Woollim has released Golden Child's first DVD! Golden Childのわくわく日本滞在記! (translated as Golden Child's Exciting Stay in Japan) shows footage from Golden Child's trip during their first Japan fan meeting back in March 2018. I pre-ordered this DVD from Tower Records Japan
here and blogged about my experience ordering on the Japanese site and using proxy service Tenso
here.
My online pre-order purchase came with an external group postcard! The matte postcard is 5.8125" by 3.9375" and has a few members' printed messages on the front.
The backside has the members' printed autographs.
The exterior DVD case is about the size of a regular DVD case, about 5.375" by 7.625" by 0.75".
The back cover has the general DVD information. The DVD is for region 2. It's also weird seeing the new Woollim logo on this...it'll still take time getting used to the new look.
Here is the spine of the exterior DVD case.
The inside DVD case slips out from the left side.
The DVD case is a clear plastic case with the printed design slipped into the clear sleeve of the case. For an expensive DVD, I'd expect a nicer quality packaging where the design is printed directly onto the sleeve, but maybe that's just how it is with Japanese DVDs, like Infinite's Ranking King?
The back cover has a cute group photo.
Opening up the case reveals the special booklet on the left, and the discs on the right.
The first disc is secured in a hinged casing and the second disc is secured on the inside of the back cover. Despite what I said about the DVD case being cheap, I actually really like the button to remove the discs; they're very sturdy yet easy to take out the discs and put back in without breaking the clips. I've had past Infinite DVDs where the discs were so hard to remove that I felt like I would break the disc or where I broke the center clip, but I definitely feel that these Golden Child discs have the best packaging.
Removing the booklet and two discs also reveals the background image.
The special booklet contains 20 pages (including the front and back covers).
There are behind the scenes photos from the fan meeting, as well as one individual photo and printed autograph and message per member spread throughout the booklet.
Since not many people have this, I'll show all the photos.
The following two pages show more behind the scenes photos.
Here are the next two pages.
And the following two pages.
The last two members' individual photos and messages are Donghyun and Jaehyun.
Following are photos from the fan meeting.
And the last two photos are from the boys' performances at the fan meeting.
Now I'll talk about the contents of the DVDs. The two discs are region 2 and for the most part the members are speaking in Korean with Japanese subtitles displayed. The first disc contains the Main Story which a 59 minutes and 24 seconds long, as well as the Unreleased Footage which is 45 minutes and 4 seconds long. The second disc contains the 2018 1st Japan Fan Meeting "奇跡" (Miracle) 2nd Session which is 1 hour 21 minutes and 50 seconds long. Some of this content was aired on Japanese TV previously; I think it was the Main Story. I'll give a quick summary of each section below.
Main Story:
- This section is broken up into four chapters and shows behind the scenes of Golden Child's Japan trip, as well as footage from the fan meeting (also in Disc 2).
- Story is divided up into days: 3/3, 3/4, 3/5.
- Behind the scenes footage includes the members on their airplane ride, in their hotel where they're the VJ and vlogging themselves, rehearsal, and backstage.
- Clips from the fan meeting include performances, talk time, games.
- They showed the entire performance of "Damdadi".
- More clips from the fan meeting including members trying to be sexy, then cute, then random dance cover of "Be Mine", then Jangjun mimicking a crow and Jibeom imitating Jaehyun.
- Next scene showed Tag and Seungmin in their hotel room jamming out to Sunggyu's "True Love"; it reminds me of when the two shared a room in Jeju for Woollimpick!
- 3/4 begins with members in their waiting room playing the kendama toy, then Golden Child's photoshoot for Haru Hana Vol. 48 (released on 4/27/2018), footage from the individual member autograph session and group hi-touch, and lastly a shabu shabu dinner.
- They showed the entire performance of "All Day".
- 3/5 shows the members backstage with Daeyeol performing a coin trick, then members individually gave their ments to the camera.
- There was a bonus section where the members played the ladder game where Daeyeol, Jaehyun, Jibeom, and Joochan lost so they had to buy snacks for the group.
- Then there was a formal group interview, which was also when the external postcard photo was taken.
- Lastly was the entire performance of "It's U". The fanchants were very strong!
Unreleased Footage:
- This section shows a lot of really short tidbits from Golden Child's trip, ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes.
- A lot of content on more members playing the kendama toy in their waiting room.
- Other tidbits include Tag speaking in Japanese, Seungmin with his polaroids, Y taking pictures with a DSLR, members taking polaroids, etc.
- Halfway through this, there wasn't much Jibeom. Then suddenly there's so much Bongbeom! The two took a selca together, then Jaehyun said, "Jibeom, Jaehyun," to which Jibeom replied, "Bongji" (their shipping name is the same as Jaehyun's dog's name...?!) and Jaehyun laughed.
- During a group photo, Jangjun pinched Joochan's shoulders painfully. Then the members kept making exaggerated heart thumping gestures.
- Longer ments from the members in their hotel room as they're lying in bed. The first pair was Jangjun and Joochan, and Jangjun had only the second button of his PJ top buttoned?! The second pair was Daeyeol and Jaehyun.
- Some members were signing autographs in their waiting room, but you can still see other members in the background playing with the kendama toy. I like how scenes from this section are really candid.
- The last few minutes are from the fan meeting, where the boys are asked to try and be sexy on stage (they are way too adorable), and then asked to be cute.
1st Japan Fan Meeting "奇跡" (Miracle) 2nd Session:
- This section begins with Golden Child's performance of "Sea" and "Damdadi". The boys were wearing their "What Happened" outfits (the one with Y in that bunny jacket, Daeyeol in the trash bag-like raincoat...).
- Next is talk time, where the members gave in-depth individual introductions in Japanese, but afterwards the members mainly spoke in Korean.
- There is an MC speaking in Japanese (but no translator; perhaps this was edited out).
- The first game was shown on the screen where a pre-determined rank of the members for the given category was revealed, but the top members were placed in one top tier so they had to show off their skill in that category. Afterwards the screen revealed the full pre-determined rank with percentages.
- The first round was "sexy" and Daeyeol, Y, Jangjun, and Joochan were in the top tier and showed their "sexiness". The screen revealed that Joochan was chosen as first in this poll.
- The next round was "cute" and Daeyeol and Bomin were in the top tier, but Bomin came out on top. They played Golden Child's OST "Love Letter" while all the members relayed their cuteness.
- The following round had something to do with dancing or freestyle, and Jangjun, Donghyun, and Bomin were in the top tier. Bomin questioned why he was one of the chosen ones. Random music began to play and any member could stand up and freestyle. When a kid's song started playing, Joochan kept nudging Donghyun to go up but he refused. Eventually Donghyun went and started cutely dancing to it! The last song clip to play was the chorus of "Be Mine", and all the members danced to it! My Inspirit heart ached, this is the closest I can see this song being performed in a long time. Eventually Donghyun won this round and he had a solo dance stage.
- The final round had Jangjun and Jibeom in the top tier, however I'm not sure what was the category. Jangjun made a crow impersonation and Jibeom impersonated Jaehyun's voice! Oh how I miss Bongbeom so much. Then Jaehyun was showing how flexible he is when stretching his toes up to this shin; I didn't know he was so flexible. In the end, Jangjun won.
- Then the boys performed "I Love You So".
- Golden Child changed into their "It's U" outfits (the navy and gray suits with the letters of "Golden Child" as the pattern) and performed "Lady". I forgot just how much this song hurts with Bomin and Jaehyun having no lines, and especially because this was before they had changed the choreography so that Bomin and Jaehyun were in the front during the chorus.
- The boys played another game where they had to split up into two teams. Each member had to draw a red or blue ball from a box to determine the teams. Joochan used a towel dramatically, showing nothing in his hand, drawing the ball, then again revealing nothing in his hand, like a magician. Jangjun was the last member to select his ball so he charismatically rolled the entire table with the box to his side of the stage. At the end Joochan again dramatically revealed his ball with that towel.
- The teams were Daeyeol, Tag, Jaehyun, Donghyun, and Bomin (red) and Y, Jangjun, Seungmin, Jibeom, and Joochan (blue).
- Each team played the telepathy game, where the members must make the same pose, given a keyword. Blue team went first, with the first keyword "baseball". The second was "zombie", and Y, Seungmin, and Joochan had their arms out, but Jibeom posed as if he had been bitten on the neck. Then he cutely animated his pose to having his arms out! The next pose was I think "meerkat" and again Jibeom didn't have his arms out. The following pose was "fighting" and all members had their right arm out in the cheering pose except for Y who had both arms out. And lastly was "yoga" where all members had different poses.
- The red team played the telepathy game next. The first three keywords were "ballet", "King Kong", and "King Yeo(?)" and all the members had different poses. The next keyword was "heart" and all had various finger hearts except for Daeyeol who made a big heart above his head. This is like "Ring It" all over again! The last keyword was "Michael Jackson" and surprisingly they were close, with Daeyeol, Tag, and Bomin doing one signature pose and Jaehyun and Donghyun doing another signature pose. Then Daeyeol changed his pose to the other one and incorporated the finger pointing choreography from "It's U"!
- The next game was basketball. Jaehyun and Donghyun immediately high fived (probably because Jaehyun used to be the captain of his basketball team). Each member was handed a basketball and Jangjun spun his ball on his fingertip (brings back Woollimpick feels). Red team went first based on rock paper scissors, and that team chose Jaehyun to go first. Jaehyun made his basket and Donghyun got so excited and hugged Jaehyun. The other members of his team missed, but at least a few were close!
- Blue team went next, and most of the members completely missed the basket and backboard. Joochan went last and he made it in!
- The next game I honestly did not understand. There was one huge red ball and one huge blue ball. The teams threw their respective balls into the audience, and I think the balls had to go to the very back of the venue and make it back on stage, and they kept going back and forth like this.
- Then they took a group photo with the audience.
- Golden Child performed "It's U" with strong fanchants! There were no fanchants for the previous performances on this disc.
- The members gave their ending ments, mostly all in Japanese. When it was Joochan's turn, the crowd made some noise so he made a surprised meme face. There was a translator for this part, so perhaps it is just the editing. Jangjun joked by kneeling right in front of the monitor to read his ment in Japanese, but then he stood up and said his ment genuinely. Donghyun began his ment but was interrupted with a birthday cake being presented to Jangjun and suddenly they played a children's happy birthday track in English and it said "dear Daddy"?! Jangjun gave another ment in Korean, then Joochan ran over to put frosting on Jangjun's nose. Then Joochan gave Jangjun a napkin, which he folded and left on his face. Then Donghyun finished his ment.
- The boys performed "All Day" and waved their goodbyes.
Overall, I'm so happy that Woollim has released Golden Child's first DVD set, and hope there will be many more in the future (preferably a Korean release rather than just Japanese...!). I really like the behind the scenes content from this set, especially the Unreleased Footage. I just wish I had a better setup for region 2 DVDs (or that Woollim would have Korean DVD releases!) so that I could fully enjoy this content without technical difficulty. And lastly, I'm really grateful to have pre-ordered this DVD so that I could also get the pre-order postcard. Thank you for releasing this content in this Golden Child drought!
Choice also provided a "Choice Music" sticker and to my surprise, an unofficial Kei postcard! These are the postcards that Choice would give for free when making a purchase over a certain amount, and when I went in April they didn't have any freebies for Woollim artists (other than Eunbi and Chaewon). My random special letter and photocard were slipped in between pages 32 and 33.
From Choice Music, I pulled the Kei cover, Mijoo special letter, and Jin photocard. I'm so happy to have pulled Jin; I rarely have luck pulling my bias; the only other time I pulled Jin was for the cover strip from A New Trilogy.
My Kpoptown package arrived second, on May 29th. My album arrived in perfect condition, secured in bubblewrap and then placed in a waterproof envelope. My random special letter was slipped in between pages 32 and 33 and the photocard in between 22 and 23. From this album, I pulled the Jisoo cover, Yein special letter, and Jisoo photocard.
My "worldbiggeststore" eBay package arrived on May 30th. My album was wrapped in many layers of bubblewrap and then placed in a waterproof envelope, and arrived with a scratch on the front cover and one corner with a dent. My random special letter was slipped in between pages 10 and 11 and the photocard in between 28 and 29. I pulled the Mijoo cover, Mijoo special letter, and Kei photocard.
My Music Plaza package arrived on May 31st. My two albums came in perfect condition; they were loosely bundled in large bubblewrap and then placed inside cardboard box. My order came with an unofficial card of Loona and G-idle. My random special letter was slipped in between pages 30 and 31 and the photocard in between 22 and 23.
I pulled the group cover, Mijoo special letter, and Kei photocard.
Each normal album comes with one special letter out of eight and one photocard out of eight. These designs are different from the limited album. Above is what I pulled overall.
In all, for the random cover, I pulled the group, Jisoo, Mijoo, and Kei.
Here are how the spines look like when putting my albums together.
For the special letters, I pulled 3 Mijoo (!!!) And 1 Yein.
For the photocards, I pulled 1 Jisoo, 2 Kei, and 1 Jin.
