South Korea-based virtual IP startup Blast announced that virtual boy group PLAVE will make its official debut on March 12 with the release of its first single album, “Asterum”. 

PLAVE is a webtoon-style virtual boy group consisting of five members: Yejun, Noah, Bambi, Eunho, and Hamin. The worldview of the group is that five characters living in the virtual world “Kaelum” were granted abilities by the developers of Earth and were able to communicate with Earth. 

In particular, PLAVE got off to a great start last December with a video of lead vocalist Noah busking in Hongdae, Seoul, which was released on their official YouTube channel and garnered 1.8 million views.

PLAVE’s debut album, Asterum, refers to the mysterious space that exists between Earth and Kaelum. Each track on the album was written and composed by the members of PLAVE. Production was handled by Hyve producer EL CAPITXN, who has worked with BTS, IU, PSY, and more.

Flavor is unique in that it utilizes Blast’s game engine technology to enable real-time, animated live performances. Blast is a virtual IP startup that was spun off from MBC in February last year. Blast CEO Lee Sung-koo has worked as a computer graphics supervisor on dozens of broadcast programs, including MBC’s virtual reality (VR) documentary “I Met You” and dramas “W” and “GU Family Book”.

In May last year, three months after its founding, Blast received a seed funding of 2.4 billion KRW from MBC and IPX (formerly Line Friends) in recognition of its rich experience in visual special effects (VFX) production and real-time content technology. Since then, the company has been developing various virtual technologies such as cartoon shading, virtual camera systems, and interference prevention algorithms.

“The success of Korea’s ‘Icedol’ and Japan’s ‘Nijisanji’ is opening up a market for characters that communicate with fans in real time,” said Lee Sung-koo, CEO of Blast. “We hope that more people, including K-pop fans and anime fans, will be able to interact with virtual characters through Flave’s high-quality live broadcasts on Twitter and YouTube every week.”