Six months on, and ITZY return mid-tour with Motto
ITZY are back. Roughly six months after TUNNEL VISION dropped in November 2025, MIDZY are getting another mini album, and the timing is part of the story. The group's third world tour ITZY THE 3RD WORLD TOUR <TUNNEL VISION> is still very much in motion, which means Motto isn't landing after the tour ends. It's landing in the middle of it.
The comeback announcement arrived at midnight KST on 22 April 2026 with a single trailer, and the mood was a hard pivot from TUNNEL VISION's cinematic darkness. A tilted limousine floating mid-air with Ryujin leaned casually against the seat. Members perched on hoops, spheres, horses, and fire hydrants like nothing was unusual. Each frame stranded a member inside her own impossible scene, until a single ladder brought all five together and resolved into the word Motto. Welcome to the surrealist circus era.
Five impossible scenes, one ladder, and the director behind it
The trailer was directed by Léa Esmaili, a French visual director known for composition-driven storytelling and a meticulous sense of rhythm. Her work builds narrative into every frame through geometry and pacing rather than explicit action, and that signature is all over this teaser. Nothing in the trailer moves quickly, but everything is loaded.
A bumblebee rests on a ladder. Ryujin leans into a limo suspended at an angle that should tip her out. Hoops, spheres, a horse, a hydrant, each member poised on top like it's the most ordinary thing in the world. The visual grammar is individual precariousness resolved through collective motion. When the ladder finally descends and the five members walk its rail, the rail itself spells out Motto in the final shot. The concept compresses an entire album premise into roughly a minute of footage.
ITZY 'Motto' Concept Trailer, directed by Léa Esmaili · Source: ITZY Official YouTube
Three group tracks, five solo songs, and one very unusual tracklist
Here's where Motto gets genuinely unusual. Of the eight tracks on the album, five are solo songs, one for each member. And these aren't freshly written B-sides hidden at the back of the record. They are the exact solo performances MIDZY have already witnessed on the TUNNEL VISION tour, where each member took the stage with a song of her own and the reaction was immediate and loud. Motto hands that moment back to the fandom in permanent form.
The production credits read like a serious flex. Shim Eun-ji, Lee Woo-min 'collapsedone', KASS, and Justin Reinstein are among the writers and producers attached, which is a deliberately varied lineup, Korean and international, pop-leaning and experimental. The title track Motto alongside group tracks Glitch and you And I carry the full five-member energy. The five solo tracks are where each member gets to set her own coordinates.
The five solo titles themselves do a lot of work. Pocket, Asylum, LOOK, Undefined, Tangerine. They don't cohere as a set, and that's exactly the point. Five members, five mottos, five refusals to be one thing. The disjointedness is the concept.
A reverse-charting B-side, a viral dance practice, and a comeback stacked on real evidence
ITZY don't arrive at this comeback quietly. The group spent the opening months of 2026 generating the kind of momentum most acts spend an entire year chasing. The opening Seoul leg of the TUNNEL VISION tour in February delivered a genuinely unusual moment, when 'That's A No No', a deep cut from the 2020 EP IT'z ME, got its first ever live performance and went viral overnight. The official choreography had never been performed publicly until that night. Catalogue songs do not typically do this. It happened anyway.
ITZY 'THAT'S A NO NO' Dance Practice, released 14 March 2026 · Source: ITZY Official YouTube
'That's A No No' first live (23 Feb 2026): the song was a 2020 B-side that had never been performed live until the Seoul tour opener. The full-cam stage clip topped YouTube Korea's daily MV chart on 8 March.
Dance practice video (14 Mar 2026): released to ride the viral moment, surpassed 1.03M views in four days and topped YouTube Korea's daily trending music video chart on 15 March.
Korean charts: 'That's A No No' jumped from outside the top 900 to inside Melon's Top 100 in March 2026, six years after release.
Tour scale: third world tour launched 13-15 February 2026 with three nights at Jamsil Indoor Stadium, Seoul, then continued through Melbourne and Sydney in April.
This is the context Motto steps into. An album landing mid-tour, powered by viral live moments from that same tour, with solo tracks already road-tested on audiences. The feedback loop between stage and record is unusually tight, and it explains why the 5-in-5 solo release doesn't feel like a novelty structural move. It feels earned.
From DALLA DALLA to Motto, a compressed seven-year run
Worth situating Motto in the full arc. ITZY debuted in 2019 and have moved through several distinct eras, each with its own sonic vocabulary. Motto is the twelfth mini album and arrives in a clear post-renewal phase, where the group are visibly setting their own pace.
IT'z Different · DALLA DALLA
The debut single that defined ITZY's "teen crush" sonic DNA and instantly marked them as the JYP 4th generation flagship.
IT'z ME · home of the future viral cut 'That's A No No'
The era that seeded the B-side 'That's A No No', which would return six years later to reverse-chart on the back of its first ever live performance.
CHESHIRE
Self-produced era, maturation point. Demonstrated that ITZY could steer their own sound and carry a darker aesthetic without losing the signature.
KILL MY DOUBT · home of 'CAKE'
Multi-title record with 'CAKE' and 'BET ON ME', pushing the group into bigger, more confident pop territory. The 'CAKE' callback returns this era in the form of a Cake Clicker Keyring goods version on Motto.
BORN TO BE · first full-length album
ITZY's first studio album, anchoring the 2nd world tour that would go on to cover 28 cities and 32 shows.
TUNNEL VISION · first Korean release post-renewal
The re-contract era opener. Cinematic, darker, and shot partly in Prague. The announcement of the third world tour followed immediately.
Motto · 12th mini album
Surrealist circus era. Five solo tracks lifted from the tour, three group tracks, one ladder connecting all of it.
ITZY 'TUNNEL VISION' MV, released 10 November 2025, the immediate predecessor era · Source: ITZY Official YouTube
Three signals worth paying attention to
Any new ITZY release is interesting. Motto is structurally interesting, which is a different thing. Three signals are worth flagging.
Signal one, sonic range. The solo tracks force five different production approaches onto a single record. Pocket, Asylum, LOOK, Undefined, Tangerine. The album is almost certainly the most texturally varied thing ITZY have released, and that variety isn't noise. It's the point.
Signal two, timing. Releasing a new album mid-tour is not standard practice. It signals confidence that the tour audience is already primed for the material, which in turn signals that ITZY's post-renewal phase is going to run on a faster cadence than the previous era. Six months between TUNNEL VISION and Motto is brisk by fourth-gen standards.
Signal three, peer group. 2026 is shaping up as a genuinely crowded year for fourth-gen girl groups, with aespa, LE SSERAFIM, NewJeans, and IVE all planning or executing major releases. Motto positions ITZY not by chasing any one competitor's sound but by leaning harder into individual identity as the brand. Five mottos, not one brand line. That's a deliberate strategic choice.
On 18 May at 6PM KST, Motto goes live on every streaming platform. A US physical release follows on 22 May, accompanied by remixes of the title track at 1PM KST. Between now and then, MIDZY get a staggered reveal of concept photos, individual 'What is your Motto' content pieces, and the music video teaser. ITZY's next chapter starts on a ladder, with five members walking the same rail.
