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):

 

 

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.”