‘So awesome’: BTS fans on K-pop’s biggest comeback

Tens of thousands gathered in Seoul to show that, after a four-year hiatus, they had still kept a place for the band in a very changed world The Zubillaga family had come from Veracruz, Mexico. Julio and Miryam had brought their daughters, Renata, 15, and Fernanda, 11, as a gift, across 15 hours of flights to a city none of them had visited before. They had tried for world tour tickets to see BTS in Mexico but they had been snapped up already, so they came to Seoul instead, joining the tens of thousands outside the gates, waiting for the music to reach them. “It’s beautiful,” Renata says of the new album, Arirang. Her favourite member, like her mother and father, is Jung Kook. The Zubillaga family, (L-R) Julio (44), Renata (15), Miryam (43) and Fernanda (11), flew to South Korea from Mexico as a birthday gift for Renata. The crowds had been flowing in to South Korea’s capital since morning, with fans coming from all over the world; Malaysia to China, France to Bolivia. Nani Cruz, 30, had come from Guam. “Seeing them come back is a huge thing,” she says. “The longing that ARMY is feeling, that’s what we’re able to experience again tonight.” Maggie Kang, the Korea