Minami's Gyaru Character: How a Three-Month Plan Played Out

Between 6 March and 21 June 2026, RESCENE’s Minami played a Japanese gyaru (갸루) on bandmate Woni’s YouTube channel, 안녕하세요원이입니다잘부탁드립니다 (‘Hello, I am Woni, nice to meet you’). MyDaily reported that the production had set the character a three-month run from the start, closing it out with a 19 June episode read as a finale and Minami’s 21 June farewell statement; two ‘real Minami’ episodes and a new character followed through 10 July. This is the arc in order — the first Japanese lesson, the greeting that became a meme, the six-song medley, the Chiba trip that read as a finale, the farewell statement, the ‘real Minami’ episodes and the next character — with the subscriber and view figures the Korean press attached to each step.

6 March: a Japanese lesson in ‘gyaru mode’

Woni’s channel is produced by Solfa Studio (솔파스튜디오). Asian Junkie dated the partnership to February 2026, and Kyunghyang reported that producer Yoon Seong-won made the programme after seeing ‘bravery’ in Woni, with a brief that follows who she is rather than what she does. Dong-A Ilbo reported that the channel grew out of the driving-lesson content Woni made with comedians Lee Seon-min and Yoo Young-woo; Woni told the paper that the burden felt heavy, so she deliberated until the day before it opened, but took courage because she wanted to make RESCENE a little better known.

On 6 March 2026 the channel posted ‘갸루 출신 일본인에게 일본어 배우기’ (‘Learning Japanese from a Japanese person who used to be a gyaru’). Star News, writing on 3 July, dated the change in RESCENE’s fortunes to that upload — on Woni’s personal channel, not the group’s official one. In it Minami taught Woni Japanese in ‘gyaru mode’; the sketch drew a response, and a second episode followed on 20 March. Minami told Dong-A Ilbo that she tried several interpreter modes on the first day of shooting and that the gyaru way of speaking felt like the right fit. Asian Junkie noted that the first episode ended with karaoke.

Gyaru is a Japanese youth subculture, in Hankook Ilbo’s description, and the trends Minami drew on were, as Asian Junkie put it, well past their peak popularity by the time she was growing up.

20 March to 9 April: the greeting and the six-song medley

The 20 March episode, ‘갸루의 자세에 대해서 배워보았습니다’ (‘We learned about the gyaru posture’), is where Minami appeared fully transformed into a gyaru. Told by Woni that Geoje citizens would scold her if she went home like that, she answered ‘거제, 야호~!’ (‘Geoje, yahoo!’), which Star News glosses as ‘Geoje, hello’. Star News reported that the clip spread by word of mouth, Kyunghyang traced the channel’s breakout to that episode and Hankook Ilbo cited Melon’s count of about 66 times as many users searching for RESCENE after the ‘거제 야호’ syndrome. The chart mechanics of that meme, including the Geoje visit that followed, are told in this site’s ‘LOVE ATTACK’ explainer; here the meme is one step in the character’s timeline.

The posture episode taught the attitude as much as the styling, including a gyaru walk, according to Asian Junkie. The arc’s next beat was music. On 9 April the channel posted ‘미나미의 갸루라이브 메들리!’, in which Minami, in full gyaru styling, sang a karaoke set of gyaru-era songs. Asian Junkie listed the six: ‘Mamushi’ by Megan Thee Stallion featuring Yuki Chiba, ‘Luka Luka Night Fever’ by samfree featuring Megurine Luka, ‘Love Again’ by globe, ‘Cutie Honey’ by Koda Kumi, a para para dance to ‘Change My World (Going Mad Mix)’ by Hitomi Sakuma and ‘Mister’ by KARA. MyDaily later named the para para dance, alongside ‘거제 야호’, as one of the character’s signature moments.

Five weeks after the medley, Asian Junkie described the channel as having ‘blown up’ on the strength of the gyaru series. Kyunghyang put subscribers above 750,000 on 8 June, and Dong-A Ilbo reported 760,000 on 9 June, within four months of the channel opening.

June: the three-month plan and the Chiba trip

MyDaily reported on 22 June that the production team behind Woni’s channel had set Minami’s gyaru run at three months when it began, so the ending was planned rather than sudden. The episode that press read as the close arrived on 19 June: “진짜 ‘야호’ 하는지 물어봤습니다” (“We asked whether they really say yahoo”). According to MyDaily, Minami travelled to Chiba, Japan, to look for her roots, met local gyaru and followed the culture back to its starting point, and the closing sequence — the gyaru gone, Minami staged as if she had lost her own identity — was built in a way that suggested a full stop for the character.

The 19 June upload put concrete numbers on the moment. MyDaily reported it past 2.45 million views within a day of posting, and on 20 June the channel crossed one million subscribers — about four months after opening in February, and a little over a month after it had posted a video celebrating 100,000. The same report put ‘저희도 리센느입니다…’, posted on 12 June, at 5.84 million views in a week and the channel’s cumulative views above 155 million. By 2 July, Star News counted 1.2 million subscribers, with uploads averaging four to five million views and a peak of eight million.

21 to 22 June: saying goodbye to gyaru, with a caveat

Two days after the Chiba episode, Minami posted on the group’s fan-communication platform; OSEN carried the text on 21 June and Newsis on 22 June. She thanked viewers for the channel having already passed one million, then wrote that it was about time to say bye-bye to gyaru — ‘I was never a gyaru in the first place’ (원래 나는 갸루가 아니니까) — and that she would now show a lot more of her real self. She added that she was glad she had done it because so many people seemed to like it, thanked the producer and promised to work harder at dance and singing so that people would like that side of her too.

The statement also carried a caveat about imitation. Minami wrote that she did not know exactly what gyaru is and that gyaru styles vary, so some people might not feel good seeing her copy them; what she had shown, she said, was researched and prepared for viewers who enjoy the videos, with staff preparing outfits that suited her, and she asked that the episodes be seen not as videos promoting gyaru culture but as content showing her different sides and her chemistry with Woni.

MyDaily’s 22 June piece headlined the decision as leaving while the applause was loud, and set it against the short lifespans of alter-ego characters (부캐) on Korean YouTube. In Star News’s 3 July interview Minami pushed back on the word ‘retirement’: she had wanted to show her inner self more than the gyaru image, was surprised by reports that read as ‘gyaru graduation’, and said she could play gyaru again if the chance came. In the same interview Woni linked the character to the group’s next release — the KARA remake ‘Pretty Girl’, out on 8 July at 6 p.m. KST — saying that having tried gyaru and found it suited them, the group chose a song that fitted the era.

28 June to 3 July: the real Minami and the finale

With the character set aside, the channel spent two episodes on the person. On 28 June it posted ‘미나미의 본모습’ (‘Minami’s true self’). MHN Sports reported the premise: Minami had learned calligraphy for eight years in Japan, and the teacher who actually taught her there joined the studio to give Woni and Minami a lesson. Woni wrote ‘거제’, her hometown; Minami chose ‘백화요란’ (all kinds of flowers blooming at once); she kept practising while Woni rested, answered Woni’s praise by saying her skill had faded and scored herself 30 out of 100.

On 3 July came ‘미나미의 뿌리를 찾아서 | 최종화’ (‘In search of Minami’s roots: final episode’). Hankook Ilbo, in a 14 July analysis of why the group’s story landed, described the episode’s journey to the school Minami attended in Chiba prefecture and filed it with the Geoje visit under what it called the aesthetic of ‘un-staged staging’ (연출되지 않은 연출) — content that leaves the impression of a documentary even though a production company planned it. Critic Kim Sung-soo told the paper that the appeal rests on a human charm and identity that planning alone can hardly produce.

The paper’s other data point closes the loop between the character and the charts: ‘LOVE ATTACK’, released in August 2024, reached number one on Melon’s TOP100 for the first time on 8 July and again on 13 July. Star News had the song at third on Melon’s daily chart on 2 July, the day before the finale went up.

10 July: the next character candidate

One week after the finale the channel opened a new file. On 10 July it posted ‘양키의 하루 배워보기 | 캐릭터 외전’ (‘Learning a yankee’s day: character side story’). Sports Kyunghyang reported that Woni introduced it by saying the channel had shown a lot of Minami’s gyaru and would now show one of the other candidates from the character list. Minami appeared in a black school uniform as a ‘yankee’ (양키), which Sports Kyunghyang glossed in parentheses as 불량배 (delinquent/thug), gave Woni the mission of playing the male yankee version and coached her on the character’s speech patterns; Woni said the transformation felt much lighter than turning into a gyaru. The episode ran while RESCENE were promoting ‘Pretty Girl’ on stage.

The ‘character side story’ label marks what continued after the gyaru arc: the format of Minami teaching and Woni learning, applied to the next character on the list. Minami’s own line to Star News — that she could do gyaru again if the chance came — is the press’s last word on the character itself.

Key takeaways

• Woni’s channel 안녕하세요원이입니다잘부탁드립니다 is produced by Solfa Studio; Asian Junkie dates the partnership to February 2026.
• The gyaru character ran a roughly three-month arc from the 6 March 2026 Japanese lesson to the 19 June finale and 21 June farewell; MyDaily reported that the production had planned it as a three-month run from the start.
• ‘거제, 야호~!’ comes from the 20 March episode; the 9 April medley covered six gyaru-era songs, from ‘Mamushi’ to KARA’s ‘Mister’.
• The 19 June Chiba episode passed 2.45 million views in a day; the channel passed one million subscribers on 20 June and 1.2 million by 2 July.
• Minami’s 21 June fan-platform statement said goodbye to gyaru (‘I was never a gyaru in the first place’) and asked that the episodes be read as content about her sides and her chemistry with Woni, not as a promotion of gyaru culture.
• On 3 July Minami told Star News that ‘retirement’ was an overstatement and that she could play gyaru again.
• The 10 July ‘character side story’ introduced the next candidate, a yankee school-youth character, while RESCENE promoted ‘Pretty Girl’.