Music / B2ST

Dongwoon, Junhyung, Yoseob, Kikwang, Doojoon, and Hyunseung.

"We are SO BEAST!"

Beast, also stylized as B2ST, is a six member boy band from South Korea that debuted in 2009 under Cube Entertainment. Their original name came from shortening "Boys 2 Search for Top", and their current name comes from both "Boys of the EAst Standing Tall" and the phrase "So beast".

They were originally known for having members who have either already debuted as singers or almost did so in other groups that then went on to find fame without them. However, over time, Beast has managed to strip away the titles of the "reject group" and "recycled group" that they were originally labeled with and gain respect as excellent idol singers with a penchant for fanservice of the hoyay variety.

Former member Hyunseung left the group in April 2016. In 2017, the five remaining members moved from from Cube Entertainment to Around Us Entertainment and renamed themselves as Highlight.

Members

Current:

• Doojoon (Yoon Doojoon, born July 4, 1989) - Leader, Lead Rapper, Vocalist, Face of the Group
• Junhyung (Yong Junhyung^note Birth name: Yong Jaesoon, born December 19, 1989) - Main Rapper
• Yoseob (Yang Yoseob, born January 5, 1990) - Main Vocalist
• Gikwang (Lee Gikwang, born March 30, 1990) - Main Dancer, Lead Vocalist, Visual
• Dongwoon (Son Dongwoon, born June 6, 1991) - Lead Vocalist, Rapper, Maknae

Former:

• Hyunseung (Jang Hyunseung, born September 3, 1989) - Lead Vocalist

Discography

Korean Discography:

• Beast is the B2ST (2009)
• Shock of the New Era (2010)
• Mastermind (2010)
• Lights Go on Again (2010)
• My Story (2010)
• Fiction and Fact (2011)
• Midnight Sun (2012)
• Hard to Love, How to Love (2013)
• Good Luck (2014)
• Time (2014)

Japanese Discography:

• So Beast (2011)

---

Tropes in their work:

• A Father to His Men: How the boys regard the president of Cube Entertainment. Fans have even taken to calling him "Hong Papa". Hong also likes to refer to his artists as "the sons and daughters of Cube".
• Accidental Pervert: Doojoon's character in his sitcom "All My Love".
• Ascended Extra:
  • Hyunseung was in the 2006 GomTV documentary featuring Big Bang before their debut.
  • When Kikwang debuted early in 2009 as a solo artist named "AJ", the others appeared as his back-up dancers, and Doojoon and Junhyung did a guest featuring for his song "Wipe the Tears".
  • Yoseob made a series of popular UCC [User Created Content] videos with fellow M-Boat Entertainment trainee Daniel (who now goes by Drama and is in the group Dalmatian) several years prior.
  • Although not quite so well known as the others, Dongwoon was already a known JYP Entertainment trainee alongside Doojoon, Kikwang, and the members of 2PM and 2AM.
• Ascended Meme: An international fan made a parody of Far East Movement's Like a G6 titled Like Yong Junhyung. The video somehow made its way to Junhyung's twitter account where he commented on it, and the phrase itself became a memetic mutation in the international fandom. Then during Beast's first concert, Junhyung and Yoseob's self-composed, self-produced duet included the words "I'm fly like a G6" in Junhyung's rap.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Although Junhyung is far from being the butt monkey, this is how he became friends with Doojoon and Yoseob. He originally had a really bad impression of the two of them, but after one of his cousins died, they were the ones most concerned about him and tried to comfort him.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Doojoon and Yoseob.
• Blatant Lies: In Shock, Junhyung says "This song is not over!". Then the song ends.
• Boastful Rap: Junhyung is usually in charge of these. They're usually very mild compare to the raps from actual rappers, but he does boast in them so it fits. It's usually only in their intro tracks that he does this though.
• Boy Band: An obvious Korean Pop Music example.
• Break-Up Song: Beast tends to have a lot of these. 11/20 of their songs are breakup songs as of their fourth mini-album.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Junhyung is mildly this, despite his nagging at the others to keep the dorm clean.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: All of them.
• Catchphrase:
  • "We are SO BEAST!"
  • Kikwang's "Hi-yeom" and "Bye-yeom".
  • "IN DA CUBE!"
  • "Beast Attack" during their Bad Girl promotions. It was screamed by the fans during the dance break.
• Chick Magnet: Junhyung, who has "dated more girls than you can count on your fingers, toes, and teeth".
• Clothing Damage: Due to not being on purpose, these examples don't really count as fanservice. While filming their Beast is the B2ST MV, Dongwoon ripped several pairs of pants because of his dancing. Kikwang then ripped his pants on stage. Doojoon later ripped several more pairs of pants during the filming of their Shock MV. All sets of pants ripped at the crotch. Due to the circumstances surrounding the incidents, only Kikwang's has been seen because of the live studio audience.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Both Hyunseung and Kikwang, who are affectionately called 16-D (meaning they don't live/think the same as everyone else, but instead in a different dimension). Dongwoon is also sometimes included, but that's because he does really weird stuff when the camera's off.
• The Cutie: Usually Yoseob, but sometimes Kikwang and Dongwoon take this role too.
• Darker and Edgier: Shock and Breath.
• Deliberately Cute Child:
  • Surprisingly, not Yoseob. He initially disliked being called "cute", but just grew to accept it.
  • Dongwoon, on the other hand, tries for this. He restrains himself in front of the camera though, and it's not sure if it's really just his true nature.
• Determinator:
  • Doojoon decided to become a singer and even ran away from home because his family wouldn't take him seriously.
  • Hyunseung got into YG Entertainment, not because of his talent, but because he was so determined to stay even though he only made it to the top five of their open auditions.
  • Junhyung and Yoseob got into Cube Entertainment even though they didn't impress its president in their auditions because they was so determined and because they had no place else to go.
  • Dongwoon got into Beast after pleading for a second chance in his monthly assessment.
  • The president of their company says that because most of the boys have gone through rejections from either the public, other groups, or other companies, they've all become this to some degree in order to prove themselves even more.
• Disguised in Drag: Yoseob, for their Mystery MV.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Hyunseung is often told this by the fans and his own group members. It doesn't make him happy.
  • In Episode 9 of their MTV Documentary:
    Yoseob: Wow, Hyunseung looks so pretty. Graceful looking.
    Kikwang: Hyunseung and I are going to get married.
    Yoseob: You're going to marry Hyunseung?
    Kikwang: I want to marry a girl like Hyunseung.
    Yoseob: Ah, not with Hyunseung? A girl like Hyunseung?
    Kikwang: Yeah, a girl as pretty as Hyunseung.
• Embarrassing First Name: Junhyung's birth name was Jaesoon, which he was teased about by other kids to the point where he ended up changing his name to Junhyung in the sixth grade due to the stress and was too embarrassed about it to even tell his fellow bandmates for a long time. There's nothing wrong with it to the international fans, but in South Korea, Jaesoon would be an old-fashioned, slightly feminine name associated with your grandmother's friends.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Hyunseung's fanboys make it very clear that they want him. They asked this kinds of question in Naver◊, which is kinda funny until you realize that this guy isn't kidding. But this is where fangirls counterattack.
• Expy: Junhyung is often compared to G-Dragon of Big Bang because he also helps write the lyrics for his group's songs, is a fashionista with strange clothes and ridiculous hairstyles, and used to go by the stage name Poppin' Dragon.
• Fanboy:
  • Dongwoon is a very passionate fan of a singer named Narsha, to the point of crying when someone got him an autographed copy of the Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition of her solo album. Their onstage interactions are particularly adorable.
  • Doojoon was Hyunseung's fanboy after watching him on the Big Bang documentary. It was Hyunseung who inspired him to start singing.
  • Junhyung is a fanboy of the female soloist Son Dambi.
  • Yoseob is a fanboy of female soloist IU. He's the one in the back row spazzing out the most. He also watched the Korean Drama she was in, Dream High.
• Fangirls: The majority of their fanbase, B2UTY. The exception would be Hyunseung's fanboys, but nobody's quite sure what they call themselves.
• Fanservice: It was evident from their first few Bad Girl performances that Beast was going to be very generous with the fan service.
  • The teaser for their Breath MV has Hyunseung and Kikwang dancing in the rain shirtless.
  • Their Beautiful MV has Doojoon as a DJ, Hyunseung dancing for a whole minute, and the rest in school uniforms for part of the video. The choreography is also full of fan service.
  • They frequently release practice videos of themselves dancing to their title tracks with additional content thrown in. The Shock practice video featured bloopers and down time and the Breath practice video included over-the-top choreography for their track V.I.U. (Very Important U). Which according to fan accounts turned out to be the real choreography.
  • Yoseob has gotten in trouble for being so focused on fanservice; he once yelled out to fans while in the the office of Cube Entertainment's president.
  • Their second variety show B2ST Almighty was based on fulfilling requests from the viewers. This included delivering autographed CDs, giving their managers a break and managing themselves, directing their own MV, and being tied together in an attempt to improve their bonds with each other. Unfortunately for that last part, it happened entirely in a van for a duration much shorter than the 12 hours requested, and none of it was filmed.
  • To celebrate their successful promotions of "Fiction and Fact", they prepared 1,000 drinks with personally designed stickers as a surprise present for their fans. Who could deny such love?
• The Fashionista: Both Junhyung and Hyunseung.
• Flanderization: Judging from fanfics, the fandom seems to see Kikwang more stupid than he actually is, as well as Hyunseung being more depressed and Junhyung being more gangster than they really are.
• Frozen Face: Hyunseung has trouble changing his facial expressions, especially when concentrating on performing. This and a lack of stage presence were the primary reasons he was cut from Big Bang.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • The group's name was originally B2ST, which was short for Boys 2 Search for Top and their current name is short for Boys of the East Standing Tall.
  • Their track V.I.U. stands for Very Important U.
• Fun with Foreign Languages: They just mostly abuse English. The worst offenders are Junhyung and Yoseob. Dongwoon is the exception.
• Gratuitous English: Present in both their songs and whenever they speak it on their reality shows. Junhyung is the worst offender because he helps write the lyrics and most of the bad English pops up in his raps.
• Hell Bentfor Leather: The outfits for Shock.
• Hidden Depths: Dongwoon attended Hanyoung Foreign Language High School — a top school in South Korea — and was learning Chinese. He was planning on applying for a Chinese scholarship and studying abroad, but debuted instead.
• Humiliation Conga: Doojoon's character in "All My Love". He is finally released from two years of mandatory military service, only to be mistaken as a pervert by a violent, unattractive woman, pretty much forgotten about by his family, and arrested in his own house in his underclothes because the tenant who moved into his room after he left mistook him for a stalker.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • Their song Take Care of My Girlfriend (Say No) has shades of this, and presents the conflict of a guy torn between letting his friend ask out his ex-girlfriend and hoping she will realize that he still has feelings for her and will reject his friend. The song itself is divided into the verses which give his friend advice about how to treat the ex-girlfriend and the chorus revealing his true feelings.
  • Doojoon and Dongwoon's self-composed duet When the Door Closes also concerns this.
• Idol Singer: All of them, seeing how they all sing and in a Korean Pop Music boy band.
• Improv: Part of the choreography for Beautiful is simply the boys goofing around. Dongwoon has stated he will take requests from the fans and perform whatever requests are possible.
  • Due to the flexibility of the choreography, there are usually several funny background events going on at once, including Rock–Paper–Scissors matches, height comparisons, and mock punching.
• Incredibly Long Note:
  • Yoseob is usually in charge of these, but his most prominent example would be his "I DON'T KNOW" at the end of Breath while the others dance.
  • Doojoon's "Crazy" line in the final chorus of Shock is pretty long too.
  • Dongwoon unexpectedly has one at the very beginning of Breath that was featured in the audio teaser for the song.
• Kirk Summation: Yoseob replied to fans who started bashing a Girl Group member when false rumors came out that she and a Beast member would be pairing up on the Reality Show We Got Married in which two celebrities start acting as a married couple. Most K-pop idols in his situation would have never spoken up in fear of angering their fanbase, yet Yoseob openly scolded their fans.
  Yoseob: The scars that I received from someone who had randomly spat out some comments still hasn’t healed. This probably doesn’t only apply to me, but others as well. No matter what the method is, someone should never have to inflect such deep scars on another person. Apologize. Should I do it instead?
  • The best thing? It Worked. Beast's fanclub B2UTY has released an official statement apologizing to both SHINee, SHINee's fans, and the female Idol Singer who had all been harassed and cyber-bullied by some of the members.
• Letters 2 Numbers: The "2" in both B2ST and B2UTY stands in for written "ea" and the spoken "ee" sound. In their first mini-album though, B2ST is pronounced "best" instead, with the "2" standing in for the "e" which it visually resembles.
• Lighter and Softer: Their Beautiful MV is a return to this concept.
• Like a Son to Me: Cube's president often refers to Beast as the "sons of Cube" and is himself treated like a father.
• Like Brother and Sister: The relationship between the members of Beast and fellow labelmates 4Minute is said to resemble this, especially since all artists under Cube Entertainment are collectively called CUBE Family. This doesn't really stop the shipping between them though. Beast themselves have said that they know too much about the girls of 4Minute to ever actually consider them girls.
• Momma's Boy: Junhyung has "Born again, still your son" tattooed near his collarbone for his mother.
• More than Mind Control: The idea behind their third mini-album Mastermind is that they're going to control and change the public's opinion of them and their music.
• My Nayme Is:
  • B2ST is pronounced as "Beast" because in Korean, the "2" sounds like "ee". Similarly, B2UTY (their fanclub) is pronounced "Bee-uty" for the same reason.
  • In Beast is the B2ST, B2ST is instead pronouced as "best".
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Hilariously subverted with Hyunseung. On one of their variety shows, he told the English tutor "You give me four star, I give you beautiful younger sister." Other than that though, his big brother instinct is pretty strong and he said he would only trust Yoseob with her.
• Neat Freak: Both Junhyung and Hyunseung. However, while Hyunseung is content as long as his own things are in order, Junhyung tries to keep the whole dorm clean. As of "Idol Maid", any attempts to keep the dorm clean seem to have been abandoned.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Part of their fan service ploys. Originally started with Doojoon and Yoseob, but spread to the rest of the group as well.
• Not a Morning Person:
  • Hyunseung. He sleeps through his alarm and the others have to work together to wake him up.
  • Kikwang too.
• Odd Couple: Doojoon and Yoseob.
• One Head Taller: How Yoseob and anyone he's paired off with is portrayed.
• Performance Anxiety: Dongwoon may have experienced this in their earlier days. Pre-debut, he and Yoseob were expected to be the best entertainers of the group because they were both funny and ridiculous. Once the camera was on though, Dongwoon started clamming up instead of acting out.
• Precision F-Strike: The word "Shit" was used in their song Yet, which was then banned from being performed.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: Junhyung has "Carpe diem, quam minime credula postero" tattooed on his arm. It means "Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future."
• Prince Charming: Doojoon holds the title of "Nation's Boyfriend Idol" due to his good looks, quick wit, and charitable, sensitive personality.
• Refuge in Audacity: The boys were asked to direct and produce their own MV for their track Mystery. It involved Yoseob cross-dressing and Dongwoon dressed as an Arabian prince crying over the curry that reminded him of Girl!Yoseob in front of a green screen showing alternating images of India and curry. It's... definitely interesting.
• Shout-Out: Their fan club is called B2UTY, so together, they're B2UTY and the Beast.
• Sibling Rivalry: Beast and fellow labelmate 4Minute frequently attempt to make fun of each other, ranging from accusing the other of having the messier dorm to saying they're not each other's favorite boy band/girl group. It's all very light-hearted though.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Doojoon and Yoseob during Beast's stint as the hosts of Inkigayo's Digital Music Ranking. The others tore them apart in their last video.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • Why Kikwang was dropped from JYP Entertainment. While the head of JYPE recognized that Kikwang had talent, he realized Kikwang recognized this too. He believed that because of this attitude, Kikwang wouldn't be willing to work on improving his skills out of complacency. Giving Kikwang his first taste of failure was supposed to help him learn some humility and that there was always room for improvement. It worked in the end.
  • This is also partially the reason why Doojoon was eliminated from JYPE's groups 2AM and 2PM.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • The group name itself: Beast, B2ST or BEAST?
  • As for the members, there's Doojoon/Dujun, Junhyung/Joonhyung, Yoseob/Yoseop, and Kikwang/Gikwang.
• Stage Names: Hyunseung used to go by "SO-1", Junhyung used to go by "Poppin' Dragon", and Kikwang used to go by "AJ". Junhyung tries to go by "Joker" nowadays.
• The Stoic: How Dongwoon was initially seen.
  • Not So Stoic: Dongwoon in reality. He's really just incredibly camera shy, but he's been warming up.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Hyunseung was still training with Big Bang, he and Daesung realized they were doing all of the cooking even though that responsibility usually falls on the youngest, which was Seungri. When Hyunseung confronted Seungri about it, Seungri still wouldn't help cook which frustrated Hyunseung. When Hyunseung and Seungri came back later after shopping, Seungri covered one side of his face and told the others "I didn't get hit that much."
• Team Dad: Doojoon as leader.
• Team Mom: Junhyung as vice leader, and leader in Doojoon's absence. He nags at the others about chores and cleanliness.
• Technician Versus Performer: Hyunseung's problem in a nutshell.
• Took a Level in Badass: How they appeared in their Shock MV.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Meat, ice-cream, and vitamin drinks for Hyunseung, cola for Junhyung, and ramyun for Yoseob.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Invoked trope. During their Shock promotions, Junhyung's eyebrows were styled using eyeliner.
  • Junhyung did it again for 2010's three end-of-the-year music specials.
• Updated Re-release: Easy from their Shock of the New Era mini-album was digitally rereleased as Easy (Sincere Version) in which a new opening rap and an orchestral instrumental were added.
  • Their My Story mini-album includes the full version of the titular intro track for their Lights Go On Again mini-album that was performed at their first concert.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Hyunseung.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Dongwoon's insectophobia, which has been documented in many a fancam. To be fair, the other members aren't much better, but... it's quite pronounced in Dongwoon's case.

---

This page is not ober!