Stray Kids

Stray Kids is a South Korean idol group whose significance in the book comes from its leader Bang Chan’s testimony about Jungkook. Although the group is not followed as a separate plotline, its appearance supplies an important peer evaluation: Jungkook’s reputation for exceptional versatility is recognized not only by BTS and its fans but also by younger artists working within the same competitive K-pop system.

Bang Chan’s Testimony

Bang Chan, described as the multitalented leader of Stray Kids, praises Jungkook during a livestream as being at the highest level of the entire industry and good at everything. He adds that although he and Jungkook are the same age, he had admired Jungkook since he himself was a trainee. The remark places Jungkook in a distinctive position: he is not merely an established senior artist being complimented by a junior, but a formative example for another ambitious performer who encountered his work before achieving fame.

A Peer Measure of Versatility

The testimony reinforces the book’s recurring presentation of Jungkook as the Golden Maknae, a performer associated with singing, dancing, rapping, and broad competence beyond the stage. Bang Chan’s praise is especially significant because it comes from another leader known for multiple talents. It therefore functions as professional recognition rather than only fan enthusiasm. Stray Kids becomes a point of comparison through which Jungkook’s skills are framed as unusually complete, even among artists trained in an industry built around polished versatility.

Place in the K-pop Field

Stray Kids belongs to the later K-pop generation that inherited a field transformed by BTS’s international success. The book describes that field as intensely competitive and historically dominated by SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment, while Big Hit Entertainment had to fight for recognition as a younger company founded in 2005. In that context, Bang Chan’s admiration links Stray Kids to the institutional and generational afterlife of Jungkook’s rise: the group operates within a marketplace whose possibilities were widened by BTS’s movement from outsider status toward global prominence.

Significance

Stray Kids therefore represents both continuity and distance. Its leader was once a trainee watching Jungkook, while Jungkook had already become a standard against which younger idols could measure their own aspirations. The group’s brief mention broadens the book’s portrait of Jungkook from an individual success story into a chain of influence, in which technical skill, stage presence, and international reach circulate from one generation of performers to the next.