BU Canon Content
Below is a list of content that is considered canon to the BU. Not everything BTS releases is part of the canon, but even in the non-canon content, there may still be references or similar themes. Additionally, some of the canon content may have weaker links to the BU than others. Whether something is canonical or not is determined by BigHit identifying the piece of media with the BU logo or a text description (such as in YouTube videos).
content warning: some sensitive subjects are covered, including abuse, suicide, and homicide.
MUSIC VIDEOS / CONTENT VIDEOS
Chronological list (by order of release date), all videos considered canon.
Click here for a full playlist of all canon videos.
“I Need U” (4/29/2015) | “I Need U” (Original ver.) (5/10/2015)
HYYH On Stage: Prologue (10/1/2015)
“Run” (11/29/2015)
“I Need U” (Japanese ver.) (12/1/2015)
“Run” (Japanese ver.) (3/11/2016)
“Epilogue: Young Forever” (04/19/2016)
WINGS Short Film #1 Begin (9/4/2016)*
WINGS Short Film #2 Lie (9/5/2016)*
WINGS Short Film #3 Stigma (9/7/2016)*
WINGS Short Film #4 First Love (9/8/2016)
WINGS Short Film #5 Reflection (9/9/2016)
WINGS Short Film #6 Mama (9/10/2016)
WINGS Short Film #7 Awake (9/13/2016)
“피 땀 눈물 (Blood, Sweat, & Tears)” (10/9/2016)
“Blood, Sweat, & Tears (Japanese ver.)” (5/9/2017)
“Love Yourself Highlight Reel 起” (8/15/2017)
“Love Yourself Highlight Reel 承” (8/16/2017)
“Love Yourself Highlight Reel 轉” (8/17/2017)
“Love Yourself Highlight Reel 起承轉結” (8/18/2017)
“Euphoria: Theme of Love Yourself 起 Wonder” (4/5/2018)
“Fake Love” Teaser 1 (5/14/2018)
“Fake Love” (5/18/2018) | “Fake Love (Extended ver.)” (6/1/2018)
“Love Yourself 結 Answer Epiphany Comeback Trailer” (8/9/2018)
*Note: These videos were listed as BU content (via the text tag in the description of the video), but they currently do not show up as BU content. Some have said it’s a glitch that causes the information not to show in the description of these videos; however, I have been unable to verify this, as the BU certification does not show up for me no matter what browser or machine I use. They still appear thematically linked to the story, so I’m leaving them here for now. It’s possible something in these videos contradicts the later storyline and BigHit removed the BU certification on purpose. Unfortunately, we can’t know for sure!
HYYH THE NOTES
HYYH Notes appeared in the Love Yourself album trilogy as small booklets, on BigHit’s Twitter account prior to the three Love Yourself comebacks, and again on a separate official account titled Smeraldo Books (prior to the release of the BU webtoon). The HYYH: The Notes 1 book was then released, which contains some of the same information from the booklet notes. More booklets were included in the Map of the Soul series. After these albums, the HYYH: The Notes Book 2 was released, currently marking the last entry to the series.
HYYH Notes provide a lot of the narrative for the BU, tying together scenes from music videos and providing additional details to flesh out the story. They reveal only bits and pieces of the story, as each note is fashioned as a sort of “diary entry” from one of the seven characters. We only get that character’s perspective in each note, and each note includes a date.
HYYH The Notes English Translations
Album note translations and summaries/links to Books 1 & 2
My summary of the HYYH Notes plot content, in order of the story.
Videos
Videos I’ve created that explain the story of the Bangtan Universe.
The BU Storyline: Part 1 - coming soon
The BU Storyline: Part 2 - coming soon
Short form video versions coming soon.
WINGS CONCEPT BOOK
BigHit previously released a “concept book” for WINGS which included information on the story and concept design for the era. There’s also photos and interviews.
The book is only available in Korean, but I am working on a summary of pertinent information to share here.
IMAGES
Love Yourself Posters – BigHit released a series of posters prior to the release of the Love Yourself series. Each poster depicts the members’ characters in the BU. Each image has a sentence, which I’ve translated below.
Jungkook – The direction my heart faces, the day I start to want to run towards that place.
Yoongi – Don’t come close, you’ll become unhappy.
Jimin – I lied because someone like me can’t be loved.
Namjoon – I only look from the back, because now is not the time.
Taehyung – Would (you) not have run away, if I had made a different choice?
Hoseok – If you shine, then I’m okay.
Seokjin – If I could by chance turn back time, I’d want to become the best man in the world.
The paired posters contain a sentence which reads, “When we returned from the sea, we were all alone.” Seokjin’s second poster reads, “If by chance I could turn back time, I’d want to go back to the sea from that summer.” The members are paired according to their main pairings in the LY series, as seen throughout the HYYH Notes.
HYYH "SAVE ME" WEBTOON
In January 2019, BigHit expanded the BU storyline further by branching out into a 16-episode webtoon. The webtoon is available for free on Naver’s webtoon app. The webtoon depicts some of the events contained in the text of the HYYH Notes and some of the video content previously released. The logo for this series contains a “0”, whereas the book released contains the number “1.”
Video & blog post: Understanding the Save Me Storyline
SMERALDO
Before the first Love Yourself comeback in 2017, a curious Smeraldo Blog was launched. It wasn’t publicly linked to BTS or the BU at first, but after Seokjin tweeted a photo of himself with the fictional smeraldo flower, some fans found the blog. Various clues, such as image descriptor text, led fans to believe the blog was created by Bighit, potentially to promote the upcoming comeback or to provide BU content. Later, when the blog was updated and relaunched, it boasted a header containing the BU logo. Additionally, some of the blog posts eventually linked the blog with BTS’s BU by directly mentioning Seokjin’s character. The HYYH Notes also reference an unknown/rare flower, revealed to be the smeraldo flower.
The Smeraldo Flower Shop blog contains several entries with information about the non-existent flower. The blog is supposed to be run by a flower shop owner who brought the mysterious flower to Korea. At the Love Yourself concerts in Seoul, there was a pop-up “smeraldo” shop where fans could buy smeraldo-themed merch. Later, the Smeraldo Books Twitter was created by BigHit to release mini HYYH Notes, teasing the upcoming HYYH The Notes Book 1 and the Save Me webtoon.
The original Smeraldo blog in Korean can be found here.
BTS Universe Story
This was a game that played through some of the BU storyline. Summary coming soon. (The game is no longer available.)
NON-CANON
The following sources are not considered canon to the BU. However, in some content there are still themes, images, or lyrics that are in-line with the BU. The difference is the BU content depicts the characters, which this content does not. I’ve written a post here about separating the canon from non-canon works.
MUSIC VIDEOS
If a music video is not listed in the canon section, it’s not considered part of the story. There may be similar themes, but the other music videos aren’t meant to show the BU characters.
SONG LYRICS & ALBUM CONCEPTS
Though song lyrics and album concepts appear on media marked with the BU logo, they aren’t really “canon” to the characters of the BU, though they’re often related thematically. Album concept photos are also not canon, but rather depictions that relate to the album in some way. There are also tour videos that relate to the themes/storyline of the BU, but I have not included them here.
RELATED BOOKS
BigHit previously released a book bundle on their official website that included the three books listed below. We’ve known that Demian was a source of inspiration for part of the WINGS era since the album came out, and through BigHit including the other two books in the bundle, we can assume that they are somehow thematically related, even though their content is not fully canonically related. I make analysis posts about content influences, themes, and more in the articles on this website.
Demian by Hermann Hesse
This is a coming-of-age novel that focuses on self-realization. The story’s protagonist deals with both the world of the “light” and the world of the “dark.” He experiences temptation and a fall from grace while he struggles with morality. Hesse’s work employs Jungian archetypes and serves as one source of inspiration for the WINGS era of BTS’s work.
Jung’s Map of the Soul by Murray Stein
This volume sums up some of Jung’s psychological theories, including his archetypes. In one of the HYYH Notes, Seokjin refers to his father’s journal as showing the “map of his soul,” and later says that he takes his first steps to finding the map of his own soul. The book’s content is thematically related to the BU in some ways and also influences concepts on BTS’s Map of the Soul series.
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
Fromm (a psychoanalyst and philosopher) wrote this book on the nature of love, arguing that love can be taught as a skill. He explores various types of love, including brotherly love and self-love. This book is also thematically related to the storylines of the BU and the Love Yourself series. A quote from this book is mentioned once in HYYH The Notes Book 1. Additionally, we can see some relation between the topics in this book and the Love Yourself series, which I explore here.