MBC's 'Tomorrow' denies intentional use of BTS members' name, birthdates

A scene from MBC series "Tomorrow" which showed BTS member V's name and Jungkook's date of birth / Screenshot from the MBC series

By Lee Gyu-lee

Local broadcaster MBC has denied allegations that the production team of its ongoing series, "Tomorrow," used BTS members' information in one of the episodes for a "register of the deceased," calling it a coincidence.

The allegations surfaced when online users pointed out this week that the series' seventh episode, which aired on April 22, had BTS member V's name as well as V's and Jungkook's dates of birth in one of the scenes.

The fantasy drama follows a grim reaper, Gu Ryeon (Kim Hee-sun), who leads a crisis management team at an underworld corporation. The team's job is to help struggling, suicidal people, rather than taking their lives, to give them a second chance in life.

In the seventh episode, it showed the company having a technical system issue, leading people who just died and brought to the underworld to write their own names on the list of the dead. On the list, singer V's real name, Kim Tae-hyung, was written with his birthday, Dec. 30, but with a different year. Member Jungkook's date and year of birth, Sept. 1, 1997, were also written on the list with a different name right after V's. "Murder" was written as the cause of death for the two people.

The scene went viral online soon after the allegations were raised, stirring up anger among the K-pop group's fans. They criticized the series for having the name and date of birth of the artists on the list of dead people and called for the production team's apology and the removal of the following scene.

"This is so out of the line and totally offensive. They should take out that part and find whoever's responsible to make an apology," a user wrote on an online community.

However, the production team refuted the rumors that it was unintentional.

"They were just a simple combination of numbers that holds no intention," the team told local media outlets.

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