Kim Sungmin

Visual. The born in jinan, south korea chapter is only part of the file.

Profile

Before CLOSE YOUR EYES

Born in Jinan, South Korea. Korean father and Thai mother. Worked as a model before PROJECT 7.

Why Kim Sungmin matters to the lineup

Kim Sungmin entered the group with a different amount and kind of experience than the other six members. That unevenness is part of CLOSE YOUR EYES’ appeal. The lineup joins veterans, survival-show returnees, trained performers and members who were nearly self-taught. Visual is the official label. The more useful question is how that role changes once the group’s choreography, vocal blend and live stages start moving.

Modeling and education before PROJECT 7

Before idol competition, Kim Sungmin worked as a model and studied aviation flight at Inha Technical College. Those experiences gave him camera familiarity and a route outside the standard long agency-trainee pipeline. His Korean and Thai family background is part of his biography, but nationality should not be used as a substitute for documented skill or group work.

Modeling helps explain still-image control and visual presentation, while idol performance requires additional skills: synchronized movement, breath under choreography, vocal blend, and repeated live delivery. His profile should track that development rather than assuming the “visual” label describes the finished performer.

PROJECT 7

Sungmin competed on JTBC’s PROJECT 7, a survival program built around assembling contestants into changing teams and concepts. He entered with less conventional idol training than several competitors and relied heavily on audience response, visual recognition, and visible improvement. He finished inside the seven-member debut lineup that became CLOSE YOUR EYES.

The final placement explains his route into the group but is not a permanent ranking of ability. Official mission stages provide a pre-debut baseline; later CLOSE YOUR EYES recordings, dance practices, and concerts show what changed after entering a stable team.

CLOSE YOUR EYES debut and early eras

CLOSE YOUR EYES debuted under UNCORE on April 2, 2025 with the mini album ETERNALT and “All My Poetry.” Sungmin’s member timeline begins with that formal debut. The group’s early catalog, including later releases and performance material, gives more useful evidence than the limited role labels attached during the survival show.

His position inside the seven-member lineup depends on development across vocals, dance, and stage communication. “Visual” describes a recognized presentation role, but does not exempt him from the ensemble work required by music shows, tours, and live stages.

Performance identity

Sungmin’s modeling background gives him awareness of angles and stillness. In choreography, the important next step is connecting those images through motion: finishing a line, arriving on count, and maintaining expression while another member holds center. Full cams and dance practices reveal that work better than edited highlight clips.

Because the group is early in its career, claims about permanent vocal rank, rap position, songwriting, or production should be added only when official material supports them. The profile should remain specific about what has been documented and open about what is still developing.

Artist classification

Sungmin belongs in Members as a current CLOSE YOUR EYES member. Modeling, personal social media, survival-show performances, and group songs do not create a solo-music catalog. He should enter Artists only after a verified independently credited solo release, and that change should be made on this same canonical page.

YouTube tracking history

This profile tracks official CLOSE YOUR EYES music videos, dance practices, performance films, behind-the-scenes uploads, and PROJECT 7 stages featuring Kim Sungmin. The survival-show chapter remains separate from his 2025 group debut. View totals change continuously, so the page records official uploads and career context instead of freezing temporary counts.

Sources

• JTBC PROJECT 7 official contestant, mission, and finale records
• CLOSE YOUR EYES, UNCORE, and official Japanese profile material
• Official group music videos, social accounts, Weverse, and album credits
• Verified member interviews and public account for biographical context

Primary broadcaster, company, group, and release records anchor dates and credits. Fan databases are used only as secondary cross-checks.

Fandom notes

• Studied aviation flight at Inha Technical College
• Speaks English and loves quiet cafés
• Finished PROJECT 7 inside the seven-member debut lineup.
• Debuted with CLOSE YOUR EYES in April 2025 through the mini album ETERNALT.

Official Socials

Verified personal account
Group Instagram · Group YouTube · Weverse

Keep digging

Kim Sungmin’s navigation should send readers to the group evidence without pretending a shared link is personal credit. Return to CLOSE YOUR EYES, watch the SOB performance review, and follow the group’s tea with receipts from the main profile.

Related references

• CLOSE YOUR EYES Japan official profile
• KProfiles member reference

Kim Sungmin’s real story is the learning curve

Sungmin entered the public lineup with less conventional idol training than several teammates. His pre-show modeling work meant he understood a still camera, but a three-minute stage is not a sequence of still photographs. It asks for breath control, synchronized movement, live recovery and expression that survives while the body is tired. That gap between visual confidence and performance experience is not an embarrassment to hide. It is the most honest reason to keep watching him.

During PROJECT 7, audience support and visible improvement helped carry him into seventh place and the debut team. The ranking explains selection, not permanent skill order. In CLOSE YOUR EYES, the fair measurement is whether his timing, line delivery and stage awareness keep improving across “All My Poetry,” “Snowy Summer,” “X,” “SOB” and “POSE.” The answer is more interesting than pretending he arrived fully assembled.

Visual is a job, not a free pass

A visual member shapes first impressions, campaign images and the emotional temperature of close-ups. Sungmin’s modeling history makes that part legible. But the label becomes useful only when it supports the song rather than replacing it. His best growth is visible when he stops posing between counts and lets one movement lead naturally into the next. Full cams are the receipt; a beauty edit cannot prove synchronization.

The international part of his file

Published profiles describe Sungmin as Korean-Thai, with a Korean father and Thai mother. That background can help international fans recognize themselves in the lineup, but it should not be turned into a vague “global member” slogan. The documented career is still Korean idol work under UNCORE. Language use, overseas activities and member comments should be added only when the group publishes them clearly.

RaeRae take: Calling Sungmin “the visual” and walking away is like reviewing a movie poster instead of the movie. The interesting file is the performer learning to move, sing and recover in public while everybody keeps pretending improvement should happen off camera.

The catalog this profile now has to cover

Within that release sequence, Kim Sungmin needs to be measured after debut rather than kept inside PROJECT 7 forever. CLOSE YOUR EYES did not spend its first year parked beside one debut single. ETERNALT arrived on April 2, 2025 with “All My Poetry” and a softer literary identity. Snowy Summer followed in July, then blackout in November pushed the group into darker R&B and club production through “X” and the Imanbek collaboration “SOB.” The April 2026 digital single “POSE” widened the performance language again. Those releases are the professional timeline for every member page; competition footage explains the route in, but the group catalog shows the artist after debut.

The short project window makes every documented step in Kim Sungmin’s growth more valuable. The speed matters because CLOSE YOUR EYES is a project group. Three years sounds generous until album preparation, touring, health breaks, travel and ordinary human exhaustion start eating the calendar. Each comeback therefore needs to do two jobs at once: deliver a song now and leave enough evidence to show what this member has learned since the last one. A profile that freezes everybody at PROJECT 7 is not a profile. It is an audition recap wearing newer clothes.

What the official profile confirms—and what it does not

Because no rigid position chart exists, Kim Sungmin’s role has to be described from repeated work rather than fan shorthand. The official Japanese profile confirms the seven-member lineup, the PROJECT 7 origin, the April 2025 debut and each member’s birth date. It does not publish a rigid position chart. Position labels elsewhere on this page are therefore treated as working descriptions drawn from credited parts, stages and established secondary profiles, not eternal corporate law. K-pop positions move as songs change, voices develop and choreography gives different members the center.

For Kim Sungmin, evidence protects both against inflated praise and against a debut-era ceiling. That distinction protects the member from two equally lazy readings. One is inflating every idol into a main-vocalist-main-dancer-secret-producer. The other is deciding a debut-era label is a ceiling. The useful evidence is official music, full-stage cameras, album credits, interviews and dated company notices. The profile can have an opinion, but the receipt and the opinion should never be smuggled into the same sentence.

How this member fits the seven-person machine

Kim Sungmin’s part in that chemistry is visible only when the seven-member map remains intact. Jeon Minwook supplies veteran judgment and leadership; Ma Jingxiang gives the formations scale and a powerful international voting history; Jang Yeojun brings accumulated trainee and broadcast experience; Kim Sungmin embodies the most visible growth curve; Song Seungho connects rap and vocal passages; Kenshin carries instinctive performance appeal; and Seo Kyoungbae gives the lineup an unusually young vocal reference point. The chemistry works because those jobs overlap without becoming identical.

The better question for Kim Sungmin is what happens to the group around him when the camera is elsewhere. That relationship map is more useful than ranking the members from “most talented” to “why is he here.” Survival programs already spent months turning people into scoreboards. The group stage asks a different question: who makes the person beside him more convincing? Watch the spacing, the handoffs between vocal and rap lines, and who keeps energy alive when the camera is pointed elsewhere. That is where a project lineup becomes a group.

Current status: August 2026

Kim Sungmin remains part of the verified seven-member lineup at this checkpoint. As of August 27, 2026, all seven members remain active in CLOSE YOUR EYES. UNCORE announced on August 10 that the group was preparing a new album with a late-September comeback as the goal. The album title and final release details were not yet part of that announcement, so this page records the plan without pretending a scheduled target is already a released era. “POSE” remains the most recent released group single in this profile until the comeback actually arrives.

Kim Sungmin’s next update belongs in the career narrative as soon as the release becomes official. This checkpoint also prevents a common directory failure: a page can look polished while quietly ending a year behind the artist. Current status belongs near the career narrative, not hidden in a spreadsheet note. When the September release becomes official, its title, credits, video and member-specific evidence should be added here and to the group tracker together.

The one-video React connection

The exact “SOB” relationship gives Kim Sungmin one verifiable performance record instead of a fuzzy title match. CVM Sekai currently has one exact official-video relationship for this group: the 2025 Korea Grand Music Awards mega-crew performance of “SOB” with Imanbek. The site’s Iconic by Mistake deep dive is linked by the exact YouTube ID uf_5eKmzXYk. That relationship belongs on the group hub and every member profile because it is group work, not a random related card.

For Kim Sungmin, video-ID discipline prevents a stage, music video and dance file from being merged by accident. One correct relationship is better than five fuzzy ones. Future Reacts should be added only when the reviewed upload and the tracker share the same official video ID. A title match is not enough when performance videos, music videos, dance versions and awards stages can all carry nearly identical names.

Source discipline and update rule

Kim Sungmin’s source trail uses official records first and secondary databases only as cross-checks. Primary sources establish the official lineup, release dates, notices, credited work and current promotions. Korean entertainment reporting supplies translated interview context and dated agency statements. Fan databases can help locate a detail, but they are cross-checks rather than permission to copy a rumor into a biography. Height, MBTI and hobby lists are especially prone to surviving long after the original source disappears.

The same rule keeps Kim Sungmin on one canonical page as the career expands. The update rule is simple: change the page when the artist does something documentable. A comeback adds the release and its specific contribution. A health notice gets dates and neutral language. A solo credit can add Artist-directory classification to this same canonical person page. None of those events justify inventing a duplicate profile or deleting the earlier career that explains how the member arrived here.

Release-by-release watch guide

ETERNALT: establish the baseline

Start with “All My Poetry” and the April 2025 debut stages. The softer arrangement leaves fewer places to hide timing, tone and facial control behind an aggressive beat. For Kim Sungmin, watch the distance between modeling stillness and connected movement across a full stage. The debut is not the final verdict; it is the cleanest baseline for measuring what changes later.

Snowy Summer: test range without abandoning softness

The useful replay question for Kim Sungmin is how the expression changes without erasing the performer underneath it. The July comeback kept the group melodic while making the visual world stranger and brighter. “Snowy Summer,” “Paint Candy” and the related stage material show whether a member can adjust expression and energy without becoming a completely different performer every era. This is where the group began separating adaptability from costume changes.

blackout: increase the pressure

“X” and “SOB” ask for sharper attack, darker confidence and more rhythmic weight. Compare the full-stage footage with the debut rather than comparing thumbnail views. Kim Sungmin is especially useful to watch here as the member whose public value includes an improvement curve rather than a fictional claim that he arrived perfect. The question is not who owned the era on social media. It is whether the member made the arrangement and formation more convincing.

“POSE” and the 2026 turn

Kim Sungmin’s choices during “POSE” matter more than another generic claim that the whole group matured. The April 2026 single arrived after the group had already cycled through three mini albums in one year. By then rookie novelty was no longer enough. The performance had to show choice: where to hold back, when to hit, and how to keep seven people distinct without turning the stage into seven separate auditions. That maturity is the bridge into the announced late-September comeback.

How international fans can actually follow the work

Kim Sungmin’s record is especially easy to fragment when schedules and clips travel across different language feeds. CLOSE YOUR EYES has official Korean group accounts, Weverse, an official YouTube channel and a Japanese fan-club site. International fans still have to assemble the story from multiple places: Korean comeback notices may appear before translated summaries, Japanese schedules live on a separate site, personal posts can be mistaken for official announcements, and short-form clips often circulate without the release date or original upload attached.

To verify Kim Sungmin, the official upload and dated notice remain the starting point. The safest route is to begin with the official YouTube channel for music and performance video, use Weverse and the group’s official social accounts for schedule notices, then use the Japanese site for Japan-specific activities. Translation accounts are helpful alerts, not primary evidence. If a post does not link back to a company notice, official account, album credit or complete interview, treat it as a lead to verify rather than a fact to repeat.

The point of Kim Sungmin’s canonical page is to remove that scavenger hunt without turning rumor into biography. This page helps by keeping dates, aliases, group relationships and exact video IDs together. It does not scrape every airport photograph into a timeline. The goal is a career record a reader can follow from outside Korea without needing six apps, three fan wars and a detective board made of red string.

What the next comeback needs to answer

• Does the September record continue the darker blackout/“POSE” lane, return to the literary softness of ETERNALT, or find a bridge between them?
• Where does Kim Sungmin receive a specific musical or performance responsibility rather than generic screen time?
• Are there official lyric, composition, choreography or production credits to add?
• Does the official-video upload receive an exact React relationship, and do the group/member trackers point to the same ID?
• Does the release change the working role description on this page, or merely give better evidence for the role already described?

Editorial bottom line

Kim Sungmin belongs in the CLOSE YOUR EYES member directory as a current member from 2025 to the present. The page is deliberately one canonical biography: survival-show history, pre-debut work, group releases, later credits and future solo activity all stay attached to the same person. A new era should deepen this record, not spawn a second profile with a slightly different spelling.

RaeRae bottom line: Kim Sungmin does not need a puff-piece crown. The useful case is already onstage: the distance between modeling stillness and connected movement across a full stage. The September update should be judged by receipts—live stability, clearer vocal assignments and any official credit beyond performance—not by whichever ten-second clip wins the algorithm that week.