Golden Child: Take A Leap 4th Mini Album Review

Golden Child has really blessed the first half of 2020 with so much content! From their first solo concert back in mid-January to their first repackage album at the end of January to their fourth mini album at the end of June, this year has been packed with Golden Child.

Golden Child began their "self-discovery" trilogy starting with the release of full album Re-boot back in November, followed by repackaged album Without You in January and now their mini album Take a Leap on June 24th. "Wannabe" showcases how the members are looking for who they want to be and striving to attain their ideal image, while "Without You" describes being lost during that search, and now "One (Lucid Dream)" is about accepting how they really are as their best self.

Take a Leap has two versions, with the differences being the photoshoots and sticker inclusions. I blogged about ordering my albums and sharing my pulls here. Below I will do an unboxing post about both versions.

Packaging

Here are the front covers of the albums. They came in a loose clear plastic wrap. As you can see, the text style is similar to Re-boot, with the album name printed on the side. Version B, with the jumpsuit outfits, is on the left, while Version A is on the right.

To give a reference on how big the Take a Leap albums are, here they are along with Golden Child's other albums on my shelf. It is about the same size as the Wish albums.

The backsides of the albums reveal the tracklist.

Similar to the formatting of the third mini albums Wish, Take a Leap albums have a photobook style packaging. Each photobook contains 100 pages.

Photobooks

For the first few pages and last few pages of the photobooks, I'll compare both versions, with Version A on top and Version B on the bottom. The beginning lists the tracklist, along with the song credits. The background images are from the music video shooting (Tag's scene and Jangjun's scene, respectively).

The first photo is a group photo from that version's main photoshoot.

Next are individual photos from the main photoshoots.

The formatting so far is the same for both versions, however it does change as you flip through the pages.

I'll talk about the photobooks individually soon as well.

Fast forward to the end of the photobook, the last photo is another group photo from the main photoshoot.

Next are 6 pages for the group and members' thanks to messages.

The last page has the album credits.

The inside of the back cover houses the CD in a paper envelope.

Here are the CD designs; the black one is from Version B while the silver is from Version A. The design is similar to the Goldenness disc design.

Version B Photobook

This version contains photos mostly from the jumpsuit photoshoot, but there are a few pages that include photos from the white suit photoshoot.

Majority of the photos are individual member shots. Despite having wasted white space when they could have maximized the photos, it is nice how they occasionally change up the page layout.

Here are the first pages that include the additional photoshoot. Also each song has its own page to display the lyrics; these pages are spread throughout the photobook.

There are also a few 2-page spreads containing a collage of the members from both photoshoots.

I absolutely love how they paired this hat with the jumpsuit for Tag!

There is one photo per member from this photoshoot, excluding those in the collage pages.

I love that the 2-page spread for "훅 들어와(OMG)" has Bongbeom~ I can't help but think about them holding hands in the choreo^^

Here is the second set of collage pages.

And some more photos from the white suit photoshoot.

This is the final set of collage pages.

For the jumpsuit photoshoot, there is generally one photo per page. However there is this nice 2-page spread of Y.

Unfortunately there are some pages where it just feels like they're wasting so much white space.

But then this contrasts with these gorgeous pages where the photo takes up the entire page.

Here are the last set of photos from the white suit photoshoot.

I am just absolutely in love with this jumpsuit photoshoot. I love when Golden Child wears their branded uniforms like their baseball jerseys, school uniforms, and "Genie" jumpsuits, but out of these, only the school uniforms made it into their album photobook. Even though these jumpsuits aren't Golden Child branded, I'm happy nonetheless that they made it as the main photoshoot for this photobook. (And speaking of Golcha branded outfits, I was so happy to see their Golden Child basketball jerseys for "훅 들어와(OMG)"! Even though Golden Child was promoting their trilogy with a much darker concept, they were still able to bring back their original fresh style which just made me so happy!)

Version A Photobook

My thoughts on the formatting of the photobook were all described above in Version B, so here I'll focus more on just the photos from Version A.

The images of the member posters are included in this photobook, to justify not having to collect all the posters. Also I have to point out Y really rocked this shoot!

Here are the first few photos from the alternate blue photoshoot.

And here is the first collage, mixing photos from both photoshoots.

There are a lot of artsy shots in this photobook.

Here are the next set of photos from the alternate shoot.

And here is that Seungmin photo where we saw the behind-the-scenes video. I had no idea he crawled around to get this shot!

Here is the next collage. Jaehyun is the cutest crouching like that!

Here is another set of photos from the blue shoot.

The background really gives me Re-boot vibes.

Joochan pulls off that pose so well?!

And the last collage.

Generally each page only contains 1 photo, but there are a few pages that contain 2.

Daeyeol fits this setting so well, he looks like he's navigating a ship!

This artsy shot of Tag came out really well.

And here are the last set of photos from the alternate shoot.

Album Inclusions

Each album comes with 3 photocards out of 40 (!!!), 1 special card out of 10, and 1 strap out of 10. Version A also includes 1 blue sticker out of 10, while Version B includes 1 white sticker out of 10. These inclusions are spread out all throughout the photobook; I recommend slowly going through each page or else you may have missed one of the inclusions!

Here are some of the blue stickers from the Version A albums. These stickers are all matte with a white back.

And here are some of the white stickers from the Version B albums. While most of my sticker pulls arrived in perfect condition, unfortunately there was a long scratch on my Joochan one.

Here are some of the straps. One side has the album name, member's name, and member's number, while the backside has the album name as well. There are also two adhesive sections on the backside, which can be used to stick onto your phone case. These straps are woven, so a few of mine had a loose thread at the bottom where it was folded when placed in the album.

I also put the strap on my phone case. The tightness between the case and the phone is snug enough that I didn't need to use the tape. Here I made it a bit too tight that my hand barely fit. It really looks nice and minimalist like this!

Here are some of the special cards. These cards all have a matte finish.

Here are the backsides of the special cards.

And here is a closer look at the details of Joochan's special card.

Here are some of the photocards. They all have a glossy finish.

Here are the backsides, each with the member's printed autograph, and the messages are different for each version. I'm still unsure how to classify the different photocards; previously when there were 20 photocards per album, 10 photocards would have one color on the backside while the other 10 had a different color, for easy distinction. However this time it seems like 20 photocards are white and the other 20 are black.

Here are some of the various Y inclusions for size comparison.

First Press Posters

First press albums also include a group poster and a random member poster; this poster set is packaged in a clear resealable bag and external of the album. Oddly enough my Seungmin poster came in a clear resealable bag of its own before being placed in the larger bag with the group poster.

The member posters are all A4 size and matte, and have that same design on the back.

Here is the group poster, which is quite clear unlike Golden Child's grainy Gol-Cha! posters. This poster is matte and quite smaller than Golden Child's usual external posters. It's about 4 A4s put together.

Tracklist

This mini album contains 7 tracks:

1. TAKE OFF - the intro leading up to the title. Both intro and title of this album are created by BLSSD, just like the previous two installments of Golden Child's "self-discovery" trilogy. 
2. ONE(LUCID DREAM) - Woollim really went all in with this comeback, evident in the music video production. This is Golden Child's first music video where each member gets his own unique setting. As for the song itself, the sound fits perfectly well with the previous titles "Wannabe" and "Without You" and fit this continuing mature vibe.
3. 훅 들어와(OMG) - is created by LEEZ and Ollounder, the duo behind "YTMOB", as well as Infinite's "I Hate" and Lovelyz' "LOVE GAME". Golden Child also promoted this track, and all for good reason! It is one of my favorite Golden Child songs due to how fresh, upbeat, energetic, and fun the song and choreography are! All throughout Re-boot era I was really worried that Golden Child was literally rebooting to this mature concept for good, so I was really over the top excited not only to hear this type of song in the album, but that Golden Child would also be promoting this track! AND they even have their own branded basketball jerseys to top it off! I am just so happy that Golden Child are going back to their youthful style and really hope they'll continue with this type of concept!
4. 혼잣말 - (Moment) this ballad was created by 1Take and TAK, who also created Golden Child's upbeat b-sides "What Happened" and "If", along with "Lately" and "No Matter What". These remaining 4 tracks all have a really soothing sound, contrasting well with the title and promoted b-side.
5. MAKE ME LOVE - this track was co-created by Stardust/Razer who also created "SEA", "I'm Falling", "I See You", as well as many of Woollim's songs. As I'm sure many others feel, the beginning is too cringy for me (I'm sorry Jangjun! I'm still proud of you for your English!), but other than that the song sounds really nice~!
6. H.E.R(그녀에게) - this track is co-created by Spacecowboy, one of the members of One Piece who has created many of Lovelyz' title tracks. Of these last 4 tracks, this one is my favorite! Jibeom's vocals continue to stand out and this song is just so soothing to listen to~
7. PASS ME BY - the closing track is co-created by BLSSD. This song is very soothing and gives such a different feeling than BLSSD's title tracks, giving a nice balance to their repertoire. 

Overall, this has been quite an era and quite a trilogy! I'm really proud of all the achievements Golden Child and Goldenness have hit, and how big the fandom has grown within these past few months. Last year's drought was really difficult but I'm so happy that Golden Child was able to have 3 comebacks within the past 8 months. This trilogy really showed a different, mature style of Golden Child and really broadened their music and concept. Now that this trilogy is over, it feels like Golden Child is now open to try any concept or go back to their fresh and energetic concept (the latter is really what I'm hoping for!).