LE SSERAFIM’s Satisfying Celebration

What makes the ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 era a fitting tribute to the group’s essence

The trailer for LE SSERAFIM’s ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 era has five chapters, when counting the opening scenes as chapter one instead of a prologue. It begins and ends with montages of memories, the first montage being from childhood and the second one being of recent friendship moments. Between the montages representing the past and present are scenes that speak to the group’s desire to be together far into the future. By treating their shared and separate memories with equal validity, LE SSERAFIM’s strong senses of selfhood and sisterhood bolster one another. They wouldn’t have such a solid, sustainable united front were it not for their individual colors, and taken together, each facet of the ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 era helps reveal this rainbow.

In what will be called chapter one here, despite really being “chapter zero” in the trailer, the members go bowling while wearing rain ponchos in different colors. They then run outside in front of a bright pink sky, where they jump and freeze mid-air as if posing for a movie poster. In their similar yet different outfits, they look euphoric in a shared sense of unity and victory — despite having exhibited very different bowling skill levels! They all behave like the game’s winner, and to them, the grand prize is the knowledge they have each other’s backs, rain or shine.

During the more current montage, a pink monster photo-bombs the group. This monster is only visible and real to one member; it is the physical manifestation of KAZUHA’s anxiety. While KAZUHA feels the creature’s presence everywhere she goes, her friends refuse to let that creature disrupt their good times.

Fear warps KAZUHA’s reality repeatedly. In chapter two of the album trailer (again, when counting the prologue as the real “chapter one”), called “What Only She Watches,” while the others see a normal day of grocery shopping, KAZUHA sees them trapped in an empty grocery store that is lit up in the same shade of pink as her anxiety monster. It is emblematic of how lonely anxiety can make someone feel, regardless of public venue and companionship. (The grocery store setting is also significant for its repetition. Someone spun around in a shopping cart in the “Born Fire” trailer, and a grocery store was also a main setting in “Come Over.” Reusing the shopping cart prop reinforces how the members are there for each other whether it’s for an epic event or something as mundane as a grocery run.)

Chapter three is titled “Her and Their Gaze,” and the singular use of “gaze” is notable. The others try to see what KAZUHA sees, scolding her when she tries to approach the monster back at home by herself. They don’t want her to let this monster disrupt their group dinner, and they yell at her things like “Fine, go be alone then” and “So we are meant to live in isolation?”

Chapter four is titled “Night Run,” and it shows the five of them strutting around town at night. They briefly stop at a food cart that is lit in the anxiety monster’s shade of pink, but this time, no monster appears.

Chapter five is called “Thicker Than Blood,” and it shows the members continuing to be there emotionally for KAZUHA. They emulate her moves as she tries to physically fight the creature, and she can’t help but laugh as she watches them try to mimic her kicks and punches while not being able to see what they are attacking! The monster is still only visible to her, but the others are determined to help her combat it. Their mindset is summed up well by KIM CHAEWON: “I don’t even know what this is, but let’s just deal with it.” Fortunately, their lack of visibility and fighting skills do not stop them from helping KAZUHA vanquish it, because the creature’s kryptonite turns out to be saliva! They spit on it until it melts, and some spit hurtles towards it in the form of bubbles that hold the members’ words of encouragement. The literal and figurative icing on the cake: the creature’s melted contents! Again, a sense of victory and subsequent sense of power is experienced communally.

Just because the other LE SSERAFIM members can’t empathize with KAZUHA doesn’t mean they can’t sympathize, nor does it mean they have to pity her. They stay by KAZUHA’s side, not belittling her “childish” fears but still reducing those fears’ power over her. Their ultimate weapon is solidarity, hence the insistence on framing goals with the word “Let’s.” Besides KIM CHAEWON saying “let’s just deal with it,” the album’s intro — which doubles as a trailer voiceover — includes:

“Let’s just floor it when we reach the cliff. No one else gets our despair anyway. What seems like rock bottom is actually our way out” (emphasis added).

They thank each other “For opening up your raw wounds to me,” decide to “get swept away together,” and declare, “For we are not FEARLESS… and therefore powerful. PUREFLOW runs through us.”

The trailer indeed shows friendship in its “purest” forms: types of unconditional moral support. Being a good friend is not about fully understanding someone’s internal storms; it’s about helping someone see the rainbows after the rain subsides, and about being willing to get “swept away” in rough currents alongside that person until that rain ends.

The EASY era’s trailer included this declaration: “I will not submerge because I’ve made it look easy.” They insisted they would not let any emotional wave overpower them, even when existing in a “treading water” state. That era was about how LE SSERAFIM only made success and fulfillment look easy to attain, while the PUREFLOW era is about how it feels when it actually does get easier. What has made it easier is a mindset shift, one enabled by sharing emotional burdens so that each member has to carry a lighter proportion. By lifting each other up, they can all ride more waves for longer. They can move with a new, more relaxed flow, feeding each other’s egos while depriving each other’s distortions. That change is summed up in “BOOMPALA,” a song all about a meditative state:

“She’s only an illusion, don’t feed her.”

Both the fact that the ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 album trailer ends with LE SSERAFIM turning the anxiety monster’s insides into cake decorations and the fact that the group blows out cake candles together in one of this era’s concept videos show that instead of their fears swallowing them, they will swallow their fears! LE SSERAFIM’s group project of “gobbling up” their fears is worthy of a “celebration.” It demonstrates how true power and fearlessness come from getting to celebrate after victory over the things that used to block people from seeing themselves as powerful and fearless in the first place. They celebrate the ironically hard-fought wins that result in learning to go with life’s flow. LE SSERAFIM’s shared energy from their shared “CELEBRATION” is their sustenance. They are living their fullest, most indulgent lives when they do not feed their fears, but when they treat roadblocks as delicious opportunities to prove themselves as worth celebrating just for being their unique selves. The PUREFLOW era is about how mutual reassurance is one of life’s greatest sweeteners.

Unpacking the Concept Videos

In “Just BOOMPALA,” HUH YUNJIN frets that fans will dislike LE SSERAFIM’s comeback. Without hesitation, KIM CHAEWON reassures her “They will” like it, and they promptly go dancing. The dancers are a mix of humans and aliens, hanging out indiscriminately. Once again, LE SSERAFIM’s video is a symbol of the shared sense of victory that comes from contagious confidence. The more the merrier when it comes to sharing a spotlight!

The other preview videos emphasize juxtapositions, therefore emphasizing the “no matter what” part of their statement about sticking together. They will keep on instigating an empowering butterfly effect “rain or shine,” whether in a “pink or blue” life phase (hence the contrasting pink and blue symbolism, the former via the color of the skies and the monster, the latter via the album cover and water symbolism), whether a time represented best by fire or water (hence all the connections between the HOT era and water-based PUREFLOW era — not least the fact that the HOT era trailer, “Born Fire,” features an art exhibit called “Purity is the Hottest”!), whether they feel like a “beauty” or a “beast” (hence the “BIRCH SCAR” contrasts discussed later), and regardless of the passage of time (hence their frequent mixing of black-and-white and retro music video scenes with modern and in-color ones). The assertion remains that the only necessary consistency for eliminating fears and doubts is companionship. That explains the combinations of shared and disparate circumstances in the videos. The LE SSERAFIM members do not wear identical outfits in the videos. In “YUSU LILY,” members are submerged in water to different extents. In “COMPACT,” there is one main spotlight, but they all appear in its gaze. In “PEONY ROOM,” everyone has their own snapshot contributions to a montage, but they gather on a couch together to watch them as one cohesive film. And in “BIRCH SCAR,” close-ups on claw-like fingers are a 180 from a pearl-adorned manicure that gets a close-up in “YUSU LILY.” (Additionally, a haunted woods is the “BIRCH SCAR” video’s setting and contrasts with its prom-ready dress code.)

Like how LE SSERAFIM treat an individual’s concerns as their own concerns, they treat their individual environments as linked, so flourishing in one of them prompts flourishing in the others. They show each other how to weather various storms through examples. (In hindsight, the “HOT” music video seems to have given one of those examples. It started with a black-and-white scene with one member, and now, “YUSU LILY” shows multiple members in black-and-white scenes.)

Unpacking “CELEBRATION”

In the “CELEBRATION” music video, LE SSERAFIM go to the house of Frankenstein’s monster, who will be referred to as “Frank” for the rest of this essay! They have a big party planned and try to entice him to attend, walking like zombies, whipping up a bloody punch bowl, and cutting cake with a chainsaw! These monster clichés do the opposite of win him over, and he flees his house, making some pursue him on foot and others via whatever wheels they can get their hands on, from a bike to an engine-powered shopping cart! Frank keeps running, but so do the LE SSERAFIM members, all the way to the ends of the Earth, from a tundra to a desert!

Frank uses a trampoline to bounce into outer space, but even there, he cannot escape LE SSERAFIM! However, in outer space, the LE SSERAFIM members show cracks in their faces, bringing to mind the cracked facial appearance Frank reveals when he first enters his house and takes off his human mask. After showing their “cracked” selves, and while around fellow supernatural misfits, Frank is handed his party invite (aka his “Creature Ticket”) and finally accepts it! He quickly ends up having a blast, even becoming the core of LE SSERAFIM’s choreographed star formation! This is by LE SSERAFIM’s design; they never want to just make outcasts like Frank feel included, but irreplaceable. They make him their choreography’s centerpiece, aggressively insisting he has an invaluable presence until he believes them!

LE SSERAFIM initially try to win over Frank in the wrong ways. They try to act like they understand him by accommodating stereotypes, as if monsters are all the same and that the gestures that are persuasive to Frank are the same as those that persuade vampires, ghosts, and the like. What actually convinces Frank to attend the party is LE SSERAFIM’s honesty, when they do not try to relate to him based on assumptions, but show how they know they can relate to him based on intuition. Rather than disingenuously try to say “We’re just like you!,” they show how they actually are, by letting their own facial cracks emerge. Furthermore, they make him the guest of honor, showing there are no hard feelings over his previous aversion. They are able to be there for him because they are able to let go, which brings back to mind what KIM CHAEWON tells KAZUHA: “I don’t even know what this is, but let’s just deal with it”! They don’t know what’s holding Frank back, but that doesn’t stop them from refraining judgement and trying to find out.

The “CELEBRATION” ends with a final twist. The camera shows the party from a street view, so viewers just see shadows of people dancing in one room of Frank’s house. Perhaps Frank has just imagined the party being larger-than-life, and the whole time, it has just been a small gathering where he has stayed “right at home”! Perhaps LE SSERAFIM have brought to life a grand spectacle in their shared imagination, after getting on a shared wavelength. Once a strong sense of like-mindedness is established, experiences suddenly appear more expansive and exciting.

In the EASY era, LE SSERAFIM took inspiration from “Good Bones,” a poem by Maggie Smith about doing what one can with what one has, in the hopes that the foundation one lays one day at a time will inspire future generations. For the ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 era, LE SSERAFIM take inspiration from a literary source that is less different from that poem than one initially assumes: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Their album intro (and trailer voiceover) changes the Frankenstein quote “For I am fearless, and therefore powerful” to “For we are not fearless, and therefore powerful” (emphases added). The version of empowerment that LE SSERAFIM endorse is the kind that comes from seeing letting go, keeping calm, and carrying on as harder goals than they sound. Who they admire most are not those to which keeping calm comes easily, but those to which it does not. They see true fearlessness as coming from living not absent fears, but free of them, so they empower KAZUHA and Frank alike through the loyalty that makes them feel freer and less alone.

Unpacking “BOOMPALA”

The “BOOMPALA” single and music video involve some classic LE SSERAFIM symbolism. They still represent rejuvenation through water, like they did with the “I will not submerge” mantra in the EASY era, with songs like “The Great Mermaid” and “The World Is My Oyster,” with a song about a water snake that can regrow its head on the EP ANTIFRAGILE (“The Hydra”), and now through the water and rain in various concept videos and “BOOMPALA.” (Plus, they perform on a parade float, a punny nod to their desire to float through life!) The self-care theme is also a recurrence. The “CRAZY” music video involved an aquarium and a spa setting, and an aquarium was also in “Come Over.” Staring at fish is known to be therapeutic for some people, as is a spa day, and of course, the meditation focus of “BOOMPALA” is also in that category!

Some other key details in “BOOMPALA”: the disposable cup (the video starts with someone knocking over HUH YUNJIN’s drink. In the EASY era’s trailer, HUH YUNJIN was the one who bumped into someone and then picked up a disposable cup), the cartoonish editing of some scenes (moving through some scenes as if playing with Photoshop, much like scenes in “Come Over” and “SPAGHETTI”), and the time spent dancing in liminal space (the theme of the ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 sketch, on which they conclude, “We are the destination”). The overall takeaway from the symbolism associated with water, meditation, disposable cups, corny hijinks, and liminal space? The chances for do-overs and personal redefinitions. The treatment of their surroundings as always changing comes with a sense of power and control over those surroundings. If, as they sing, “Everything’s water and everything’s air,” and if “Everything’s empty, so everything’s clear,” then they can fill the “liminal space” with anything they want! If they “mess up,” they can always refill the space again! Life is like a blank canvas, a place where they can try to bloom from the ground up — where they can try to build off of whatever “good bones” their environment provides. Their solidarity is the soil that nurtures this blooming, mentioned in “CELEBRATION” as emblematic of a “painful time that bloomed into faith.”

“LE SSERAFIM” is an anagram of “I’M FEARLESS,” and “PUREFLOW” is an anagram of “POWERFUL.” This is yet another way that LE SSERAFIM represent the pride that comes from the confidence to see the world as one’s oyster, a place where every rough wave can be easily surfed, especially if friends are beside them to both surf and redefine things along with them.

Unpacking the Album Overall

Several songs on ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 come to mind while watching the album’s trailer. The spirit of friendship is definitive of “Need Your Company”:

“There were many times I wished for someone to understand me… I overthink / Get lost in my head, but your sincerity / Even if its form is different, the moment I [feel] it, it [is] so real.”

The song also acknowledges moments when they “[h]urt each other but [stitch] up the pieces” — the “raw wounds” they mention revealing to each other in the intro, “Pureflow.” The ballad format suits “Need Your Company;” it speaks to the seriousness with which LE SSERAFIM treat their goals. The pop-waltz song “Sonder” is similarly effective, as they go on and on about validating others’ inner turbulences. They sing about feeling “trapped inside” themselves, reiterating KAZUHA’s mindset when she is the sole member to experience her degree of anxiety in the album’s trailer, and they strive to understand her and those like her better:

“Someone smiles, someone cries… Their emotions, each person’s life / The world inside them, now I realize…”

They also sing about finally recognizing “What meaning [her] universe holds” and what “each person’s own universe” entails (which doubles as a nod to the “CELEBRATION” video’s literally out-of-this-world scenes!). “Sonder” also includes lyrics about feeling like they are “swimming,” and that “wonder” — curiosity about other people that prompts their empathy — hits them “like thunder” (a noteworthy word choice considering the CRAZY era’s album trailer, called “Chasing Lightning”).

One more set of “Sonder” lyrics worth remembering:

“After I completely fell apart… [I] let go of all jealousy and selfishness / Now I’m free.”

What makes them feel healed is empathy, something that gradually grows with practice and is a theme of the song “Trust Exercise”:

“The more I know, the more / Deeper and deeper in love / Even if our timing is different / Even if our temperatures sometimes differ greatly / Don’t worry / We’re gonna try.”

“Your pace that I can’t match… Will you wait for me?”

Being on different wavelengths and riding the same waves are not mutually exclusive, an “Irony” that is addressed in the song of the same name:

“After the rope that was like my salvation got cut off / The irony of being able to breathe… The moment I let go of what I was holding onto / The pain fading far away…”

The “girls’ night out” energy of “Saki” (not least because of the shoutout to their 2024 song “1-800-hot-n-fun”!) is all the more palpable due to the contrasts noted in “Irony,” how one can become carefree not from holding something, but from letting go of it. LE SSERAFIM give each other the strength to just take life as it comes with the comforting knowledge that they have people ready to go to battle for them when things go south.

The album effectively expresses the ways that celebrations can come in both splashy and subdued forms, the former represented by the EDM banger “CELEBRATION” and the latter by the R&B song “iffy iffy.” In “CELEBRATION,” they sing:

“Hold scarred hands and keep steppin’ / You know we found each other in the fear.”

The calmer version of their embrace of scars is in “iffy iffy,” about a willingness to “Dive into” their flaws and redefine what really matters to them:

“A scarred face... I’m not okay… I can start over again, like a new birthday.”

“CELEBRATION” and “iffy iffy” both recognize scars, but they do so in very different contexts, reflecting the variety of ways someone can experience and overcome hardships. For some, a struggle is a battle from which they emerge ready for an all-caps “CELEBRATION”! For others, it is a more reserved patting on the back, a “lowercase” moment of appreciation for those who “know where [they] crack,” the “friends who have gotten on the same boat.”

In sound and substance, each song on ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 is emblematic of the positive ripple effects that start with just one confident person standing firm in one’s identity. Each human being has a story worth sharing, a personality worth letting shine, and a crucial contribution to make to larger groups. Shared humanity and the fact that people are too hard on themselves are the themes of the song “Creatures.” They note that “[W]e look so alike,” bringing back to mind these intro comments that are also in the album trailer:

“The truth is, you want someone to step into your space. Because in the end, we’re the same.”

Finding commonalities and sources of connection remain LE SSERAFIM’s narrative through-lines and emotional fuel.

Conclusion

LE SSERAFIM teach neither a human (KAZUHA) nor a non-human (Frankenstein’s monster) how to belong by changing who they are. Instead, they redefine “who belongs,” expanding who is deemed a star character, not because they are fearless, but because they do things despite their fears and are therefore powerful. They do not discriminate regarding whose feelings they validate; no one is patronized for even the most seemingly silly concerns. Meeting people where they are is essential to LE SSERAFIM’s mission. They go the extra mile to put themselves in others’ shoes. This “extra mile” often takes on amusing and unconventional forms, to say the least, which balances out their most sincere songs with the kind of enthusiastic antics that keeps broader audiences entertained.

Overall, ‘PUREFLOW’, Pt. 1 is a classic LE SSERAFIM era because it preaches the same values they always have but, once again, does so in silly yet surprisingly spot-on ways!

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