The Best Teasers and Trailers of 2025

A ranking of K-pop artists’ best comeback previews!

View the Substack version of this piece here!

Here is a compilation of my past and current thoughts as to which K-pop acts most effectively used their pre-release video(s) to spark curiosity and intrigue! 

#20: BOYNEXTDOOR, No Genre Series 
Reason: They somehow embody the element of surprise and act exactly as expected, given the title!
Elaboration: Each scenario goes against its title. For example, the segment with emotional moments in the rain is called “No Feelings,” and the photoshoot-themed chapter is called “No Posing.” Like indignant boys who do the opposite of what their parents ask, BOYNEXTDOOR thumb their noses at attempts to confine and label their activities. Read more here! 

#19: Milena, “Milena’s Beginner’s Guide” 
Reason: Milena offers tips for how to enjoy her album to the fullest, and those tips are delivered with the same humorous semi-detachment as her song lyrics.

Elaboration: She tells the audience the album consists of “mostly true stories, except the parts that are made up,” which prevents the album from sounding too self-serious. She comes across as a peer more than a know-it-all or a mentor. The voiceover describes her broad and humble appeal as such: “You might not know her yet, but if you’ve ever fallen in love, overthought a text, or cried on your way home for no clear reason, chances are you already speak her language.” Read more here! 

#18: CxM, “JOIN OUR VIBE” 
Reason: The cartoon alien alter egos, Kuute and Mante, simultaneously epitomize the HYPE VIBES EP and this SEVENTEEN subunit’s identity.
Elaboration: [The alter egos] fall to Earth with grand ambitions but end up just vibing, taking a liking to the chill humans they encounter! They make themselves at home, much like aliens do in SEVENTEEN’s “THUNDER” music video, and another sly nod to SEVENTEEN is the HYPE VIBES runtime of approximately 17 minutes! Read more here!

#17: BSS, “How is your youth?” 
Reason: The trio plays inherently lovable mind-reading happiness-spreaders!
Elaboration: Their mission remains spreading joy and a permission structure to not postpone pursuing dreams. They inject levity and excitement into people’s mundane days. They facilitate a date between elderly crushes, take a young office worker’s shift so she can take the rest of the day off, and knock the power out at a school so that the students (and an incredulous but grateful teacher!) can also spend the rest of the day however they please. 

While BSS have had this “Don’t wait until the work is done to have fun!” mantra since day one, the TELEPARTY era adds clever twists to its implementations. In both the “How is your youth?” preview video and the “CBZ (Prime time)” music video, they urge people to join them in wearing jeans. “Cheongbaji” means “jeans” in Korean, and they use it as an abbreviation of the phrase “Youth is right now.” The wordplay adds meaning to lyrics like “Everyone go change into your CBZ”! It also adds credibility to their mission, since they do not just tell people to act like it’s Casual Friday but walk the walk in their own jeans! Read more here! 

#16: LE SSERAFIM, “BORN FIRE” 
Reason: It does what it had to do: complete a trilogy’s circle.
Elaboration: Parallels to the EASY era are visual, including the return of white, angel-like outfits and the spectacle of it all. The members perform on a makeshift stage in the “EASY” video, and the members in the “HOT” era trailer pose like sculptures in a museum - when they aren’t strutting down the halls in dresses with trains, like built-in red carpets! They further make a scene reminiscent of those in “EASY” by starting an electrical fire (via a faucet and cables this time, via a hair dryer in a bathtub the last time).

The CRAZY era parallels are both visual and auditory… Read more here! 

#15: TWICE, “TWICE Original Sitcom Series Special Episode: In Celebration of TWICE’s 10th Anniversary”
Reason: It resurfaces the cute and comedic side of TWICE that was most prevalent in their early days, befitting a ten-year anniversary release.
Elaboration: TWICE navigate life’s hiccups with laughter and camaraderie, in both “ME+YOU” and [the] album trailer. The former includes many Easter eggs, one comedic mishap after another, and a “grateful to have each other” message. In the latter, they each partake in a talent show with a different skill related to the number ten, from zoning out for ten hours straight to keeping an ASMR volume below ten decibels! The lightheartedness of TWICE’s early years is still there; it has just widened the forms it takes to focus more on each individual’s contributions to that essence. Read more here! 

#14: Xdinary Heroes, “〈LXVE to DEATH〉 Mood Film”
Reason: It suits the band’s signature vibe, one that is often goofy and grim at the same time.
Elaboration: The members try to revive a giant stuffed animal who is at death’s door post-wisdom teeth removal. The animal’s final words are along the lines of “I had a good run” and come out of a radio when the dial is turned. There is much to read into here, from the way a source of music is how someone’s message lives on to the removal of “wisdom” from this character’s body! Read more here! 

#13: AtHeart, “Music Collage Film: The Prelude to Plot Twist”
Reason: By ending as it begins, it symbolizes this rookie group’s earnest and endless attempts to understand themselves better, even when it feels like they are running in circles.
Elaboration: [T]he opening and closing image of a heart-themed music box suggests the scenes unfolding between them are the stuff of their heartfelt dreams. The song “Plot Twist” also closes a loop, starting and ending with acapella segments. The “circling back” nature of this release matches the lyrics’ focus on figuring out who they have always been, as well as the eager willingness to be surprised by what they discover. Read more here! 

#12: DOYOUNG, “Be My Light”
Reason: The premise - trusting that his “good luck” letters will be successfully carried by the wind to those who need to read them - speaks to the album’s themes of faith and optimism, and it extends the album’s go-to wind metaphor.
Elaboration: Besides describing wind in a positive way for its message facilitation, DOYOUNG shows appreciation for its invisible yet recurring and noticeable presence. It represents an endless empty space, a vessel with room to store as many memories as he wishes. This is why the main single “Memory” repeatedly uses a wind analogy, calling goodbyes “Empty yet beautiful” and describing memories coming back to him as “Long stories [that] flow on… When the wind blows.” The gorgeous piano ballad “Luminous” also treats wind as something to appreciate and to find freedom with the help of… Read more here! 

#11: ITZY, TUNNEL VISION Teasers 
Reason: They take interactive and inventive forms.
Elaboration: The viewers have to pass a test of sorts while watching [the title track music video]: keep attention on the main plot despite ceaseless light flashes and other distractions! Viewers also have to practice using their new [“tunnel vision”] superpower by watching the album teaser videos. One requires them to determine song lyrics with only partial sentences made visible and repeatedly reconfigured. Another teaser video shares song snippets in the form of a hearing and vision test, urging people to wear headphones and focus on the moving shapes. The videos and songs of which the TUNNEL VISION era consists are a clear but clever package deal. The teasers enlist and prepare the audience to activate their superpowers, and by album-listening time, they are ready for the “final challenge” of processing the busy title track music video. Read more here! 

#10: Hearts2Hearts, FOCUS Previews 
Reason: The trailers are aligned with the “FOCUS” music video through several smart formatting choices.
Elaboration: The teaser videos vary in who they address and how. “Chapter 1. How2getHearts” addresses “you,” and the rules for “getting hearts” appear in an instructional book. 

“Chapter 2. Hard2Hide” has more of a third-person than a second-person voice, showing the members sitting with and texting each other. 

The main era trailer alternates between synchronicity and separate behavior, between the main character being a specific member and being Hearts2Hearts as a collective. The members copy each other’s movements at times when together and at times when apart, and they repeatedly sit at cubicle-like, individual desks with walls on the sides. They are together, their desks lined up in a row and their outfits identical, but they also protect a sense of personal privacy.

Being on the same wavelength with others and being one’s own person are not mutually exclusive, and the “FOCUS” music video reinforces that. It also shows how individualized one’s perceptions of the same events can be… Read more here! 

#9: SUNMI, HEART MAID Highlight Medley
Reason: It rhymes with the “dual selves” premise of a years-old era without repeating it. She resurrects her own lore!
Elaboration: In 2023’s “STRANGER” era, SUNMI played several characters: one akin to Frankenstein, one akin to Frankenstein’s monster, and another akin to a bystander, a maid working at a mansion, sweeping its yard in multiple videos. In one of those videos, the maid picked up a nail on the ground and put it in her ear. Treating that loose screw as her bluetooth device makes the HEART MAID preview video seem less random, as SUNMI once again turns trash into treasure! She scours trash bags and finds and turns an old laptop and earbuds into her prized possessions. They become her conduits for connecting to the physical world, which is important to both the trash-sifting SUNMI and her other characters.

Like how SUNMI played both the dominant and subordinate characters in STRANGER, in HEART MAID, she is both someone being possessed and someone doing the possessing… Read more here! 

#8: AHOF, “The Passage Mood Film : Our Path”
Reason: It both establishes a place and time for AHOF’s story and uses the concepts of space and time themselves to send a message.
Elaboration: Enjoying an in-between life stage is what the trailer for The Passage and the "Pinocchio" music video are all about. In the trailer, the boys work on the backgrounds and rehearse for a school play. One of them does not get off the floor after falling while practicing choreography; he looks deflated and disappointed in himself. The others appear to be kicked out when a group of older students approaches with a look that says, “This is our turf! Get lost!” After being made to feel small, they regain their smiles when sprinting towards a glowing light, the entrance to an alternate world. AHOF’s ultimate achievement, though, ends up being in the “real world,” in that crooked and incomplete school play setup. They approach and offer a hand to the boy who fell, and the nine members go on to be each other’s light, rather than be preoccupied with chasing the light of a dream world’s entrance. 

The moral of The Passage, its trailer, and the "Pinocchio" music video is that some of the best journeys are those that occur internally, which is why layered emotions are prioritized over a desire to explore or finish working on any specific surroundings. Read more here! 

#7: IVE, “EMPATHY!”
Reason: It represents IVE’s messages of strength and togetherness in both general and personalized ways. 
Elaboration: In the trailer titled “EMPATHY!,” the members gather around and hug a block of ice, causing it to turn pink and mold itself into a heart shape (perhaps a nod to their I’VE MINE era; that album cover is a heart with scratches on it, another way to symbolize a mix of having love and scars). 

Every element of this release is intrinsically IVE, as is the big-picture takeaway about being enough, even when others need to go the extra mile to remind someone of that. After all, in “EMPATHY!,” the members play the “Whisper Challenge,” akin to a game of “Telephone” in how it represents both a bonding moment and distorts what someone is literally trying to say; empathy requires effort that the members are willing to make. Read more here! 

#6: DAY6, “＜The DECADE＞ Trailer Film” 
Reason: It is richly symbolic, both inside the context of The DECADE and at a more meta level.
Elaboration: [The] members attend a banquet in a cross between a greenhouse and a warehouse, where attendees wear funeral-ready formalwear and obey the conductor’s commands for even the tiniest gestures. During the meticulous rituals, the scene changes to ones resembling self-made footage. A sudden crash triggers the return to the formal scene, but now, WONPIL is the only person there. He lies on the floor, having face-planted on the now-toppled layer cake that was so carefully sliced and decorated earlier. In both DAY6’s real experiences and in the trailer, one tiny slip-up makes everything that has been carefully curated crash down and suddenly feel like it was all for nothing. One mistake soils an entire endeavor, a fear that must be common among musicians when making potentially career-altering decisions. Read more here! 

#5: KEY, HUNTER Series 
Reason: It tugs on the same intriguing psychological and sociological threads as the songs, full-length music video, and other aspects of this era do.
Elaboration: An article in THE HUNTER HERALD warns about an urban legend coming to life that can steal and repurpose voices “with uncanny accuracy.” Another key quote: “Experts remain divided.” Part of the reason why real life feels somewhat surreal these days is because people continue to live on different foundations, abiding by no singular definition of “truth” or “credibility.” KEY works off of this real problem, using his alter ego to keep everything in doubt… Read more here!  

#4: BOYNEXTDOOR, The Action Series 
Reason: It’s the ultimate “fake it till you make it” story!
Elaboration: In “[The Action] Trailer Film: Submission Deadline,” the members follow an acclaimed director’s scavenger hunt instructions to locate his hidden movie script. They find it in a house that has been abandoned, the rumor being that the director has fled so that it can be inhabited by its “rightful owners.” 

In “Kick Off for [The Action],” one of the members throws a dart at a map to decide where their next adventure will be, and when it lands on Chicago, they decide to make a splash at a Chicago film festival - never mind the fact they have not yet made a movie, let alone a movie getting festival buzz! 

Other “Concept Films” double as teaser trailers for each BOYNEXTDOOR member’s own movie. But the one meant to stick in viewers’ minds the most stars all of them and is simply called THE ACTION. A billboard for THE ACTION looks unfinished; it is merely black text on an empty background. The prime real estate this billboard has: by a gas station in the desert! 

In all of the above videos, BOYNEXTDOOR are in such a rush to the finish line when it comes to chasing their dreams that they leap over many steps, yet they somehow stick the landing. They don’t question how they can know for sure they are the “rightful owners” of the famous director’s house of brilliant ideas. They don’t wonder how they can win at a film festival when no one knows their names yet. They don’t worry about their movie ad campaign flopping because it is bland and set up in the middle of nowhere. They don’t even think about how to physically get to their promotional activities; their “car” is a taxi cab they have presumably “borrowed”! Read more here! 

#3: Xdinary Heroes, “Mood Film : What ART means?” 
Reason: This group makes it look easy to do something rare: make a musical era’s preview video even more compelling than its full-length components! 
Elaboration: The narrator contemplates how language limits thinking, if it is possible to “escape” the confines of words, and the ways in which artwork can speak louder. The voiceover is paired with scenes in an art museum, ones just as worth reading into for what they lack as for what they contain. Much space remains open and empty, between works of art ranging from paintings to walls of changing text. 

Overall, “Mood Film : What ART means?” and “FiRE (My Sweet Misery)” keep questions open regarding how self-discovery and self-defining unfold, given varying degrees of constraints and freedoms. Read more here!  

#2: MINNIE, “[HER] Commentary Film” 
Reason: Aptly yet ambiguously, it provokes introspection regarding the nature of identity construction and maintenance.
Elaboration: The voyeuristic-seeming situations go from involving a monologue to a dialogue, once MINNIE starts to answer the narrator’s questions, thereby indicating her awareness of being made into a spectacle. While she remains a willing participant in that spectacle, she also protects her privacy, sticking to superficial and evasive answers. … With this back-and-forth, the narrator goes from sounding like a museum tour guide, someone very knowledgeable about what he is showing viewers, to a credulous reporter, wondering if he has been narrating the life of a literal doll or an autonomous being! MINNIE goes from fully playing the role of the exhibit to moving and speaking of her own accord. 

They both reference a third character who remains unseen: “her.” MINNIE’s answers are in the first person, but her comment in response to “I like her” (emphasis added) is “Me too;” there is implied agreement that the two are discussing a third person who is not present. “Her” might refer to the platinum-blonde MINNIE on the poster. Whether or not that is the case, the point is that there are multiple MINNIEs in this story. Even if MINNIE were to be completely transparent and thorough in her answers to the identity-based questions, she would still leave a lot unanswered; telling the full story of one MINNIE does not tell the full story of every MINNIE! No matter what, MINNIE, “Her,” and their relationship remain undefined… Read more here!

#1: SEVENTEEN, “DARE OR DEATH”
Reason: It is a mesmerizing, mobile mystery in the style of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.
Elaboration: SEVENTEEN literally see themselves in each other. One member morphs into another again and again: S.COUPS becomes VERNON, who becomes JUN, who becomes DK, and so on and so forth. During this, the surroundings change in mysterious ways. What first resembles a tunnel that “you” appear to fly through turns out to be the circular, vertical walls of a building. What at first looks like an innocuous fellow elevator user is suddenly one on fire! What resembles flames on a moving truck look more like flickering lights in the distance as a scene changes. 

Confusion remains even when one thinks one knows which member is on the screen: VERNON runs by a car in which a different version of VERNON is a passenger, THE 8 moves in sync with a version of himself dressed like a devil, and WOOZI’s reflection appears when HOSHI looks in the mirror. 

Even the literal message stays elusive. The text on the screen at the end says “CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF” but is then rearranged to say “CHALLENGE OR SETTLE.” In short, nothing is as it seems.

“DARE OR DEATH” ends with two options. Viewers who click on either the “DARE” or the “DEATH” follow-up video see a rapid montage of intense imagery. The montages are different, and so are the messages on the screen at the end. The “DARE” video ends with “FACE THE CHALLENGE, BURN ANEW.” The “DEATH” video ends with “WITHOUT CHALLENGE, THERE IS NO NEW BEGINNING.” Neither video ends in resolution, just surprisingly similar sentiments. However, the “THUNDER” music video implies viewers should pick “DARE” over “DEATH”... Read more here!

Honorable Mentions

(In no particular order besides alphabetical)

#1: aespa, “I am a Rich man”: Each character and prop presents an essay’s worth of aspects to study! [Editor’s note: I’ve been thinking about writing about its meaning in depth in a future essay, if readers are interested…]

#2: AM8IC, LUKOIE Prologue Film: This new group is laying fertile ground for musical and narrative growth, using a literary breadth that can easily match its future depth. The intro, “Paracosm,” refers to the detailed imaginary worlds children concoct that can remain with them well into adulthood. The song and corresponding album trailer include scripture about the fragility of trust and the intrinsic link between hope and belief. Read more here! 

#3: B.I, WONDERLAND Series: WONDERLAND is a vibrant reimagining of what it means to stay connected to one’s inner child. The album, full-length “Ferris wheel” music video, and short video clips that correspond to the B-sides all add up to a wise and wondrous story because of, rather than despite, its fragmented nature. The genres and moods vary as much as the video clips’ mediums… Read more here! 

#4: NCT DREAM, “We Don’t Need Roads”: The latest twists in the group’s ongoing time-travel story include leaving the “Are they all on the same team?” question unanswered, since some members appear in the present and others in the past, and since they vary in terms of presumed motives and the amounts of value placed on mission secrecy.

#5: NMIXX, “‘Fe3O4: FORWARD’ Story Film” Series: The series manages to both instantly register as an NMIXX-specific one and extend countless unforeseen narrative branches. The story’s nebulous nature enables fans to pick and choose which breadcrumbs to focus on and piece together in infinite combinations!

#6: SEULGI, Accidentally On Purpose Trailer: Accidentally On Purpose uses familiar imagery to tell a unique villain origin story. The unmistakably Batgirl-inspired getup and logo, plus the villains’ lair in which the teaser trailer is set, are attention-grabbers, but they are just the tip of this story’s iceberg, as demonstrated by the “Baby, Not Baby” music video… Read more here!

#7: SORAN, DREAM Teasers: The members’ animal alter egos go on sweet, wholesome adventures together, as 2D characters in one teaser and as 3D ones in the highlight medley video.

#8: Stray Kids, DO IT Trailer: Like the way their songs’ addictive qualities hit listeners, their exciting character transformations seem to occur gradually but then all at once! Read more here! 

#9: Stray Kids, KARMA Trailer: It toys with the audience’s understanding of the Stray Kids “MEGAVERSE,” where the members remold the past to their liking in real time with neither boundaries nor modesty-induced limitations. Read more here!

#10: &TEAM, Back to Life Series: Ironically, the teaser clips tonally match the full music videos of this era because of the fact they represent opposite tones! Read more here!

Read here about more of Korean artists’ best video-based storytelling outside of the traditional music video format!