4. The Passionate Leader: Jung Yunho – The Heart of TVXQ

OMG…I actually wrote this…read it and hated it, deleted it and wrote it again….and I still hate it. I don’t know why my posts are sounding so negative T_T

It took a while for me to get over Jaejoong’s post, it was like I mentioned quite difficult to cram everything I want to say about him in one post. Even today, I was like “damn, I wish I included this…” or “I should have scrubbed that part and added this.” If I could, I kind of wish I could re-write Jaejoong’s post to show how much I actually love him. Anyway, it’s done now lol, so time to move on.

We now move on to my fourth favourite in the group – the leader himself: U-Know Yunho. I’m already struggling with what to say. I have a complicated relationship with Yunho as a fan – so let’s try this out.

Pre-amble: I kind of mentioned in passing before, but because I followed a pre and post split TVXQ, it’s hard for me to explain my opinion on Yunho and Changmin without mentioning the past, even if I don’t want to. This is especially the case in Yunho’s situation as there is drastic change in my level of liking him between before and after.

Yunho is the leader of TVXQ, the ONLY personality in the group in fact which makes sense to be a leader. He has taken this role upon his shoulders very seriously from day one (a little too seriously), and I think I mentioned this before as well – but this colours TVXQ’s style and distinguishes them from other groups – particularly in that era. It is because of how he lead the group, that many people would call them…a little uptight. This is not necessarily a bad thing at all – in fact, it meant that Yunho from day one seemed to know that he wanted this group to be a legend, and he did. It just makes the reality of what happened with the split even sadder. I personally respected them as a group for how serious they were, and even if back then I didn’t like Yunho THAT much – I respected him a lot as the leader of this group.

I have to admit something – I am really unfair with Yunho. Because of my odd personality, I tend to not like people who the the majority of people like. And the fact is, there is a large amount of people in this fandom who LOVE Yunho (I am referring to the duo given that I don’t follow JYJ as much). Because I feel the constant need to defend Changmin in the duo since there is quite a lot of praise being given to Yunho (not that he does not deserve it), I feel like that unfortunately made me resent him a little. Funny enough, I deal with this at home too. My mom is huge Yunho fan AS WELL as an anti-Changmin fan (not that she does anything except criticize him in front of me lol). The combination makes me resent Yunho and be quite defensive of Changmin – so I feel like I tend to be quite indifferent when I get to Yunho, a habit I am trying to change. It doesn’t help that my first opinion of Yunho was not a great one, in fact, I don’t think I actually started liking him till post-split. I can even point out the moment that made me like him, and it will come in a bit.

OK – so let’s start!

Ranking:

• Visual: 3rd
• Voice: 5th
• Personality: 4th (pre-split) / 2nd (post-split)

Analysis

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Visual: even if I wanted to be a Yunho anti-fan, I can’t deny that this man is handsome. He is by far the manliest looking one of out of the 5. The tall figure, adorable yet serious looking face, very strong features (till he smiles). I never (like literally never) understood the whole Yunho is the gay feminine guy thing…like I see the diva dancing moves sometimes, but apart from that, I have never seen anything feminine like about this man. I am not saying he is not gay (like honestly, how would I know?), but there seem to be a huge – like a huge – amount of the fanbase who say that he is feminine. Like I understand if someone says he pings their gaydar – but feminine!??

I think in both pre and post split eras, Yunho had a pretty distinctive face compared to other k-pop idols. The man is gorgeous, and has an almost kitten like face. I also love how expressive it is – which is kind of why it’s easy to map out the changes in him. It’s almost a timeline – he started out as this innocent but confident child, transformed into this serious “okay guys, we have to take this seriously” child, into manly (gorgeous) serious leader, into (sadly) broken tired and depressed leader, into “determined to make this work again” leader and finally into relaxed, fluffy leader.

Innocent Yunho: you kind of feel bad knowing what’s coming…

Serious Yunho: turning into into the leader of the biggest and most legendary group in Asia

Glorious Leader: Definitely the most outstanding leader in the industry at the height of their fame

Breaking Down Leader: trying to cope with the disaster

Even after coming back, there were moments he was barely holding himself together:

Determined Leader: coming back like a bad-ass determined to prove everyone wrong

Cute Leader: reverted back childhood (last pic – wtf happened!??)

You can see from the picture spam above, Yunho is a pretty hot guy I really do like how he looks – especially with black normal hair (i.e. his natural look)…I’m a fan of his looks. Even nowadays while serving proudly in the military with shaved hair, no make up, exposed to sun skin – he looks really handsome! Basically, when I think of a leader and how he should look (both physically and in how he carries himself), Yunho is the ideal picture that comes to mind.

Voice: OK, so Yunho is 5th in the voice department, but that does not mean at all that he is not good. I sometimes want to smack SM Entertainment in the face so hard (actually a lot of times) for not developing Yunho’s music talent more. This is of course my opinion, but Yunho is actually REALLY good in singing. First of all, he represents the low tenor of the group, meaning he technically has the lowest pitch….and yet I only see this being utilized when they perform a cappella pieces. In every song, if they even give him enough lines, he always sings in a much higher tone, even higher than Junsu and Yoochun…so why did they not develop that? Even post split, when singing with Changmin who is the highest pitch in the group, he sometimes takes the higher pitch voice and he does it well – so why don’t they use that to his advantage? I think that Yunho was marketed as the group dancer (and does he not compensate the last place in voice with the first place in dance?) that when they became a duo, they didn’t want to change that “image” but should have because…there are only 2 people singing!!! Honestly, I am a fan of Yunho’s voice – sometimes when singing songs lately – especially ballads, I even prefer Yunho’s voice over Changmin’s, so I always feel disappointed they don’t give him more credit. Here is an example of one of their most difficult songs – sung by only the 2 – where Yunho covers Junsu’s part for God’s sake, and does it magnificently well, I felt so proud. I feel like because they were forced into just the 2 of them singing, Yunho had no choice but to develop his singing and he has significantly improved. I also noticed that Yunho seems to be really passionate about singing (I guess this can be said about all of them, except maybe Yoochun post split), but he REALLY loves it. So it makes me happy to see him happy to sing.

But yes, as a comparison to the five – Yunho would place last in technique at least.

As mentioned however, Yunho is the dancer of the group, he learned and breathed dancing and takes it really seriously. Because I have no interest in dancing and do not really have any talent or desire in it, I cannot judge much – but from what I hear, the consensus is that his dance talent is amazing. I guess I do see the difference between Yunho and and Jaejoong, Yoochun and Changmin for example, but I can’t really tell the difference in talent between Yunho and Junsu…but I hear he is better and to be honest, the amount of passion and love he has for it makes me believe it.

Personality: okay so this is where we branch out to a pre-and post split.

DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION

Yunho has an admirable story of determination to get to where he is today. Coming from a strict professional family from Gwangju, his father in particular did not approve of his life decision to go into entertainment. Because this was Yunho’s dream, he made the choice to prove to his family he could do it and ran away from home and it’s comfort to Seoul. He travelled the more difficult yet traditional path to stardom in Korea, which is practising and auditioning to be accepted into SM Entertainment. Along the way he faced many hardships involved with moving to a new city with no support system, including being mugged on his first day as well as being homeless several times, even sleeping on the streets on days. Until he finally got accepted as a trainee in SM Entertainment. Once he started his training days – he got close to other trainees but his debut did not come for a while. Cute fact for DBSJ feels: this would be the time he would have gotten quite close to many Super Junior (SuJu) members as he would have been training with Heechul, Leetuk, Kangin, Donghae, Eunhyuk and of course the previous DBSK members: Jaejoong and Junsu. It’s no wonder this group seem tight even till today, with more than a decade of friendship. Changmin would be the next to enter the company, with the infamous story of how little Bambi-eyes fetus Changmin went up to him to say hi on their first meeting, and got shot down immediately by Yunho – who told him to leave if he was going to be half hearted (scaring Changmin lol). While this seems mean, we later know that the reason he says this is that he was sick of getting close to people, and them leaving or them not debuting. Interesting story to share though, while Vold…I mean Changmin always LOVES sharing the story of how mean Yunho was to him during their first meeting, Yunho used to always laugh embarrassedly (that cute laugh) and then explain himself. But someone once bothered asking Yunho about their first impression of Changmin, thinking that it would be just as negative – but Yunho explains a nice heart warming story of how he actually LIKED Changmin even at first – he thought he was cute and gentle and polite, and if anything was worried about whether he could handle the intense training (especially due to Changmin’s….lack of dance skills). This is actually the epitome of Jung Yunho – he might seem rough sometimes, but he’s ALWAYS so sweet.

When he finally does debut, even though he is not the oldest (Jaejoong is), he is definitely the leader material. He obviously took it very seriously – and from his young age managed the group, their schedules, their image…everything. He was really strict with them yet also loving…just like a kind but strict father. There were times when Junsu and Changmin, being the youngest 2 looked downright scared of him. Especially Changmin who honestly at times I felt respected Yunho from afar for most of their time pre-split. I really do think that it was Yunho who coloured the tone of the group – they had a zero tolerance to mistakes, perfected performances, dances and songs, their image was SO clean.

His relationship with the members as well was really good at first – his friendship with Jaejoong of course untouchable, his relationship with Yoochun and Junsu was quite good till around 2009 (this is a personal opinion, but before the drama even happened in July…you sense a bit if tension in the relationship between these three: Yoochun, Junsu and Yunho – similar to how something seems oddly off between Jaejoong and Changmin, and SOMETIMES between Yoochun and Changmin. This is TRULY a personal feeling though).

OK – so you would ask then, wtf is the problem? Why would I rank him so low? So the below information is my opinion of Yunho pre-split. Please remember that I have changed my mind about him, and he is now my second favourite member…this is just my impression of him before….

1. We spoke in Jaejoong’s case about fan service. Saying and doing what the public wants to see. I find Jaejoong’s case to be a little worst because he did it for show and public attention – but Yunho did it too. I think the more right term in this case though would be…lip service? He basically said whatever he thought was the most right thing to say in that situation – regardless of whether it was corny or not, true or not – like whatever he needed to say to come out in the best light, or in a variety show, the most amusing light for example. Do I think that is wrong? Not entirely – that’s his job. But how do I explain this…I think he sometimes pushed it? Like he would actively interrupt other members speaking to say what HE thought was the right answer to be saying. This attitude seemed to disappear just a little before the split, during the split and definitely after the split though.
2. This is also going to be a weird one…but I personally at first (seriously at first…) thought that Yunho was a little fake. There was something off-putting about the way he laughed which I realize now is just the way he does it, not that he intentionally is faking laughter or something. It’s like he laughs really loud then in a split second his expression changes immediately to serious (I don’t mean to make him sound like a psycho so I literally searched for videos and found examples to show lol!) Here are two examples:
   This is pre-split (this is the mild version too lol):

   This is a post split example:

   Do you get what I mean lol? I just found it a little off putting at first, and I find that he did it quite a lot actually. In fact, there were many times he seems like he wasn’t even laughing but when everyone else laughed he would just follow along. It kind of goes hand in hand with point 1 – which is I think he was doing it just because he thought it was an appropriate reaction rather than meaning it. I now think it’s probably a mix of both, and as an adult can honestly say a little fan service and lip service is needed. I don’t find it weird anymore.

There are actually more reasons I did not like Yunho at first but I am not going to get into it, because it relates to the split as well and I don’t want to discuss that. But let’s just say overall – my first impression of Yunho pre-split was that while I respected him, I didn’t really think or care for him much.

You know the video I linked above, where Yunho and Changmin were singing Balloons with Shinee, while he was obviously trying to hold his tears in? That was EXACTLY the moment I changed my mind about him. I remember my exact feelings while watching that video, and when the reality of what Yunho was dealing with came crashing down – and that’s when I began liking him.

You see – as a Changmin fan, I tend to over sympathise with him and his feelings, and we will get to that in his own post. But even then, I have to be honest with myself. The one who took the burden of the split between them is Yunho. 1. Because he is the leader of the group. 2. Because he got the most hate out of ANYONE of the 5 members. 3. Because to him, this was literally everything he dreamed of, more than the other 4 (in my opinion) and 4. Because I feel like Yunho hates being in a bad relationship with anyone, and gained quite a bit of bad blood because of this. Where Changmin kind of stepped it up after the split, and evolved into an adult – Yunho seemed to unfortunately go the other way. He genuinely genuinely seemed depressed, and even till today does not look the same as before. I feel like he lost almost all the light in his eyes and even his childish behaviour seemed to have evaporated for a few years. I have a theory about this, but it will come later – when I talk about Changmin and my criticism of him.

Once I started realising all of this, I honestly began liking Yunho. As the years went by with him after split – seeing his road to recovery and regaining what they lost by one one, my respect for him grew. His relationship with Changmin probably helped too, I am a sucker for anyone who Changmin likes lol. But now, Yunho is a more relaxed leader. Serious about the job still – but loves to mess around, loves to laugh (and what an infectious laugh), loves to tease Changmin, loves to sing and dance, loves TVXQ and loves his fans. There is just so much love and warmth in him that it’s kind of impossible (unless you hate the 2 of course) to NOT like him.

I also no longer feel the need to resent him. I have accepted that Yunho is more popular than Changmin (even with the rise in this kid’s fans – what happened!?) and to be quite honest, I understand why. When the days comes (IF THE DAY COMES) that he runs into any of the previoubout whes members – I can see Yunho accepting them with arms with open arms – I truly believe it.

I kind of want to overcompensate with good things about Yunho now lol – so here is a short list of some of the best things about him:

1. Remember when they had that hidden camera with his fan who acted as if she used to pick pocket people, and got accused falsely? You gotta admit the man has a heart of gold:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8rUPi3lwJM
2. Or how about when he traveled to Ghana for no reason other than to visit sick children there? The way he spoke and held them seemed to be really genuine:
   

   
3. Speaking of children, I am sure everyone knows how much Yunho LOVES children (and animals), but it’s kind of cute how all the babies and children seem to love him back. It’s like they know:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMxxSMHhQng
4. Last, but not least – my personal favourite is how he takes care of Changmin. I am thinking of making a HoMin post, so I can go in more details with pics and videos there, but contrary to what many believe – Yunho has taken care of Changmin since the beginning, even before split. Whether the dynamic was due to the leader/maknae thing, or because of their physical positions always standing next to each other or just because they got along – but they did have a special relationship that only started appearing unfortunately post split. But Yunho LOVES Changmin – like actually treats him like gold. Because I will dedicate a whole post to them, I am just going to leave you with this cute gif….no one messes which Changmin in front of Yunho and gets away with it lol:
   

So in conclusion – I love this man. I really really do. I am so sorry to Yunho that I spent so much time NOT liking him, and I am so glad that I now do.

And now I am going to leave you with the best memory of all….I don’t care if you’re a JYJ Stan, a HoMin Stan, any Stan – IF YOU KNOW TVXQ THEN YOU WILL KNOW how important this moment was. The first time anyone from TVXQ reunited with JYJ – the beautiful moment thanks to ROKA – where the SK army achieved what fans have been hoping to see for over 6 years…GFF everyone (I LEGIT CRIED PEOPLE):