BTS K-pop star Jin reveals shaved head as he begins military company

BTS star Jin has revealed his shaved head as he prepares to start his mandatory navy education in South Korea.

As the oldest member of the group, Jin, 30, is the 1st member of the team to enlist for national provider. He arrived at the coaching base in Yeoncheon, north of Seoul, on Tuesday.

This band is presently on a hiatus following an announcement this 12 months still left fans heartbroken about the K-pop juggernaut’s uncertain long run.

The septet is broadly considered the country’s greatest-at any time cultural phenomenon – advertising out stadiums all-around the planet and dominating the charts while raking in billions and developing a worldwide legion of admirers recognised as ARMYs.

Jin uncovered his shaved head on Tuesday as he prepares to enter required navy service in Yeoncheon, South Korea

Jin is pictured in November 2020, before BTS’ introduced hiatus this yr

All ready-bodied adult men in South Korea ought to serve at minimum 18 months in the military, and although there was a a long time-lengthy discussion about whether BTS deserved an exemption, they confirmed in Oct that all members will enlist.

Jin – whose comprehensive identify is Kim Seok-jin – claimed to a frontline boot camp on Tuesday to kickstart his 18 months of armed service company.

He was driving one particular of the black vans that arrived in a row all around 20 minutes ahead of the deadline to enlist, according to BTS’s agency HYBE.

Hundreds of media staff and BTS fans packed an intersection in entrance of the boot camp’s principal gate, where a sign reads ‘A cradle for major course beat soldiers’.

‘We have combined thoughts now due to the fact on one hand, it’s standard that he does this enlistment due to the fact it’s an obligation anyway for any Korean adult males,’ explained Veronique, a 32-calendar year-previous admirer from Indonesia.

‘But on the other hand we are unable to see him for a least of 18 months … Pleased but also unhappy but also happy,’ she claimed.

The site of Jin’s boot camp close to the border with North Korea, with which the South continues to be technically at war, has sparked community media speculation that he is expected to be deployed to a ‘frontline unit’ after training.

Fans have been shocked in June when BTS unveiled they were likely on hiatus, citing exhaustion and stress as well as the want to pursue solo professions.

But analysts claimed the announcement was timed since of the compulsory armed service obligation.

Law enforcement officers and troopers stand guard exterior a South Korean military boot camp around the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas right before the arrival of Jin on Tuesday

A motorcade carrying Jin, a member of K-pop juggernaut BTS, comes at a boot camp of a entrance-line Military division in Yeoncheon, South Korea on Tuesday

A lover of Jin, a member of K-pop juggernaut BTS, retains up his photo in entrance of a boot camp of a front-line Military division in Yeoncheon, South Korea on Tuesday

Lovers wait around for the arrival of Jin, the oldest member of the K-pop band BTS, outside the house a South Korean military boot camp on Tuesday

The team will reunite all over 2025, when its 7 members have concluded their services.

‘For a while, it truly is real that there have been a lot of lovers who would spend days just crying,’ a South Korean admirer, who runs the Twitter account @5heterotopia, instructed AFP.

Nimah Mustafa, a 20-calendar year-old supporter in Dubai, additional: ‘(Jin’s absence) will be like a huge… void for me.’

South Korea exempts some elite athletes, these types of as Olympic medallists, and classical musicians from responsibility, but pop stars do not qualify.

Nonetheless, BTS have by now benefited from a 2020 revision to the conscription regulation that raised the enlistment deadline for some entertainers from age 28 to 30.

Jin, the oldest member of BTS, turned 30 on December 4.

The seismic modifications for BTS in 2022 have sparked feverish speculation between enthusiasts and K-pop watchers about what the long run holds for the group – will they retain their fame or battle to revive that good results?

Some male K-pop stars have struggled to resume their professions after armed service services in a slash-throat field where artists are easily replaceable.

‘For the K-pop business, the retreat of BTS will be a major deal,’ Lee Taek-gwang, a communications professor at Kyung Hee College, informed AFP.

Having said that, other specialists have pointed to the huge success of BTS and stated they will be an exception to that trend.

They ‘obtained a further amount of attractiveness, affect and credibility’, explained Lee Ji-youthful, a BTS pro and professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Reports.

Since their debut in 2013, BTS have been greatly credited with undertaking much more than any diplomat or other superstar to increase the impression and soft electric power of South Korea, right now thought of a world-wide cultural powerhouse.

They have been invited to discuss at the United Nations, and to meet US President Joe Biden at the White Dwelling. They are also official ambassadors to convey the 2030 Earth Expo to Busan, South Korea.

BTS are pictured together in November 2021. Pictured is Jin, Suga, V, Jungkook, RM, Jimin, and J-Hope

The South Korean federal government has credited BTS with bringing billions of dollars into the economy.

But even with that accomplishment, a draft proposal to grant them service exemptions proved much too controversial and in no way created it via parliament.

‘In South Korea, the armed service services is the indicator of egalitarianism… (where) all adult males are equivalent,’ Lee at Kyung Hee University instructed AFP, adding it was a ‘necessary’ image of citizenship.

Jin will reportedly join a ‘frontline unit’ stationed in close proximity to the border.

‘It exhibits the job of tradition, and public impression, in shaping intercontinental affairs. Is this ‘frontline’ part a beat role, or is it about public relations and media?’ Sarah Keith, a senior lecturer in media and tunes at Macquarie University, instructed AFP.

On Monday, Jin posted a photograph of himself with military services-type cropped hair on the South Korean social media system Weverse, with the caption: ‘It’s cuter than I envisioned.’