Top (L-R): Dawon, Eunseo, Exy, Xuan Yi. Middle: Yeonjung, Seola, Bona, Cheng Xiao, Mei Qi. Bottom: Soobin, Yeoreum, Dayoung, Luda
WJSN is a thirteen-member Korean Pop Music group that debuted in 2016. Their name is an Initialism Title for Wu Ju Son Yeo, which translates to their English name, Cosmic Girls. The group is also divided into four sub-units (Wonder, Joy, Sweet, Natural). They are co-managed by Starship and Yuehua Entertainment under a joint agreement between the Korean and Chinese labels. As a result, WJSN consists of ten Korean members and three Chinese members, though the Chinese members would leave in 2023.
To date, they have released 1 studio album, 10 extended play albums, as well as a batch of collaborative songs and soundtrack contributions. The group also had their own reality show, Would You Like Girls (My Cosmic Diary), which spanned from after their debut to just around Yeonjung's addition to the group. They were nominated for Best New Artist for 2016 at the Mnet Asian Music Awards and Melon Music Awards, and won Rookie/New Artist of the Year at the Asia Artist Awards, Seoul Success Awards, and M Countdown In China.
WJSN's members
- Wonder
- Bona (Lead Dancer, Sub Vocalist, Visual)
- Dayoung (Lead Vocalist)
- Joy
- Eunseo (Sub Vocalist, Visual)
- Yeoreum (Sub Vocalist, Lead Rapper)
- Sweet
- Seola (Lead Vocalist)
- Exy (Leader, Main Rapper)
- Soobin (Main Vocalist)
- Natural
- Luda (Sub Vocalist)
- Dawon (Main Vocalist)
- Yeonjung (Main Vocalist, Maknae, Face)note
- Former Membersnote
- Xuanyi (Lead Dancer, Vocalist)
- Cheng Xiao (Main Dancer, Vocalist, Visual, Face)
- Meiqi (Main Dancer, Vocalist)
Discography
- Title Tracks
- "Mo Mo Mo
" - "Catch Me"
- "Secret"
- "I Wish"
- "Happy"
- "Dreams Come True"
- "Save Me, Save You"
- "La La Love"
- "Boogie Up!"
- "As You Wish"
- "Butterfly"
- "Unnatural"
- "Last Sequence"
- "Mo Mo Mo
- Collaborations
- Full Albums
- Happy Moment (2017)
- Mini Albums
- Would You Like (2016)
- The Secret (2016)
- From, WJSN (2017)
- Dream Your Dream (2018)
- WJ Please? (2018)
- WJ Stay? (2019)
- For Your Summer (2019)
- As You Wish (2019)
- Neverland (2020)
- Unnatural (2021)
- Single Albums
- Sequence (2022)
- OST/CF Songs
- "Slowly, Little by Little" - Dawon feat. Junggigo
- "Sylala Romance" - Dawon
- "Fire & Ice" - Dawon and Yeonjung
- "Kiss Me"
- Solo/Unit Releases
- "Sweep Away" - Exy feat. Crucial Star (Mixtape)
- "Hmph!" - WJSN Chocome
- "Easy" - WJSN The Black
- "Super Yuppers" - WJSN Chocome
- "Inside Out" - Seola
- Special Videos
Tropes related to WJSN and their music:
- Action Girl: In Would You Like Girls, Luda of all people is the most adept at chopping firewood and lugging around the heavy cooking pot and wheelbarrow.
- Alien Sky: Both "Secret" and "I Wish" display landscapes with very bright and colorful skies that indicate that the videos don't take place on Earth.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Averted, fortunately. There were concerns that Yeonjung might be ostracized for being added into an already large number of girls, but the other members have welcomed her with open arms.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Exy and Eunseo.
- Anime Chinese Girl: Cheng Xiao is very acrobatic and hails from China, which has led to her being seen in Chun-Li cosplay on several occasions, or with her hair in Chun-Li's signature twin bun style.
- Auto-Tune: In "I Wish."
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in a segment of Would You Like Girls where several of the members got mud on themselves due to a mud fight while digging up clams.
- Big Eater: Yeoreum.
- Boom, Headshot!: Luda gets hit in the head with a dodgeball in "Happy." It's bad enough that she needs to be carried out by ambulance and have a defibrillator used on her.
- The Cameo: Popular entertainer Lee Kwang-Soo featured in the video for "Mo Mo Mo."
- Several of the members had pre-debut cameo appearances in other Starship artists' music video.
- Catchphrase: Their standard introduction is "Would you like? Hello, we are Wu Ju Son Yeo!"
- Cloudcuckoolander: Xuan Yi stands out as the main offender, if not only for her obsession with seaweed, but also her wacky antics as seen on Would You Like Girls.
- Cool Car: The Ferrari driven by Exy and Seola in "Secret." Not only is it a Ferrari, but it's also capable of spaceflight and faster-than-light travel.
- Cosmic Entity: The mysterious man seen in "Secret".
- Cute Witches In Space: "Secret".
- Darker and Edgier: In contrast to the rest of their catalog, "Catch Me" is a rap and bass-heavy "Girl Crush"-style song. The dance also trends toward the Hotter and Sexier spectrum as a side-effect.
- Design Student's Orgasm: "Secret" and "I Wish" both lay on the special effects and fantasy symbolism heavily in their respective videos.
- Double Agent: Eagle-eyed viewers of Happy will notice that some members are somehow playing on both dodgeball teams at once.
- Drunk with Power: Mei Qi and Exy are big offenders in an episode of Would You Like Girls, where both of them become the "king" in a game.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Most people will recognize Exy due to being a contestant on the female rapping survival show, Unpretty Rapstar 2, prior to her being announced as a member of WJSN.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: Being their debut, the video for "Mo Mo Mo" starts off this way.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Mei Qi and Bona before dyeing their hair darker for "I Wish". Now Xuan Yi.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Befitting their name, the videos for their first few title songs ("I Wish and earlier) have featured extraterrestrial and fantasy themes.
- Genki Girl: Dayoung and Soobin both fit this role very well; they aren't called "the twins" for no reason.
- Girl Group: And a very large one at that, even by K-Pop standards.
- Gratuitous English: "Secret" opens with a title card asking "Have you ever felt Cosmo inside of you?"
- On separate occasions, Dayoung, Dawon, and Soobin have demonstrated various levels of English-speaking.
- Hedge Maze: Yeonjung and Bona are stuck in a very pink one in "I Wish".
- Hell Is That Noise: Soobin's very odd laughter in Would You Like Girls.
- I Have Many Names: WJSN, 우주소녀 (Wu Ju Son Yeo), Cosmic Girls, and 宇宙少女 (Yǔzhòushàonǚ). Three different languagesnote , all referring to the same group.
- Instant Runes: The video for "Secret" uses the same pink sigil in various scenes.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Yeonjung in "Secret".
- Lethal Chef: At one point in Would You Like Girls, Eunseo makes soup so spicy that it's nearly inedible.
- Lighter and Softer: The ballad version of "I Wish" turns the bubbly pop song into a calmer and more wistful version of its former self.
- Mistaken for Gay: A WJSN fan uploaded this fake captioned image◊ of Mei Qi and Xuan Yi as a billionaire lesbian couple. Naturally, people outside of the K-Pop sphere took it seriously, and the picture went viral.
- Ms. Fanservice: Mei Qi as the self-proclaimed "sexy" member, Dawon as the "sexy vocals", and Bona as the visual.
- Out of Focus: Cheng Xiao for a majority of Would You Like Girls, presumably due to her limited Korean vocabulary.
- Product Placement: "Kiss Me" is a song and music video loosely advertising a makeup brand of the same name that WJSN has an endorsement deal with.
- Shout-Out: Cheng Xiao, as detailed elsewhere.
- The scouters Exy and Seola wear in "Secret".
- Signature Move: Cheng Xiao's tumbling from "Catch Me."
- Spell My Name With An S: Is it Yeunjung? Yeon-jung? Yeonjung? Nobody can really seem to agree due to inconsistencies with how Hangul is converted to English text. That said, Starship uses Yeonjung in SNS updates and the like, confirming this as the one proper spelling.
- Stage Name:
- Bona - Kim Ji-yeon
- Eunseo - Son Ju-yeon
- Yeoreum - Lee Jin-sook
- SeolA - Kim Hyun-jung
- Exy - Cho So-jung
- Supreme Chef: Dayoung is this, to the point where she is able to create meals for herself while the other girls just order takeout.
- Team Dad: Seola.
- Team Mom: Exy. Dayoung is often lovingly referred to as this as well, despite being one of the youngest members.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Exy, despite being the tough leader of the group, loves to hoard stuffed animals in her bunk, and was shown to be quite emotional in the last episode of Would You Like Girls.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Xuan Yi loves dried seaweed, as pointed out many times in their reality series Would You Like Girls.
- Vocal Tag Team: Yeonjung and Dawon are commonly referred to as this.
- Weaksauce Weakness: It's revealed in the pilot episode of Would You Like Girls that Seola does not like swimming pools and being in large bodies of water.
- Welcome Episode: "Secret" is this for Yeonjung. She is summoned from space to join the rest of WJSN on their fantasy world.
- Western Zodiac: The entire basis for their girl group. Each of the thirteen (originally twelve) girls represent a sign of the Western zodiac. Bonus points for nearly all of them actually being the sign they represent.
- Dawon as Aries.
- Dayoung as Taurus.
- Eunseo as Gemini.
- Cheng Xiao as Cancer.
- Bona as Leo.
- Soobin as Virgo.
- Mei Qi as Libra.
- Exy as Scorpio.
- Seola as Sagittarius (actually a Capricorn).
- Yeoreum as Capricorn.
- Xuan Yi as Aquarius.
- Luda as Pisces.
- Yeonjung as Ophiuchus (actually a Leo).
