R U Next?

R U Next? (알 유 넥스트?) was a 2023 girl group reality survival show created by Belift Lab. It premiered on June 30, 2023 and was broadcast every Friday at 8:50 p.m. KST on JTBC. The final five members debuted as ILLIT on March 25, 2024.

Background

On June 1, 2023, JTBC and Belift Lab announced that they have begun filming for the new survival program R U Next?, which aims to create the agency's next global girl group. The contestants will be assessed through seven rounds.^[1]

On June 7, JTBC posted three film photographies along with a teaser video.^[2] The premiere date was revealed to be June 30.^[3]

Cast

MC

• Sooyoung^[4]

Coaches^[5]

• Lee Hyun
• Aiki
• Park Gyu Ri
• Jo Kwon
• Kim Jaehwan
• Vincenzo
• Mandrew

Special Coaches

• Baekho (Ep. 2-3)
• Jay Park (Ep. 4)
• Woozi (Ep. 5-6)
• Shin Kung (Ep. 9)

Contestants

Rankings

Color key

     The candidate was chosen for the final group through public voting.
     The candidate was chosen for the final group through the company's picks.

Rounds

Round 1: Tryout

In the first round entitled "Tryout", units of 3 to 4 contestants were formed, each contestants of the unit was classified into High, Mid and Low level.

Round 2: Death Match

The theme of the mission is the titles of the 4th generation idol groups of HYBE. Within the three levels formed, 2 units will be formed. Two units will perform together with the same song. The unit that wins will get a benefit of extra points. Starting from this mission, there will be eliminations. Trainees in the Low Level will become elimination candidates.

The coaches chose the 1st and 2nd places by level after Round 1. The 1st and 2nd place of each level has the advantage of choosing the members of their unit. In selecting the songs the Low Level team chooses first, however higher teams can push aside the lower ranking teams if they want to select the same song.

A mini mission was carried out to decide the killing part for each song. Each contestant will carry out an expression audition in front of a camera to see how well they can leave an impression with the first verse of their mission songs and test their expressive skills. The contestants will vote amongst themselves to choose who gets the killing part.

Each coach will give scores to the individual trainees from 1 - 100 (up to a total individual score of 700). The average of the individual scores will be the overall team score, where higher team score will be the winner for each song. The winning unit receives an extra 50 points added on their individual score.

Color key

     Winning Team
     Killing Part
     Highest individual score on the team.
     Lowest individual score on the team.
     Contestant who picked the team members.

Round 3: All-Rounder

As a checkpoint to assess the trainees' genre adaptability, they must demonstrate their own temperature difference on stage.

Coach Jo Kwon appeared in front of all the trainees wearing heels, and he revealed that the first theme for the third round is "Heel Choreo" (a genre where they perform choreography while wearing high heels) and they must also incorporate one additional prop into their performance.

The coaching staff will assign each trainee a personal score between 1 and 100. The sum of individual scores forms the unit score, and the combined unit scores determine the final score.

The unit members of the winning team will all receive a bonus score of 100 points, while the members of the second-place unit will be awarded differentiated bonus points of 50 each.

All trainees at the low level are candidates for elimination, and this round will see three trainees being eliminated.

The third round consists of 1 unit with 7 members, regardless of their level. It will be a unit vs unit vs unit battle.

Heel Choreo mission results

The heel mission songs and props have been confirmed as follows: f(x)'s "4 Walls" with fans as the mission prop, Girls' Generation's "The Boys" with hats as the mission prop, and Chung Ha's "Dream of You" with canes as the mission prop.

Color key

     Winning Team
     Team Leader

Hip-hop mission results

The second part of the Round consists of the units performing a Hip-hop song. Among the choices are Lisa's "MONEY," (G)I-DLE's "My Bag," and CL's "Tie a Cherry."

Color key

     Winning Team
     Team Leader

Round 4: The specialists

This is the gateway to evaluate the vocals and dance of trainees. They focus on their respective strengths and unfold missions. Trainees are divided into two vocal teams and two dance teams to showcase their performances. The units were formed through a draft process, where the leaders of the vocal and dance positions took turns selecting in A, B order.

Color key

     Winning Team
Bold denotes the contestant whose part distributions were chosen and acts as the team's leader.

Vocal Battle Results

Dance Battle Results

Round 5: Concept game

This round consists of two missions, testing how well the contestants digest songs of different concepts that are represented through colors. The final results for this round is composed of 50% Color mission and 50% Black Mission.

Mission 1: Color mission

Starting from lower-ranked contestants to the higher-ranked contestants, the contestants choose their desired songs based on the color of the room, which indicates the concept of the song, as well as the artist pictured on the outside of a door. The higher-ranked contestants must push out a member if there are more than five people in a room.

Within each group, each contestant will each decide how the parts should be distributed. Each contestant in the group then votes on which distribution they think is the most ideal, which ends up being the final part distribution. The contestant whose part distribution will also be the leader.

Each coach will give scores to each individual contestant from 1 - 100 (up to a total evaluation score of 700). Each contestant's total score calculated will consist of 700 evaluation points from the coaches, 200 points from the on-site audience, and 500 points from the 2nd votes voting round. When each contestant's total scores are added together, there is a maximum of 4500 points possible to be scored per unit.

Color key

     Winning Team
     Green Team
     Purple Team
     Red Team
Bold denotes the contestant whose part distributions were chosen and acts as the team's leader.

Mission 2: Black Mission

The second tests involves each team choosing one contestant as a representative and performing.

Classifications

Final results

Aftermath

• Five of the final six members officially debuted as ILLIT on March 25, 2024 with the mini album Super Real Me.
  • On January 5, 2024, Youngseo left ILLIT after coming to a mutual agreement to terminate her contract with Belift Lab.