Music / Pentagon

(L-R) The original ten. Wooseok, Shinwon, E'Dawn, Yeo One, Jinho, Hui, Kino, Hongseok, Yuto, Yanan

Pentagon (Hangul: 펜타곤) is a South Korean Boy Band consisting of nine (formerly ten) members. They debuted on October 10, 2016 under CUBE Entertainment with the song "Gorilla".

The original group of ten members was formed on the Mnet survival show Pentagon Maker. It involved each member undertaking various tasks and performances for points, which would then contribute to their 'pentagram', a diagram showcasing their scores in five different categories- vocal/rap, dance, talent, teamwork, and attitude (referred to as 'mind'). Each category represented an attribute thought to be important for an idol to have.

On completion of their pentagram, each member would become part of Pentagon and thus be allowed to debut. By the end of the show, seven members had been confirmed as official members of the group, while three members — E'Dawn, Yan An and Shinwon — had been eliminated. Despite the elimination process, all ten debuted together.

Along with several concerts, fan meetings and showcases, the band have had a world tour named PRISM which ran from April 27, 2019 to December 21, 2019. They have also had a short tour in Japan named Dear Cosmo.

On October 9, 2023, Yeo One, Yanan, Yuto, Kino and Wooseok left Cube Entertainment after their contracts expired but they would still be together with the other members. On November 6, 2023, Hongseok also left Cube Entertainment after cancelling his contract.

Members

• Active members:
  • Jinho (Jo Jinho, born April 17, 1992) - Main Vocalist, Oldest Member
  • Hui (Lee Hoetaek, born August 28, 1993) - The Leader, Main Vocalist, Lead Dancer
  • Hongseok (Yang Hongseok, born April 17, 1994) - Main Vocalist
  • Shinwon (Go Shinwon, born December 11, 1995) - Sub Vocalist, Visual
  • Yeo One (Yeo Changgu, born March 27, 1996) - Lead Vocalist
  • Yanan (Yan An, born October 25, 1996) - Sub Vocalist, Visual
  • Yuto (Adachi Yuto, born January 23, 1998) - Main Rapper, Vocalist
  • Kino (Kang Hyunggu, born January 27, 1998) - Main Dancer, Vocalist
  • Wooseok (Jung Wooseok, born January 31, 1998) - Main Rapper, Vocalist, Youngest Member (Maknae)

• Former members:
  • E'Dawn (Kim Hyojong, born June 1, 1994) - Main Dancer, Lead Rapper, Vocalist

Discography

• Korean albums:
  • Universe: The Black Hall (2020)
• Korean EPs:
  • Pentagon (2016)
  • Five Senses (2016)
  • Ceremony (2017)
  • Demo_01 (2017)
  • Demo_02 (2017)
  • Positive (2018)
  • Thumbs Up! (2018)
  • Genie:us (2019)
  • Sum(me:r) (2019)
  • We:th (2020)
  • LOVE or TAKE (2021)
  • IN:VITE U (2022)
• Korean digital singles:
  • Basquiat (2020)
  • Eternal Flame (2020)
  • Cerberus (song by Yuto, Kino, Wooseok) (2021)
  • 약속 (With Universe) (2023)
• Japanese albums:
  • Universe: The History (2020)
• Japanese EPs:
  • Gorilla (2017)
  • Violet (2018)
  • Shine (2018)
  • Cosmo (2019)
  • Happiness / Sha La La (2019)
  • Do or Not (2021)
  • Feelin' Like (2022)
  • Pado (2023)
• Japanese digital singles:
  • 詩 (Shh) (2023)

E'Dawn controversy

• E'Dawn came under some controversy in late 2018 following the public disclosure of his relationship with fellow idol HyunA, who was also signed under CUBE Entertainment and performed with him and Pentagon's leader Hui as part of the group Triple H. CUBE Entertainment officially confirmed the termination of HyunA's contract on October 15th, 2018 and the termination of E'Dawn's contract on November 14th, 2018.

• Both him and HyunA signed under PSY's music label P NATION on January 27th, 2019. He has since changed his stage name to Dawn and released his first solo digital single ('Money') on November 5th, 2019.

• On August 29th, 2022, P NATION released a statement saying that Dawn and HyunA were to leave the company after deciding not to renew their contracts.

---

Pentagon provides examples of the following tropes:

Band and Member Tropes

• Affectionate Parody: The web series Pentagon's Variety Lab is a series of the members carrying out tasks in the style of another Korean variety show. The series so far has included:
  • "Maknaes' Interfering View", which parodies Omniscient Interfering View. Yuto, Kino, and Wooseok were sent to speak to the older members individually. The footage was then played back to the group collectively, and they commentated along with the footage.
  • "I Am Pentagon". Like I'm a Singer, this is a Talent Show between the members where they were given the chance to show a different side to their singing and/or dancing abilities.
  • "We Live Together In Cube", which is based on I Live Alone. Unlike the original show, which is focused on the home life of celebrities who live alone, the parody version saw the members of the group being made to live together in the company building for 24 hours.
  • "Walking into the TV" is a take on a long-running travel series called Walking into the World. The members were sent to an old school in the countryside, where they were tasked with playing retro-style games.
• Alliterative Name: Jo Jinho. Kang Kino also counts if you use his stage name.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Jinho is represented by a squirrel. This is highlighted in the group photos for the Universe 4th Generation Fanclub kits, which was taken when he was fulfilling his enlistment duties. The toy squirrel can be seen balanced on another member's knee.
  • Hui occasionally compares himself to a quokka. The 2022 Seasons Greetings includes a quokka soft toy as Hui's representative.
  • Hongseok really embraces his comparison to a baepsae, or the Korean crow-tit. He even once sent a tweet of the scientific name for the bird, along with a selfie.
  • Fans commonly represent Shinwon with a rabbit, Yeo One with a dog, Yanan with a panda, Yuto with a wolf, and Kino with a lion.
  • Wooseok is represented with a cow. The other members have also compared his personality to a cow before, in the sense that he is diligent and works hard just like the animal.
• The Baby of the Bunch: As the youngest, Wooseok often gets this treatment from the older members. He gave himself the nickname "penjelbe", which in Korean is short for "Pentagon's most baby".
• The Big Guy: Hongseok is well known for having abs and built up muscles. Yeo One and Yuto count as well, though on a smaller scale.
• Big Little Brother: Wooseok, who is both the youngest and tallest member, at 6'2". In comparison, Jinho is the oldest and shortest member, at 5'6".
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Yuto.
• Brutal Honesty: Shinwon is quite honest, to the point that he called it his most attractive trait on "The Immigration". Hongseok mentioned during a V Live that he had been offended before by Shinwon because he was too honest.
• Catchphrase: Pentagon's greeting is "Tentastic! Hello, we are Pentagon!"
• Cloudcuckoolander: Shinwon has a tendency to do bizzare things sometimes, such as this clip where he cooked instant noodles at 4 in the morning while running the risk of waking Hui up from his sleep.
• Cuddle Bug: Yuto, who is frequently seen back-hugging the other members on camera.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Shinwon, E'Dawn and Yanan were eliminated from Pentagon Maker but still ended up in the band anyways, making the whole elimination process redundant (despite the sadness it caused at the time).
• Even the Guys Want Him: Special mention goes to Yanan here. Yuto has said multiple times that he was awestruck by Yanan's figure and how handsome he was the first time they met.
• Family Theme Naming: Both the band and its company are named after shapes.
• Fanboy: Shinwon is this of Harry Styles.
• The Fashionista: Shinwon, who has also participated in several fashion shows. Hui as well, now that he has his own webseries called Hui's What To Wear Today.
• Genki Guy: Yeo One is considered to be the most cheerful, positive, and energetic member. Wooseok once lampshaded this when he was pretending to be Yeo One, by introducing himself as "a man of passion".
• Gentle Giant: Wooseok is the tallest member, but the other members treat him as The Baby of the Bunch. In an interview, he talked about how he doesn't like raised voices, and he is often the first to apologize during confrontations.
• Guyliner: Most K-Pop boy groups wear make-up, Pentagon included, but they don't overdo it.
• Idol Singer: As K-Pop idols, all ten members are part of this trope.
• In-Universe Nickname: Yuto, Kino, and Wooseok are collectively known as "Mayonnaise". The nickname first came about during the group's web series Pentagon Variety Lab, when the three members were given a special task to carry out. They initially called themselves the Maknaes, until Yuto changed the pronunciation to Mayonnaise. The group have really embraced the nickname, as seen in "Ceberus":
  Kino: When us "Mayonnaise" are gathered, we are Cerberus.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: This happened to Shinwon while singing "Shine" on Arirang Radio's "K-Poppin'".
  Shinwon: gyeolguge nAan - - what?!
• Jack of All Stats: Of the ten participating members on Pentagon Maker, Wooseok and Yeo One had the median starting scores of the group (16) - both with vocal/rap 3, dance 3, teamwork 4, mind 3 and talent 3.
  • The entire list of Pentagon's starting stats are as follows, from best to worst:
    • Hui - vocal 4, dance 4, teamwork 4, mind 4, talent 3 = 19
    • Kino - vocal 3, dance 4, teamwork 4, mind 4, talent 3 = 18
    • E'Dawn - rap 4, dance 4, teamwork 3, mind 3, talent 3 = 17
    • Jinho - vocal 4, dance 3, teamwork 3, mind 4, talent 3 = 17
    • Wooseok - rap 3, dance 3, teamwork 4, mind 3, talent 3 = 16
    • Yeo One - vocal 3, dance 3, teamwork 4, mind 3, talent 3 = 16
    • Hongseok - vocal 3, dance 2, teamwork 2, mind 4, talent 3 = 14
    • Yuto - rap 2, dance 3, teamwork 3, mind 4, talent 2 = 14
    • Shinwon - vocal 2, dance 2, teamwork 3, mind 3, talent 3 = 13
    • Yanan - vocal 2, dance 2, teamwork 3, mind 3, talent 3 = 13
• Jack of All Trades: Kino is a talented singer-songwriter who also choreographs the majority of Pentagon's dance routines.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: Like most K-Pop groups, the members have dyed their hair different colours over the years. Aside from natural colours like black, brown, red, and blond, they have also been seen sporting unusual colours:
  • Jinho - pink, silver
  • Hui - bright red, purple, blue, orange
  • Hongseok - blue, purple, half-red half-black
  • E'Dawn - blue, pink
  • Shinwon - bright red
  • Changgu - white
  • Yanan - bright red, pink, silver
  • Yuto - blue-green, silver, brown with highlights
  • Kino - white, black-and-white, bright red, blue, blue with highlights
  • Wooseok - green, bleached, bright red, pink
• The Leader: Hui, to the extent that when he enlisted, the other members chose not to elect a temporary leader.
• Lovable Jock: Yuto, who played baseball for six years and soccer for two.
• Older Than They Look: Jinho is almost six years older than Wooseok, but his height and youthful features have caused this trope.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: During Pentagon Maker, Shinwon was once caught on camera picking his nose. The other members tease him about this from time to time, and it even gets a mention in "Round 1".
• Power Trio: Yuto, Wooseok and E'Dawn - the rap line - before E'Dawn left the group in 2018.
• Proud Beauty: Shinwon, as seen during Pentagon Maker. Special mention goes to when the group played Buzzfeed's Who's Who, and they were asked who was the best looking. Shinwon pointed at himself; and when Kino asked him why, he responded with "this is [the] reason".
• Stage Names: Hui and Yeo One use stage names that are variants of their actual name, while Kino uses (and E'Dawn used) a completely unrelated stage name. Everyone else in Pentagon uses their real name.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Wooseok and Yuto, two of the tallest members. Yuto in particular wears a lot of black outfits, so the 'dark' part of this trope certainly applies.
• Team Hand-Stack: Before they go on stage, the members do this and shout "Just do it yo!!". They tend to film this moment and several videos of the chant can be found on social media.
• Theme Naming: Triple H was so named because of its members, HyunA, Hyojong and Hui.
• Uncle Pennybags: Played for Laughs with Hui. Since Hui is also a well-known producer and songwriter who has written many popular songs for other groups, he is constantly teased by the other members for being very wealthy.

Music Tropes

• Boastful Rap: "Pretty Boys".
• Break Up Song: "Daisy" is about the pain of a break-up.
• Call-and-Response Song: Every song with a fanchant counts as this. For example, in "Shine":
  E'Dawn: neoreul saranghaneun jjijiri
  Audience: jjijiri
  Hui: geurae naneun meojeori
  Audience: meojeori
  E'Dawn: nan neohanteneun geomeori
  Audience: geotjeori
• Call-Back: In "Round 1", Yeo One is criticised for not flushing the toilet. Come "Round 2", when Hongseok wakes up in Yeo One's body, the first thing he does is to check if he's flushed the toilet.
• Chronological Album Title: Demo_01 and Demo_02.
• Concept Album: Thumbs Up! had a playful, childish concept based around a frog-based Korean idiom.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Daisy". When written in Hangul, "데이지" can be read as burning.
• Flower Motifs: The concept for We:th revolves around flowers, especially the seen version photos. In the seen version, each member is holding a different type of flower.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: "Round 2" revolves around this trope. Wooseok and Yuto, Kino and Yanan, Shinwon and Hui, and Yeo One and Hongseok discover that they have swapped bodies with each other.
• Loser Protagonist: The narrator of "Shine" is this. The song's most-repeated word, jjijiri, even translates to "loser" in most English translations.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Lukewarm", which is from their first EP, is an upbeat dance track about a couple breaking up.
• Meaningful Name: The tracklist of the Japanese album Universe: The History consists only of the group's title tracks, starting from "Gorilla" and ending with "Dr. Bebe". In other words, the album covers their entire history.
• New Sound Album: Although it had some stylistic similarities to Positive, Thumbs Up! had much more of a childish, happy-go-lucky feel than their older work, and definitely a more cheerful concept. They said themselves that the album was meant to appeal to children.
  • Compared to Positive and Thumbs Up!, Universe: The Black Hall is incredibly dark, with deeper and more soulful tracks. The MV teasers for "Naughty Boy" and "Dr.Bebe" are chalk and cheese.
• Rock Me, Amadeus!: In:vite U has "The Game", which takes heavy inspiration from classical operas. The song opens with Jinho singing a line from Lascia ch'io pianga.
• Sampling: Pentagon sampled Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" for their song "Critical Beauty".
• Silly Love Songs: "Shine", "Pretty Pretty", and "Naughty Boy", among others.
• Singer Name Drop:
  • Most of Yuto's rap breaks are preceded by the words Yuto da, which means "it's Yuto" in Japanese. Jinho actually sings it in "Fantasystic" as the intro to his verse.
    Yuto DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAA!~
    • Kino's similar tag, Knnovation (Kino + innovation), is found in "Genius" and "Round 1".
    • In "Round 1", there are five instances of Yuto da, because Hui is making fun of it.
  • Many, many examples in "Pentagon".
    You're my universe, universe, I can be your pentagon, hey!
  • Kino-ya in "The Greatest Wall". Kino also calls Hui hyung in the song.
  • Wooseok-ah in "Just do it yo!!". In the same song, Pentagon directly name-drop the fanbase (UNIVERSE!).
  • Kang Hyunggu! pops up in "Genius", as well as Wooseok, Yuto and Yanan being mentioned by their dads.
  • Every member except for Shinwon and Wooseok are called by their real names at least once in "Round 1". Shinwon is simply referred to as hyung, and Wooseok's name isn't mentioned at all.
• Smelly Feet Gag: During "Pentagon Maker", Yanan once criticised Yeo One for having smelly feet. This comes back in "Round 1", when Yanan starts his verse by complaining about Yeo One's foot odour and reminding him that they're still sharing a room; and in "Round 2", Kino-as-Yanan wonders why he can smell Yeo One's foot odour.
• Solo Side Project: Hui and E'Dawn, along with E'Dawn's girlfriend and fellow idol HyunA, formed the side group Triple H in 2017. Following both Hyuna and E'Dawn's resignation from CUBE Entertainment in late 2018, it is unlikely Triple H will perform again.
• The Something Song: "Organic Song".
• Song Style Shift: "You Like" from We:th starts off like a ballad, with Hui singing over a piano accompaniment. Then Hui coughs and the song changes into a hard hip-hop beat, before finishing as a ballad once again.
• Studio Chatter:
  • The MV of "Naughty Boy" ends on the members walking through a field at night while singing the chorus.
  • "Round 1" and "Round 2" both finish on Studio Chatter. In "Round 1", the team can be heard apologising to each other, and tell each other that they only dissed each other because they're good friends. For "Round 2", everyone is just relieved to have switched back to their own bodies.
• Vocal Tag Team: Most K-Pop groups utilise this technique and Pentagon is no exception, especially with nine members.
  • In Pentagon, usual custom is that vocals are most heavily divided between Hui and Jinho (who are widely considered to be the strongest vocalists of the group), and following them, the other members get a varying amount depending on the song and the vocal range required. Yuto and Wooseok (and E'Dawn, previously) tend to get an equal amount of lines due to the fact that they make up the rap breaks.
  • The order of who sings when tends to be different each time, but Yuto tends to feature near the end/last in most Pentagon songs, most likely because his section is often announced (see Singer Name Drop above).
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Yuto and Wooseok, the rappers of the group. E'Dawn used to be a part of this trope.

Music Video and Performance Tropes

• Crapsack World: The concept for "Basquiat" is based on this.
• Dancing Is Serious Business: The MV of "Pretty Pretty", which involves Yeo One and Kino's characters facing off in a dance battle to impress their love interest. Yeo One's character eventually wins her favour.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the space of two comebacks, Pentagon went from the cheerful and childish concept of "Humph!" to the darker and twisted "Dr. Bebe". If we consider them as characters in their own music videos rather than performers, they've done a complete 180.
• Fashionable Asymmetry:
  • Used during the promotions for "Naughty Boy". It is particularly noticeable on Jinho and Kino, who both wore trousers where the left leg was fully covered, but the right leg was cut above the knee like shorts.
  • Some of the outfits for "Feelin Like" promotions fall under this trope as well. For instance, Hongseok has a striped shirt that has one sleeve cut off mid-forearm, but the other sleeve falls to his wrists.
• High-Class Gloves: In keeping with the luxurious concept for "Feelin Like", the members' stage oufits are often accessorized with gloves. The outfits in the MV shows Jinho wearing a pair of short black lace gloves, Wooseok in a pair of white lace gloves, and Shinwon with long burgundy gloves.
• High School AU: The music videos for "Shine", "Pretty Pretty", and "Humph!" play on this.
• Impractical Musical Instrument Skills: E'Dawn pretending to play the intro to "Shine" while crouched down. If he was playing it on a real piano, this would be really impractical. He wouldn't even reach the keys!
• Love Makes You Crazy: "Dr. Bebe" revolves around this trope. The MV shows the group going slowly insane due to love.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Pentagon were dressed in suits for "Critical Beauty", "Dr. Bebe", and the live performances of "Daisy".
• Shout-Out: The MV for "Cerberus" references, well, Cerberus, the three-headed dog of the underworld. The MV depicts Yuto, Kino, and Wooseok working together to kidnap a man. They take him back to their lair, where they then put on some music and dance with the man. The music ends up putting the trio to sleep, and then they are placed in the boot of the car and driven away.