Before I take a brief look at many of K-pop’s smaller agencies, there are a few that I have more to say about. Consider these “bonus” write-ups — shorter than the “big four” but longer than a paragraph or two could cover.
As usual, the thoughts below are my own and aren’t privy to any insider information. The purpose of these articles is to determine how well K-pop agencies are serving their artists and fans. There will be plenty of subjective critique.
The Good
It really does feel like Starship Entertainment belongs alongside the industry’s biggest agencies. Their roster may not be as sprawling as some, but their artists are constantly active and successful. Chief among these is IVE, who continued their winning streak this year. I can’t say I found their music to be all that good, but all three of their promoted tracks charted well and they remain firmly within the one-million-sellers club with each album. They’re also seeing steady growth in Japan.
This was a big year for Starship debuts, with both a new girl group and new boy group emerging from the agency. KiiiKiii focused most of their promotion on the first half of 2025 while IDID took the second half. This let each group establish themselves with a string of quick releases. So far, each group seems to be doing well. KiiiKiii has chart buzz while IDID are scoring with album sales. In other words, the different metrics you’d measure girl groups and boy groups by are being met. The music itself has been more uneven, but generally solid.
2025 also saw reunions and re-configurations within Starship’s ranks. Monsta X made their long-awaited return with a new mini album. Meanwhile, CRAVITY shifted around some group roles and emerged with their strongest music yet. For me, they had the most musically successful year of the agency’s acts and it wasn’t particularly close.
While Starship continues to pay WJSN dust, they stumbled into a big chart hit with Dayoung’s solo single Body. This doesn’t seem to have been by design (or promotion!), but it’s a nice feather in their cap nonetheless.
The Bad
Speaking of WJSN, it’s clear the public has affection for them and their music. I don’t know why Starship can’t muster up a comeback for them. It’s been three years, now!
Starship’s A&R team (teams?) were quite hit and miss this year. It seemed like they gave their less-promoted acts the strongest material while saddling their guaranteed successes with weaker songs. I hate when agencies do this. Just because a group has a huge fanbase (IVE) doesn’t mean you can feed those fans any old thing. Innovation and quality control are the keys to longevity and it just doesn’t feel like the agency is interested in putting in that effort with their marquee acts. I’d say this extends to Monsta X as well, whose big return could have been promoted with much more fanfare (and better material).
And while this is a criticism I have with almost every K-pop agency, I wish Starship would partner with a few frequent (or in-house) producers to give their agency’s sound a distinct vision. They tend to go to Dem Jointz most often (whose work I’m not a big fan of), but past artists like Sistar and Boyfriend used to work long-term with just one or two producers on title tracks, resulting in a sense of continuity and natural growth.
2025 Grade: B
What I’d like to see in 2026:
- Better songs across the board
- Plenty of promotion for KiiiKiii and IDID, along with a distinct (fresh) sound for each
Previous years: 2024 // 2023 // 2022 // 2021 // 2020 // 2019 // 2018 // 2017
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Not sure if you’ve already watched it but given that you enjoyed the JYPE Game Caterers, I would highly recommend checking out the new second season of the Starship one. Even as someone who is drawn more to JYPE groups, I sincerely think the Starship Game Caterers (both seasons) are easily the best entries of the entire show. It’s what got me hooked on Cravity, Kiikii and IDID as someone who didn’t know anything about the members going into it.
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I started watching it but haven’t finished yet, mainly because I’m not interested in the actors and they seem to spend a ton of time on them.
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It’s not an agency-wide thing but for IVE at least they did have a long-term collaborator: with the exception of Love Dive it’s been Ryan Jhun all the way. (He did KiiiKiii’s debut EP too.) However it appears that they have parted ways starting with Ive Secret, which may be what you’re perceiving as a discontinuity in their sound.
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True, but fairly or not it’s been a long time since I’ve considered Ryan Jhun a distinctive voice. His name is almost always paired with half a dozen other composers, song camp style. At this point, I have no idea what a Ryan Jhun track sounds like.
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That’s a fair point and I agree that it applies to Ryan Jhun’s output more broadly, but I’ve always felt that IVE did in fact have a cohesive sound. Whether it’s because he was doing the curation or the Starship A&R team was doing it for him, I cannot say.
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Starship has been wonderful. I agree that IVE’s material has not been as solid as earlier years, but they have not been bad either…just not as exciting. I also enjoyed KiikIi’s debut and one of their comebacks. This coming from someone that usually prefers Boy Group music.
MonstaX, Cravity and Idid were excellent, imo. I probably enjoyed every offering from these 3 groups, especially Cravity.
As far as I know, Starship was probably one of the best this year. They get an A from me.
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If you ignore wjsn, you can’t get A imo. Dayoung’s success is duo herself, she herself picked songs e.g., agensy just gave their green light and that’s it.
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Starship’s treatment of WJSN (one of the most talented groups in kpop history) is getting perverse at this point.
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i think the members themselves are focusing on individual activities atm with some success (i.e., dayoung with her single) and they’ll be back once everyone is free (even if it could be a very long time) so i dont fully blame the company
after all, their success in queendom 2 got the members a lot of solo gigs such as dramas, variety and musicals
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As objectively fine they’re doing with their other groups, I will never give Starship anything better than a D- in my books for how they’re handling WJSN 💔😔 hoping Dayoung’s success is kicking them into action but I have low expectations…
If anything, as far as I’m concerned, Starship doesn’t even deserve any credit for Dayoung’s success this year anyways, since she basically did everything herself and just got Starship to approve
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I really hope Starshit gives WJSN a comeback for their 10th anniversary in February. It’s a big deal for them and I just want to hear the group as a whole again.
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Starship may be doing good on paper but I think they’ve been fairly disappointing this year.
They’re not investing in the IVE brand any more and seemingly giving them very little, despite being heavily reliant on them for cash flow.
They kicked Ryan Jhun to the curb, good, he was stale. But they replaced him with something even worse. We’re looking at 3 mediocre comebacks for IVE now.
Kiikii’s “I do me” did well, largely in part to their pre-debut promos. Their actual TT and subsequent comeback made 0 waves.
Idid too was a disappointment. Survival BGs inevitably debut with big sales but the surival-show fangirls fall off around the 2nd or so comeback…
Monsta X had a decent comeback. The pre-release was great but that’s about it.
Dayoung’s Body was the one thing they got right imo. Stellar promos and peak performances.
But what’s next for them? There’s nothing pointing in the direction of success for Idid and KiiKii, and IVE’s not generating nearly the same amount of interest they used to…
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