[MV Review] Kara - Bye Bye Happy Days

Just as with my review of Speed Up, this review will be more of a studious review of the meaning behind the MV. If you're used to kpop MVs you are probably familiar with love stories, be they about falling in love or being betrayed. If you come to this MV with such a mindset you will be very confused, so I have decided to help.

The MV starts with the girls finding an old box they left locked away, and it is filled with various items. What is clear from the fact they locked it away is that the items have value to them only in what they represent. So whenever they boxed them up, they meant very little to them in terms of immediate use as the items they were. So what was their meaning? To find the answer we have to go back in time.

We start with a flashback of Seungyeon having been stuffed in a locker. We all know what this means, it means she's a fucking loser and so other students bullied her. And since the other members were getting her out of the locker, it means they are her fucking loser friends. That is why they are having a birthday party alone with each other at school. Talk about a bunch of nerds.

omfg she is impossibly cute

This may be confusing to some of you since they are obviously all super babes, and babes are usually popular. Well you see this is a Japanese MV, so it is using some concepts from Japanese anime, the primary one being Generic Cuteness, meaning that when everyone is attractive how do you know who is "the ugly one"? Who is the loser? Simply by telling you through context. So in this MV Kara are losers because they said so. I mean, just look at this.

They only party alone in real life because they're idols.

Now during this party we see that they realize they are all losers and have made a special plan. The party helped Seungyeon feel like a princess, but it wasn't complete. A princess has two things going for her that they don't. First of all, a princess is desirable. Secondly, a princess doesn't hang out with losers. So obviously, what they have to do is make a guy fall in love with them. That way they are all desirable, and that way none of them are losers, and thus all princesses.

Target: This poor asshole. He did nothing wrong, he was simply the only guy in town who would give them the time of day. Now because this is also a criticism of sasaeng fans, the girls don't give a shit about each finding their own individual guy, nor do they care about actually connecting with him like human beings. Rather, their goal is to have him extend a generally affectionate gesture to them one by one, and that will affirm to them that they are worthwhile human beings. How does it go?

Jing wrote a letter to sway him.

Gyuri pretended she was waiting for him.

Nicole faked an injury to get private dance lessons and let her body seduce him.

Hara kissed him as they took what was supposed to just be a friendly picture.

[Note: Seungyeon already felt desirable because my love for her transcends all potential and conceptual realities through space and time.]

One by one, when facing reality, they know it's wrong, feel guilty, and are reluctant and/or freeze up. This is probably confused for romantic shyness by most viewers, but I assure you that this is what is really going on. You can tell because the others are always pushing the one whose turn it is, and especially since after they have each attained proof of their prize, they all have a good laugh at his expense... even right in front of him. He was kind and gave them gifts, and they simply don't give a shit about him.

So at the end they have all gotten the affirmation (in their minds) of their sexual desirability they were looking for and drop him like a used tampon. They are happily together at the end, without him, convinced that they are all hot bitches when in reality all they did was abuse the pity of a kind person to feed their vanity. And of course all of this was a series of flashbacks they are happily looking back upon, using that one instance to validate their existence for years to come.

They immediately locked the box of his gifts here.

So despite the super cute styling, this was actually a fairly dark and piercing criticism of how crazed fangirls choose to live. I don't think I've seen any other group even begin to approach the topic, let alone so comprehensively hit so close to home. Kara are obviously doing what they can to be real artists and social critics, even if they are more misunderstood than Psy was with Gangnam Style. For that, I rate this MV 5 Princess Hammies out of 5.