PLAVE Is Weverse’s First Virtual K-Pop Group 

PLAVE: They are charming webtoon-like characters dubbed “Plave,” melding the words “Play” and “Rêve” (“Dream” in French), alluding to how they crave forging a spot to live out their dreams and spread happiness through their music. Photo courtesy of VLAST

PLAVE is now on Weverse as the first virtual K-pop group on the South Korean network that facilitates interaction among its artists and fans.

PLAVE provides another superb instance of how South Korea capitalizes on its booming K-pop industry to explore the metaverse. Not to mention famous K-pop metaverse portals like ZEPETO and Stan World—but also big names in the business, including HYBE, SM Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment—are taking a crack at leveraging it to spice up their offerings via virtual idols.

Girl band Aespa‘s members each have a virtual avatar; the boy band Superkind has four human idols—Daemon, Eugene, Geon, and SiO—and one virtual idol, Sae Jin; and the virtual girl group MAVE’s hyper-realistic, AI-generated members—are precedents for virtual idols preceding PLAVE. Motion capture technology lends life to PLAVE’s expressions and gestures. As its first virtual group eager to engage with its fandom, PLLI, Weverse extended a warm welcome to them.

Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho, and Hamin make the lineup for the quintet. They shared excitement in their inaugural Weverse video, thanks to a topstarnews post. “Through Weverse, we can now communicate with PLLI all over the world,” Noah said. While Bamby acknowledged he is too excited to be meeting PLLI on Weverse, Ha-min added that he looks forward to interacting with fans on the platform.

PLAVE, specially-abled, transcended their virtual realm, “Caelum,” into the fascinating universe, “Asterum,” so they could connect and spread happiness to everyone on “Terra” (Earth)—the story of their genesis. They are charming webtoon-like characters dubbed “Plave,” melding the words “Play” and “Rêve” (“Dream” in French), alluding to how they crave forging a spot to live out their dreams. They pen, produce, and choreograph their music—their musicality is top-notch—and they are exceptional in their renditions.

The band released their debut single album, Asterum, last year, marking their official debut. Their second extended play, Asterum: The Shape of Things to Come, was inducted into the Melon Hall of Fame and promptly hit one million streams, with reports indicating that it had 1.7 million streams in a single day of release. On top of a host of other acts, PLAVE received a nomination for Rookie of the Year at the 2023 Melon Music Awards. Besides winning more nods, PLAVE bagged the Best Rookie Award (3rd Quarter) for the KM Chart’s Season’s Best, together with My Idol My Award: “Best Alien Award” at the Melon Music Awards and the New Wave Star Award at the Seoul Music Awards, 2023.