The handcuff imagery was what really caught me in this one. The styling and the Choreography are both pretty +19 by Korean standards, but honestly it's not nearly as outrageous as I thought it might be based on the firestorm it's generated online. Sure, it's more than I'm particularly a fan of, but they're perfectly allowed to demonstrate sexuality more explicitly that I personally enjoy watching. There's no glamorization of force or violence or anything, so I'm totally in love with the visual depiction of the emotional entrapment depicted in the lyrics.           I like the song, over all. It isn't ground breaking; musically, it's pretty bland. It's lovely background music, the soft and smoothe vocals are gorgeous, harmonizing beautifully and taking well to the emphasis placed on them by the synth's decorative trills. Aside from the vocals though, there's nothing of much interest to listen to, it's repetitive and never really goes anywhere.  But still, lyrically, it's a nice look at the psychological struggle of an abusive relationship, and it does so without valorizing the abuse.
           The video is well produced, with clean lines and smoothe transitions. It's sexy and sultry and made to draw attention to the lyrics, which it does perfectly. There's no storyline though, but honestly I don't think this song could support a drawn out story.

           But not quite as epic as I'd hoped it might be.
           Arario is the best track off the mini album, without a doubt. The mix of tradition and trendy is flawless and the slides between the Gayageum beat-melody and the guitar's version of it is absolutely spectacular. The track-mix in the MV is a little strange, the bowed instrument is turned up much higher than it was in the album version of the track and in parts I think that decision was wise, but in the first moments of transition to rock-song . . . it made the style split a bit shaky and the transition suffered for it. The smootheness of the original was just incredible. Other than that the track is still spectacular, far superior to Open the Door in just about every way. 
           And yet, Arario's MV is still not up to the par set by their incredible debut. The colors are jarring, it's difficult to delineate the members, and the choreography is rather bland from what this MV shows of it. The fans are a very cool touch, but they're under-utilized and fit in awkwardly when they're not being flicked about to perfection. The white clothes on white backdrop wasn't a good choice, especially considering how easy a mistake it should have been to spot. They did the black outfits on the black background much better, giving the viewer some white fabrics mixed in with the black to latch onto so that the members' outlines didn't all just blend together. Had they done the same for the white-clothes-white-backdrop section, mixing in a bit more black, it would have turned out much better.
           I'm still waiting for these mystical subgroups to appear, they've been hinted at and teased to the point of ridiculousness. Sub-group promos should be very high on the do-to list of any group this large, particularly as their styling is no longer being kept distinct enough to make each and every member into a clearly unique individual. Sure, by now Topp Klass can tell them apart without any coddling, but the rest of the world (potential fans that haven't yet been taken in by these incredibly talented sweethearts) need very clear visual markers to keep the members straight in groups with less than half the number of members that Topp Dogg boasts.
           Still, I love these boys and this track, so I count the MV as a lovely treat.
           And honestly, as a member of Top Klass, I have to say that the part about these guys that I LOVE most of all is that in this MV I can’t tell them apart. Not a whit. I’ve got no clue who’s who … at least not by looking at them (well Atom's pretty distinctive, and his styling's been consistent, but other than that, I've got nothing). And yet, the  second they open their mouths … BOOM. I've got them all pegged. Their styles and voices are all so beautifully distinctive it’s really quite remarkable.

            First of all, I feel the need to scream to the world that EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION that the girl has with any of the boys is BLATANTLY ABUSIVE to the point of utter harassment, END OF STORY. Even the lyrics have a very violent turn to them, and I am honestly quite frightened of the fact that even as my head is screaming at me that this is atrocious, I love it. It still looks hella hot and it's frankly presented to be quite appealing. THIS IS NOT OKAY. From physical abuse of teasing and very apparently unwelcome ruffling her hair (~2:48), to the hold in the hallway she clearly wants to escape from (along with the horrifically sexual-stalker evaluation {the upskirt peek and gestures border on obscene} and the following predatory chase) (~2:51), to the locker scene with the possession manipulation (he takes her personal possession, the locker, and acts entitled to treating it as if it was his own) and bodily subjugation when he attacks her, forces up-looking eye-contact to impart an idea of superiority, and then proceeds to drag her physically across the school while she's fighting against him (reminiscent of a warrior parading a conquest through the streets to be shamed) to a room that's empty save for Pack members (~3:15), to the predatory public proposal invoked by the presence of the rest of this horrifically abusive clique (~3:44), to the literal predatory-pack stalking of her present throughout the entire video. The last bit, about the public proposal, might be a bit harder than the rest to understand, but honestly it's one of the worst cases of emotional pressuring I've ever seen: public proposals are emotionally abusive, and in the context of being entirely surrounded by the overtly aggressive friends of the guy doing the proposing, I doubt the girl would have felt safe saying no, let alone how painfully awkward the peer pressure to smile and sweetly say yes must be...
             Sweet Shisus, the MV ... it's a WRECK in terms of human rights and even when counting myself as a rather weak-willed feminist, I found the whole of it disturbing. And the fact that I found it enjoyable and full of hella-hot eye-candy (instead of simply being outraged) made my skin crawl . . . I'll say it again, this sort of valorized and validated depiction of romanticized violence IS JUST PLAIN WRONG AND IT IS NOT OKAY TO PROMOTE THIS SORT OF CULTURAL IDEAL.             THIS.          IS.        RAPE.       CULTURE.   
             I think one of the most frightening aspects of it is the thread of comments on YT (and other sites with the embedded video) following the idea "He pushed her against locker like he was going to kiss her and then dragged her off to a different guy! WTF?!? Like screw that for messing with my feels! That should have been a kiss, it would have be so hot" . . . because THAT is the result of rape culture, thinking that it's hot to be thrown about like a rag doll and sexually assaulted at every turn. *shivers* It's frickin' creepy is what it is. It's not the boys' fault, not entirely, but it's still not something they're entirely blameless for; there are lines that really shouldn't be crossed. SOMEONE should have stopped this. Their company's slogan is "Music & Art for Healing" for heaven's sake. This MV is definitely NOT healing in any way shape or form...
            Also, I think it's important to make a delineation between the Rape Culture harassment in Boy in Luv and the attacking-the-oppressor violence of N.O. because they are very different things. I've seen people justifying Boy in Luv by saying that none of the fans (or much of anyone at all for that matter) spoke out against the violence in N.O. which is true enough, but that doesn't validate the violence in Boy in Luv at all. For N.O. , the attacks were more obviously aggressive and flat out obviously violent: starting around 1:45 or so, things get very violent in N.O. However there is a massive difference between a subjugated people rising up against their oppressor and a predatory pack of aggressors victimizing a subject with less power than themselves. In N.O. the boys are rebelling against their oppressors, in Boy in Luv, THEY ARE THE OPPRESSORS THAT NEED TO BE OPPOSED.
            Now, I'm meant to be making an objective analysis of the way in which the MV has been made and is pulled off, so I can set most of the Rape Culture issues aside, but you can be sure that they're responsible for a lot of the points I've deducted.
            The MV's story is delivered through pretty standard methods and the styling for it all is gorgeous. The lighting plays off every detail and it highlights the nitty-gritty feel of the track (and also of the sense of underworld violence). It frames the boys in beautifully angsty heroism, taking their feelings' negative impacts on their lives into consideration and showing off their collective cleverness and a sort of sweetness in braving a confession. All the shots line up to pose the boys in a grand depiction of power (lots of low angle shots and aggressive close-ups), and along with the epic choreography, it stands well to highlight the physical prowess of each member. I really want a dance version, not just a practice vid (though I do want one of those too), but a full on multi-set dance version, because some of the cuts, and choreography moves paired to set-transitions that tie them all together, are absolutely SPECTACULAR. I mean really, the filmography is beautiful.
            The track itself is kickin'. The beat rocks and the transitions are beautiful, perfectly timed. The track and melody evolve, harmonies slide neatly in and out, the bridge lets a drop of tension push the track over the edge. The high energy of the pre-chorus isn't a traditional vamp, but it does the job way better than any usual power-up could have, creating stress-tension for the chorus to blow away. And the high line in the last swing of things adds a fabulous feel of stretch to it, allowing the track to resolve in a smoothe cadence without lengthy lead up but still allowing a bit of a tail for the different elements to trail off piecemeal.
            The Lyrics are an interesting look at how sometimes crushes aren't actually welcome, and the idea that falling in love is actually incredibly disruptive to life as a whole and generally rather unpleasant. Other than the threats of violence laced within the lyrics, I love them. They depict a very well-thought out position on the matter disliking of love that very few songs have ever looked at, the unfairness of it all and the ways in which crushes are really not that much fun. It all resolves happily though, which I feel runs counter to the main message of the song, but hey, who doesn't love a happy ending?
            All in all, I would love to give this release a 9/10. Even with the aggression in the lyrics and one or two of the transgressions in visual violence, an 8/10 might have been possible for the fact that the track and the MV are both extremely well produced, and incredibly addicting. However, the sheer number of moments where I had to step back and think about how utterly not okay this MV is makes giving it such a score impossible. Music has the power to change the world and it's time people started respecting that. I'd almost want to give it a 0/10, simply because I'm more than just insulted, I feel sick seeing how enjoyable they've made watching such blatantly wrong actions. But the release IS extraordinarily well made, so the final score must reflect that. 
            I've pretty much just decided to split the difference.

            Absolutely fantastic! This MV is a wild ride of deep psychology. The imagery we get, right from the beginning is spectacular. The barren wasteland, the dreamlike color desaturation, the exhausted runner . . . all classic representations of a strung-out lover chasing after a lost dream. It's especially catching when combined with the dollhouse imagery and the mirrors & glass and the film vs reality depictions. It's incredibly hard to tell what is a flashback and what is a fantasy in this MV and that's what makes it truly special: I'm fairly certain that the relationship being mourned as love lost never really happened.
            Think about it. The barren wasteland is our first image, and it's followed up quickly by the dollhouse (classic metaphor of a fantasy perfect-life). Then we see the boys inside the house, but again note that it's only after the dollhouse image. As put in terms of Sherlock references, this is most likely a psychological organizing system fandom knows as a 'mind-palace'. It's pieces of memory sewn together to create a semi-physical space, in this case a dollhouse that manipulates the real memories into a romance that never happened. The photos and film bits are all real memories, brought in from the outside, but the fuzzy flashbacks (like the carousel scene) are all fabrications. The use of specific colors and saturation levels gives the whole MV a very dream-like quality while still managing to delineate between scenes and compartments of reality perfectly. The mirrors and glass are prismatic reflections of the self, the girl shown there is only the notion of her as it exists within the Self of the narrator.
            Having defined himself through his relationship with this girl, the narrator is completely unable to function without her. She might not have even dumped him, or realized that he liked her at all. And yet his obsessive fiction of his involvement in her live has led to a reality that can't carry on without her presence (we're talking less kid with an imaginary friend and more like a Schizoid social-cognitive disruption resulting in a detailed paracosm). My headcanon is that the girl is from a higher grade level, who tutored him regularly, and just graduated without him, moving on with her life, and he's having a psychotic break in lieu of her presence.
            It's really a fascinating look at the psychological process of grief and paracosmic fictions. He goes from longing to be with her again, blaming himself for her absence and wishing he could have been better to make her stay, to blaming her for deceiving him. During this section, we see the hourglass for the first time; indicating that a deadline had been put on the relationship from the very beginning. He blames her for his inability to move on, recognizing that this cyclical obsession is in fact a problem that needs to be addressed. And in killing the Self of mirrors (and the self IN the mirrors of the dollhouse), he's breaking out of this obsessive fiction. Now, it's hard to tell if he successfully moves on, but I'd guess that the cricket sounds in the end are an indication that he's lived through killing his unconscious and has perhaps woken up in the middle of the night and this whole encounter has been one long, revelation-in-a-dream and now he can move on properly. The last we see of the hour glass has a little bit of sand left in it, so maybe he gets to see her off properly and mourn her stepping out of his life in a healthy manner? It's all speculation from the moment Himchan pulls the trigger.
            It follows the pattern for One Shot almost exactly (discounting One Shot's alternate ending). This MV is a deeply emotional experience, rooted in psychology, and ending with a death. Like One Shot's MV, there's an emotional reversal on the bridge, triggered quite successfully by the slide into a different track off the album (for One Shot it was Coma and for 1004 (Angel)  the bridge brings in part of Save Me as the emotional-turn trigger). The choreography is kickin' and contributes well to the story, being blocky and rough and very visceral, in close contact with the earth and physicality; and most importantly full of fantasy elements (air-guitar and mirror-motions and such). The song itself is pretty fantastic on it's own; the beautiful slide of the acoustic (and the grunge-y reverb on the footsteps) into electric guitar, the elegant leaps from melody to rap and the tension of being halfway in-between. It moves well and evolves and is all around a lovely piece of work.
            The only drawback whatsoever is that there's no fully active story line. If we take it as an series of events occurring in a dream that he wakes up from (purely speculation) then it has some active plot, and certainly I'll not be one to undervalue the idea of having an active plot take place entirely in the narrator's mind (as the thoughts and thought-patterns do shift and evolve), but it's still not quite enough to be a fully fleshed plotline.