Ordering My Golden Child Ddara Albums via Ktown4u and Makestar

It's been quite the year for Golden Child in terms of music releases with the group releasing their second repackage album Ddara on October 5th, 2021. On September 23rd just after 3PM KST,Woollim dropped the album details: 2 normal versions (Woollim became more generous this time with offering 2 random photocards out of 50 amongst both versions; there is also 1 random film photo out of 10 amongst both versions). Preorders also opened at 3PM.

Oddly enough I've felt so burnt out with collecting for each era this year (I'm about 50% complete for both YES. and Game Changer normal album inclusions with no hopes of finishing them) that I didn't feel motivated to buy multiple copies this era (which I never thought was possible...). But after some debate, my friend and I decided to order multiple copies from 2 sites and split the pulls for better randomization.

The album is quite large so shipping is higher, so my friends and I didn't want to go crazy on ordering too many albums. I preordered 2 sets (4 albums total) from Ktown4u, which came with 4 folded first press external posters (2 versions) and 4 sets of the first press mini poster sets (2 posters within 1 set) with DHL shipping for about $123 USD. My friend preordered 2 sets (4 albums total) from Makestar, which came with the same first press benefits as Ktown4u plus 1 Makestar exclusive holographic photocard per album, with DHL shipping for about $103 USD. Even though Makestar is substantially cheaper, we figured that we'd get our Ktown albums faster and have better, more randomized pulls than from Makestar.

I had another order from Ktown (the Singles magazine, Eunbi albums, and Etude House cream) which I had preordered prior to the magazine's September 24th release date but still hadn't shipped for weeks. I was getting weary of Ktown, and then on October 11th at 12PM KST, Makestar announced a Ddara 1:1 video call event with an October 14th KST order deadline. I decided to cancel my Ktown Ddara order (which I think prompted for them to finally ship out my previous Ktown order!) and look into Makestar instead. For this second Makestar event, there are no more first press benefits and again there is 1 random Makestar exclusive photocard per album out of 10 (different from the previous event). This time you have to order by the number of albums you'd like (with the versions being random), instead of having the option of buying by sets of 2. I decided to order 5 albums, and with DHL shipping the total was under $123 USD. Like usual, there was a PR event as well. The video call and PR event winner announcement would be posted on October 15th after 3PM KST.

I continued to check the event page and the announcement showed up at about 3:30PM KST. I was shocked to see that I had actually won the PR event! I'm at #8^^ There are 10 randomly selected winners for the PR event, and the prize is 1 random member's signed Polaroid out of 10 taken during the Makestar video call event from October 16th. The Polaroid will be sent along with my order. I also received an email at 3:32PM KST in both Korean and English confirming that I had won the PR event and that the Polaroid would be sent with my album(s) purchased.

The post here on out won't be heavy on details or photos as I wasn't originally planning about blogging about my Ddara album orders.

The Makestar 1 event page stated that they would start shipping on October 8th. My friend's package arrived on October 18th. Unfortunately the cardboard box took quite a beating, with a large hole on the side. Fortunately, everything was inside. Here are our pulls from Makestar 1:

• Makestar 1 exclusive holographic photocards: Daeyeol, Y, Donghyun, and Joochan (daeyoon and dongchan^^)
• Film photos: Daeyeol, Y, Jaehyun, and Donghyun
• Album photocards: 1 Y, 1 Jaehyun, 1 Jibeom, 1 Joochan, and 3 different Bomin

For the album photocards, unfortunately 1 album was missing 1 photocard so we only received 7 instead of 8 photocards. Despite missing 1 photocard, overall the pulls were satisfying since there were no duplicates amongst the 4 albums.

The Makestar 2 event page didn't state when they would start shipping (I think they might only do that for preorders), but my package shipped on October 29th and arrived on November 1st. It actually arrived along with my Woohyun With 1 event order; Woohyun's is on the left and Golden Child's is on the right. Luckily everything looked intact.

I think the Makestar boxes have really upgraded this time (or this is the first time I'm noticing it) but now there is one corner that is held together by thick staples. This applies to both my Woohyun package (top left) and Golden Child package (bottom right).

And now onto the unboxing of my Makestar 2 package! I recorded my unboxing in case my order was incorrect, which I do recommend doing for any package as mistakes do happen. Opening up my package reveals the albums stacked together and wrapped in a layer of bubblewrap, and lying on a bed of air pockets. There was still quite a lot of room in the box but regardless the albums arrived safely.

Flipping the stack of albums over revealed the Polaroid and Makestar 2 exclusive photocards!

Here is everything! The Makestar 2 exclusive photocards each came in their own penny sleeve, then inside another larger clear plastic bag that was taped onto the bubblewrap. The Polaroid also came in a penny sleeve with a sticker label with my order number, name, and winner number that was then taped onto the bubblewrap. The Polaroid definitely could've slipped out as the penny sleeve wasn't sealed shut, but regardless it is here and arrived safely! AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT JIBEOM! I would genuinely be happy with any member, but I'm really extremely grateful for having Jibeom who has been my phone screen background since April 2020 and who has given me so much happiness these past few years^^

I already had this frame but nothing fitting to be framed, until now^^ It still feels so surreal to me!

Here are our pulls from Makestar 2: 

• Albums: 1 Version A and 4 Version B
• Makestar 2 exclusive photocards: Seungmin, Jaehyun, Jibeom, Donghyun, and Bomin (The order was actually Donghyun, then Jibeom, then Bomin, then Jaehyun, and then Seungmin. I couldn't express how excited I was to receive my top 3 consecutively!)
• Film photos: 2 Daeyeols, 2 Ys, and 1 Jaehyun
• Album Photocards: 1 Daeyeol, 3 Tag (1 dup), 1 Jaehyun (same as from Makestar 1), 1 Donghyun, and 4 Joochans (2 dups)

My Makestar pulls have always been bad in terms of pulling duplicates, but this is some luck to have duplicates within my package AND with my friend's Makestar 1 package. But in the end with some trades, it'll all work out^^

Coming up I'll have an unboxing post about both versions of the Ddara albums^^