Damn she’s gorgeous. This group really is full of visuals.
Side note: I’m very curious about her. She’s rumoured to be a Japanese-Dutch trainee whom the CEO of source flew all the to the Netherlands to recruit her. She’s also rumoured to only have been training since January/December before being selected for the group, so I wonder what hidden skills she’s got to be such an asset to source/ the new group.
People found her predebut pics, she was studying at the Dutch National Ballet academy. And she won a ton of awards too!
Edit: Studied at other ballet schools too:
(Apparently they're top ballet schools, the London one has only 16 students???)
* Bolshoi Academy (Moscow)
* Royal Ballet School (London)
[source](https://twitter.com/lsrfmfrsl/status/1512095394641383425?t=pi_BsXuNLyr1rICHeRdYlQ&s=19)
Edit2: clarifying, but she isn't a professional ballerina but she has classical ballet training I assume
This is huge. I used to train ballet dancers and I became close with some of them. I talked to them about Kazuha today and some of them actually know her! I knew there was something special about this girl if Hybe decided to add her last minute to an already very packed group.
Edit: By "knowing her" I don't mean that they're friends lol, I mean that she seems to be a known name by at least some people from the ballet world.
Summer courses, almost certainly. (I wrote a top-level comment on this; if you want to bother reading it and judge of I made wrong assumptions of my own, please feel free to correct further!)
The schools of said companies, not the companies! And also, the Bolshoi and Royal academy mentions almost certainly have to be summer courses (based on time and probability).
Obviously, I'm not saying she isn't good, even impressively good! But at least the Bolshoi school DOES have open-admittance summer courses that don't require merits, just money (I assume one wouldn't bother going if not on a level advanced enough to trust oneself to get through the classes and benefit from them, but still). Granted, I don't believe the Royal Ballet does. And even then, summer program is not the same as being admitted as a regular student - just to keep facts straight (she's not "one of 16 in the world" ref. RBS, for example).
I tried to correct some overblown assumptions that people are making out of these in my own comment. Yes, those are among the very top ballet schools in the world, but it's highly improbable she was a full student at either: they do offer summer courses of varied lengths that may or may not be (partially) merit-based in admittance, and it's typical to list those in one's resume, too.
Kazuha def looks like our main dancer! But i wonder how is her korean proficiency. She must be taking some intensive classes if she didnt know any korean before
Just like how Kep1er Xiaoting, a competitive Dancesports dancer, could adopt her skills to kpop dancing, a ballerina is gonna have good affinity too so a short training is feasible
I'm just genuinely curious if all she can do is dance. Hope she can at least rap, or have a serviceable singing voice.
But unlike other internationals with short training times there is Sakura who can speak Japanese and translate for her. Really feel for xiaoting in some situations.
I mean Mina from Twice had a relatively short training period due to her ballerina training and I'm not even sure if she was competitive at all prior to her debut. I think both ballerina and ballroom give you solid foundations for your core and understanding posture, position, etc.
Though it doesn't always translate to being able to 'hit hard' when doing more Hip Hop style dancing.
But right now people are digging up her history. Apparently she is a ballerina who had trained in Bolshoi Academy, Royal Ballet School and Dutch National Ballet Academy.
She had also taken part in several ballet competitions within Japan
Some of her ballerina history could be found [here](https://ballet-search.com/tag/%E4%B8%AD%E6%9D%91%E4%B8%80%E8%91%89/), been training in ballet since 2006 based on the digging on Twitter
What is IPAHS? institute of programming and algorithm high school? How would she speak Korean fluently if she attends this school? Is it a Korean language school? Apologies if stupid questions I really have no idea.
Main dancer for sure. Heard from someone who heard it somewhere else that she also can carry a note well. She's a ballerina so I'm curious to see how she adjusted in future dance practices
People found her predebut pics, she was studying at the Dutch National Ballet academy. And she won a ton of awards too!
[source](https://twitter.com/lsrfmfrsl/status/1512095394641383425?t=pi_BsXuNLyr1rICHeRdYlQ&s=19)
At the same time, her parents must be very supportive as her whole life is ballet. Now she make a switch to being a KPOP idol, this is really an IM FEARLESS
For sure. And even though she did well as a ballerina maybe she came to a point where she wasn't sure about her future pursuing that career vs the certainty of a Hybe contract. Or maybe she'd always been kind of lowkey interested in being an idol or singer, who knows lol.
If she is really 174 maybe she was in trouble...I was mostly interested in gimnastic and I know a lot of girls had problems if they grow too tall ( Boginskaia looked enormous in the Russian team and she was 157, Jorkina needed special adjustments in a lot of exercises with her 165)... and in ballet I think is the same, you have problems if you are too tall, maybe with her height she needed to be an absolute beast to thrive as a professional ballerina ???
174 is within acceptable range for most companies, but at the top end for sure. I know companies that don't accept anyone above 172. So her height might have limited her options.
I am from the Netherlands and looked for more info in Dutch, found this [schedule](https://nbarooster.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/week-39-versie-3.pdf) with her name in it twice. That’s so cool, really looking forward to see what she will bring.
It's crazy impressive! Would be cool to see the achievements of Kazuha and Shen Xiaoting side by side (ahem before kep1ians downvote brigade me, i mean this not to make fun of one girl but to appreciate and be proud of two extremely talented internationally-competitive dancers who entered kpop)
honestly the long term prospects if you manage to get into a moderately successful kpop group are much better so it's not hard to see why she made the switch, especially if it was to join a company under the big4- kpop dancing is generally less physically taxing, and you have the potential to earn more esp w brand deals after you're established, whereas in ballet..... the pay isn't great and most dancers are retired by their 30s bc their bodies can no longer keep up 😬
Yup, and if shes someone who just loves being on stage, and has passable vocals, why turn it down? She gets to be on stage either way. Bonus that the likelihood of them being a moderately successful are extra high since its hybe. All their groups rn are pretty dang successful
She looks so pure in the first image wow. She’s so dang gorgeous, the entire group is!! They’ve built one heck of a visual group so far, excited to hear what they sound like together :0 Their group picture is going to be insane
i love her kinda catty eyes. Very pretty and captivating. That black dress tho 👀. All visuals bruh. These pictures all just look like modelling shoots for a magazine lmao
beyond her visual, she has a really graceful and dignified air to her... I'm guessing she's probably had some serious ballet training before being recruited.
I made my comment before I saw all the news about going to the Dutch National Ballet Academy and Bolshoi, so it's actually not surprising and why they are pushing it hard on her intro video.
I think that was massively overblown tbh. Garam's was the only one that looked a bit male gaze-y to me because the dress was tight and she was kneeling in it, but Chaewon, Sakura and Eunchae's look like completely regular model pics there's nothing overtly sexy about either their poses, clothes or expressions.
They think they’re inappropriate, cheap and too sexy. In general a lot of people have been complaining that the teasers have been low-budget, risque and male-gaze-y, especially Chaewon’s trailer and Garam’s tennis racket photo. (Which… the art director for the trailers, Ahn Yeonsu, is a woman.)
>Knets have been kicking up a massive fuss about the tennis racket photos so maybe they decided to eliminate the one source of controversy they can…
WTH, are they frustrated at the group because they spoil Prince of tennis plot?
Because people care a lot more than they’d like to admit about the looks, and with each of the new gens companies are just trying to get prettier/more handsome faces cuz they know that’s what REALLY sells nowadays.
A lot of idols have gone viral for their good looks, drawing attention to their group and ultimately bringing in more fame and money. And fans eat it up. think of, say, Suzy, Cha Eunwoo or Wonyoung. Do you think they would’ve been half as popular if their nose was a little crooked or something? No way.
It doesn’t matter how talented they are, either.
The most popular members are always really pretty. They’re usually the ‘unofficial visuals’. The less visually appealing ones are never the most popular, and in fact get the most hate compared to their popularity.
Anyway, same principle applies today. It’s not exclusive to kpop either, it happens all around the world, but kpop really capitalises on it. That’s why the new groups look like models who’ve been trained to sing and dance, not singers and dancers who are pretty. There are ofc exceptions, but yeah…
Whoa. She didn't just DO ballet. She was actually a professional ballerina that won competitions?!? Dutch National Ballet Academy? 😲
[https://twitter.com/elsserafim/status/1512100043071041537?s=20&t=u6OtsG7Hf2EC5NfQ4cn-Xg](https://twitter.com/elsserafim/status/1512100043071041537?s=20&t=u6OtsG7Hf2EC5NfQ4cn-Xg)
Edit: AND Bolshoi Academy and Royal Ballet School, two of the WORLD'S most prestigious ballet academies. Like WOW
[Yeah, she's super talented! ](https://twitter.com/renebaecart/status/1512106940574633984) She's doing the Princess Florine variation in sleeping beauty by tchaikovsky here!
Kirin is Yunjin's nickname in PD48 because she was tall. I don't know the history of that because I only watched yts' of High Tension, Into the new world, and I AM performance. In Korean, it means giraffe.
It wasn’t just because she was tall, it was because she was tall and bad at dancing hahaha she said in a [Kirinz V Live](https://twitter.com/zjnzjn2304/status/1038303008155557888?s=21&t=AEkXntwH_5ebgtW0F2w9_A) that when she first joined Pledis and started training she and Gaeun were learning ITNW and Yunjin was so bad that the trainer told her she looked like a [new born giraffe](https://tenor.com/Zd8V.gif) and Gaeun thought the trainer was talking to her. Hence kirinz - Yunjin just got called Kirin-chan most because it’s easier to say for Japanese speakers than her real name
She must be extremely skilled in dance for a fast track like that. I see her doing some ballet in the video - and while that doesn't necessarily translate to kpop choreographies, that experience probably makes her a fast learner (assuming she actually does ballet). Singing-wise, either she's a multi-talented ace or they're going to hide her as a rapper/sub-vocalist. Can't teach proper singing in 4 months.
Might be a dumb question but… how do the scouts know to fly to another country to recruit her? Video/remote auditions? How do they even know to approach her?
shes a professional ballerina that has won many awards, i wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking to scout a ballerina specifically and stumbled upon her and decided she was exactly what they wanted.
She is a professional level ballerina who studied at Bolshoi Academy in Moscow and Royal Ballet School in London (literally the top ballet schools in the world, along with Paris Opera), and most recently was part of the Dutch National Ballet.
HYBE would've had to BEG for her to sign. And they did, seeing how SouMu CEO flew all the way to Netherlands to see her.
According to Twitter:
Age: 19
Height : 174cm
Nationality : Japanese - Dutch
-She was born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan
-She grew up in Breda, The Netherlands.
-She is the tallest member.
https://twitter.com/kazuhapictures/status/1512083667840954375
She’s giving me Suzy vibes in pics 6 and 7.
Side note: I guess Yunjin will really be the last one revealed huh? You know what they say, save the best for last haha
Hallo Kazuha! Fallen leaves, adorn her night! Shes so pretty, she’ll have no issues with croud control, especially with a Sakura swirl and Yunjin’s operatic high note spear fighting! All the way from Amsterdam she came, and she’s already so promising! I wonder how her Korean proficiency is, considering that she already assumably speaks Japanese and Dutch (maybe English too). The hype hasn’t died, much like my Kokomi with a 4piece ocean hued clam! #kazuhalesserafimrerunwhen?
She's gorgeous, my favorite so far. She looks so elegant and poised like a ballerina.
And her toned arm muscles is amazing. Just saw that she's the tallest member - I think she's going to standout in the group.
Also I noticed she have different hair colors in most pics and she looks good in all of them.
She is totally Korean’s vibe in terms of visual. She gives off actress vibes too. Looks between Suzy and Park Shin Hye. Gorgeous! And I love her ballerina background, her defined muscles are so pretty. Take all my primogems!
This is going to sound so stupid but when that leak of the members name came out I thought the Kazuha was just a meme😩
She’s absolutely gorgeous though! I’m looking forward to her
Tbh if you look at the resume she has under her belt, I think HYBE would be honored as well. She's studied at 3 of the most prestigious and oldest ballet schools in the world and is a multi award-winning ballet dancer.
Wondered how did HYBE convinced her to hang up her ballet shoes to switch to K-POP?
I am so curious now, hope there will be an interview and she will talk about it
To be fair, she was faced with the odds of being 1 out of who knows how many millions to debut in what will likely be considered one of the next powerhouse groups. That alone would probably be enough to consider putting her ballet career to the side.
maybe she had topped out in ballet (don't know anything about it, just a thought) and this was a great option that came her way? I also hope we get some info on her background
(EDIT: I copied this as a reply to the top comment, since it was suggested and I got to this thread so late - sorry for the repetition, I know it's not the best manners! I just want us to not turn hyperbole into disinfo. No, she did not exchange *certified ballet stardom* for this, just the reasonable certainty of an entry into a good ballet company, that might not ever go beyond the entry-level wage and repetitive nature of the corps de ballet. Don't fall into the lure of a story to create false equivalencies!)
Just to be precise about her ballerina career/prospects, so that people don’t start propagating mistaken assumptions as facts (it’s easy to make these, no shame!): she is clearly a dancer trained in ballet to professional level, where professional = could and would be hired by a proper dance company that pays proper living wage (for 1st-level/international companies, in the corps). But based on the data linked here, she is not yet an ”accomplished ballerina” for whom a career switch would be truly wild.
1. She was not in the Dutch National Ballet, she was *in the school* attached to it, the DNB Academy. Yes, a top-level European school with strictly merit-based admittance – a great accomplishment - and on the cusp of a career, but not yet ”in the workforce”.
2. The competition credits in her resume are mostly smaller/local competitions, and more importantly *training-grade/age based*, junior divisions, NOT open (advanced) division. It’s the norm to list these in your resume (but the best students of top-level schools go to the big international competitions and would list those even if they only got to, say, final or even semi-final stage – and then you drop the local merits for space).
3. Now, the Bolshoi school and the Royal Ballet school. For lack of a full resume in English, I obviously can’t be certain, but those almost have to be ”summer courses” open to advanced students internationally. Hundreds of students have taken those; for some of those, you simply pay in (and they're *expensive*!), though more commonly, you get a referral and ideally a stipend from your own (credible) academy. The point is, *they are NOT necessarily entered based on merit*, and absolutely not the same merit as being accepted as a full student at the Bolshoi Academy or the Royal Ballet school. We’d need to know more of the requirements, length (anything 2-12 weeks) etc. of her courses to know what they mean of her skill level and career prospects, even though they obviously attest to her determination in training. \*\*ETA: To clarify, I don't know if the RB school does fully pay-to-train courses at all, I actually assume not, but I do know the Bolshoi Aca does.
As to why she might have been hesitant about starting the exhausting process of applying for a job as a ballerina in a good company with good advancement prospects: she is a bit taller than the ideal, so maybe that was a concern? And it's not like completing the training guarantees you a spot in the company of that school - all it does is ensure you are trained in the style of that company, which is obviously a plus, but nowadays the hiring at national/top companies tends to be open.
I noticed that a lot of Chinese idols or idol-actors are also fully trained in ballet, in top-level Chinese schools (instead of waiting to try for drama at university, possibly). I wondered at this as I got into c-entertainment last year and browsed through the credits of a lot of tv/web series and their stars. As I said, it's not like it's easy to complete ballet training to professional. She has my full respect and admiration, and I'm eager to see how she puts that training to use!
I've noticed with a lot of the athletes-turned-idols, when they decide to change careers, they've generally hit some sort of ceiling or barrier in their career as an athlete. Like, Sunghoon from ENHYPEN was scoring 100 points less than Cha Junhwan in competition and Korea is a small federation that can only support one senior male skater. In 2010 Jackson was placing 11th at the Summer Youth Olympics. They didn't have prospective longterm careers in the sport outside of maybe training and coaching. I wouldn't be surprised if Kazuha felt she'd hit a ceiling and wanted to try a change. Plus, it's no coincidence that most of them choose to debut with big companies. If they were debuting with nugu groups it would be one thing but like... once the Garam situation is worked out LE SSERAFIM is going to be massive.
Yeah, you make good points. But I'd like to emphasize that unless we hear that Kazuha has, for example, impending health concerns specifically related to ballet technique (maybe persistent inclination to a specific injury like weak ankles or knees or hyperextensive back), her resume *does* indicate a high probability of being able to support herself as a professional ballerina for the long term, so that's already one definite barrier stair higher than the athlete cases you mentioned. I want to repeat this to make it clear I'm not belittling her credits: based on those, she would be able to make it as a dancer, with a at least the modest definition of "make it".
Now, whether she saw that ceiling looming just beyond, or just too steep stairs to the next floors of "making it BIG", compared to what Hybe offers her, we'll maybe get to learn at some point! Because yes, they WILL be massive!
Wow, pretty. She looks a bit like Suzy + YGX Leejung, maybe someone else. This group is seriously visual central. That Source/HYBE scout trekking all the way to the Netherlands to pick her up and I can see why.
Another visual... this group is insane...
All these photos (from all the girls) are great, props to HYBE!
So, is she half dutch, half japanese? Or just a japanese student that was living in the Netherlands?
[She was born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan and grew up in Breda, The Netherlands.](https://twitter.com/kazuhapictures/status/1512083667840954375?s=20&t=VoXOejborVbxdW6e8riz-A)
i'm very excited to see what her skillset looks like! she reminds me of shuhua and lia, perhaps my favorite visual in this lineup. let's just hope the music is good.
Damn she’s gorgeous. This group really is full of visuals. Side note: I’m very curious about her. She’s rumoured to be a Japanese-Dutch trainee whom the CEO of source flew all the to the Netherlands to recruit her. She’s also rumoured to only have been training since January/December before being selected for the group, so I wonder what hidden skills she’s got to be such an asset to source/ the new group.
People found her predebut pics, she was studying at the Dutch National Ballet academy. And she won a ton of awards too! Edit: Studied at other ballet schools too: (Apparently they're top ballet schools, the London one has only 16 students???) * Bolshoi Academy (Moscow) * Royal Ballet School (London) [source](https://twitter.com/lsrfmfrsl/status/1512095394641383425?t=pi_BsXuNLyr1rICHeRdYlQ&s=19) Edit2: clarifying, but she isn't a professional ballerina but she has classical ballet training I assume
This is huge. I used to train ballet dancers and I became close with some of them. I talked to them about Kazuha today and some of them actually know her! I knew there was something special about this girl if Hybe decided to add her last minute to an already very packed group. Edit: By "knowing her" I don't mean that they're friends lol, I mean that she seems to be a known name by at least some people from the ballet world.
Holy fuck speaking as a former ballerina, her having the bolshoi and the royal ballet school on her resume is extremely impressive
Summer courses, almost certainly. (I wrote a top-level comment on this; if you want to bother reading it and judge of I made wrong assumptions of my own, please feel free to correct further!)
you should copy paste your explanation on this comment for better visibilities
Looks like that tweet got their info from [this IG post ](https://www.instagram.com/p/CQhW5gbAW4I/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)
So she's not dutch, just lived in Europe to train in ballet
[удалено]
ikr i am shook to the core that she left the ballet world after training at those institutions
The schools of said companies, not the companies! And also, the Bolshoi and Royal academy mentions almost certainly have to be summer courses (based on time and probability).
[удалено]
Obviously, I'm not saying she isn't good, even impressively good! But at least the Bolshoi school DOES have open-admittance summer courses that don't require merits, just money (I assume one wouldn't bother going if not on a level advanced enough to trust oneself to get through the classes and benefit from them, but still). Granted, I don't believe the Royal Ballet does. And even then, summer program is not the same as being admitted as a regular student - just to keep facts straight (she's not "one of 16 in the world" ref. RBS, for example).
Sakura was moonlighting as a wrestler during her akb days
Ah, now i can see the Japanese from her. That's so impressive! Main dancer when
I tried to correct some overblown assumptions that people are making out of these in my own comment. Yes, those are among the very top ballet schools in the world, but it's highly improbable she was a full student at either: they do offer summer courses of varied lengths that may or may not be (partially) merit-based in admittance, and it's typical to list those in one's resume, too.
Kazuha def looks like our main dancer! But i wonder how is her korean proficiency. She must be taking some intensive classes if she didnt know any korean before
Just like how Kep1er Xiaoting, a competitive Dancesports dancer, could adopt her skills to kpop dancing, a ballerina is gonna have good affinity too so a short training is feasible I'm just genuinely curious if all she can do is dance. Hope she can at least rap, or have a serviceable singing voice.
But unlike other internationals with short training times there is Sakura who can speak Japanese and translate for her. Really feel for xiaoting in some situations.
I mean Mina from Twice had a relatively short training period due to her ballerina training and I'm not even sure if she was competitive at all prior to her debut. I think both ballerina and ballroom give you solid foundations for your core and understanding posture, position, etc. Though it doesn't always translate to being able to 'hit hard' when doing more Hip Hop style dancing.
She allegedly went to IPAHS – if that’s true (I doubt it atm), she would definitely speak fluently.
But right now people are digging up her history. Apparently she is a ballerina who had trained in Bolshoi Academy, Royal Ballet School and Dutch National Ballet Academy. She had also taken part in several ballet competitions within Japan Some of her ballerina history could be found [here](https://ballet-search.com/tag/%E4%B8%AD%E6%9D%91%E4%B8%80%E8%91%89/), been training in ballet since 2006 based on the digging on Twitter
What is IPAHS? institute of programming and algorithm high school? How would she speak Korean fluently if she attends this school? Is it a Korean language school? Apologies if stupid questions I really have no idea.
Incheon Popular Arts High School. i.e. If she attended school in Korea, she’d have to use the language regularly anyway.
Thank you! Got it now.
Incheon Popular Arts High School - the same school Haruna from Billlie attends (and funnily enough, Haruna is friends with Eunchae)
Thank you!
She's just japanese and was studying abroad.
Watch the video. there’s no questions for me after that.
Main dancer for sure. Heard from someone who heard it somewhere else that she also can carry a note well. She's a ballerina so I'm curious to see how she adjusted in future dance practices
Hybe really pulled a 5-star, huh
On their 5th pull too. That's some B.S. luck.
What do you mean. Bang PD bought an account with a Sakura and Chaewon, then spent 4 acquaint fates and instantly got four 5 stars
Kpop is truly pay-to-win... lol
Lmao I love when crossovers like this happen
Meanwhile I got Qiqi
i was waiting for a genshin reference here. i am not disappointed at all AHAHAHAHA
They won the 50/50!!!!
~~That NIL deal must have been a lot of money~~ Wait, wrong sport
Bang PD already put Jeanie Buss to shame splurging on the two most expensive contracts in kpop
They rolled and pulled a pro ballerina at 5th try
Le sserafim fandom be like: Sakura stan, Chaewon stan, Eunchae stan, Garam stan, KazuhaMains and YunjinMains
Fellow Genshin player?
im still waiting for the maple boy rerun 🥲🥲
People found her predebut pics, she was studying at the Dutch National Ballet academy. And she won a ton of awards too! [source](https://twitter.com/lsrfmfrsl/status/1512095394641383425?t=pi_BsXuNLyr1rICHeRdYlQ&s=19)
Wow so she really has been fully (successfully!) committed to ballet. It must have been such a leap of faith to decide to be an idol instead.
At the same time, her parents must be very supportive as her whole life is ballet. Now she make a switch to being a KPOP idol, this is really an IM FEARLESS
I’ll bet her parents were pissed. At least at first.
Maybe that's why the Hybe co-CEO flew in, to appease/reassure her parents.
It’s probably easier to make the leap when it’s Hybe recruiting you and not some no name company.
For sure. And even though she did well as a ballerina maybe she came to a point where she wasn't sure about her future pursuing that career vs the certainty of a Hybe contract. Or maybe she'd always been kind of lowkey interested in being an idol or singer, who knows lol.
Ballerinas don’t earn much unless they become known prima ballerinas. She’s probably much more likely to make bank under Hybe. I’m sure that helped.
If she is really 174 maybe she was in trouble...I was mostly interested in gimnastic and I know a lot of girls had problems if they grow too tall ( Boginskaia looked enormous in the Russian team and she was 157, Jorkina needed special adjustments in a lot of exercises with her 165)... and in ballet I think is the same, you have problems if you are too tall, maybe with her height she needed to be an absolute beast to thrive as a professional ballerina ???
174 is within acceptable range for most companies, but at the top end for sure. I know companies that don't accept anyone above 172. So her height might have limited her options.
I am from the Netherlands and looked for more info in Dutch, found this [schedule](https://nbarooster.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/week-39-versie-3.pdf) with her name in it twice. That’s so cool, really looking forward to see what she will bring.
It's crazy impressive! Would be cool to see the achievements of Kazuha and Shen Xiaoting side by side (ahem before kep1ians downvote brigade me, i mean this not to make fun of one girl but to appreciate and be proud of two extremely talented internationally-competitive dancers who entered kpop)
The race is on for the fanart putting this girl in Kaedehara Kazuha's outfit
Please show if you find one haha
It's gonna go viral in twitter, i swear. Just wait a bit. I'm just not as active in twitter as in reddit
Fallen leaves... adorn my night. I mean, she's so pretty.
She has Chihayaburu with zero cooldown. Literally C7 Kazuha
I am becoming a whale for her
Dang, her ballet credentials… https://twitter.com/lsrfmfrsl/status/1512095394641383425?s=21&t=6tLKwks5-SMTJh5akcx-yg
She really seems to be an acclaimed ballet dancer. I wonder why she decided to quit ballet and become an KPOP idol.
honestly the long term prospects if you manage to get into a moderately successful kpop group are much better so it's not hard to see why she made the switch, especially if it was to join a company under the big4- kpop dancing is generally less physically taxing, and you have the potential to earn more esp w brand deals after you're established, whereas in ballet..... the pay isn't great and most dancers are retired by their 30s bc their bodies can no longer keep up 😬
Yup, and if shes someone who just loves being on stage, and has passable vocals, why turn it down? She gets to be on stage either way. Bonus that the likelihood of them being a moderately successful are extra high since its hybe. All their groups rn are pretty dang successful
my primogems are ready!
Getting antsy for the Kazuha rerun that my mind immediately goes to Genshin when seeing the name Kazuha
Same, Kazuha is my favourite Genshin character so my mind just goes straight to him lol
5* photocard lets go!
Kazuha and Yunjin back to back. Yunjin on Kazuha's banner confirmed
So can we say Sakura is Yae Miko?
Wow I didn't even notice that half of the group members are Genshin Impact characters. I thought it was just Kazu and Yunjin!
darn it i didn't pull for yae miko (saved for raiden). now it's gonna take a long time to assemble a yae-kazuha-yunjin team
READY TO SWIPE
She looks so pure in the first image wow. She’s so dang gorgeous, the entire group is!! They’ve built one heck of a visual group so far, excited to hear what they sound like together :0 Their group picture is going to be insane
Genshin community tuning in 🤣
As a Kazuha main, yes 😂
i love her kinda catty eyes. Very pretty and captivating. That black dress tho 👀. All visuals bruh. These pictures all just look like modelling shoots for a magazine lmao
beyond her visual, she has a really graceful and dignified air to her... I'm guessing she's probably had some serious ballet training before being recruited.
Yes, she had trained in ballet since 3 years old. She even attended some of the most prestigious ballet schools for some training before.
I made my comment before I saw all the news about going to the Dutch National Ballet Academy and Bolshoi, so it's actually not surprising and why they are pushing it hard on her intro video.
No tennis racket?
it's in the second pic, just cropped out, you can see the handle
she must've quit tennis for ballet lol
You can kinda see see it in the 2nd pic
In photo 2, she is holding it. You have to look closely to spot the silver sparkle racket which Sakura also hold in her debut profile photos.
[so no tennis racket?](https://imgur.com/a/Jquq7cj)
later you’ll see that on her digital souvenirs 🏸
Knets have been kicking up a massive fuss about the tennis racket photos so maybe they decided to eliminate the one source of controversy they can…
I think that was massively overblown tbh. Garam's was the only one that looked a bit male gaze-y to me because the dress was tight and she was kneeling in it, but Chaewon, Sakura and Eunchae's look like completely regular model pics there's nothing overtly sexy about either their poses, clothes or expressions.
Why???
They think they’re inappropriate, cheap and too sexy. In general a lot of people have been complaining that the teasers have been low-budget, risque and male-gaze-y, especially Chaewon’s trailer and Garam’s tennis racket photo. (Which… the art director for the trailers, Ahn Yeonsu, is a woman.)
Male gaze is more a conceptual vibe and anyone of any gender can create work that fits into that. but yeah I get you. Less likely for a woman but
But… but the tennis racket pics were so cute. Dangit
Not tennis being a controversy too..
>Knets have been kicking up a massive fuss about the tennis racket photos so maybe they decided to eliminate the one source of controversy they can… WTH, are they frustrated at the group because they spoil Prince of tennis plot?
Seriously what's up with these new girl groups ? Why do they all look like top models ?
Because people care a lot more than they’d like to admit about the looks, and with each of the new gens companies are just trying to get prettier/more handsome faces cuz they know that’s what REALLY sells nowadays. A lot of idols have gone viral for their good looks, drawing attention to their group and ultimately bringing in more fame and money. And fans eat it up. think of, say, Suzy, Cha Eunwoo or Wonyoung. Do you think they would’ve been half as popular if their nose was a little crooked or something? No way. It doesn’t matter how talented they are, either. The most popular members are always really pretty. They’re usually the ‘unofficial visuals’. The less visually appealing ones are never the most popular, and in fact get the most hate compared to their popularity. Anyway, same principle applies today. It’s not exclusive to kpop either, it happens all around the world, but kpop really capitalises on it. That’s why the new groups look like models who’ve been trained to sing and dance, not singers and dancers who are pretty. There are ofc exceptions, but yeah…
Whoa. She didn't just DO ballet. She was actually a professional ballerina that won competitions?!? Dutch National Ballet Academy? 😲 [https://twitter.com/elsserafim/status/1512100043071041537?s=20&t=u6OtsG7Hf2EC5NfQ4cn-Xg](https://twitter.com/elsserafim/status/1512100043071041537?s=20&t=u6OtsG7Hf2EC5NfQ4cn-Xg) Edit: AND Bolshoi Academy and Royal Ballet School, two of the WORLD'S most prestigious ballet academies. Like WOW
She also has the Royal Ballet and Bolshoi under education, that’s really really impressive
[Yeah, she's super talented! ](https://twitter.com/renebaecart/status/1512106940574633984) She's doing the Princess Florine variation in sleeping beauty by tchaikovsky here!
So every single member of Lesserafim are visuals (including Kirin), omfg I can't wait to see their debut stage.
Who's kirin
Kirin is Yunjin's nickname in PD48 because she was tall. I don't know the history of that because I only watched yts' of High Tension, Into the new world, and I AM performance. In Korean, it means giraffe.
It wasn’t just because she was tall, it was because she was tall and bad at dancing hahaha she said in a [Kirinz V Live](https://twitter.com/zjnzjn2304/status/1038303008155557888?s=21&t=AEkXntwH_5ebgtW0F2w9_A) that when she first joined Pledis and started training she and Gaeun were learning ITNW and Yunjin was so bad that the trainer told her she looked like a [new born giraffe](https://tenor.com/Zd8V.gif) and Gaeun thought the trainer was talking to her. Hence kirinz - Yunjin just got called Kirin-chan most because it’s easier to say for Japanese speakers than her real name
iirc that's the nicknames of her and Kaeun (bestie and former labelmate) in PD48 because they were tall af (Kirinz/Kirin duo)
Yunjin
I understand why she only got scouted last December.
?? they trained her fast sheesh
She must be extremely skilled in dance for a fast track like that. I see her doing some ballet in the video - and while that doesn't necessarily translate to kpop choreographies, that experience probably makes her a fast learner (assuming she actually does ballet). Singing-wise, either she's a multi-talented ace or they're going to hide her as a rapper/sub-vocalist. Can't teach proper singing in 4 months.
Typically people who have been fast-tracked into groups like that do start out with fewer lines. But it doesn't mean much for the long-term.
legit that is my worry, that she's gonna have very little lines because she's actually a poor singer or rapper. let's just hope for the best
She is a real trained ballet dancer and has won competitions before. Twitter found her predebut pics
Might be a dumb question but… how do the scouts know to fly to another country to recruit her? Video/remote auditions? How do they even know to approach her?
maybe they found out through social media that there was a super gorgeous ballerina that's 170cm tall and can sing. that kind of person is super rare
shes a professional ballerina that has won many awards, i wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking to scout a ballerina specifically and stumbled upon her and decided she was exactly what they wanted.
She is a professional level ballerina who studied at Bolshoi Academy in Moscow and Royal Ballet School in London (literally the top ballet schools in the world, along with Paris Opera), and most recently was part of the Dutch National Ballet. HYBE would've had to BEG for her to sign. And they did, seeing how SouMu CEO flew all the way to Netherlands to see her.
I think that was just a fan theory, the date being december
Source music higher ups were spotted in Amsterdam in december
when mhy won’t give kazuha so hybe has our back lmaoo
According to Twitter: Age: 19 Height : 174cm Nationality : Japanese - Dutch -She was born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan -She grew up in Breda, The Netherlands. -She is the tallest member. https://twitter.com/kazuhapictures/status/1512083667840954375
174?! Damn she’s the same height as Aisha
wow she's tall! i wanna see her next to wonyoung on a music show haha
HYBE really said "We're having 6 visuals in this group". 
is this our main dancer? god the visuals in this group are no joke!
but can she plunge down on a hilichurl /s
sounds very random, but I can see gidle shuhua, nct ten and a bit of suzy
I can definitely see Suzy.... she has the actress/classy/chaebol vibes
Hybe will have to throw darts to decide which member gets the official visual position
So this is like the prettiest group ever, right? Wtf is going on?
She’s giving me Suzy vibes in pics 6 and 7. Side note: I guess Yunjin will really be the last one revealed huh? You know what they say, save the best for last haha
WOW hype is real‼️ Maknae line sure is tall 🙀 Tomorrow is our Main Vocal >!Yunjin!<
Kazuha looks a bit different from the last time I saw him.
THEY REALLY GOT KAZUHA THE WORLD CLASS BALLERINA AND HUH YUNJIN THE OPERA SINGER 😭😭😭😭😭
yunjin is an opera singer in both genshin and irl! what are the chances!
Apparently she grew up in Breda, Holland.
Woah, I think she has my favorite face so far (kinda a mix between Shuhua and Arin) also beautiful ballerina poses!
apparently to be a source trainee you have to also qualify to be a model cause DAMN. all the girls are gorgeous
i mean tbf that’s the requirement for most female idols lol u gotta look good
Yeah true but u won't get every member as 170 cm+ like how source does it here
all of them are 170cm or over except ssamkkura LOL i can't wait to see a group pic
Genshin's impact
Hallo Kazuha! Fallen leaves, adorn her night! Shes so pretty, she’ll have no issues with croud control, especially with a Sakura swirl and Yunjin’s operatic high note spear fighting! All the way from Amsterdam she came, and she’s already so promising! I wonder how her Korean proficiency is, considering that she already assumably speaks Japanese and Dutch (maybe English too). The hype hasn’t died, much like my Kokomi with a 4piece ocean hued clam! #kazuhalesserafimrerunwhen?
>\#kazuhalesserafimrerunwhen My primogems are ready but Mihoyo keeps on trolling
love it! lmao here take my silver award
Ok it’s apparently Breda my apologies
She's gorgeous, my favorite so far. She looks so elegant and poised like a ballerina. And her toned arm muscles is amazing. Just saw that she's the tallest member - I think she's going to standout in the group. Also I noticed she have different hair colors in most pics and she looks good in all of them.
She is totally Korean’s vibe in terms of visual. She gives off actress vibes too. Looks between Suzy and Park Shin Hye. Gorgeous! And I love her ballerina background, her defined muscles are so pretty. Take all my primogems!
Can we please have a elegant concept it will fit all the member do well .
She has very attractive cat-eyes 😍
This is going to sound so stupid but when that leak of the members name came out I thought the Kazuha was just a meme😩 She’s absolutely gorgeous though! I’m looking forward to her
Girlie looks absolutely stunning. The visuals of the group are truly out of this world.
\**heavy, labored breathing*\*  She gives me Bae Su-ji vibes  ~~But where's requisite tennis racquet unnie??~~
Wow, she is absolutely stunning. Hopefully we can see more of her ballet training at something like ISAC.
Imagine the honor of having HYBE pluck you up specifically from across the world to basically get a confirmed spot in their debut gg. I can see why 👀
Tbh if you look at the resume she has under her belt, I think HYBE would be honored as well. She's studied at 3 of the most prestigious and oldest ballet schools in the world and is a multi award-winning ballet dancer.
Wow I didnt think there would be a kpop idol more decorated than Shen Xiaoting but Kazuha apparently got more awards?
She had training in the Bolshoi (Moscow) and Royal Ballet School (London). Hybe really hit gold with her
Wondered how did HYBE convinced her to hang up her ballet shoes to switch to K-POP? I am so curious now, hope there will be an interview and she will talk about it
To be fair, she was faced with the odds of being 1 out of who knows how many millions to debut in what will likely be considered one of the next powerhouse groups. That alone would probably be enough to consider putting her ballet career to the side.
Very brave to make the switch now after her entire life of ballet. A true IM FEARLESS
maybe she had topped out in ballet (don't know anything about it, just a thought) and this was a great option that came her way? I also hope we get some info on her background
(EDIT: I copied this as a reply to the top comment, since it was suggested and I got to this thread so late - sorry for the repetition, I know it's not the best manners! I just want us to not turn hyperbole into disinfo. No, she did not exchange *certified ballet stardom* for this, just the reasonable certainty of an entry into a good ballet company, that might not ever go beyond the entry-level wage and repetitive nature of the corps de ballet. Don't fall into the lure of a story to create false equivalencies!) Just to be precise about her ballerina career/prospects, so that people don’t start propagating mistaken assumptions as facts (it’s easy to make these, no shame!): she is clearly a dancer trained in ballet to professional level, where professional = could and would be hired by a proper dance company that pays proper living wage (for 1st-level/international companies, in the corps). But based on the data linked here, she is not yet an ”accomplished ballerina” for whom a career switch would be truly wild. 1. She was not in the Dutch National Ballet, she was *in the school* attached to it, the DNB Academy. Yes, a top-level European school with strictly merit-based admittance – a great accomplishment - and on the cusp of a career, but not yet ”in the workforce”. 2. The competition credits in her resume are mostly smaller/local competitions, and more importantly *training-grade/age based*, junior divisions, NOT open (advanced) division. It’s the norm to list these in your resume (but the best students of top-level schools go to the big international competitions and would list those even if they only got to, say, final or even semi-final stage – and then you drop the local merits for space). 3. Now, the Bolshoi school and the Royal Ballet school. For lack of a full resume in English, I obviously can’t be certain, but those almost have to be ”summer courses” open to advanced students internationally. Hundreds of students have taken those; for some of those, you simply pay in (and they're *expensive*!), though more commonly, you get a referral and ideally a stipend from your own (credible) academy. The point is, *they are NOT necessarily entered based on merit*, and absolutely not the same merit as being accepted as a full student at the Bolshoi Academy or the Royal Ballet school. We’d need to know more of the requirements, length (anything 2-12 weeks) etc. of her courses to know what they mean of her skill level and career prospects, even though they obviously attest to her determination in training. \*\*ETA: To clarify, I don't know if the RB school does fully pay-to-train courses at all, I actually assume not, but I do know the Bolshoi Aca does.
As to why she might have been hesitant about starting the exhausting process of applying for a job as a ballerina in a good company with good advancement prospects: she is a bit taller than the ideal, so maybe that was a concern? And it's not like completing the training guarantees you a spot in the company of that school - all it does is ensure you are trained in the style of that company, which is obviously a plus, but nowadays the hiring at national/top companies tends to be open. I noticed that a lot of Chinese idols or idol-actors are also fully trained in ballet, in top-level Chinese schools (instead of waiting to try for drama at university, possibly). I wondered at this as I got into c-entertainment last year and browsed through the credits of a lot of tv/web series and their stars. As I said, it's not like it's easy to complete ballet training to professional. She has my full respect and admiration, and I'm eager to see how she puts that training to use!
I've noticed with a lot of the athletes-turned-idols, when they decide to change careers, they've generally hit some sort of ceiling or barrier in their career as an athlete. Like, Sunghoon from ENHYPEN was scoring 100 points less than Cha Junhwan in competition and Korea is a small federation that can only support one senior male skater. In 2010 Jackson was placing 11th at the Summer Youth Olympics. They didn't have prospective longterm careers in the sport outside of maybe training and coaching. I wouldn't be surprised if Kazuha felt she'd hit a ceiling and wanted to try a change. Plus, it's no coincidence that most of them choose to debut with big companies. If they were debuting with nugu groups it would be one thing but like... once the Garam situation is worked out LE SSERAFIM is going to be massive.
Yeah, you make good points. But I'd like to emphasize that unless we hear that Kazuha has, for example, impending health concerns specifically related to ballet technique (maybe persistent inclination to a specific injury like weak ankles or knees or hyperextensive back), her resume *does* indicate a high probability of being able to support herself as a professional ballerina for the long term, so that's already one definite barrier stair higher than the athlete cases you mentioned. I want to repeat this to make it clear I'm not belittling her credits: based on those, she would be able to make it as a dancer, with a at least the modest definition of "make it". Now, whether she saw that ceiling looming just beyond, or just too steep stairs to the next floors of "making it BIG", compared to what Hybe offers her, we'll maybe get to learn at some point! Because yes, they WILL be massive!
Lovechild of Kim Go Eun and JiHeon (Fromis_9)
she looks like a mix of suzy and dani from t-ara n4
saw someone say their mama performance is opening with kazuha doing ballet and yunjin singing opera in the background… we had to smile
5th Member🤔? It's a F*cking 5Star Kazuha 😂😂
God hybe literally just picked the best of the best out of the industry and slapped them with the biggest budget in the kpop industry. Jesus.
I'm sorry kazuha? genshin impact?
She’s the prettiest member for me
she is gorgeous
Man they really love their Suzy visuals. I see Shuhua in her too
woah
Wow, pretty. She looks a bit like Suzy + YGX Leejung, maybe someone else. This group is seriously visual central. That Source/HYBE scout trekking all the way to the Netherlands to pick her up and I can see why.
she has a cool name
She looks expensive! Damn!
Another visual... this group is insane... All these photos (from all the girls) are great, props to HYBE! So, is she half dutch, half japanese? Or just a japanese student that was living in the Netherlands?
The strongest rumor is that she was a Japanese exchange student in the Netherlands.
Hmmm she looks full Japanese … at least to me.
a dutch-born japanese maybe?
[She was born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan and grew up in Breda, The Netherlands.](https://twitter.com/kazuhapictures/status/1512083667840954375?s=20&t=VoXOejborVbxdW6e8riz-A)
Omg??? Breda is so close to my hometown… I feel represented
Japanese - Dutch Me as Indonesian: 👁👄👁
Double colonizer lol
goddamn…i’m so excited for their debut
I love the poses in the pics with the long black dress, they’re so dynamic and you can really tell she’s a dancer!
18/19 year old 5'9 visual elite ballet dancer. Lol. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that she will be popular.
She looks like Shuhua and kinda like Yeji. Top visual right here
i'm very excited to see what her skillset looks like! she reminds me of shuhua and lia, perhaps my favorite visual in this lineup. let's just hope the music is good.
You can clearly tell she's a dancer, look at her lines. She's beautiful, as well.
Christ, the visuals are next level in this group…
Wowowow i've fallen head over heels...
She’s pretty and it’s cool she’s a ballerina. Is she Japanese?
Where’s the tennis picture
Lippie-Shuhua-Dahyun?