Produce 48

Season 3 promotional poster.

***Produce 48*** (프로듀스 포티 에잇) was a 2018 reality girl group survival show on Mnet. It was a large-scale project in which the public "produced" a temporary girl group by voting for their favorite trainees from 96 Korean and Japanese trainees from different entertainment companies and groups.

## Concept

*Produce 48* brought together 96 trainees, of which 39 girls are idols from Japanese idol group AKB48 and its sister groups and 57 girls are trainees from different companies in South Korea. They were brought together to form a group that will promote for two and a half years. They adopted the AKB48's concept of "idols you can meet and greet" and will perform in their own theater. Members of the group will be able to promote under their own agencies concurrently, much like the first season.

## Trainers

### Vocals

* Lee Honggi
* Soyou

### Dance

* May J Lee
* Choi Youngjoon
* Bae Yoonjung

### Special MCs/Guests

* Ariyoshi Risa (Episode 0)
* Takada Kenta (Episode 0)
* Yoo Seonho (Episode 0)
* Jung Sewoon (Episode 0)
* Lee Seokhoon (Episode 0)
* Kahi (Episode 1)
* Kang Daniel (Episode 1)
* Jeon Somi (Episode 1 & 5)
* Kim Chungha (Episode 5)
* Bora (Episode 6, 7 and 11)

## Episodes

### Episode 1

**(June 15, 2018)**

The contestants entered the studio, where seats were arranged in a pyramid numbered from 1 to 96. Each contestant was introduced according to their company or group, with their self-predicted rankings shown on a monitor above the stage. After all 96 girls were seated, Jeon Somi and Kang Daniel, the first place winners of the past two seasons, entered as special MC's to explain the rules of the competition. They revealed that top producers Han Sungsoo and Akimoto Yasushi would be involved in producing the debut album of the final group, which would be composed of 12 members this year instead of 11. The contestants then performed in front of the mentors for evaluation. Each individual was given a letter grade from A to F based on their overall talents, organizing them into temporary classes for training. At the end, the popularity ranking was shown with HKT48's Miyawaki Sakura taking 1st place.

### Episode 2

**(June 22, 2018)**

After the contestants were grouped according to their grades, the mentors announced that they will be performing on M Countdown with *Produce 48* 's theme song "You're Mine (Pick Me)", which has a Korean and a Japanese version. Their line distribution and positioning on stage was determined by their grades, with A having the most singing lines while F were backup dancers. The trainees were given three days to memorize the choreography and the lyrics to both versions of the song, after which they underwent a re-evaluation and had their grades reassigned. The trainees filmed themselves performing the song individually - once in Korean and once in Japanese. Each video was then watched and evaluated by the mentors. The girls were then given their new grades and asked to move into their new practice rooms. The episode ended with an A class trainee being moved down to F, a first in the show's history.

### Episode 3

**(June 29, 2018)**

The trainees moved to their new groups, after which the new A class competed for the center position in "You're Mine (Pick Me)". Each individual trainee was given one minute to appeal to the lower classes, who proceed to vote for their center pick. HKT48's Miyawaki Sakura was chosen to be the center. After the live performance on M Countdown, the girls had their first meeting with Lee Seunggi, the national producer representative for the season. Lee Seunggi then announced the trainees' second mission - the group battle evaluation. 16 teams of 5-6 members are formed to compete for 8 given songs - AOA's "Short Hair", Red Velvet's "Peek-a-Boo", GFriend's "Love Whisper", I.O.I's "Very Very Very", Blackpink's "Boombayah", AKB48's "High Tension", Kara's "Mamma Mia" (JPN Ver.), and Twice's "Like OOH-AHH" (JPN Ver.). As the center, Miyawaki Sakura was given the privilege of picking her team first, with the rest of the team founders chosen through a random draw. The team founders then competed for songs through a foot race. The 8 teams who managed to secure a song were able to choose their desired opponent from the losing teams. The episode continued with the groups practicing and assigning positions such as leader, center, main vocal, etc. Each song was then performed live by the two groups, with each individual being voted on separately by the audience. The winning team was determined by combining the group's individual votes. Members from the winning group received a benefit of 1000 votes each, which would be added to their online votes for the first ranking announcement. Ranks 1-58 would advance to the next round, while 59 and below were eliminated from the competition. Only the two teams performing "Love Whisper" were shown performing this week.

### Episode 4

**(July 6, 2018)**

The rehearsals and performances of the remaining 14 teams were shown. After all of the performances, the contestants were shown their ranking based purely on their individual live votes without the benefit. HKT48's Yabuki Nako took first place, and was further revealed to have taken first place overall as her team won the group battle.

### Episode 5

**(July 13, 2018)**

Lee Seunggi gave words of advice to the girls. Former I.O.I members, Jeon Somi and Kim Chungha, hosted a dance battle, where in AKB48's Goto Moe was crowned the "Dancing Queen". The girls voted on the top 11 "visual centers", in which Wang Yiren took 1st place. The ranks of the girls were announced from 57th place to 1st place; 1st place was Lee Kaeun. The 58th place went to AKB48's Sato Minami. The girls that were ranked 59-92 were eliminated from the competition.

### Episode 6

**(July 20, 2018)**

Trainer Soyou met with the girls to help give them fitness tips. The trainees were paired to perform live in groups based on positions they want to debut in: vocal/rap or dance. There are five songs for vocals and rap (Girls' Generation's "Into The New World", BTS' "The Truth Untold", Heize's "Don't Know You", Blackpink's "Ddu-du Ddu-du" and Wanna One's "Energetic") and four songs for dance (Fitz & The Tantrum's "HandClap", Ariana Grande's "Side to Side", Demi Lovato's "Sorry Not Sorry" and Little Mix's "Touch"). Each song had a member limit. Starting from the 13th trainee, they began to pick their choices. The top 12 trainees were the last to pick and could choose groups that were full. The remaining trainees would be given extra songs (Jax Jones' "Instruction" for dance and BoA's "Merry-Chri" for vocal/rap). Soyou announced that only 30 trainees would remain in the next round and the winner from each category would receive 100,000 votes. Bora showed up as a special MC for the position battle. Vocal/rap and dance teams were shown and after each performance, they were ranked in their groups.

### Episode 7

**(July 27, 2018)'**

The remaining teams were shown and ranked according to their groups and then overall in the categories. Han Chowon emerged as the winner in the vocal/rap category and Murase Sae emerged as the winner in the dance category.

### Episode 8

**(August 3, 2018)**

Trainer Cheetah announced the beginning of the next evaluation prior to the second round of eliminations, meaning that all 58 girls that have survived so far would continue to practice for the performances, but not all of them would get to perform. The evaluation was revealed to be a concept evaluation where viewers chose group formations from a poll online. Trainer Cheetah introduced the six songs: Contemporary Girls Pop "1000%", R&B/Hip-Hop "I AM", New Jack Swing "To Reach You", Moombahton/Trap "Rumor", Tropical Pop Dance "Rollin' Rollin'" and Pop Dance "See You Again". The second round of eliminations took place during the second half of the episode. Names of the top 30 trainees were called by Lee Seunggi one by one starting from rank 29. Jang Wonyoung received the 1st place in the ranking announcement while Miyu Takeuchi ranked 30th, just escaping elimination.

### Episode 9

**(August 10, 2018)**

Lee Seunggi announced that since there was an uneven number of members after the last elimination, groups with more than five people (Rollin' Rollin', To Reach You, Rumor and I AM) needed to vote on who stayed and who was kicked out. Then, the trainees who were kicked out of their respective songs needed to move to the songs with less than five members (See You Again, 1000%). Starting from the song that had the trainee with the highest rank, See You Again team got to choose which trainee they wanted in their team. After they chose, the rest of the trainees automatically became part of 1000% team. Then, Lee Seunggi visited the girls to give them advice and answer their questions. Right after that, they faced an evaluation in front of Lee Seunggi, their trainers, and the songs' composers and choreographers. No performances were aired in this episode.

### Episode 10

**(August 17, 2018)**

This episode showed the live performances for all six concept evaluations. Rollin' Rollin' group was declared the winner of the concept evaluation, resulting in a total benefit of 130,000 votes (20,000 per member). The individual ranking showed Miyawaki Sakura in 1st place and Huh Yunjin in 30th. All six groups would perform on MCountdown.

### Episode 11

**(August 24, 2018)**

Amidst the eliminations, the girls underwent make-up lessons, attended a therapy session to share about their feelings with Bora. They are also asked to pick a contestant that they would've voted for with Yuehua's Choi Yena taking 1st place. At the elimination, Lee Seunggi revealed that only 20 trainees would advance to the final stage. With ranks 19 to 3 revealed, Miyazaki Miho and Miyawaki Sakura were called up as the contenders for 1st, revealing Miyawaki Sakura was in the first place. The contenders for 20th place were then called up. Park Haeyoon survived from being eliminated. With the top 20 confirmed, Lee Seunggi announced the next and final mission: the debut song evaluation. He introduced "We Together" and "You're In Love, Right?" as the final line-up's debut songs. He explained that they would be split into two teams of 10, each team composed of one main vocal and nine sub vocals. The girls chose their positions beginning with rank 20 up to 1, with the higher ranked girls being given the advantage of replacing the lower ranked girls and bumping them into another position. After positions were confirmed, the girls began practicing the choreography and memorizing the lyrics in preparation for the final stage.

### Episode 12

**(August 31, 2018)**

The episode began showing the girls' audition tapes, as well as their final confessional interviews. Throughout the episode, the trainees ranked in the 12th spot were revealed. The debut evaluation started off with the eliminated trainees joining the top 20 for a performance of "You're Mine (Pick Me)". Lee Seunggi then revealed the debuting group name as IZ\*ONE. The episode then flashed back to the guerilla concert held by the top 20 girls in Japan, where they performed the theme song from the show, with NGT48's Yamada Noe acting as the MC. The episode also showed the last preparations for the two final songs. WM Entertainment's Lee Chaeyeon was chosen as the center for "We Together" and Yuehua Entertainment's Choi Yena was chosen for "You're in Love, Right?". The girls were also shown recording a final song sang by all the top 20 trainees titled "While Dreaming". The trainees shared their final thanks to the trainers, watched their audition tapes, and finally, read letters they had written to themselves from earlier episodes.

Voting soon came to a close, and ranking announcements began. Kim Minju, Honda Hitomi, Kim Chaewon, Kang Hyewon, Kwon Eunbi, Yabuki Nako, An Yujin, Choi Yena, and Jo Yuri, were announced as 11th to 3rd place, respectively, confirming them for debut. Then, Miyawaki Sakura and Jang Wonyoung were called up as contenders for 1st, with Wonyoung taking the first place, confirming her position as IZ\*ONE's center. The contenders for 12th, Cube Entertainment's Han Chowon and WM Entertainment's Lee Chaeyeon, were then announced with Chaeyeon ultimately being revealed to be IZ\*ONE's final member.

## Controversy

*See: Mnet Vote Manipulation Investigation*

## Results

The name of the group was revealed in Episode 12 to be IZ\*ONE.

## Aftermath

* The finale concert was held on August 31, 2018
	+ Mnet faced some challenges with the filming time slot, due to Korea's laws prohibiting minors from participating in broadcasts after 10:00 pm, in order to protect them.
* The final group of 12 trainees was revealed to be named IZ\*ONE, IZ\*ONE debuted with their EP Color\*Iz on October 29, 2018.
* The various "48" Japanese idols returned to their respective groups and continued to participate in songs and music videos. Some graduated their group and went on to pursue other career paths, or the pursue the idol life in Korea.
* The Producer for *Produce 48* and *Produce X 101* admitted to committing voter fraud in October 2019. This meant that some trainees of the programs possibly recieved unfair advantages or debuted with the final groups when they would not have originally.