Heartwarming / IZ*ONE

"The surprise was a success!"

"Our time will always be everlasting

Time with you is like a miracle

You're my only one

Even if you can't see, I revolve around you every day

As you follow the parallel line

You will be able to see me."

When twelve become one, everything is twelve times the fun.

Discography

• Unlike many of their contemporaries who promote mostly songs of romance, the majority of IZ*ONE's discography focuses on friendship, self-love, and destiny.
  "You make me better."
• All the tracks which directly involve the girls in lyrics, composition, or track production.
  • Songs by Eunbi and her production team (Psycho Rabbit) tend to be bubblegum pop songs about travelling off into distant places and reaching new places with the ones they love (i.e. the fans).
    • With*One, the fan song from Oneiric Diary, is a ballad produced by this team with lyrics written by all twelve girls. The lyrics express their mixed emotions which they had wanted to convey to their fans during the agonizing months-long hiatus.
  • By contrast, most of the other members had contributed credits to very emotionally-filled songs:
    • Minju and Hitomi co-wrote lyrics for Really Like You, an acoustic ballad about companionship.
    • Minju and Sakura co-wrote lyrics for Love Bubble, a bubblegum J-pop track about the floating feeling of falling in love.
    • Yuri's song is Someday, a piano ballad about having someone walk with you in the darkness, that "someday", even the hardest of times will eventually pass.
    • Wonyoung wrote lyrics for Dreamlike, a moombahton lo-fi track which makes one feel like they're on a road trip of a lifetime.
    • Hitomi wrote the lyrics for both the Korean and Japanese versions of Merry-Go-Round, an upbeat discotheque pop track about dreams and destiny.
    • Sakura's song is Yummy Summer, a bubblegum J-pop summer anthem about wanting to enjoy the last remaining days with their special beloved. It is the only song in their entire discography to explicitly include "WIZ*ONE" in the lyrics.
    • Chaewon's song is Slow Journey, another [[Lyrical Dissonance deceivingly bright-sounding beach acoustic track]] about wanting to slow down every moment and take one's sweet time in reaching a destination (i.e. the end of their time together).
    • Yena's song is Lesson, a J-pop ballad originally unveiled on the first day of their final concert ONE, The Story^note  and therefore never received an official soundtrack release with lyrics detailing how grateful they were to have learned so much in the 2.5 years of companionship and artistry, but the time has arrived for them to take flight and soar further than ever... even if it hurts them to part.
    • The final song released by Eunbi for IZ*ONE in 2021, Parallel Universe/Only One ^note  The former is the Korean title, the latter is the official English title also remains commercially unavailable, but it is a testament to all of the good memories and promises made over the past 2.5 years, promising the fans that their time together would be an everlasting miracle - and that they would always be their only ones in a parallel universe.
    • This song would eventually inspire the name of a(n ultimately doomed) fan-led fundraising project which had aimed to convince the individual members' agencies to extend the group's contract by a few months more and/or release the official songs which had been witheld from public consumption. Though individual fans all have differing opinions regarding this plan, it was no secret that WIZ*ONE had taken grand efforts to "complete the unfinished story" as no other fan had done before after Mnet had unceremoniously announced the plan to disband as scheduled.^note For further context: Months before the final concert in March 2021, the agencies had released official statements as early as mid-to-late 2020 about the possibility of a contract extension, much to the fanbase's celebration. However, no further specifics had been given, and with the timeline gap of the group's releases - the last being from December, when most timebound project groups would typically release a final comeback on their last month as an active group - being too questionable made fans and even industry insiders theorize that discussions actually happened but fell apart, thus the sudden ending. Though the contract would officially end in April, the last-minute announcement of the March concert as their final one (the concert was announced in late February to be held on March 13 and 14, while Mnet's announcement about the disbandment came out on March 10) essentially heralded the end of all full-group schedules and activities (barring pre-recorded/pre-made ones), leaving the fans discontented and confused at best while furious and ambivalent at worst. Tellingly, March 15 until April 29 was spent in radio silence as none of the girls had ever returned to do any real-time IZ*ONE-related livestreams or group activities (except for scheduled text/image posts on social media and the occasional individual schedules which were mostly pre-recorded).

IZ*ONE CHU

(Season 01) IZ*ONE CHU

• The girls, who are at this point have been together for less than a few months, are already forming close bonds with each other. The entire premise of IZ*ONE CHU Season 1 is to go on a team-building trip (portrayed as an MT - membership training - trip) in order to get closer before their debut showcase.
• The prank that the other girls decide to pull on Eunbi.
  • For context, IZ*ONE hadn't decided on an official leader yet at the time, but Eunbi took the initiative of looking after the other eleven by virtue of being the eldest. As shown in IZ*ONE CHU, the rest of the members decide to have a bit of fun teasing her by staging a voting process wherein they would explicitly endorse Chaeyeon as the official leader instead. After Eunbi hears about the members' "preference", she sadly but gracefully obliges with the majority vote... only to find out after the tallying process there was a grand total of eleven votes for Eunbi and one^note i.e. Eunbi's vote for Chaeyeon.
• Chaeyeon immediately taking charge of leading Dorm 1 ^note Sakura, Chaeyeon, Nako, Hitomi, Yuri, and Wonyoung by teaching the Japanese members how to use the home appliances and teaching them conversational Korean while also making sure that the younger Korean members remember to pitch in with the household chores too.
• The producers of the show offer the girls to go on a trip anywhere they'd like. The destination they ultimately choose to visit? Tochigi, aka Hitomi's home prefecture.
  • In later appearances and interviews, the girls would freely admit to missing Tochigi and wanting to revisit again one day as a whole group.
• At one of the stopovers where the girls made for a bet en route to their destination, the girls encounter a Produce 48 fan by pure coincidence. Being rookies at this point in time, they are overjoyed to be recognized by fans and proceed to Squee over the fan's adorable son.
• The entirety of their home visit to the Honda household, especially the scene where Hitomi's family bring out her old photos, exchange stories, and feed the girls with homemade meals and specially-ordered dessert. The girls reciprocate by presenting them gifts bought from Insadong and delivering letters to the family asking them to entrust Hitomi in their care for the next 2.5 years.
• On the day the girls decided to repay their Produce48 mentors by cooking them meals and visiting them at work, Sakura stayed behind at the dorms alone to voluntarily clean up after the others. She then visited a shirt printing shop in order to create customized t-shirts for all twelve girls before writing a personalized letter for the others in Korean (Japanese in the case of Nako and Hitomi) despite admitting her poor proficiency with the language at the time. Needless to say, Chaeyeon was left in tears at the little surprise she discovered on her bed that evening.
• The last episode where they watch the premiere of IZ*ONE CHU Season 1 Episode 1 within a small theater filled with their biggest fans at the time.

(Season 02) IZ*ONE CHU: Secret Friend

• The premise of this season is that the girls are enrolled in high school with assigned "secret friends" whose hearts they must make flutter in order to succeed with the show's mission. Naturally, things get very sweet and chaotic all the same.
• The girls celebrating Sakura's birthday on the show. The sheer joy on her face says it all, especially after the reveal that she never got to celebrate any of her special occasions with school friends due to entering show business at a very young age.
• Eunbi being revealed as a "bonus" secret friend who personally got each member gifts tailored specifically for their wants and needs aside from the show's prerequisite "secret friend" setup.
• For one final mission of the season, the girls are tasked to stage a guerilla concert near the Han River and are expected to attract over one thousand people. Given less than a day to invite people to go to their event, the members are naturally left nervous when they are blindfolded and left guessing as to how many people arrived. Feeling hopeless, they set their expectations at a measly three hundred until...
  Yujin (blindfolded and nervous): What if no one showed up?
  Yena (blindfolded and also nervous): Are WIZ*ONE a joke to you?! Even if only one fan shows up, I would dance a hundred times for them!
  • The best part? Over two thousand people showed up as their live audience on that day. On short notice.
• The promise they make with WIZ*ONE.
  WIZ*ONE: We'll be your secret friends forever!
  • Post-disbandment, references to this promise are still fondly kept by both sides.

(Season 03) IZ*ONE CHU: Fantasy Campus

• The girls working part-time at a cafe to serve food and drinks to young adult students who were preparing for college entrance exams. They also note that Eunbi spent a decent amount of time working at a cafe to support herself during her trainee days.
  • The unbridled joy the girls show when more than a few passersby (many of whom were not necessarily fans of the group) manage to recognize them with their face masks on.
  • The girls also celebrate the coming-of-age ceremony of the members born in 2001^note Minju, Nako, Hitomi, and Yuri, aka the 01z by preparing a small get-together with cake and party hats.
• In Season 2, the girls were surprised by the amount of fans who attended their guerilla concert. So they decided to repay them in kind by crashing what was announced to be an early screening of the Eyes On Me: The Movie and turning it into K-pop's first drive-in concert of 2020. Made extra poignant by the fact that the last time that the girls performed a full showcase for their fans in person was in November 2019 during the BLOOM*IZ showcase and they were only able to resume activities when the pandemic was beginning to rise in cases and shut down idol events.
  • The look on Wonyoung's face at 0:59 says it all.

(Season 04) IZ*ONE CHU: ON:TACT

• Eunbi, Chaeyeon, and Hitomi visit the famous One Million Dance Studio to learn a new choreography under renowned mentor Lia Kim. When Hitomi starts expressing doubt about her own dancing abilities compared to her teammates, both her unnies and Lia were quick to reassure her that she shines best in her own style of dancing. They then proceed to put on an amazing performance in under a few hours.
• Dramatic and hilariously hammy as their acting was, there's something endearing about the way IZ*ONE members respect their "fallen" members in their battle of laser tag against ghost soldiers.

Other IZ*ONE-centric Shows

ENOZI Cam / ARCADE

ENOZI Cam

• Any time one or more of the girls gets a focus episode on ENOZI Cam, they are almost always quick to point out how it feels strange or lonely to perform without the rest of the girls.
  • Somewhat Harsher in Hindsight post-disbandment as many of them (especially the girls who redebuted as soloists) still share the same sentiments. Made slightly less painful by the fact that their "back" dancers do keep them company during music show promotions.
• Any time the girls call out to their fans on ENOZI or treat the camera as a sort of viewpoint companion.
• Pictured in the image above: The staff members of the Panorama MV production team surprising the girls with a cake on the day of their 2nd anniversary as a group, after the members spent most of October working hard on TWELVE promotions and One-reeler preparations.

ARCADE / ARCADE II

• ARCADE II is filled with adorable episodes where the girls attempt to cross out things on their bucket list, including trying out foods they've always wanted to have, making kimchi together, taking photographs and filming each other at a rented vacation house, and more.
• 2020 introduced the ARCADE Specials to the roster of IZ*ONE videos, which are ALL self-produced videos by the members. Some would post song or dance covers and others would post vlogs, Q&A sessions, or special thanksgiving videos. It's also noteworthy that most of the content is prepared and released specially on a member's birthday or as a fulfillment of a promise to fans.

IZ*ONE CITY

• The special episode where the girls react to a clip compilation of their shenanigans on the show reveals that the members had such a fun time filming the show and were glad that everyone was a good sport about it. Moreover, they actually got to claim one of their prizes by guesting on the radio show they'd wanted to visit!

IZ*ONE Eat-Ting Trip / Ch Eat-Ting Trip

Season 01

• The whole concept of Eat-Ting Trip is just enjoying the sight of the girls eating good food and visiting tourist destinations during a time when most people were locked inside their homes. Seeing the girls travel around Sokcho (following health protocols, of course) may either stir nostalgia in the viewers who have visited the old markets and restaurants before or may have inspired people who have never visited to try and come to these mom-and-pop places.
• It's a minor detail, but the fact that Nako remembers how Sakura once managed to karate chop a whole stack of solid roofing tiles in Japan while the soondae team were at the mini golf course is rather endearing.
  • Even more Heartwarming in Hindsight when you realize that this incident was part of the (likely) first time Sakura, Nako, and Hitomi were ever on camera together was for the same show (and on the same team, no less!)
• During the late night group mission where the girls are instructed to purchase ingredients for a tteokbokki meal in pairs, a lot of them choose similar items while (correctly) assuming that those were everyone's favorites and thus would prioritize getting the foods/snacks that the others like before their own. Hilariously though, most of them ended up buying too much of the same things that there was almost no tteokbokki left for the pot.
• The girls are given one final mission in order to eat at a high-class restaurant for dinner where they must find hints and several puzzle pieces that would reveal the address of the place. However, the staff have assigned three spies among the members to disrupt the search and monopolize the expensive dinner for themselves. Yuri and Nako were quickly revealed to the audience as the first two spies, with the last one being saved for the final episode. Once news of a mole reaches the group (and that they would be wearing an identifiable mark/accessory on themselves), they immediately suspect Yena and Minju as the spies. Only to find out that, no, neither of them were the spy, who turned out to be Yujin wearing the mark on her hair the entire time! Good thing that Yuri requested that everyone still gets to enjoy the dinner even if the spies end up succeeding.

Season 02

• Although hilarious with context, Yuri insisting that "IZ*ONE is one" when the producers force them to split into teams yet again for competitions is adorable to witness.
• The Pink Team ^note Eunbi, Sakura, Yena, Minju, Nako, Yuri is always on the verge of losing due to being comprised of most of the physically weaker members. Fortunately, the Blue Team ^note Hyewon, Chaeyeon, Chaewon, Hitomi, Yujin, Wonyoung always cheers on them and even gives them significant handicaps most of the time. This sort of backfires on them though as Pink Team always somehow manage to win the deciding game or round during their 2-day 1-night trip at Yeonsu.
• The girls asking the staff for retries on the missions involving gifts for their fans at stake.
• There's an entire mission centered around the girls needing to impersonate another member's behaviors which is equal parts hilarious and heartwarming for the viewers as each member nails the movements and catchphrases of each member (even offscreen traits) down to the smallest quirk, including the ones that they themselves don't consciously realize.
• At an art gallery, the members are given missions to answer trivia questions about themselves. Most of the information is unofficial data that only hardcore WIZ*ONE know, showing that the Eat-Ting Trip production team put a lot of effort into researching IZ*ONE's most beloved aspects in the fanbase.
• IZ*ONE openly professing their love for Eat-Ting Trip numerous times this season and (half-jokingly) declaring that they would be looking forward to filming Season 03 with the production crew, to which Yena cheerfully insists that they need to extend until Season 10.

Season 03

• Following the ending of all Season 02 episode releases, it didn't even take months for the producers of Eat-Ting Trip to announce that filming for Season 03 has been approved and commenced!
• To hype fans for the release of Season 03, the Eat-Ting Trip executive producer and one of the members ^note assumed to be Eunbi despite a voice filter recalled the best moments of the previous seasons. The producer recounts how happy the girls were during the eating segments and was happy to see that members like Wonyoung were eating well even when the cameras weren't rolling, thereby subverting the stereotype that idols fake their appetites during variety show tapings.
• More of a Heartwarming in Hindsight thing, but this season gives more insight into the group's decision-making processes than any other variety or reality show appearance they've had:
  • Though they've mentioned this in several interviews before, it's shown here that the girls regularly use rock-paper-scissors for all decisions (when not scripted by the producers) to keep everything fair.
  • The girls plan to pull a prank on a few members who were late to arrive at the filming venue by pretending to be in disagreement. Much like a similar failed attempt in Season 2, it falls flat because the girls are too nice to uphold the mean facade (not to mention that the late arrivals fail to notice their acting because they thought the others were just too tired. Yujin even notes that the prank is doomed from the start (even though she ultimately ends up going along with it) because, in her own words, "they never fight" and the others are too perceptive to be fooled by pretend conflicts, showing how close they've all gotten in 2.5 years.
• Season 03's theme is all about "healing", so the staff give the girls almost-complete freedom to plan out their own itinerary and fulfill most of the items on everyone's individual wishlists: Staying overnight at an inn, playing games like schoolkids on an overnight trip, going ziplining and paragliding, painting and sculpting, and more!
  • The girls constantly mention the fact that the producers are noticeably more lenient this season when it came to the games (most prominently, they had to play very few competitive missions in order to even have a budget for food unlike previous seasons). Considering the timeframe in which this season was filmed^note after the girls had finished pre-recording all of their special concert stages and any other remaining group activities, and Nako had just recently lost her grandmother and released^note since the episodes continued to be aired after the final concert and the disbandment date, it feels almost like a calm before the storm.
  • This season, the teams were split into three groups led by the members who could drive. Which meant there was an entire segment centered around the members just going around Mungyeong like young adults in a coming of age story.
• On the paragliding and zipline missions, all the members are initially scared, but most of them are excited to try anyway.
  • The zipline team^note Sakura, Yena, Nako, and Yuri in particular are all composed of members who are notorious for being afraid of heights to the point of tears, so it comes as no surprise that they're all mortified when they see the course they're supposed to traverse. Sakura's legs nearly buckle out of shock and Nako literally spends ten minutes tearfully teetering over the edge from fear. All of them (yes, Nako included) succeed at completing the course and even deliver heartwarming messages to the members and to the fans.
  • The paragliding teams enjoying the breathtaking view of Mungyeong after the initial apprehension of flying. Special mention goes to the more "cowardly" members like Minju, Chaeyeon, and Hitomi triumphantly soaring in the sky (Hiichan even managing to take control of the glider after spending most of the episode being scared of going!) Like the zipline team, they also send out their messages to both the other members and all their fans, by writing their wishes on paper stars near the gliding takeoff ledge and yelling their words while up in the sky.
    • The little reunion that the two paragliding teams have upon meeting at the takeoff point. Hyewon immediately goes for a hug with Eunbi and the same for Wonyoung, Yujin, and Chaewon.
• The girls go to a pottery shop in one episode to make personalized clay gifts. Yena's creation is a heart-shaped object dedicated to her father as a reminder for him to stop smoking since she's worried about his health.
• The final "travel agency" reviews that the girls give the production crew.
  Sakura: [Taping for Eat-Ting Trip] doesn't feel like a work schedule.
• The final mission, proving that the variety show staff have really gone the extra mile for them.
  IZ*ONE: Eat-Ting Trip's the best!

Cheat-Ting Trip Season 01

• A season released after IZ*ONE's disbandment, this Chuseok^note Korea's Mid-Autumn Festival special reunites three (actually four, if one counts the voice cameo from Hitomi) members: Hyewon, Yuri, and Chaeyeon on an overnight trip with the same production staff as the Eat-Ting Trip series^note  The show's title does not pertain to the actual act of deceit, but by combining the word Chuseok and the Eat-Ting Trip moniker, cementing the special season's status as a spin-off to the IZ*ONE series.
  • It's very telling about how much the girls enjoyed filming for Eat-Ting Trip when the first few minutes of the special start with them excitedly reuniting for a taping schedule (despite the fact that they admit to seeing each other often on days off) before they turned to the staff members and greet them just as happily.
• The trio catching up on their latest activities, including Hyewon's new slew of schedules, Yuri's (at the time) recent debut, and Chaeyeon's participation in Street Woman Fighter. Hilarity Ensues when Hyewon and Yuri are quizzed on their one-picks/favorites from the last show and they (half-jokingly) choose fighters who aren't Chaeyeon, much to her chagrin.
• During a later episode, the trio are issued a challenge by the production crew in order to secure their food budget for the trip (as per tradition). Their challenge involves calling a certain individual and having them say a specific word/phrase without prompting the person through overt hints. Said individual is Hitomi, who's currently busy in Japan, and the girls spend a good amount of time catching up (and the trio even face their phone in the direction of the crew so Hiichan could greet them too). They ultimately end up succeeding in the challenge.

Cheat-Ting Trip Season 02

• Yuri hoping that she could bring all the members together for the next trip.

Cheat-Ting Trip Season 03

• After a long time of hoping for a return to Korea, Hitomi finally joins the usual travelers as a returning companion for Season 03 with Chaeyeon and Eunbi.

VLIVE / Private Mail

• Any time the girls express their longing to see and interact with fans on VLIVE or Private Mail. Made more meaningful after the 2019 "long holiday"^note The Mnet scandal which revealed that the Korean Produce franchise had been rigged by the show's producers and therefore jeopardizing the careers of all debuted trainees especially IZ*ONE and X1 who had gone into indefinite hiatus and premature disbandment (or more specifically, a failure to sign contracts), respectively. when the girls all expressed their fears and worries to fans on mail which functions more like a day-to-day chat with a friend than a spiffed-up social media post by a celebrity.
• Any time Sakura promises to go on VLIVE on Private Mail because she misses interacting with fans, she usually fulfills it. Cases in point, the Spicy Ramen Challenge VLIVE with Chaeyeon, the Gingerbread Candy House (also with Chaeyeon), and the Late Night Dinner VLIVE (with Eunbi, Hyewon, Nako, and Hitomi).
• Chaeyeon's VLIVE "Healing Live" or "Counseling" series in general where she attempts to build or make something. These lives usually come at random and have her just goofing around and playing with the fans in the comments, oftentimes late at night or after a particularly heated day on the news/social media.^note It is an Open Secret among the fanbase that the girls monitor social media and are fond of sending supportive messages/positive content to cheer up fans during unhappy days.
• The OT12 Christmas VLIVE, aka the VLIVE after the last fansign sessions for Panorama had the girls play a random nonsense word game where, as usual, the members (especially Yena) pick on Yuri for constantly messing up. They sing "Happy Birthday" for Jesus towards the end.
  • Harsher in Hindsight as this turned out to be the very last live streaming session where all twelve of them were present before disbandment.
• Yuri hosting a VLIVE on Christmas day with the concept of baking cookies for her members, with questionable designs:
  • Yuri basing her cookie designs "inspired" by the members' looks. Try to guess which one is which.^note From left to right: Wonyoung (slender bunny), Nako (ice cream), Eunbi (muscular bunny), Hitomi (peach), Hyewon and Yuri (chocolate gingerbread men), Chaewon (green cookie with "Ssamu" spelled out), Yujin (puppy), Yena (giant lips), Chaeyeon (sweet potato), Minju (fennec fox), and Sakura (shocked girl with large eyes and pink hair tied in a high ponytail).
  • The members' first mails of the following day all talk about the cookies Yuri gave them. Most of them are thankful to her, including Hyewon who begrudgingly accepted that her cookie Tastes Better Than It Looks. However, the other members respond from a range of confusion to hilarity and gratitude when the rest of the group reveal that some of them got tomato-flavored cookies or broken/deformed crumbs of their cookies.
• More recently, Yuri sent a Private Mail to fans saying that she made plenty of homemade bead rings and would love to gift WIZ*ONE if only she could. A few days before their official disbandment date, she revealed that she made some customized rings especially for the members, who promptly took to their Private Mails to brag about the beautiful handmade gifts she gave them.
• The girls talking about their hobbies over PM in general is endearing in that their messages feel like something a friend would send you. Sometimes they would talk about hilarious things that happened in their day, or about new hobbies and crafts they would try out, or about food, music, and movie recommendations they would suggest to fans.

Other Variety / Reality Shows / Showcase Appearances

Pre-Debut (Pre-Produce 48)

• Sakura's profoundly wise and heartwarming reflection about the 3/11 Japan earthquake in 2014.
• Sakura actually has a lot of refreshing opinions about controversial topics in particular. She gives a positive review to an LGBTQ movie and openly advocates for all forms of love, stating that she herself may be even open to any form of sincere love one day and those emotions aren't anything to be ashamed of (a rather notable opinion from a famous name in Japan, a place with conservative views on sexuality and gender).
• Nako pouring her heart out in a documentary that she used to feel inadequate as an idol because of her limited number of fans (often measured by the amount of people lining up for handshake events) before she gained more experience and guidance under her HKT seniors like Sasshi.
  • As a matter of fact, Sakura and Nako openly express their admiration for their senpai Sashihara and heeding her advice since their early days in HKT and even all the way to IZ*ONE.^note Sakura and Nako have repeatedly confirmed that they keep in touch with them via LINE and often give them gifts like concert tickets and hang out with them whenever they have free time in Japan.
• UWE Trainee Kim Minjoo and her adorable friendship with labelmate, soloist Kriesha Chu. The episode in Kriesha's reality show where Minjoo comes over to cook for Kriesha and her brother is very cute to behold.
• Even before her shot at stardom, Yena already had a small following as the younger sister of her then-idol big brother Sungmin of SPEED. She would tag along their concerts (where Sungmin would tease her in good nature) and SPEED fans would look forward to her. In fact, she had her own supporters from as early as 2014, years before she would become a formal trainee under an agency.
• Most of the members in general have difficult backstories in making it big, but the fact that none of them gave up on their dreams in inspiring on its own:
  • Eunbi was a member of a girlgroup called Ye-A with the stage name Kazoo. The group disbanded with little over a year for unknown reasons, but Eunbi didn't give up on her dream even though her parents disapproved. To support her ambitions, she took on part-time jobs such as a a cafe worker and assistant at a bakery in addition to applying as a trainee for various agencies. When she finally hit her big break as IZ*ONE, Eunbi still visits the bakery which she worked at the longest and spends time with her friends there. As of 2021, it's also been confirmed that she's stayed in touch and is on good terms with her ex-members at Ye-A.
  • Chaeyeon was one of the most renowned trainees of Produce due to joining several survival shows yet never making the final cut. She was known as one-half of Chaesis and became a trainee of different companies after joining K-Pop Star with her sister Chaeryeong, but she eventually left her last agency (JYP) due to (unconfirmed) circumstances that JYP refused to debut the sisters together. After landing at WM, she finally got her big break only to be followed a few months after by her equally-deserving sister's long-awaited debut.
  • Yuri was a daughter of a middle-class family from Busan who wanted to become an idol. Her mother initially disapproved of her ambitious dreams due to the high costs, but eventually had a change of heart when she saw how much her daughter wanted to become a performer. Yuri went as far as to sell her clothes and other items to be able to raise money to move from Busan to Seoul where she would try her luck at a survival show: Mnet's Idol School. She made it far into the competition but didn't make the final cut (fromis_9) and saw Produce 48 as her last shot. Good thing she did try.

Pre-Debut (Produce 48)

• Seeing how disheartened the 48 Group idols (debuted performers with years of stage experience) were upon experiencing culture shock from the pristine performances of the Korean trainees and consequently receiving one bad evaluation grade after another, Sakura takes it upon herself to earn an A and to dispel the idea that the Japanese trainees were mediocre. She is the first 48 Group idol to earn her A onscreen^note But not the first chronologically, as Miyu Takeuchi of AKB48 earned her A first although her segment wasn't aired until after Sakura's, and it only gets better from there for the Japanese trainees.
• Similarly, Nako is one of the, if not the, first ever trainees in Produce history to have gone from an F grade to an A grade.
  • On a related note, she remains as the only contestant in Produce history to have received the highest number of votes for a single performance (aka the legendary Love Whisper stage).^note Spectators at the live event recount that the sound system during that day was notoriously bad and almost set up to sabotage all the performing trainees, yet Nako's voice was the only one to not only nail the high notes perfectly while dancing to GFRIEND's notoriously knife-like choreography, but it was also the only voice to actually pierce through the bad speakers and resounded in the halls. Talk about a win for her!
  Nako: "Did the machine break?" ... Is what I thought [in that moment].
• Despite the tense atmosphere in the competition, Nako picks out members for her first team evaluation based on "cute looks and cute personality". Her refreshing approach to the contest baffles Nayoung, her teammate and competitor, who feels unsure about Nako's seemingly casual approach to the whole situation. After the legendary Love Whisper performance, Nayoung has changed her mind and apologized to Nako, thereby the two becoming closer friends by the end of the ordeal.
• As the Nekkoya center, Sakura gets the privilege of having the first team pick ahead of all the other trainees. She immediately selects Chaeyeon, the friend who despite her limited Japanese has actively approached Sakura and most of the other Japanese trainees to help them with practice, to be with her on the team. They made it no secret that these two had one of the sweetest friendships in Produce history.
  • Their handdrawn "couple rings" were adorable to see.
  • By the final episode, Sakura's debut into IZ*ONE was only a matter of "when", not "if". Despite this, during her final ranking announcement, the host Lee Seunggi asked Sakura who she'd like to dedicate her speech to. In the heat of the moment, there was no question as to who she decided to thank and call out to.
  Sakura: Chaeyeon, thank you for always doing your best! [If it's possible,] I'd like to debut with you together!
  • Fancams of the same event reveal that Sakura was generally calm throughout the entire episode until she was asked to make her thanksgiving speech. She herself recalls that when her eyes met Chaeyeon's in that moment, she just wanted to speak from the heart. More tellingly, Sakura was hyperventilating during the final trainee announcement and was overcome with emotion when Chaeyeon was announced to the point that she collapsed from her seat in pure shock.
• Hitomi teaching the Very Very Very team the choreography despite the language barrier and her initial shyness. It causes team leader Yujin and the other members to warm up to her very very very quickly.
• If one decides to (re)watch Produce 48, most of the members of the Very Very Very team ended up debuting as IZ*ONE.
• Best bros Yujin and Yena enjoying the hell out of karaoke.
• The moment that Kang Hyewon endeared herself to audiences. Five words:
  I'm Kang Hyewon, main rapper.
• "You are not an insignificant presence at all."

Post-Debut (Non-IZ*ONE-centric Shows)

• Sakura trying (and failing) to contain her fangirling when Wendy guested on her show with Kang Hodong, Everybody's Kitchen.
• On the Hello Counselor episode with Yena and Wonyoung guesting, one of the contestants has nieces and nephews whom he regularly plays with and cares for. The kids immediately get along well with Yena, although not so much for poor Wonyoung.
• On the other Hello Counselor episode with Eunbi and Minju as guests, Eunbi and Minju empathize with the first concern ^note a daughter who does well in school but wishes to quit and study from home instead because she wants to take care of her brother with special needs despite having dreams of her own so much that they tear up and encourage her dearly with their own stories.
• The final game of their Chemi Room guesting came down to a post-it blowing competition between Chaeyeon and Sakura. Chaeyeon being Chaeyeon easily takes off more than half of the post-it notes all over Sakura's body, but Sakura being Sakura could barely blow off a post-it note before collapsing to the floor in defeat. Fortunately, the prize was a pair of couple pajamas and the Chemi Queen (aka the winner) got to choose which member she'd like to give the other half of the prize with. If you've been reading the entries since the start of this page (or have been a fan of this group for some time now), you get three guesses as to who Chaeyeon picks, and the first two don't count. Fittingly enough, nobody in the room is surprised.
  Eunbi, walking off-screen: Enjoy well, ya newlyweds!
• Their guesting appearance on Knowing Brothers where the Brothers (especially Heechul and Hodong) commend the Japanese members for keeping up so well despite issues with the language barrier.
• On their guesting in Problematic Men, Yena trusting Hyewon who answers the difficult questions correctly despite being her other teammate remaining skeptical.
• Although MBC staff seem to enjoy giving Minju intentionally cringey scripts for her Music Core MC appearances, they never fall short of treating her and the other members like royalty every time they go on the music show:
  • Every time IZ*ONE went to Music Core for promotions (during Oneiric Diary and One-reeler eras) staff always decorated their room specifically for IZ*ONE, complete with food, balloons, and collages everywhere on the walls (which can be seen on ENOZI Cam). Likewise, the girls find it fun to watch Minju do the live hosting segments on television while waiting for their cue.
• Not to be outdone, SBS staff also treat Yujin and her co-emcees Jihoon (of TREASURE) and Sungchan with a lot of care whenever they emcee on Inkigayo. The trio (affectionately dubbing themselves Ni-Ni-Ni^note Yujinnie, Jihoonnie, and Sungchannie) often receive well-decorated dressing rooms and freebies like hooded jackets from the show crew.
  • Although IZ*ONE were no longer promoting by the time Yujin earned her emcee gig at Inkigayo, they always commended the producers for being nice to them (and the food being memorably delicious).
• Wonyoung eagerly learning the ropes of Korean variety with Kwangsoo in Running Man (while trying to rein in his greedy tendencies in vain). Most of the cast adorably fawn over her and it's telling that in a highly physical show like Running Man, they do their best to keep her safe from any and all harm throughout taping.
• Yuri bashfully admitting that she has deep late-night conversations with Nako in a MUPLY Q&A interview and refusing to give up the secrecy of their discussions when the questions prompted them to. She immediately brings up the topic of asking Nako about her dislike for chicken's feet instead.