Jellyfish Entertainment project group EVNNE brings together some of the best talent that the 2023 Mnet series Boys Planet had to offer (that wasn’t already scooped up to form Zerobaseone). As such, the group had some interesting choices to consider for the role of leader. The person who was ultimately selected makes for a particularly unique choice though, as we will explain here. Among Keita, Park Hanbin, Lee Jeonghyeon, Yoo Seungeon, Ji Yunseo, Mun Junghyun, and Park Jihoo, here is the full answer to who the leader of EVNNE is.
Keita Is the Leader of EVNNE
Keita is the leader of the group, as first announced in an Mnet Plus live video for Jeonghyeon’s birthday on September 11, 2023. On one hand, this seems like a rather straightforward choice, since Keita is the oldest member of EVNNE and demonstrated leadership ability on Boys Planet. However, this is actually especially exciting for a couple reasons. The first is that it is exceedingly rare for a non-Korean member to lead a K-pop group, and Keita is from Japan. There are some exceptions to this trend of course, such as Victoria in f(x), but K-pop group leaders are overwhelmingly ethnically Korean, even if they are sometimes foreign-born like P1Harmony’s Keeho.
The second reason fans would probably be excited that Keita is the leader is that he had faced some struggles in his career prior to EVNNE. Despite competing on Boys Planet, Keita was actually already (and technically continues to be) a member of Rain Company boy group Ciipher, whose company faced criticism for what was perceived as mismanagement of the group. Indeed, four members of Ciipher departed the group in August 2023, and their company (and its head, the idol Rain) received public blame for this shake-up. While the reality of how responsible the Rain Company actually is for the floundering success of Ciipher is its own separate topic, the point remains that EVNNE seems to place Keita in a better place.
Regardless, in summary, Keita is the leader of EVNNE, and he is one of the few non-Korean leaders of a K-pop group. For more about EVNNE, check out the debut of the group or how old the members currently are.
