Episode 10 of Produce 48 featured the results of all the hard work and practice for the concept evaluation performances.
The first team up to bat was “1000%”. During dress rehearsals Chae Yeon was shown to be under a lot of pressure. The trainers could sense that she was not her normal self, giving up during her parts of the performance.
It was revealed that she spent a lot time helping her fellow teammates and all the responsibility of being the leader caught up to her. She was asked by the trainers to not be so hard on herself and to rely on her fellow team members.
Being the group whose membership consisted mostly of those kicked out from other teams they all had something to prove to everyone. The trainers and Production Team Oreo were concerned they would not be able to pull the song off given the difficulties they were having leading up to the live. But they put on a great performance that showed all their had work had paid off.
The great mystery of who was lead vocalist of “I Wish” was revealed next. Mask Rider told Go Eun and Yu Ri that they could keep their positions but the high note where the melody stops would be sung by Yu Ri. They felt the power and stability in her voice would suit that part of the song.
At the end of the recording session Mask Rider felt they would come in first place in the evaluation. However their initial assessment from the song’s choreographer Sol Mi was not positive. She felt they were not conveying the vibe of the dance movements and she was not happy with what they did.
Soyou commented that they were a little too robotic and were unable to figure out how to interpret the choreography properly. When dress rehearsal came around much had changed and the trainees impressed the trainers with their improvement.
Their live showed off a lot of cuteness and the vocal power of Go Eun and Yu Ri. By the end they exceeded expectations earning praise from the trainers and Mask Rider for their interpretation of the song.
For “I Am” Full8loom did a vocal test of the trainees. They felt the song had more of a cute feeling rather than a sexy one which put Ka Eun in an uncomfortable position. Rather than having the producers decide for them, the trainees took it upon themselves to swap centers from Ka Eun to Yu Jin to give them a better chance at winning the concept evaluation.
During dress rehearsals the trainers found nothing glaringly wrong on stage. They praised Yun Jin for her continued improvement up to this point in the show. Their stage performance not only featured Yun Jin’s vocal skill but also gave Yu Jin and especially Ye Na many chances to show their unique charms to the audience as well.
The “Rollin Rollin members walked into their recording session with Wonderkid and Shin Kung ready to go. They all seemed to do well except for Won Young. She had issues singing the high note in the song. After some advice she was able to hit the note properly and kept her center position.
They were told in their initial evaluation that they were not energetic enough for the song. At dress rehearsal they rectified that enough to satisfy the trainers expectations for more energy. Their live was a fun performance that had the crowd and their fellow trainees pretty hyped throughout.
Team “Rumor” had difficulties interpreting the song vocally and with Shi Hyun as the center they seemed to get worse with the dancing according to Young Jun and May J Lee. Yoon Jung commented that Shi Hyun had to find something to make her attract attention as the center.
In an interview Shi Hyun said that she normally sings cute, cheerful or sexy songs and that she’s never performed anything like “Rumor” before. So she thought that if she toughened herself up a bit she could pull the song off. At dance practice she was advised by Young Jun to look languid rather than tough, as the latter did not suit her personality at all.
At dress rehearsals she was once again invisible to the trainers as center with Sian standing out to them over her. With some on stage training from Young Jun on how to look languid Shi Hyun got the feeling down for the live performance.
Sian got early pops from her fellow trainees in the back for putting her all into the song. By the end the other girls applauded them on their cool performance. The trainers praised Shi Hyun for her efforts as she pulled off the type of emotion they were looking for. They did so well that the song’s producer was even marking out for them.
The group performing “Let’s Meet Again” had issues with just about everything at their interim evaluation getting scolded badly, especially Yi Ren. After their recording session with Dae Hwi he advised that the team re-think who should be center in order to win the concept evaluation.
It came down to a choice between Sakura and Yi Ren for the position with the latter retaining her spot after Sakura decided to focus on levelling up her rapping skills. When it came to the dress rehearsals the trainers noticed that Yi Ren had improved but Hae Yoon had difficulties with the ad-libs at the end of the song.
This group got some words of encouragement from their songs producer Lee Dae Hwi before they went on stage. Their live went well with Yi Ren shining as the center, Sakura nailing her rapping parts and Hae Yoon overcoming the dreaded high notes and ad-libs. The trainers were worried about this group but said they did well once their performance was over.
With the concept evaluation performances over it was time to find out the results of the on-site voting. The results for the song rankings were:
“I Am” – 6th place with 89 votes
“1000%” – 5th place with 138 votes
“Let’s Meet Again” – 4th place with 222 votes
“Rumor” – 3rd place with 241 votes
“ I Wish” – 2nd place with 242 votes
“Rollin Rollin” – 1st place with 266 votes
The unexpected team of “Rollin Rollin” earned themselves 130,00 votes for taking first place. Individual bragging rights and 50,000 votes went to Shiroma Miru.
And that ended the concept evaluation. The third ranking announcement will determine the final group of trainees to participate in the final assignment. That will be revealed in the next episode of Produce 48.
I really thought that “Rumor” was going to take the top spot in this evaluation but it looked like the cute and overly infectious exuberance of youth in “Rollin Rollin” won the fans in attendance over a little bit more. The next episode cuts the the trainees down to 20 for the final assignment. On paper it looks fairly obvious who is not going to make the cut but looking back at the clusterfuck of the second ranking announcement it is difficult to see what the national producers want.
