Man, I am officially obsessed. At the end of last year I went to the cinema to watch SMTown live in Tokyo 3D expecting to see my plastic doll bb's EXO just to be disappointed because it was SMTown 2011, not 2012, BAH. The ticket was more than three times the price of regular movies. I was bored and annoyed by the screaming and was hungry. Not sure if the money and energy I spent for the movie was worth it :( Of course I've got to see SHINee and SuJu and the 3D effect was cool but the performances felt so old (it is). Taemin was super tiny.

Continuing my obsession, I was watching EXO's MAMA MV review by Eat Your Kimchi yesterday and they mentioned the fact that SM seems to be spending all of their money for EXO's debut, and kind of went low budget with other already popular groups like SuJu. I've never thought about this before but holy shit, they're right. SuJu's videos are all them in a futuristic looking indoor studio with some fancy wardrobe, that's it.

While EXO, let's see.
- Detailed design concept, including those for accesories and outfits
- 23 teasers before their debut
- 3 music videos each group (2 prologue singles, 1 debut single); 6 music videos in total. The videos has long animation, special effects, computer graphics, outdoor shooting, face painting, complete sets, and a narration that is said to be Morgan Freeman.

I wasn't so sure at first, but to think about it, EXO is kind of a brilliant concept to break into the Chinese market and focus on doing activities there. Unlike SJ with SJ-M, EXO-M and EXO-K are a completely separate groups, and although surely there are a lot of collaborations and joint performances, mainly each group will focus on promoting themselves in different areas. 4 out of 6 members of EXO-M are Chinese, which makes it easier for them to guest star not only on music programs but also variety shows. Again, some boost to their popularity. Not to mention all of the singles (or prologue singles) of EXO-M made it to the top 3 of the chart according to Sina chart. EXO-K's version of MAMA peaked on number 41 on Korean chart. It's underwhelming when compared to EXO-M's peak chart position, but they're doing awesome as a rookie. SuJu didn't even chart with their debut song.

Anyway, I loooove the design concept and aestethics of EXO.

Logo & Symbols
The official logo of EXO is a hexagon divided by an x in the middle and an unfinished line on the left. The font they used is very polygonal itself. This only, is already awesome. (I know, the font is not awesome once you try to type words other than EXO but still -____-)

Each person has their own symbol in EXO, each representing a super power that they possess. Some of these super powers are; teleport, telekinesis, the ability to control time, fire, wind, water, light, etc. And I love how they integrate these symbols into their clothing and accessories.

Some of their backdrops also include hexagons/triangles/other polygonal shapes which creates this cohesive feeling for everything. The concept seemed to be a well-thought one, and also executed brilliantly.

Colors used
Although EXO is a group of a very young boys, the image SM trying to build is definitely not the cute-colorful ones. Other than white and greys, the tones used in their music videos are dominated by muted colors like browns and blues, with mostly dark scenes and themes.

As for their MV fashion, most of the outfits are in black or white, with some touch of metallic colors in them (gold/silver). For performance, sometimes they use bright metalic colors in unison, but mostly black/grey/white. (After more research the outfit concept are more than often tacky with a very bad accesorizing XD ... like gold hologram on camo? seriously??).

I love EXO. That being said, I was a little disappointed with their lackluster personality. I know, they're rookies, they might need more experience in this, we can't compare them to their sunbaenims, but I felt like they don't know what to do/say when appearing in front of cameras. Like that friggin showcase in Korea, it was their first ever showcase and it was the time to appeal more about themselves, but they failed to do so :/ Leeteuk tried so hard to lead them to talk more, but it was just awkward. And aegyos ... I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you guys but girls love aegyos. Don't they tell you about that before you debuted? What's the harm in doing aegyos in front of your first ever showcase audience? 3 people were told to do aegyos and all of them FAILED. It was awful. Hey, you will be told to do aegyos again in the future anyway, so practice it like you practice your dance routines.