JISOO
A Korean vocalist who crossed into a Japanese audition because staying where she was had stopped working. Her voice is deep, clear, and stubborn enough to make her rerecord a guide vocal nobody else thought needed fixing.
The music started in the car
JISOO grew up in Incheon as an only child. Her parents taught her to finish what she started, which apparently lodged itself deep enough that years later a producer could say a recording was good and JISOO would still ask for another take.
Her mother loved music and played overseas hip-hop and R&B in the car instead of children’s songs. JISOO has called those rides an origin point. The detail explains more than a generic “she loved singing from a young age” sentence. Her lower register, phrasing, and taste did not appear from nowhere after HANA formed.
During high-school career counseling, she realized that she would not be happy unless she pursued music. That decision was not followed by an easy debut. It led into years of training, doubt, a period when she considered quitting, and eventually a move into an audition conducted mostly in a language she had taught herself.
Two years inside the Korean trainee system
JISOO began agency training at seventeen and trained for roughly two years. Profiles and Japanese reporting have connected that period to YG Entertainment, although the most reliable interviews often describe it more cautiously as training at a Korean entertainment company. The important part is confirmed: she experienced the Korean idol system before No No Girls.
She did not debut during that first run. By 2023 her mental health had dropped badly enough that she questioned whether music was still possible. She later said the Korean basketball webtoon Garbage Time helped pull her through. Wanting to read the next episode gave her one small reason to keep moving. She brought the complete set to Japan during No No Girls, then read, cried, practiced, cried again, and went back to work.
No No Girls: leaving Korea to find a different answer
JISOO applied to BMSG and CHANMINA’s No No Girls after thinking that another country might let her discover a version of herself she could not reach at home. She studied Japanese on her own before applying. The audition’s premise mattered to her history because it was built around women who had already been told no for their age, bodies, voices, appearance, or failure to fit a company’s preferred mold.
She entered as a technically trained vocalist, but the show did not let her hide inside technique. Her perfectionism became visible during recording. She would repeat takes after other people were satisfied because she could still hear the distance between the sound she made and the sound in her head.
That habit could be impressive and exhausting at the same time. Later interviews show actual growth instead of a personality press release. By 2026 she could accept that a pre-production recording was good enough for the stage it was in, stop, and save her body for the next schedule. CHIKA and MOMOKA reportedly praised her for finally leaving the studio like a person with another appointment.
JISOO was selected as one of HANA’s seven members in January 2025 with CHIKA, NAOKO, YURI, MOMOKA, KOHARU, and MAHINA. She was the only Korean member, which meant the group had somebody who could translate apps, orders, and local logistics when the “ROSE” video was filmed in Korea. She was finally the useful local friend after months of the others helping her navigate Japan.
HANA and the first year that did not slow down
HANA released the pre-debut track “Drop,” then made its major debut with “ROSE” on April 2, 2025. JISOO opens “ROSE,” which was a smart choice. Her voice arrives with weight before the arrangement expands, and the lyric about loving the self that survived hard seasons lands differently when the singer has already talked publicly about nearly leaving music.
The group moved quickly through “Burning Flower,” “Blue Jeans,” “BAD LOVE,” “My Body,” and “Cold Night,” then released its first full album HANA in February 2026. HANA won the Best New Artist prize at the 67th Japan Record Awards and appeared on the 76th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen. That is not a quiet rookie year.
JISOO has said the pace would have been impossible alone. The seven members share personal problems and keep talking when a subject is uncomfortable. Before HANA, she doubted whether group work suited her. Now she treats direct conversation as part of making sure nobody has to shrink themselves inside the team.
Her long-term goal is not to remain a vocalist waiting for assignments. She wants a concert where each member presents a self-produced solo song. That fits CHANMINA’s stated plan for HANA to grow into members who can create their own work.
The voice file
JISOO’s tone sits lower and darker than the brightest parts of HANA’s blend. “Dark” does not mean dull or swallowed. Her vowels stay clear, the center of the note feels solid, and she can add breath without losing the pitch inside it.
She describes her role as the stillness inside HANA’s force. The group performs with heat and a lot of visible willpower. JISOO is interested in the quieter edge inside that power, especially the fragile part that appears when she does not push every note to maximum size.
Why “My Body” and “Cold Night” matter
During “My Body,” she struggled to balance her high and low registers and wanted more low-tone color in the recording. She practiced, repeated takes, and cried over it. By “Cold Night,” she felt she had found the nuance she wanted. CHANMINA gave her room to decide instead of forcing a producer-approved take onto a singer who had not finished thinking.
That arc is more useful than calling her a “power vocalist.” It tells you what she was fixing, where she heard the problem, and which release made her believe the work had changed.
| Listen or watch | What JISOO adds |
|---|---|
| “ROSE” | The opening voice and the grounded emotional entry into HANA’s debut statement. |
| “My Body” | The register problem she had to work through instead of pretending confidence solved it. |
| “Cold Night” | A lower, more settled color after that recording struggle. |
| Live stages | Control and stillness inside a group whose choreography often asks for blunt force. |
Writing and the ILLIT collaboration
In July 2026, JISOO and MOMOKA featured on ILLIT’s “I Got Your Back” and participated in the lyrics. The collaboration placed HANA’s rougher vocal texture inside ILLIT’s bright pop-rock and magical-girl framing. JISOO did not have to sand down her tone to match the song. The contrast was the useful part.
Read the full RaeRae Reacts review for the song, video, credits, and why the bridge still needed adult supervision.
Watch JISOO in context
JISOO does not have an official solo release, so she belongs on the Members shelf, not the Solo Artists shelf. These official videos show the group voice she helped build and the credited collaboration where her darker tone changes the temperature.
HANA – Blue Jeans
ILLIT feat. JISOO and MOMOKA – I Got Your Back
Fandom file
- Food scout: She keeps notes on restaurants in Japan and abroad and plans tour meals with suspicious seriousness.
- Sports manga: Slam Dunk, Blue Lock, Medalist, and especially Garbage Time are part of her actual motivation file.
- Team function: She values direct discussion when members are uncomfortable. The quiet vocalist is not necessarily the quiet problem-solver.
- Japan and Korea: She wants HANA to work in Korea and hopes to share a stage with friends who debuted before her.
- Perfectionism: It has helped her recordings and also made stopping difficult. Her growth includes knowing which take needs another hour and which take needs sleep.
Current status: 2026: first album, first tour, and the ILLIT collaboration
HANA released its self-titled first full album digitally on February 23, 2026 and physically on February 25. The album gathered the group’s origin and current work into one catalog statement rather than treating the No No Girls story as permanent introductory material.
The group began its first tour, Born to Bloom, in March and introduced “Bad Girl,” later tied to Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro group-selfie campaign in Japan. JISOO’s deeper tone remains especially useful when HANA moves between vulnerable material and songs that require more attack.
In July 2026, JISOO and MOMOKA featured on ILLIT’s Japanese track “I Got Your Back” and participated as lyricists. They also appeared at ILLIT’s Toyota Arena Tokyo tour finale. The collaboration belongs on JISOO’s member profile, HANA’s group profile, and the relevant artist/release connections because it is credited work outside the group’s own recording while still explicitly naming her as a HANA member.
HANA’s official site continues to list JISOO in the seven-member lineup and carries current tour and music notices. Her status remains active from the group’s 2025 debut to the present.
2026 sources: HANA official site · Sony Music album announcement · Born to Bloom and “Bad Girl” notice
Official links and related pages
Return to the HANA group profile. JISOO remains one canonical person profile; group and collaboration tags decide where she appears.
YouTube video tracking history
CVM Sekai tracks HANA and B-RAVE official channels for music videos, performance films, dance practices, behind-the-scenes footage, and clearly credited JISOO content. Group releases and formal collaborations remain linked to HANA, this canonical member page, and an applicable collaborator profile. They do not require duplicate person or group pages.
Being the only Korean member is work, not trivia
JISOO’s Korean background is often flattened into a fun-fact line, but crossing into a Japanese group changed the daily mechanics of her career. She arrived after studying Japanese independently, then had to record, rehearse, interview and build friendships in a language she was still learning. Fluency is not a switch. A singer can understand a direction and still need extra time to hear its emotional temperature, especially when the instruction concerns a vowel, an implication or a joke rather than a literal note.
That pressure also travels in the opposite direction. Other members have described relying on JISOO for Korean translation and practical help during Korean schedules. The useful story is not that she became the group’s permanent interpreter. It is that HANA’s first cross-border member carries cultural labor alongside vocal labor. A profile should notice that responsibility without reducing her to it. Her central job remains making music; translation is one way she helps seven people move through the same room.
Perfectionism only becomes craft when the listener can hear the change
JISOO’s repeat-take habit is easy to romanticize. More effort does not automatically create a better recording, and exhaustion can make a singer less accurate rather than more honest. The interesting part of her development is learning to name the adjustment. On one take she may want a firmer consonant so the line enters with authority. On another, she may lower breath pressure so the note sounds private. A useful rerecording has a target; a frightened rerecording only postpones the moment when the work must leave the booth.
That distinction explains why her account of moving from “My Body” into “Cold Night” matters. She was not merely collecting hours. She was trying to connect registers and keep the darker color she wanted without manufacturing heaviness. The later recording gave her evidence that the work had transferred. Growth becomes credible when a listener can compare the problem, the method and the result instead of being told that somebody practiced very hard.
What I Got Your Back adds to her profile
“I Got Your Back” is more than a guest slot placed in the tracker. ILLIT’s brighter pop-rock frame asks JISOO to contribute weight without turning contrast into a takeover. She and MOMOKA are credited participants and lyric contributors, so their presence belongs in the song’s authorship story as well as its vocal arrangement. The collaboration tests whether HANA’s rougher colors can enter another group’s established world and still sound invited rather than pasted on after the fact.
JISOO’s best moments in that file do not come from trying to out-sing the host group. Her lower center changes the floor beneath the melody. The effect is relational: ILLIT’s brightness reads differently because another texture has entered beside it. That is the reason exact participant routing matters. Sending the card to every HANA member would erase the specific work JISOO and MOMOKA performed; omitting their pages would hide an individual credit inside a group-level filing cabinet.
The 2026 visibility test
The official HANA site recorded another kind of individual visibility in August 2026 when JISOO became a new commercial character for Ichikami. Advertising is not proof of musical growth, and a hair campaign should not be inflated into an artistic milestone. It does show that the public-facing identity around JISOO is becoming legible outside a seven-person frame. The responsible profile records the campaign, keeps its commercial category clear and waits for music before calling her a solo artist.
That boundary protects the future. If she releases an independently billed song, OST, cover or production credit, this same canonical page can expand into artist activity. Until then, group performances, the credited ILLIT feature and documented individual campaigns can coexist without inventing a separate person. One human should not split into duplicate profiles every time the billing changes.
My replay checklist for JISOO
I listen first for the entrance: does her lower color establish a new emotional floor or merely repeat the previous line? Then I follow register changes, especially whether the connection stays audible when a phrase climbs. I watch the breath before a quiet line because restraint is only compelling when support remains underneath it. Finally, I compare the live choice with the studio file. A different vowel, delayed onset or rougher finish can reveal interpretation; volume alone proves almost nothing.
The same checklist keeps praise from becoming patronizing. JISOO does not need to be described as brave every time she sings in Japanese, nor should every controlled performance be called effortless. Name the audible decision, credit the cross-border preparation that supports it, and allow an imperfect stage to remain one stage. She has already survived enough narratives that mistake permanent evaluation for attention.
Sources
- non-no: JISOO on choosing music, her working style, quiet strength, food notes, and future goals
- anan: mental health, Garbage Time, independent Japanese study, trainee history, and group communication
- Numero Tokyo: the first album, My Body, Cold Night, perfectionism, CHANMINA, and the manga that kept her moving
- smart Web: childhood, family, hip-hop and R&B roots, and music as recovery
- HANA official profile
- ILLIT official collaboration announcement
React image cards
Static cards route each exact official upload to its own in-depth React. Every card repeats that React’s featured and hero image so the archive stays visually traceable.
Official video archive
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