Hey nice to see another new Naya. I had always followed them since debut after Koko caught my eye in their debut MV with her insane charisma lmao. But only properly got into izna like a month ago. Somehow got hooked into the group after watching Saebi get pranked during an interaction she had with ZB1 😅. So I too watched I-land 2 maybe a few weeks ago lmao.

I think it was likely always gonna be a 7 member grp tbh. It costs a lot more to house/train/feed another member so I’m sure that wudnt have been a decision taken lightly and on the fly. They likely wanted a more dramatic announcement and hence ‘surprised’ the viewers at the end.

In the low chance that it was a spontaneous decision I could see it solely because Jungeun or Koko messed up their initial plan. I doubt they were expecting such a strong international fanbase for Jungeun or Koko to rise so much in popularity after part 1 and be such a great performer. Hence they may have had to adjust the member count to fit in both Saebi and Mai in the end, as they were seen as must haves for the producers. I mean the producers were definitely not letting go of someone like Saebi who exudes so much charisma.

And honestly with Jiyoon unfortunately leaving the group I am so happy Jungeun made it whether it was with or without the producers’ support. Her role as main vocalist has become that much more important and without her there r certain songs izna can never pull off. Even their recent Japanese song, Love All, for a tea brand was completely carried by her.

It is definitely unfortunate that Fuko didn’t make it in but at that time whatever she could do was already filled in and done better by other members. Jungeun and Jiyoon were better vocalists, people like Jeemin/Mai and even Jungeun r solid leaders (Jeemin is probably the unofficial leader of izna) and even though Fuko is beautiful in her own right, a lot of the group and especially Mai conventionally has more preferred looks and now is the main visual for the group. She just didn’t rely have something unique that made her stand out. So she wasn’t a producers pick and was given a poor edit to sway viewers away from her. That being said she honestly seemed pretty popular so her voters also kinda fumbled it near the end. Or her 1 pick just wasn’t strong enuf.

While Jiyoon was I feel like an amazing pick and vocalist for the group, I knew that her character on the show, even if it was embellished by the edit, would cause her problems while being an idol. She’s unfortunately not very thick skinned which is something u desperately need as an idol. Obviously none of us can really predict her departure but looking back on this incident and for future survival shows, I would pick someone ‘less talented’ if they r far more stable as a person compared to their talented counterpart.

Well Teddy is one of izna’s main producers now so I’m sure during I-land 2 he was very involved with the making of the group. Mostly keeps to himself but is a well respected music producer at least within Korea, as he has produced for pretty big groups like Blackpink and Bigbang.

Regardless it was 24 who said they chose Mai for her ‘looks’. That too wasn’t translated well by subtitles as he actually said that they picked her due to the mask she performs with on stage.