Le Sserafim’s celebration of powerful PUREFLOW

Welcome to the Fimmies new era!

My mind went on a roller coaster ride with Le Sserafim’s latest trailer We walkin’ here. So here we are back with a short essay / analysis about that trailer, lead single Celebration and what we can expect of Le Sserafim’s new chapter. A group that has been together for four years and who never stuck with a genre, but rather made their own sound: Le Sserafim, an anagram and declaration of “I am fearless”. However, their journey tested them and they found new ways of being fearless. Or in the words of the PUREFLOW announcement: for we are not fearless, and therefore powerful. A new anagram kicks off the next chapter, from powerful to pureflow. But how did they get there?

Popculture
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Jujutsu Kaisen (2020)

Say hello to your homework before the album drops! In We walkin’ here we are met with a completely new kind of trailer unlike anything the group has done before. Movies from the last century and an anime from the current one inspire the storyline of the trailer. Mostly in a storyboard kind of way. Watch, study and in the meantime… let’s discuss the rest of the trailer.

The monster is in the house
Kazuha is taking lead in the trailer, it’s her personal story about how she felt at a particular moment while being in Le Sserafim. It’s not reality meeting fiction. It’s her story told from the group’s artistic perspective.

“It’s kind of a crazy miracle that we even met in this world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t share everything. Sometimes you have to pretend you don’t notice each other’s sadness.”

Is it possible to be truly together? Is it possible to truly understand each other?

During the dinner table scene, when Kazuha began fighting her monsters, the members were observing the chaos in an understandable way, but also annoyed by the monster.

So the Fimmies do what they do best: trademark runway walk!

“Let’s just floor it when we reach the cliff.”

Kazuha wears body armor, and the other four members each wear a piece of it, like in an arm or leg. They are literally sharing the weight of her defense. To me it says: even if we don’t fully understand each other, there’s meaning in just wandering together.

The last scene of the other Fimmies doing fighting moves, does not help Kazuha in actually physically combating the monster. But with the other Fimmies showing up she does get emotional strength. 

As of right now I have the feeling that the album is going to capture the transformation and growth found in facing one’s fears. At the heart of it, what drives the Fimmies of them wanting to move forward, is the unshakable solidarity between the members. The trailer serves as a visual metaphor for that friendship and trust. In other words: this group is their chosen family.

“thicker than blood”
In Korea family often gets called “식구 (sikgu),” which literally means “people who eat together.” It comes from the idea of sharing meals from the same dishes.
The final chapter in the trailer is titled Thicker than Blood and interprets that idea in a very Korean way, “saliva”. The meaning is that the time spent sitting together, eating from the same dishes, creates a bond that turns people into “식구”. Something even stronger than blood relations.
Le Sserafim as five members, have spent so much time together as 식구, sharing sweat and tears while eating and living together.

Not “I”, it’s “We”
When one of the movies I gave up for homework with an iconic line gets a reanimation… cause it isn’t “I” anymore, it’s “We”. 

To get back to the question I asked earlier – Is it possible to be truly together? Is it possible to truly understand each other? – the answer is going to be this album. But personally I have a feeling where it is going. The Fimmies are 식구 by having the shared experience of hitting rock bottom, but in the end choosing to walk out together. With that they entered pureflow, a new state of being, that causes a powerful celebration. 

We celebrate
Welcome to the FEARLESS 2.0 song. A song that started it all, but the meaning behind the word changed. 

It’s time to say goodbye, to when I was fearless
No fakes no more, no, no
Congrats to the new me who took on uncertainty
Oh (Oh)
Hold scarred hands and keep steppin’
You know we found each other in the fear
Now for my sisters here
Sing along, this is “FEARLESS 2.0”, woah, woah, oh

It was the storm that brought the Fimmies close and made them sisters aka 식구. 

Hey, to you and me, now we’re reborn
Cheers, oh
Hey, to the painful time that bloomed into
Faith, oh

They might have entered the next chapter, but they will remember the bad times, because that was the thing that bloomed and became their faith.

Hey, to the open wounds that bloomed into
Faith, oh
Hey, to hearts that can’t be shaken raise your
Glass, oh

Shoutout to the song that broke the internet when it came out, Raise y_our glass. Yunjin’s solo song, but was made during the first storm of Le Sserafim. It was the start of them becoming sisters, five individuals clinking their classes and now celebrating together. 

Le Sserafim’s celebration of powerful PUREFLOW
So here we are, days before the full album drops and it will be powerfully filled with emotions. Showing different sides of their story. It redefines the meaning of what they thought “being fearless” was all about. Because they now lived through the fears to end up knowing the fears will keep on coming, but choosing to walk out together. This is their parade, a fearless celebration of powerful pureflow. 

Love,