasis on the other side of the excitement, with the industry types who’ve been tasked with successfully completing this pop group construction job. A&R execs, operations and programming managers, casting directors, and skill-specific professionals from the ranks of choreography, singing, and presentation, all chiming in with commentary as they sift the hopefuls into categorized piles. “In Korea, they train for years and years,” HYBE choreographer Sohey Sugihara says in Pop Star Academy. “Compared to that, we are limited, and shorter.” 

The time frame is only gonna get smaller, the training sessions that much tougher. And as Pop Star teases how it will further agitate its group of trainees, we’re curious about who will rise to the occasion with their individuality intact inside this rigid industry system. Maybe Naisha has the right idea. “Knowing how to play the game in a way,” she says, is one of her skills. “Knowing how to, like, mode.”

Sex and Skin: None. The predominant look here is athleisure/dance attire alternating with cues taken from streetwear fashion.

Parting Shot: Michelle, a HYBE casting manager, scrolls through Instagram stories on her phone. There is new blood on the training and development horizon. “When I first saw her, I, like, instantly knew. This girl is already a star…”

Sleeper Star: “I’m gonna be honest, I…I’m not a big fan of K-pop. Or, I was not a big fan of K-pop before I came here. I didn’t really know. I’m honestly a rap stan. All I do is listen to rap.” That’s not quite true – Daniela also competed on So You Think You Can Dance at 7, her parents are professional ballroom dancers, and early takes from the Katseye T&D program say she possesses the entire package they’re looking for. Daniela will definitely be one to watch as Pop Star Academy rolls on.

Most Pilot-y Line: “When you have a ‘1’ in front of your age, this is the time to stretch yourself all the way.” Sylvia, the in-house vocal instructor, is all about tough love encouragement of the young hopefuls.

Our Call: STREAM IT, especially if you’re a pop music head and would like to see how the sausage gets made. Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE features parts conventional to any reality-based competition format. But there is also added pressure, because the music industry people casting and training these hopefuls are also expected to be successful.  

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.