BTS to join South Korean military and regroup ‘around 2025’ – National | Globalnews.ca

The long-running debate is over – the seven members of BTS will fulfill their statutory duty of military service in South Korea.

BigHit Music, the management company responsible for the internationally successful K-pop band, released a statement Monday confirming the member’s upcoming military service.

For years, BTS fans have been calling out to the members – Park Jimin, Kim Seok-jin (Jin), Jeon Jung-kook, Kim Nam-joon (RM), Min Yoon-gi (Suga), Jung Ho-seok (J-Hope ) and Kim Tae-hyung (V) – to be exempted from mandatory service for their contributions to the South Korean economy and the country’s reputation.

However, as is mandatory for all able-bodied South Korean men, the members of BTS will each serve in the military for nearly two years.

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“Group member Jin will begin the process once his schedule for his solo release in late October is finalized,” BTS’ management wrote in the statement. “He will then follow the Korean government’s hiring process. Other members of the group plan to do their military service based on their own individual plans.”

Two-time Grammy-nominated band BTS will regroup “around 2025,” when all seven men have completed military service, their management has claimed.

In June, the members of BTS announced that they were pausing their group activities to pursue solo projects.

The hiatus now allows members to meet the South Korean military requirement that all males under the age of 30 serve between 18 and 21 months. (The members of BTS were all born between 1993 and 1997.)

Conscientious objection to military service is a crime in South Korea that carries a potential prison sentence and negative social stigma.

The South Korean government has long maintained conscription to protect itself from possible attacks from North Korea. Technically, the two countries are still at war and have been since the 1950s.

Few South Koreans have been exempted from military service because of their international careers, including pianist Seong-jin Cho and Tottenham footballer Son Heung-min.

Earlier this year, BTS released their first anthology album prove.

“We support and encourage our artists and are exceedingly proud that they will all have time now to explore their unique interests and fulfill their duty of serving the country they call home,” the agency wrote bts

The agency was referring to the BTS song Yet to Come (The Most Beautiful Moment), write that the ballad is “more than a track from their latest album, it’s a promise of much more to come from BTS in the years to come.”

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