Part 7: Kiss Later

We'd get our first glimpse at LOONA's fourth member in the "Who's Next Girl?" teaser posted on December 29th, 2016.

Like Haseul's, we don't get to see her face yet. Instead, we see a small teddy bear. Its bow states that it's from a "Teddy Bear Museum" — though that doesn't narrow it down, as there are hundreds of teddy bear museums all over the world. I'd guess it's one from South Korea, but there's still multiple within the country so it'd be difficult to pinpoint the exact location.

The girl herself wears a black jacket/blazer and white dress shirt with a red ribbon bow. It looks like a school uniform, and the ribbon bow is similar to the one worn by the teddy bear.

The LOONA title is in a muted yellow color, and the other text is in a navy blue. The caption once again states lists the date of January 4th and says (via auto-translate): "Please look forward to the fourth member of LOONA opening the start of 2017 and the identity of the teddy bear 😊"

On January 3rd, 2017, (4th in South Korea due to timezone differences) the first teaser image was released, officially introducing us to our fourth member, Yeojin. (pronounced "yoh-jin") Her representative animal is a frog — though as we'll see, she's also associated with bears — and her representative color is orange. She is associated with Taiwan.

All of Yeojin's teaser images were shot in Taiwan.

In this first teaser image, we see Yeojin wearing a similar outfit to the one from the "Who's Next Girl?" teaser, though it's not exactly the same. She wears a navy blue sweater with white and red stripes over a white dress shirt with a dark green/blue ribbon. She also wears a bright red skirt.

She sits in front of a storefront and gazes at the viewer with an unsure expression. You can tell just from looking at her that she's significantly younger than the other members — only 14 years old at the time.

(There is of course a discussion to be had about her age and the dangers of debuting so young, but as I've stated before this site is meant to specifically talk about the Loonaverse and its lore, NOT the IRL idols and behind-the-scenes stuff. So I won't be going into any of that here.)

Her name is written in her representative color, orange. As with the other teasers, there is no caption aside from the usual hashtags.

The second teaser image is taken inside of an arcade, with Yeojin sitting on a green stool and leaning on a counter. Once again she has a somewhat unsure expression.

She wears a black blazer over a white dress shirt, alongside black shoes and socks with white frills. The blazer is decorated with multi-colored teddy bears and various phrases. It's hard to make out the exact text, but using various angles of the outfit (taken from her solo album photoshoot) I was able to figure them out:

-"All I'm gonna do is just go on and do what I feel" (Quote from Jimi Hendrix)

-"If I'm free, it's because I'm always running" (Another quote from Jimi Hendrix)

-"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you've imagined" (Quote from Henry David Thoreau)

-"We were born to be wild" (Lyric from "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf)

-"Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command" (Quote from Alan Watts)

-"You're either on the bus or off the bus" (Quote from Ken Kesey)

-"Love is a friendship set to music" (Quote from Joseph Campbell)

-"Power to the people" (General phrase that's been used in many contexts)

-"Jump the lines, man!" (Can't find an exact source, but it's associated with hippies)

-"Join the dance" (Likely taken from a longer quote by Alan Watts: "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.")

Overall, the phrases are all ones associated with the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s. I can't find this exact blazer online, but that was likely the theming behind its creation. I'd guess that the teddy bear decorations were added on later.

Her name here is written in bright yellow rather than orange.

In the third teaser image, Yeojin wears a white shirt with black overall shorts. She poses against a small pillar with a hand on her head. Her expression is still rather flat, but she looks slightly less unsure than the previous teasers.

Her name is written in a bright blue this time.

There were several more teasers in between this one and the next one, but they pertain more to the songs we'll be discussing in Part 8, so I'll save discussion of them for later.

In the fourth and final solo teaser image, Yeojin wears the same outfit from the first teaser. This time she's standing in front of various signs. Her name is written in yellow.

As usual, there isn't too much to glean from these initial teasers, but we can definitely get a sense that Yeojin is also a normal girl like the others.

On January 11th, the video teaser for Kiss Later's MV would be released.

Like the previous ones, it doesn't contain anything that isn't in the MV itself, so we'll save discussion of its contents for later.

A "Taiwan" teaser was also released which, like the other location teasers, is simply behind-the-scenes footage, so we can skip it.

In the description, Kiss Later is described as "an upbeat and lively candy-pop song, containing Yeojin's own uniqueness" and that the lyrics "express an appropriate and healthy attitude telling a boyfriend that 'we're still young, so let's study hard and get into college before kissing.'" It also mentions that the music video uses the fairy tale of "The Frog Prince" as a motif.

We'll get back to all that later. For now, let's jump into the MV!

So! This is a bit of a weird one, right? Let's go ahead and get into it.

The first thing we see is a window with pink curtains, and the LOONA logo with Yeojin's name written in yellow, just like in some of her teaser images.

We zoom out to see Yeojin, sleeping in an ornate bedroom. The walls are pink and white, and fancy white furniture with golden accents are strewn across the room. There's a set of double doors right in front of the bed, seemingly leading outside. There's also a tea cup sitting on a table in the corner.

Yeojin wears a green dress and white socks. There are black shoes beside her on the bed, alongside a few other items: a rose, a doll of a blonde man in a tuxedo, and... a very familiar-looking gift box.

It looks quite similar to the ones we just saw in The Carol, doesn't it? Specifically the one Heejin was carrying in the beginning... interesting.

Beside the bed, there's also a rolling cart with various desserts on it.

Already though, there's something a bit odd about these shots if you pay attention.

In the first shot, there are no items on the bed. But in the very next shot, they've suddenly appeared. Yeojin is sleeping in a different position between shots too. This likely isn't just a mistake, but an intentional decision, as inconsistencies like this occur throughout the entire MV. As for the significance of it, we'll discuss that a bit later.

Yeojin suddenly wakes up to find three princes standing in the room with her, each offering various gifts. Their faces are represented with flat cut-outs, already cueing us into the fact that what we're seeing might not be entirely real.

The middle prince approaches and fits a glittery white shoe onto Yeojin's foot, a la Cinderella.

Yeojin smiles at him, seemingly happy about this whole situation.

We then get our first look at the choreography part of the MV, and Yeojin's main outfit from it. She wears a white blouse with big poofy sleeves and a blue rose on the collar. Over it, she has an overall-style blue dress with pink outlines. She wears black shoes with white socks, and her hair is styled into two buns.

The set is the same room as the bedroom scene, just without a lot of the furniture — you can see the same double doors in the background. We can now see that there's a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Suddenly we get a look at a blurry figure, standing in the darkness.

Both Yeojin and the prince turn to look at them, seemingly confused. And rightfully so! After all...

It's a frog!

The frog is, of course, Yeojin's representative animal, but this is certainly different from how we've seen the animals appear before. With Heejin, it was actual rabbits. With Hyunjin, she wore a cat head. With Haseul, her other self was represented by a white bird.

But now we've got a whole other person who appears to be a frog — though whether that's literal or metaphorical, we'll have to see.

We get a better look at him later, once he's in better lighting. He's a tealish sort of green, with large goofy pink lips. He wears a purple suit with white gloves, a white shirt, and a black bowtie, and black pants with black shoes.

His suit is also deocrated with gold and silver dollar signs for... whatever reason. To show that he's wealthy? To make him look even goofier? Unclear.

Yeojin seems to look at the frog in disbelief — though she appears to be facing forward, so realistically she'd actually be looking at the princes instead. Maybe she's looking at them like "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

Suddenly, Yeojin wakes up in a completely different room. The walls and floors are blue, and the furniture is brightly colored and scattered around the room. Her bed is now blue with a bright pink pillow, and she's wearing black pajamas with a green cactus-like pattern and green socks.

The entire room looks flat and unrealistic, straight out of a cartoon. Just look at this window!

The other room was like something out of a fairy tale, but it was much more realistic. Just compare these two chandeliers:

(first room on the left, second room on the right)

As Yeojin sings, we see that there's framed photos of the "princes" all around her room, likely implying that they're actually just celebrities that Yeojin admires/has a crush on.

Alongside them however, we also see this illustration of an anime boy framed as well, which seems to further emphasize that these are not real people Yeojin knows but simply crushes she was imagining as her princes.

This boy is likely a reference to a later music video and its usage of the manwha Unplugged Boy, but I can't find information on where this illustration is actually from. The art style looks different from Unplugged Boy, so I'm pretty sure this guy is from something else. If anyone knows, please let me know!

There's also this painting in the background which features yellow flowers and an apple.

As Yeojin looks out the window, the frog enters the room and presents a bouquet of pink roses. Shocked, Yeojin seems to faint, falling back and landing on the ground.

As she sings "Stop surprising me like that," various items dance all around her. There's various candies and desserts, pink and red balloons, gift boxes, roses, books, a balloon spelling out "love," two small flamingos, what looks like a plastic pineapple, and the bouquet of pink roses the frog was holding, among other small decorations.

Yeojin approaches a giant orange gift box with a blue ribbon in the bedroom, only to be shocked when the frog's head pops out of it.

She goes over to turn on the TV, only to be shocked when the frog appears on the screen.

She walks through the hallway, only to be shocked when the frog suddenly appears hanging from the ceiling like a bat.

And finally, she rolls over in her bed, only to be shocked when the frog is laying there.

No matter where Yeojin goes or what she does, this frog seems to follow her non-stop, constantly surprising her and catching her off-guard.

After the chorus, we see the frog playing piano beside a small theater with three singing frog puppets, who wear black bowties and golden crowns. Maybe they're supposed to be princes, like the ones we saw at the beginning? (Or maybe they're the other three members lol)

Yeojin wears a very different outfit here, a lacy white dress with white flower-shaped earrings.

She's also wearing those same glittery white heels that the prince gifted to her in the beginning. But... only in some shots. We see her playing the piano alongside the frog with her feet, and in that shot she isn't wearing any shoes at all.

Once again, there seems to be some pretty obvious inconsistencies between shots. Like I said before, we'll discuss this later.

We get this shot of the frog chasing Yeojin through the halls, which again look incredibly cartoony and unrealistic. We also see that painting with the yellow flowers and the apple again.

Here, Yeojin wears a longer frilly pink dress, with purple ruffles and a red rose. She checks behind multiple times to see if the frog is still there. Interestingly, she doesn't look particularly scared or worried — in fact, there's a few moments where she almost seems to be smiling. So perhaps this chase isn't as serious as we might initially think.

Afterwards, we get another new scene, this time set in the kitchen. Once again, it's painfully cartoonish, from the furniture and food to the scenery outside. The three frog puppets from before sing outside the window. Yeojin wears a bright red dress with a white collar and black boots.

On the table there's various utensils, an egg in a frying pan, ketchup, orange soda, strawberries, cheese, egg on toast, bacon, milk, chocolate syrup, and various candies like gummy worms and rope candy. Yeojin also has a mug in front of her.

In front of the frogs, we can see a can of baked beans and a jar of off-brand Branston sweet pickle.

The sweet pickle is missing in the previous shot, but suddenly appears in the one after this.

In the next shot, we can also see that the egg on toast and bacon has been replaced by the bowl of rope candy, which Yeojin is now picking at.

The frog appears, holding a gift box, and approaches Yeojin. We can see that there's now a large dessert on top of the egg on toast.

We can also see the fridge, which has various stickers on it. The most interesting ones are the one with the French flag and Eiffel tower, and one which says "London." Paris and London are both locations we've seen in the Loonaverse before (Paris is Heejin's representative location, and London is where Haseul's teaser images as Birdseul were taken) so these are likely references to that.

The frog backs Yeojin up against the wall and slaps his hand against the wall next to her, acting out the "kabedon" trope that's frequently found in shōjo manga and anime. It's a way of trapping her and forcing her to listen to what he has to say, while also showing off his "dominance."

Less concerning but still a bit worrying — there's a pan with an egg in it on the stove, which is currently on. Anyone checking in on that? (The same stickers from the fridge also reappear here.)

He holds out a pink gift box with a blue ribbon towards her. The design of the box is directly taken from the 2014 movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, with only a few minor changes such as making it say "Mendl" instead of "Mendl's" and adding some additional text above that I think says "Frank's"?

Likewise, the dessert contained within the box is also directly based on the "Courtesan au Chocolat" pastry featured in The Grand Budapest Hotel. This one though is covered in flies, which I can only assume was done with the best intentions from the frog who probably didn't know any better.

Yeojin faints from shock once again, this time falling onto what appears to be a giant white cake with rainbow sprinkles. It has blue icing and is decorated with little stars with what appear to be giant cherries in the middle. Surrounding the cake are more gift boxes, though these ones are the inverted colors of the ones from The Carol.

We see the kitchen again, and this time we can see a lot more of it. The sink is currently on and filling up (again, maybe someone should check on that), and there's a goldfish bowl sitting next to it. We can also get a fuller view of the fridge's stickers.

Yeojin tries to eat some of the rope candy in her bowl, only for it to be revealed to be the frog's tongue. Or maybe he's eating it too? He is holding a knife and fork. Either way, the visual gag is clear.

The frog pops up outside the window and Yeojin gets startled.

She opens the fridge and gets startled by the frog's disembodied head sitting inside.

As the bridge starts, we see Yeojin and the frog sitting at a table together under a large, realistic chandelier. Yeojin is wearing her princess outfit from before, and she and the frog are holding hands across the table.

We can also see that Yeojin is wearing a pearl ring. As I've stated many times, pearls are connected to the moon and can symbolize innocence, beauty, sincerity, spiritual transformation, and motherhood. Considering LOONA's strong ties to the moon, it's no wonder that pearls keep popping up everywhere.

Unlike the other scenes, Yeojin is smiling at the frog here, and she begins to lean in to kiss him.

However, right before they actually kiss, her eyes snap open and she runs away. It's also another small inconsistency — she was sitting down at the table, but when she starts to run off she's clearly already standing.

Lightning strikes around the frog and a single tear falls from his eye, disappointed that they didn't kiss.

After popping up a few more times around the house, we see the frog and Yeojin brushing their teeth side by side. The bathroom is still just as cartoonish as the rest of the house, and Yeojin is in her black pajamas again. She uses a pink toothbrush, while he uses a blue one.

However, you might notice that something's different about the frog — he's a lot shorter suddenly! Before he towered over Yeojin, but now they're about the same height.

When we see them dance right afterward though, he's back to his original height.

And now he's short again. Once again, things just keep randomly changing.

Yeojin stops brushing and turns to look at the frog.

She picks up lipstick from a selection of shades. They're "innisfree" brand, which LOONA had a sponsorship with at the time. (I've watched this MV a million times and never noticed that, so I don't know how effective this product placement was lmao)

After applying the lipstick, Yeojin stares at the frog until he stops brushing and turns to look at her.

Seemingly overtaken by a sudden wave of confidence, Yeojin grabs the frog's face and leans in for a kiss.

She opens her eyes, which are filled with the frog's face close to hers.

As the final shot, we get Yeojin sticking out her tongue, which has inexplicably turned into rope candy like the frog's tongue.

The first question most people probably have right after watching it is... well, did she end up kissing the frog or not?

We don't get to see exactly what happens, but we actually do know. In 2018, an official fan event was held called "LOONA X Study Group" which featured screenings of all the music videos released at the time, among other things. Attendees of the event received a quiz about LOONA's music videos that they could complete to receive a prize.

One of the questions asks "Which of the following is not true about stories of LOONA's music videos?" with one of the answers being that Yeojin failed to kiss the frog in Kiss Later. This answer was marked as incorrect, meaning we know for sure that Yeojin and the frog did not kiss at the end of the MV.

Before we go into more of the details, I think it's important to go over the general meaning behind the song, as it helps us better understand what the visuals are trying to convey.

Kiss Later is a song about consent. Yeojin sings about how she likes the person she's addressing, but she doesn't want them to kiss her without warning. She says she needs to be ready herself first, and that whining or begging won't work. "I like you back, but please give me just a hug today. A kiss will happen later," she sings.

I think this is important to keep in mind when discussing the frog and Yeojin's relationship. Through the lyrics, as well as shots of Yeojin occasionally smiling at him, we're told that Yeojin does like the frog back. It's just that he's too pushy and moves too fast for her, so she tells him to wait and let things progress on her own terms.

While a lot of the frog's behavior is kind of concerning, I don't think it's meant to come across as genuinely gross or abusive. They're playing up the pushiness to make a point, but by the end of the MV we see them sitting together, dancing together, and brushing their teeth together.

Another important part of this is the unreality of the entire MV. Like I've mentioned throughout this analysis, not only is the location cartoonish-looking, but things keep disappearing and reappearing, heights change at will, etc. It gives everything a very dream-like quality.

With that in mind, I highly doubt almost any of this MV is meant to be taken literally. The boy Yeojin is with is not actually a giant frog man, and likewise much of the events of the MV probably didn't literally happen, or at least not exactly. Thus, I think an easy way to read it is that the frog's persistent, frankly stalker-ish behavior isn't meant to be something actually happening in reality, but rather a manifestation of how this kind of pushiness makes Yeojin feel.

This boy, who seemingly represents a real boyfriend she has in the story according to Yeojin, isn't literally stalking her throughout her house (at least, I'd hope not...) but him continuously trying to kiss her and advance the relationship is making Yeojin feel like that's what's happening. It's a heightened reality, an exaggeration for the sake of making a point.

On that topic, let's discuss the dream aspect of this MV.

At the very beginning, we see Yeojin sleeping in that ornate pink bedroom, before waking up. But after the frog shows up, she wakes up again inside the cartoonish house.

So the question is, which one of these locations is real?

Well, the pink bedroom was confirmed to be a dream in an interview. So we can firmly say that it is not real.

However, the other location poses even more problems. It's so obviously fake, with the cardboard cutouts of items and the ridiculous architecture. Not only that, but it suffers from the same inconsistencies that the pink room had, like things magically appearing and reappearing.

So is Yeojin just waking up from a dream into another dream? It's certainly possible. The idea of a "dream within a dream" has been explored many times in different media, and it happens in real life sometimes too.

If that is the case, then it seems like Yeojin wakes up from a more idealized, "perfect" dream into a far more strange and silly one; but also one that possibly reflects her real life a bit better.

However, I think there's another way you can interpret this. The first sequence in the pink room is a dream, and then everything else is reality — but seen through Yeojin's eyes. It isn't a dream, but it's not what's literally happening either. It's real locations and events, but from Yeojin's perspective. Her imagination and personal feelings result in the visuals that we see. She is still a child after all. It doesn't seem that farfetched that this is how she would view the world.

This may also be why the frog suddenly shrinks at the end. Throughout the MV, he's been pushy and somewhat frightening, so Yeojin views him as larger and more imposing. By the end though, when she's on better terms with him and feels more confident, he's around her height. Less like a scary frog man, and more like a boy her age.

Either way, I think the pink room is what Yeojin wishes for, while the other house is something closer to her current reality, even if it's not completely accurate.

Something else we must discuss is the main inspiration behind the MV, that of course being the fairy tale of The Frog Prince. Similar to how ViViD drew from Alice in Wonderland and Let Me In drew from The Little Prince, this MV's story is likely not meant to be one-to-one with the story that it references, but it's still important to go over the parallels.

In The Frog Prince, a princess accidentally drops her ball in a well. A frog retrieves it for her in exchange for friendship, but she breaks her promise afterwards. The frog then shows up at her castle and proceeds to sit next to her at dinner, eat her food, and sleep in her bed. In modern versions, the princess eventually kisses the frog, unknowingly undoing a curse placed upon him and transforming him into a handsome prince. They then get married and live happily ever after.

Obviously the surface-level elements of a princess and a frog prince who she kisses are borrowed, as well as the frog intruding on the princess's life. However, while in the original fairy tale the princess is painted as selfish for not keeping her promise and rewarding the frog, Kiss Later paints Yeojin as in the right for upholding her boundaries.

With everything else, it's unclear. Did Kiss Later's frog prince get cursed too, and is actually human? Probably not, but he is likely representative of a human, so it's similar. Did Yeojin break some promise she made to the frog? Maybe, but we have no idea what that could be if true. For now, that's where the parallels stop.

Moving on from that, I also want to talk a bit about Yeojin's representative animal being a frog. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, Yeojin is also sometimes represented with a bear.

In a Facebook post made the night before the Kiss Later MV released, Yeojin says "I pretended to be a teddy bear, but actually, I was a frog." She also mentions to watch the MV and to "be sure to break the spell!" referencing the curse of The Frog Prince.

This ties into the very last shot of the MV. Yeojin's tongue turns into rope candy, just like the frog's tongue earlier in the video. It's clearly meant to resemble the long pink tongue of a frog, which again is Yeojin's representative animal.

So like Yeojin said, perhaps throughout the MV she tries to present herself as a teddy bear (whatever that represents), but is shown as her "true self" at the end, which is actually a frog.

Yeojin taking on the appearance of a frog at the end is also similar to how the tale of The Frog Prince is retold in the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog, where instead of breaking the curse by kissing the frog, the princess is also transformed into a frog.

The problem with this is that as we established, Yeojin doesn't actually end up kissing the frog in the end. So what causes this transformation?

It seems like the teddy bear represents what Yeojin "pretends" to be (perhaps what she wants to be, or how others see her) while the frog represents who she actually is. I find it similar to how Yeojin dreams of the idealized princes in the beginning of the MV, but ends up with the goofier frog prince by the end.

It almost feels like a reversal of the original story. Yeojin starts as a human girl, a "teddy bear," but then the "spell" gets broken and she transforms into a frog, who is apparently her real self. And instead of the spell being broken with a kiss, it's broken with the absence of a kiss.

I feel like you could interpret that in a lot of different ways; perhaps the "teddy bear" self is a more normal girl who acts as expected, while the "frog" self is Yeojin's weirder and more authentic self. She tries to be a princess and fall in love with a typical handsome prince, but in reality she's a frog who falls in love with another frog.

However, I think there's one way to look at it that fits more with the specific message of the song and video. If the message is about boundaries and consent, then perhaps Yeojin's two sides represent what she might be "expected" to do vs. what she actually wants.

The teddy bear/human self is a romantic princess who gracefully accepts whatever's done to her in the name of love. Basically, it'd be Yeojin just pushing aside her own feelings and letting the frog kiss her.

The frog self, as established, is Yeojin's true self. Thus, it represents Yeojin's real feelings, that being that she doesn't want to kiss the frog yet. At the end of the MV, Yeojin is able to express her feelings confidently and tries to kiss the frog herself, but doesn't end up going through with it for one reason or another. Thus, she turns into a frog to represent how she's finally being true to herself and standing up for herself.

Again, I think there's multiple ways to look at it, but I think this interpretation makes sense with the intended message of the song.

The final thing I want to talk about is the gift boxes seen throughout the MV; some of which, as I pointed out earlier, look incredibly similar to the ones seen in The Carol. Why is that?

Well, if we assume that it does indeed have meaning, then there's only a couple conclusions we can come to, at least at the moment. Perhaps this detail implies that Yeojin knows the other girls, and that this was a present from one of them, since it looks the same as the ones they were holding.

We could even take it farther and theorize that the Christmas party in The Carol included Yeojin in some way — perhaps that was her house that the party was held in? We couldn't really determine what that location was, after all. Though considering we don't see her celebrating with the other girls at all, I'd guess she probably wasn't there. Either way, I don't think those gift boxes are so similar on accident.

That's about all I have to say about Kiss Later — for now, at least. It introduces Yeojin to us as a girl who tries to hide her true self, but finds her confidence in the end. She seems to be another average girl, going through an imagined/metaphorical bizarre set of events, but we still don't know much about her.

That brings us to the end of this section. In Part 8, we've got a double feature! I'll see you next time to discuss My Melody AND My Sunday!

(Bonus: This is fan content, but I just had to shout out this adorable fan animation! It's very cute and I've always loved it a lot, so I wanted to mention it here.)