What Happened
AND2BLE, a new five-member boy group built around four former ZEROBASEONE members and one former EVNNE member, made its official debut on May 26, 2026 with the first mini album Sequence 01: Curiosity. The release went live at 6 p.m. KST through YH Entertainment, and the group held a debut showcase in Seoul the same evening to perform the lead track "Curious" in front of media and fans.
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The lineup brings together Zhang Hao, Ricky, Kim Gyu-vin and Han Yu-jin, who previously ranked first, fourth, seventh and ninth on the Boys Planet competition that produced ZEROBASEONE, alongside Yoo Seung-eon, who finished sixteenth on the same show and later debuted with the boy group EVNNE. The five-track EP includes "Curious," "AURA," "Sugar Rush," "Bed" and "Happy&," presenting itself as the opening chapter of an episodic project that frames each release as a "sequence" exploring a different theme.
Korean outlets The Korea Herald and The Korea Times covered the showcase as a formal arrival rather than a soft launch, noting the group introduced itself as a "global boy group" and framed the title Sequence 01: Curiosity as the first installment of an ongoing storytelling structure that will shape future releases.
Why It Matters
The debut is significant because it concentrates a large block of fan equity from a previous project group into a brand-new act. ZEROBASEONE, a project group from Mnet's Boys Planet, formally concluded its activities as a nine-member unit in March 2026 after its final concerts at KSPO Dome in Seoul. Four of its highest-ranking members now move into AND2BLE, which means YH Entertainment effectively inherits an enormous, pre-built audience without going through the typical multi-year trainee debut cycle.
That matters in a market where first-week album sales increasingly determine an act's chart, tour and brand-deal trajectory. K-pop debuts in 2025 and 2026 have been judged less by their TV-show start and more by Hanteo and Circle Chart numbers in the first week, by Spotify and YouTube performance, and by how quickly an act can secure overseas concert dates. AND2BLE arrives with the kind of fandom infrastructure—organized lightstick orders, fanbase translation accounts, pre-existing photocard collectors—that most rookies need a year or two to build.
The episodic "Sequence" framing is also a quiet but interesting business move. By telling fans up front that each release will explore a numbered theme, YH Entertainment is signalling a release cadence and giving fans a reason to think of the group's catalogue as a connected world rather than disposable comeback cycles. That kind of narrative scaffolding has worked well for groups like ATEEZ and Stray Kids, where the long-running mythology becomes its own engagement engine separate from any single song.
Reaction
Initial reaction from international K-pop media and fan communities has been cautiously positive. Reviews of Sequence 01: Curiosity from outlets such as The Honey POP highlighted the EP's tonal range across five tracks and called out "Curious" as a confident lead single. The showcase coverage emphasized clean choreography, a clear visual identity for each member, and the deliberate decision to debut Yoo Seung-eon alongside four already-famous performers rather than slotting him into a supporting role.
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Fan reaction on social platforms has been divided along expected lines. Existing ZEROBASEONE fans, known collectively as ZEROSE, have largely treated AND2BLE as a welcome continuation of part of the project they followed for nearly three years. At the same time, some sections of fandom have pushed back over the speed of the transition and the way the four former ZB1 members were paired with a new bandmate from outside the original group. Protest trucks—a common Korean fandom tool used to publicly air complaints to agencies—were reportedly sent during the planning stages, although the showcase itself proceeded without disruption.
What's Next
The immediate calendar focuses on music-show promotions. New K-pop releases in Korea typically run a four-to-six-week promotional cycle on weekly music programs such as Mnet's M Countdown, KBS's Music Bank, MBC's Show! Music Core and SBS's Inkigayo, and AND2BLE is expected to follow that pattern through June. Achieving a first music-show win during a debut promotion is one of the standard early milestones a Korean rookie group targets.
Beyond the domestic cycle, the bigger question is how quickly YH Entertainment moves AND2BLE into overseas markets. Three of the four former ZEROBASEONE members in the lineup are non-Korean nationals, which gives the group a natural fit with K-pop's two biggest growth markets in Asia—Japan and Greater China—as well as Southeast Asia. Industry watchers will be looking for fan-meeting tours in Tokyo and Taipei, KCON appearances during the northern-hemisphere summer, and a likely Japanese-language release later in 2026.
The "Sequence" naming pattern also implies that a follow-up mini album, presumably "Sequence 02," is already in pre-production. If YH Entertainment maintains a roughly six-month gap between releases—standard for active rookies—a second EP could be expected in late 2026 or early 2027.
Closing Thoughts
AND2BLE sits at an interesting intersection in current K-pop. The group is technically a rookie, but four of its five members are already three-year industry veterans with a mature international fanbase. That hybrid status makes the next twelve months a clearer test of YH Entertainment's planning than of the members' individual appeal: the talent is established, so the question is whether the agency can convert that pre-existing audience into a long-term group identity rather than a continuation of nostalgia for ZEROBASEONE.
The episodic "Sequence" framing, the deliberate inclusion of a non-ZB1 member, and the decision to launch with a five-track EP rather than a quick single suggest that the agency is trying to build something more durable than a victory-lap project. Whether the catalogue, the choreography and the storytelling can sustain that ambition past the debut wave will start to become clear with the first chart numbers from this week's promotions and the inevitable second-comeback decisions later this year.
한글 요약
전 ZEROBASEONE 멤버 4명(장하오·리키·김규빈·한유진)과 전 EVNNE 멤버 유승언이 합류한 5인조 신인 그룹 AND2BLE이 2026년 5월 26일 YH 엔터테인먼트 소속으로 첫 미니앨범 Sequence 01: Curiosity를 발매하며 정식 데뷔했다. 같은 날 저녁 서울에서 데뷔 쇼케이스가 열렸고, 타이틀 곡 "Curious"를 포함해 "AURA", "Sugar Rush", "Bed", "Happy&" 총 5트랙이 공개됐다.
업계가 주목하는 지점은 이미 검증된 팬덤을 보유한 ZB1 출신 4명이 신인 신분으로 다시 출발한다는 점이다. 이는 음반 초동 판매, 차트 진입, 해외 콘서트 일정 등 데뷔 직후 핵심 지표에서 빠른 성과를 낼 수 있는 구조다. 동시에 회사가 내세운 "Sequence" 시리즈 콘셉트는 컴백마다 별개 콘텐츠로 소비되는 기존 흐름 대신, 그룹의 디스코그래피를 하나의 세계관으로 연결하려는 전략으로 읽힌다.
당분간은 M Countdown, Music Bank 등 음악 방송 활동을 통한 국내 인지도 확장이 이어질 것으로 보이며, 일본·중화권·동남아 시장 진출 일정과 후속작 "Sequence 02" 발표 시점이 다음 관전 포인트다. 데뷔 첫 주의 음원·음반 성적과 음악 방송 1위 여부가 그룹의 단기 모멘텀을 가늠하는 첫 시험대가 될 전망이다.