SM Entertainment recently announced auditions to find new members for NCT. However, fans express concerns about Sungchan and Shotaro, who are in no fixed units.
On June 10th, SM Entertainment announced their new global audition project called “Welcome to the NeoCiTy”, which aims to find further members for the boy group NCT. At the moment, NCT consists of 23 members, which is divided into fixed sub-units NCT 127, NCT Dream, and WayV, as well as the unfixed unit NCT U. Despite being among the crowdest groups of Kpop, the system of NCT allows the group to constantly expand and take on new members, which raise concerns about the fates of newest members Sungchan and Shotaro.
Having joined NCT via the NCT 2020 project and appeared in the album “Resonance”, Sungchan and Shotaro have promoted in several comebacks. In the case of Sungchan, he was among the lineup for “90’s Love”, which promoted for 2 weeks on music shows and performed at several year-end awards. He was also a part of the NCT 2021 project, recorded for 3 tracks in the album “Universe”, but none of these had promotional activities. On top of all this, Sungchan barely ever gets the chance to appear on TV shows, all his non-music activities include being the MC for Inkigayo, appearing in the MV of his senior Kangta, one magazine appearance, and 2 CF deals.
Meanwhile, Shotaro’s case was no better. Having joined the group around the same time as Sungchan, this Japanese member only promoted “Make A Wish” for 2 weeks. He then appeared in the title song “Let’s Play Ball” from the NCT album “Universe”, but wasn’t able to perform due to conflicting schedules. Therefore, Shotaro was only active for 1 week in the entire of 2021, and his solo schedules only include 2 magazine appearances and one CF deal for the FCMM X Wind And Sea collaboration.
In addition, both Sungchan and Shotaro seem to be mostly missing from NCT’s official shows, with very rare YouTube videos and fancams. For now, these two NCT members have been in the group for almost three years, and yet all of their activities can be condensed to just 2-3 weeks, leading to suspicions of neglect on SM’s behalf.
As a result, fans have been speaking up against SM Entertainment, claiming that instead of finding new NCT members, it’s better to focus on Sungchan and Shotaro, who barely got to shine. Many also shared that they feel exhausted waiting for the duo to be assigned to a fixed unit, or at least to get promotions for a short while.
The new SM audition project “Welcome to the NeoCiTy” is now accepting applications from male aspirers born from 2001 to 2008, who are from the 14 cities Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, Jakarta, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Tokyo.
