Recently, Kpop girl group ILLIT opened their "Press start" tour with two performances in Seoul (Korea) on March 14-15. 3.
At the concert, the group revealed the name of their 4th mini-album on the big screen, named "Mamihlapinatapai".
However, as soon as ILLIT's album cover introduction image spread on social networks, it caused a major controversy.
Many viewers believe that ILLIT's album name design this time immediately reminds them of the characteristic framed logo design of the famous girl group Blackpink.
A series of posts on social networks accused ILLIT of plagiarizing Blackpink: "I scrolled quickly so I thought this was a post about Blackpink's first album. Oh, it's really plagiarized"; "Can they make something unique themselves?"; "It seems they made album covers similar to Blackpink because of previous failures and they wanted to attract attention from Blink (Blackpink fan community)"...
Other opinions criticizing ILLIT's creative team and management company - Belift Lab - said that this company is "unethical", knowing the risk of potential controversy related to a top group like Blackpink but still disregarding the design.
However, ILLIT fans also spoke out in defense of the group. They pointed out that ILLIT's design is white-black, not pink-black like Blackpink. Images spread online because they were projected on a LED screen and taken with a phone, so they turned pink, causing controversy that the color is exactly like Blackpink.
However, netizens argue that "the issue is not the color". Blackpink's "framed" logo design has been very popular, accompanying the group for nearly 10 years since their debut. To date, no Kpop group has had a similar product accused of clearly copying this design like ILLIT.
ILLIT is currently facing a "storm" of criticism on social networks. Because a few days earlier, this group was involved in controversy because a performance stage was accused of copying NewJeans' performance.
The performance staged on the bench in ILLIT's song "Not me" is said to have many similarities with the stage setting and choreography of the song "Cookie" that NewJeans once performed.
Meanwhile, on the afternoon of March 16, Belift Lab company confirmed that ILLIT (Yunah, Minju, Moka, Wonhee, Iroha) will return on April 30 with a new album called "Mamihlapinatapai" and the title track "It's me".
This comeback is considered a synthesis of the private music world that ILLIT has built in 2 years since its debut, and is expected to more clearly depict the group's characteristic aesthetic style - called "ILLIT core".
The album name "Mamihlapinatapai" originates from the Yaghan language, meaning: "Subtle eyes exchanged between two people when both expect the other to be the one to actively do what both need".
This is also a word that Guinness has recognized as "the most difficult word to translate in the world", making fans even more curious about the color that ILLIT will show in this album.
