IZ*ONE Spotlight: Kim Chaewon (ranked #10 on “Produce48”)

As we are a little over a month away for the music debut of global pop group, IZ*ONE (pronounced as “Eyes One”, IZ=12 and 12 members make One), we will spotlight each member.

IZ*ONE is comprised of 12 trainees who competed among 96 trainees from South Korea and Japan (members of AKB48G).

Last time we spotlighted Lee Chae Yeon (ranked #12) of WM Entertainment and Kim Minjoo (ranked #11) of Urban Works Entertainment.

This time we will spotlight Kim Chaewon of Woolim Entertainment who ranked #10 and became a member of IZ*ONE!

Kim Chaewon joined the show alongside fellow Woolim Entertainment trainees Kwon Eunbi, Kim So Hee and Kim Su Yun. Immediately they were going to have to take on rivals WM Entertainment (which Lee Chaeyeon is a member of).
The Woolim team performed “Ah-Choo” by LOVELYZ and “Bad” by INFINITE.

If anything, Kim Chaewon received recognition for her beauty earlier on “Produce48” and was in the running for “Visual Queen”.

For Kim Chaewon’s first group battle, she was part of a solid group of talent for TWICE’s “OOH-AHH” and in the end Kim Chaewon’s won with a large margin. But her team was in a tight battle against the other team and it was really close and in the end, her AKB48 teammate Goto Moe received a lot of votes putting the team into victory.

The next competition, the Position Evaluation proved to be a challenging but also one of the most memorable performances of “Produce48”. Chaewon’s team had to perform SNSD’s “Into the New World”.

Chaewon would be the leader of the team and also was instrumental in getting her Japanese counterparts prepared. And while Heo Yunjin’s vocals are what many people would remember from the televised performance, the National Producers recognized Chaewon, who would come in first place and receive the benefit votes.

For the Competition Evaluation, Kim Chaewon would be part of Team “To Reach You” ala The Memory Fabricators. The team would come in second place behind Team Rollin’ Rollin’. But despite being part of winning teams previously and also coming first for the Position Evaluation, episode 11 would have Kim Chaewon in 19th place not far from elimination but still making the Top 20.

Kim Chaewon has managed to stay in the ranks to go another week from 21-21-30-28-15-15-19.

But because her rank was low for each elimination round… Did she have any chance of making it into the Top 12?

If anything, one of the things that has no doubt given her awesome promotion after episode 11 leading into the final episode on social media was the “Orenji” skit which she did alongside Kwon Eunbi and Lee Sian.