ZEROBASEONE's second Japanese EP, Return to Love / 回帰LOVE, faced a unique set of challenges back to back. First was the fact that it had been OVER A YEAR since their debut Japanese EP, Prezent, and that being the first and only one with OT9. Then came their scheduling being sidelined by the fact that Jiwoong was working on solo endeavors (not all related to music, "acting disease" as some of the melodramatic call it, etc.) and that impacted his having to miss certain promotional efforts for them.
And in a "holy shit that's right; there was still a pre-release" moment, "Existence" gets released 10 days before the EP, the day the group minus Jiwoong performed at the 2026 SBS Gayo Daejeon Summer. I mean at least it's not premiering a song that's not even the televised B-side for Korean music shows the day you perform for KCON Japan.
"Existence" upon release came across solid but playing it way too safe. The song being 3:33 is at least a breath of fresh air. The fact that the Japanese team cares more than the Korean one does to this extent? Shame upon the home team, truly. The production is light and fluffy, which tows the line of being saccharine but just endearing for me to not hate it. The problem as mentioned before is that the song plays a bit too safe. It's not as energetic as "Now Or Never", not as enthralling as "Hana" or even as bubbly and bright as "Firework".
However, there's a simplistic charm that "Existence" has that at least makes sense when compared and contrasted with the Japanese discography thus far. Granted, I felt like I was in a creative writing class when having to come up with something that had me warm to the song enough to like it. The group's debut Japanese single, "Yura Yura (Unmei no Hana)", had "TV series theme music" energy to it alongside its well-crafted songwriting and production.
A lot of Japanese language music to Westerners does have anime as a frame of reference as to where we've heard music like that before. Interests in blogs that chronicle releases by artists that are for TV shows sharpen the frames of reference Westerners have in consuming Japanese language music. With "Existence", it's not the BL energy radiating from "Yura Yura (Unmei no Hana)", but it does have an opening theme song or original soundtrack/OST energy.
If I imagine "Existence" as the opening theme to a J-drama, it comes off better than it does. The premise of the show (based off the concept shots for Return to Love being part of this creative process) is something to the effect of "an office worker who's finally landed higher paying summer work and gets a perk of working from home, but due to 'wacky circumstances' ends up having to work from their quaint small hometown." I know this is rough, but so is having to cope with a song that despite getting a technical element right, went beige with the song. OK maybe a tasteful ochre but that's about it.
Fast forward to the music video coming out the day of the EP and it did help highlight the song's quaint charm.
"Aphrodite" meanwhile is unforgivably macho. I don't know what in god's name happened but this marks the first time a Japanese song for ZB1 ended up being mediocre if not outright bad. It has the same problem You had me at HELLO had with "Solar Power" and other songs that tried to butch the group up. No, it's not some "she's my Aphrodite"/"umm you sound mad that they're singing about a girl". That much bare bones but technically fine songwriting gets a pass.
It being a 2:47 runtime does not help it in terms of principle (like whatever fine, but considering Ascend- cheated this group from realizing more of their potential and talents, maybe don't do this again.) But what "Aphrodite" suffers from the most, is being so against the aesthetic of the EP that it comes across like it was meant to be on Ascend- instead.
Return to Love is meant to be sunny and refreshing and here we have "Aphrodite" being on some Soobin from TXT singing "bye guys, hi ladies" kind of mess. When the song was promoted with the EP, "Aphrodite" was called R&B and honestly, it sounded like a lie from the description. "R&B inspired with a modern Y2K sound", it said. Is Pop/R&B too hard to say? That's what the track was trying to do. Also, the setup in a "modern Y2K sound". Is it contemporary pop music or is it invoking Y2K? "Modern Y2K" sounds like marketing and not like an attempt at music.
And for all that fluff, "Aphrodite" doesn't even sound like an attempt at Pop/R&B. It technically sounds perfectly fine but it is more "vibe" heavy pop music than anything else. Sure, an attempt was made at evoking sensuality to some degree. But there's a problem that once I looked into who had a hand in production answered so many questions and unmasked a problem I had with that song. We'll get there.
There's also the fact that despite the short runtime, it's from 2:27 to end of the song because the production comes to life. The last 20 seconds of a song is when it comes to life on the seventh overall Japanese song, over a year since their last release. I'm sorry but that is simply unacceptable.
There's also the Japanese version of "Top 5" which...yeah gurl OK then. Remember from Part 2 of the ZB1 Discography series here, that there's a reason a song starts off in one language and not the other.
Overall, Return to Love is not a return to form. "Existence" and it's lovingly tasteful ochre self winds up being better when you separate it from this dreadful attempt at an EP. However, there's a bigger problem that came to light once I looked into some of the production for the songs on the project. Some songs clearly sounded like they were meant for other artists/groups before they just chucked it in front of ZB1 and said "best of luck" or as is common in KPOP, "hwaiting!"
In the case of "Aphrodite", one of the producers is Alex Karlsson. Since 2018, Karlsson has been producing songs (mostly album cuts, but they're still released) for KPOP acts ranging from SHINee to Red Velvet to Enhypen to &TEAM and a whole lot more. Since 2023 specifically, Karlsson has produced for ATEEZ. The singles he's had a hand with that group? "Bouncy", "Work" and "In Your Fantasy". Once I saw those songs to his credit, that's when things made sense for me. "Aphrodite" is basically an ATEEZ song given to ZB1, much like "TOP 5" was basically a Wonho song but given to ZB1.
Songs being given to an artist when producers have someone else in mind is not new and not what I'm on about here. It's when producers don't adapt for the client they end up working with on the song. Not to mention, with the ZB1 and ATEEZ comparisons, ZB1 isn't marketed as hard for a female fanbase the way ATEEZ are. ZB1 at least has a fair share of gay fans or at least a fanbase that's just this side of yaoi shippers. ATEEZ meanwhile, and especially since "Work", are marketed with a decidedly "harder" or more butch sound and imaging than ZB1 frankly ever has. All that "she's my Aphrodite" macho shit is something ATEEZ would sing.
At least with "Existence", Omoinotake members Leo Fujii and Tomoaki Fukushima took their lyricist and composer jobs to heart when the check cleared and they wrote "Existence" for the group. See also the arranger on the track MONJOE who had a hand in the Japanese single "Be Alright" by IVE. This is quite literally the bare minimum for pop songwriting, no matter the region and I feel elaborating on this is unnecessary.
This EP is more disappointing than bad, so I'll just take "Existence" and run.
Side note, it is hilarious in a dark humor way, that a song called "Existence" has a bus crash in its video.
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