5. The Bias-Wrecker: Kim Jaejoong – The Soul of TVXQ

Hello again. So to distract my mind off this nasty case for a while, I’ve decided to start this small project which I have been trying to do for a while now but keep feeling lazy. Nothing too exciting, but I just wanted to write an opinion on each of the 5 members in the order of my personal ranking (ie: from number 5 to number 1 – who is my bias). Because my love for the group is big lol, there is a lot of jumbled rankings and opinions about them so I figured I would write them down for anyone interested.

Just as a note before I begin – because I don’t really follow JYJ, I can’t comment much on their post-split personality. I can do a little but nowhere near as in depth as the 2 TVXQ members who I do follow. So when I say TVXQ here, I literally mean pre-split days unless specifically stated.

PS: this post seriously stressed me out because I wanted to somehow articulate my adoration without messing it up and somehow condense it into one post instead of a freaking book – there is SO much I want to say. It took me 3 days and still is far from what I wanted it to look! Imagine when we get to number 1?? It will probably take me 2 weeks…Also this might kill your computer and internet. Sorry. Please don’t hate me.

So starting at number 5, as you can tell by my title, is Jaejoong!

Pre-amble: just because this guy is my number 5, doesn’t mean I don’t like him. In fact – words cannot describe how much I DO like him. For example, Jaejoong would never come second to any other bias I have in ANY other group. It just happens to be that if I had to personally rank the 5, Jaejoong would be last; yet interestingly he plays an important role for me in several ways – and I will talk about that in my post.

OK, so let’s start. If I had a word to describe Kim Jaejoong, the most relevant k-pop related term would be a “bias-wrecker.” One day, my younger brother who also follows k-pop groups (but more girl groups and BTS) was talking about his ranking of his bias group – and how he had a clear number 1 but there was someone who he REALLY liked but did not want to replace his number 1 position. I told him “oh that’s simple; she is just your bias-wrecker!” So he asked me about who mine was in TVXQ – and I really thought about it and realized…it was surprisingly Jaejoong.

Let me start with my take on him, and ease up to why he is my bias-wrecker.

Ranking:

• Visual: 1^st
• Voice: 2^nd
• Personality: 5^th

Analysis

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Visual: Goddamn that unique looking face. I must admit, the majority of the times, I will not admit how much I admire his visuals. I really think he has a face made for a girl and so it feels odd calling a man 1^st in the visual ranking because he looks like a girl. But if I had to be very very honest with myself, this man is gorgeous. Just look at this:

Maybe it’s the aura he carries, the confidence he seems to exude, his pride in his looks – I don’t know what it is, but his face is really unique in an attractive way. I think in the first YunJae couple talk, they were discussing how you could spot Jaejoong from anywhere in a picture or in a crowd because of his face. That’s kind of true. I can see that happening lol. So yes – visually this man ranks number 1 for me – not just in TVXQ, but across all k-pop groups.

Also I can’t help but have a thing for men who look better as they age, and hot damn, this guy looks SO much better with every passing day – like how he looks at 30 is x10000 better than how he looked at 20. That’s a thing for me LOL

Younger Jaejoong:

Older (much hotter) Jaejoong:

Voice: You know how in fanfictions (yes I do read some from time to time), whenever Jaejoong’s SPEAKING voice is being described, the adjective “lyrical” is always used? I cannot think of a better way to describe his voice. It truly is lyrical. And I haven’t even gotten to him singing yet. He has such a beautifully unique voice – whether speaking or laughing or singing, it’s unmistakable. It’s just that he has this melodious lilt in the way he speaks which you kind of always want to hear.

And his singing voice – sigh…because I am attracted to all things unique, there is one more person in the group with a more unique singing voice which will come later in his individual ranking – but I tend to like the other person’s singing voice more because of its uniqueness….and so Jaejoong lands at second. There are times though where I ask myself when listening to Jaejoong sing – what the hell am I thinking? How is this not my number 1? Here are some examples:

This song which he sang in the army – I don’t know if he arranged it that way himself or what – but I’ve never loved a cover song more than the original as much as this:

Jaejoong was obviously the main vocal in the group of 5 (assuming he is the main vocal of JYJ now? Or are all 3 the vocals?) and he does carry the songs beautifully and adds to them a touch which even I have to admit is irreplaceable.

In the second JaeMin couple talk, Changmin does an excellent job of describing what I think of Jaejoong’s singing voice. He said, I will paraphrase, that every single singer has a voice that lends to a bias. You will always think “oh this voice suits a ballad,” or “this voice better suits rock.” It does not mean they don’t do well in other genres, but you have a bias in your mind of what kind of music they will be better at. The magic of Jaejoong’s voice is that it literally does not trigger ANY bias in your mind. As you can see in the example above – the man’s voice is made for rock music, pop music AND ballad music. To put it simply, it’s a voice to be heard, that should never stop singing. And I hope to God he takes care of his voice more and stops smoking because I can already start detecting a difference, and it would be an absolute shame in life to not hear this voice sing one day.
PS: seriously, every time I watch those Japanese rock videos, I go like – ah no wonder Japan is so enamoured by this man. He could be J-Rocker and I would have believed it. Doesn’t he remind you of Hyde for example (style wise)?

Personality: obviously given such high rankings for visual and voice, the question would be – why is he ranked 5^th then? The answer is personality.

This isn’t going to apply to everyone of course, but I almost feel like the first 2 points are quite popular opinion. I can find many people who will agree with me (most people actually) because they are a little factual. Talent is talent. Where people will differ is in the personality.

As a brief note again, I just wanted to highlight something about myself. To me, personality has a HUGE impact to how attractive I find someone. I did not realise this at first, but once I started becoming aware of it, it made so much more sense. I won’t deny that the FIRST thing I look at would be the visuals, but even the most attractive man in the world can look ugly to me if their personality is ugly. Similarly, I find myself seeing a lot of good features and points (visually) in someone who has a really good personality, even if initially I did not think they ranked high in the visual department.

The fact that Jaejoong manages to rank number 1 on my visual list even though he is my number 5 on the personality list is a testament to how attractive I think he is. It is honestly unprecedented for me to have such a gap but Jaejoong broke it for me lol.

Here is my take on Jaejoong’s personality. In case you have not noticed by now – this is not meant to be a bashing post. Just an honest one (in MY opinion).

I think Jaejoong is really kind. When people say he looks cold but has a really warm heart, I actually see it. It does take a while to see it, but you see it very clearly in his interactions with the members. And I don’t mean Yunho and Yoochun – who he is close to. But to Junsu and especially Changmin who he took care of honestly as they were his own family. I spend a lot of time watching Changmin (for reasons you will find out in his post lol) but I see his interactions with many people – and they are all beautiful interactions, but none as special as that with Jaejoong. The difference between all the other guys and how Jaejoong interacts with Changmin (and Junsu!) is that he nurtures them. Actually. He removes the air of awkwardness and almost makes them feel free to be and say what they want without feeling bad about it. Jaejoong is the oldest member in the group, Changmin is the youngest and I have honestly NEVER seen Jaejoong use the I am older than you card (not even through actions). Where Changmin is withdrawn and quiet in general (unless he can bully Junsu), when he is with Jaejoong, he literally opens up. It’s REALLY nice to see. As someone who has friends like that, I can relate very much to what Changmin feels like when Jaejoong is around and how comfortable he makes him feel. The same can be said for Jaejoong and Junsu. It’s like when he is in a bad mood, Jaejoong won’t call him out on it. If he is in a good mood, he will encourage it. It is SO sweet.

I love JaeMin:

I want to give you an example – this moment is quite well known across the fandom, and one of the fandom’s favourite videos for many reasons.

This was in 2008 – when TVXQ won the MMKF awards after finally returning to Korea after years in Japan. It meant a lot to them, it meant a lot to the fandom, and the emotions were running quite high that day –you could see it in their faces. The majority of the clips capture the same thing – they go up on stage, Yunho is talking to the crowd, Changmin unexpectedly breaks down and starts crying and Yoochun comforts him until Yunho hugs him. It is quite popular. But I don’t know how many people saw this version of the video – which is actually the same clip filmed from their back and honestly you see a much sweeter story. Maybe this story is well known too but I honestly did not see this version till quite recently actually. You can watch it here:

So when you look at from this angle, you see some more things. Sure enough, Changmin starts tearing up and the first to pick it up obviously are the fans. Look at 2:43 at Jaejoong. He hears the fans and looks at Changmin and notices him crying, and again something you will only see from this angle – alerts Yoochun from behind to go comfort him. Only when Jaejoong taps him urgently, does he look to see Changmin and goes to hug him. Also in the background, Junsu is struggling to keep his tears in and is hiding behind Jaejoong. Once again, Jaejoong instinctively is checking around and see s this and comforts Junsu. Here it is (also one of my favourite Jaejoong moments):

At 00:53 – the same scene as above, Jaejoong notices Changmin crying and let’s Yoochun know. From the front, it looks like nothing is wrong because he is smiling, but we saw how he tapped Yoochun above 🙂

At 00:57 – Junsu who was barely holding it in, when he saw Changmin, he looked like he was going to burst out crying himself and hid behind Jaejoong.

At 01:01 – Jaejoong looks for Junsu and sees him crying behind him, and comforts him. In fact, because Changmin’s shocking display of emotion that surprised everyone, I don’t think ANYONE except for Jaejoong noticed Junsu’s crying….so HA to all the JaeSu haters out there lol. It’s such a sweet moment.

And what does that say about Jaejoong – the person who is emotional, but put comforting everyone else above himself?

This is just a small example – but I don’t know why, it means A LOT to me have that nurturing member there. In fact, isn’t he exactly like their mother? He cooks for them, he loved them, took care of them, took care of their feelings. It’s really beautiful to see.

His relationship with Yoochun and Yunho is also equally as great. I do not mean not to focus on it, it’s just that his relationship with the younger 2 members is what distinguished him for me than in another groups for example.

It is because of this aspect of his personality that if you ask me, who is the MOST members I miss out of JYJ being in TVXQ, it is undoubtedly Jaejoong. I can’t obviously begin to understand what the 2 are feeling, but I can’t help but wonder if he is also the one they miss the most. That presence is honestly almost impossible to be replaced…

As great as all that sounds, there are also quite a few issues with Jaejoong’s personality.

1. Fan service: anyone who follows the world of k-pop will know there is an excessive amount of fan service in the industry, especially in boy bands. There seems to be an unexplainable amount of shipping within each fandom that drives the market of fan service (or maybe it is the other way around, I don’t know). TVXQ is actually one of the groups with the least amount of fan service I have seen. I am not saying they don’t, they obviously do – hello, YunJae anyone? – but generally speaking, if I had to honestly say it, TVXQ is kind of an uptight band. They are quite serious about EVERTHING. If they’re asked a question in a variety show even if it was not serious, they most likely will answer it seriously. This group honestly contrasts significantly with other such as Super Junior for example. I am not saying they don’t know how to have fun, or are not funny people – but they definitely are not aiming for laughter when they are interviewing or are in shows. In fact, my personal opinion is that this has to do with their leader – Yunho – but that will come in HIS post. So all in all, yes, they’re not very fan-servicy, which to me is a wonderful thing. This appeals to me in MANY ways. And that’s why to me, any interaction they have with each other is much more genuine in my eyes than other groups – because it does not feel like fan service. Which leads me to my point – out of the 5 – the most one who did show fan service in those moments would be Jaejoong. Any by that I mean, there are a lot of times when he seems to be a little…fake. I can split this into 2 categories – one that doesn’t bother me and one that does. The first is – as an example – his relationship with Yunho. He KNOWs that this ship goes beyond any ship in k-pop, and perpetuates that belief. He speaks about reading the fanfics, liking it, he giggles and says weird stuff to Yunho on public television. Like I don’t care if you’re a YunJae believer or not (I’m not), but I don’t understand why someone needs to sing “I want to be your bed for a day” in another language so people don’t understand ON PUBLIC television, if it wasn’t fan service. Also, he did a lot of touchy fan service with Changmin during the last months before the split – and I don’t know why but it seems to have REALLY made Changmin uncomfortable (maybe I should just do a JaeMin analysis LOL). These don’t bother me as much though. What DOES bother me, was after the lawsuit – the continuous talk and dramatisation – for example that MAMA speech he did. I really don’t like this speech. I can’t imagine how the 2 must have felt listening to it.
   As I said, because I do not follow JYJ much,  I do not know the context of a lot of their interviews, but I do follow “mentions” between the groups – and so I know that Jaejoong spoke a lot about TVXQ, still being part of the group, tweets about seeing Yunho and Changmin in their dreams, the tweets about texting them etc…I understand. I am a human being, and I understand that Jaejoong seems to have been in pain emotionally. I do think he overplayed it though by taking it to the public. I would have respected JYJ’s choice much more if they accepted the consequences of their actions – instead of playing the martyr card over and over. And for me, Jaejoong perpetuated most of this image in my head more than Yoochun and Junsu did.
2. Thought process: On a personal level, I can’t help but think that if there is someone I would not get along with, it would be Jaejoong. What I mean is I can BARELY understand what is the point he is trying to say. I used to wonder if the translations of stuff I was reading was off – but I could understand what others are saying, so I figured it was either that they were struggling to translate his thought process so it would come off as a little…odd – or he really was odd in his thought process. It’s hard to explain unless you’re watching him speak for a while…but it’s almost like he zones out mid-way and starts another topic. So you start a topic and then suddenly it takes a turn to a different discussion. So he is very very hard to follow. Which can be cute – but if he is like in serious discussions too I can see it as quite frustrating. To be fair though, this seems to have waned off significantly as he grew older – he doesn’t seem to be like that in his speech now.
3. Stubbornness: I think his stubborn streak can cause him quite a bit of issues. I will not get into the discussion of the JYJ split – but I can’t help but wonder many times if Jaejoong is the one who regrets the decision the most. He seems to be the most one who stuck with this idea out of stubbornness – we DESERVE to be compensated more, we DESERVE a cut in another business. When he left – we STILL are part of TVXQ, JYJ of TVXQ. This stubborn streak is almost like a self said matra in his head which validates what he is doing, but almost like he does not think it through ( seriously – no bashing if you’re a JYJ fan – this is an opinion piece…).

I’m a pretty negative person, so I hope that the piece above does not make you think I don’t like Jaejoong or think badly of him, because quite on the contrary – I think Jaejoong has grew into a (too) beautiful and smart man, and I think that he is honestly one of my favourite people to follow. He really is unique – looks wise and personality wise, and it is not common for me say “oh this guy is like Jaejoong” because he’s one of a kind.

Also, I must admit, even if he is not my bias, no matter what – when I think of TVXQ as 5, I think of Jaejoong. I feel like a LOT of people would do. This man was honestly the soul of the group, and I know with all my heart that TVXQ to Jaejoong will always be one of the most important things in his life, and that he will always identify himself as part of this group. Because I am so much more focused on the current TVXQ, because it hurts a lot of think of past days – I tend not to think of the feelings of the 3 as much. But when I do – I can’t help but feel some kind of despair that Jaejoong must be feeling no longer being part of it. So – I will leave you with this video that i just saw today actually, of Jaejoong talking about his tattoos, which he has a reminder of things he wants to remember.

“As I’ve lived my life until now, the things that I don’t want to forget, the things that I was thankful for, and the things that I was sorry about.Those things I’ve articulated into words and have carved them onto my body.”