9.34M Fans Sealed SMTR25's Reply High School Victory

SM Entertainment's male trainee group SMTR25 closed out their reality show Reply High School (응답하라 하이스쿨) with a performance party that is still reverberating across the K-pop fandom. The highlight video, released on Mnet K-POP's official YouTube channel on April 14, 2026, captures the full arc of an unforgettable finale — from backstage rehearsals to tearful group tributes — and has quickly become required viewing for everyone who followed the show's eight-week run.

The clip, running just under 20 minutes, compresses the essence of what made Reply High School such a compelling watch: a group of not-yet-debuted trainees putting their entire hearts into songs that shaped Korean pop music across three decades.

Three Classes, Three Eras: The Performance Party Breakdown

Produced by Mnet and streamed exclusively on Mnet Plus, Reply High School divided the SMTR25 trainees into three competing classes, each anchored to a distinct era of K-pop history. The premise was deceptively simple — learn and perform the classics — but the execution demanded something far more nuanced: convincing audiences that these young men genuinely understood the emotional vocabulary of songs recorded before most of them were born.

The Performance Party that closed the series showcased exactly that growth. It opened with a group camera rehearsal that doubled as a meditation on how far the trainees had come, followed by the 10-ban class running through their own rehearsal before the main event began.

The 90-ban class took the stage first, performing 환상속의 그대, a ballad rooted in the golden era of Korean pop that once defined an entire generation's listening habits. Their reading leaned into the song's inherent longing, and the audience — both in-venue and at home — responded in kind. For fans who grew up with the original, watching a new generation breathe fresh sincerity into a beloved track carried an added layer of emotional weight.

The 00-ban class followed with 사랑해 그리고 기억해, a 2000s-era piece that required its performers to navigate a more delicate balance of restraint and release. The trainees' execution reflected weeks of mentorship from senior SM artists, whose influence quietly shaped the phrasing and stage presence on display throughout the show's run.

The 10-ban class — the competition's final rankings leader — delivered the evening's most electrifying moment with CALL ME BABY, EXO's 2014 title track that helped usher in the current era of SM performance culture. Watching SMTR25 trainees claim that song felt pointed: a torch being passed in real time, the legacy becoming the prologue.

The night closed with two group stages. The ensemble version of Girls' Generation's 다시 만난 세계, the 2007 debut track that announced a new era for SM's girl group dynasty, brought all three classes back together, dissolving the competitive boundaries that had defined the show. The grand finale, simply titled 트리뷰트, functioned as the program's farewell letter — a collective bow to the songs, the seniors, and the entire journey.

9.34 Million Global Votes and the Winner That Was Never Really in Doubt

By the time the final episode aired on April 10, 2026, Reply High School had accumulated an extraordinary 9.34 million votes from fans across the globe. The number is a testament to the reach SMTR25 had built across the show's run — and a clear signal of what kind of fanbase they are likely to inherit at their eventual debut.

The 10-ban class claimed victory in the final count, having held the top position through the closing weeks of voting. Yet framing the result as a clean win understates how competitive the race became. The 90-ban and 00-ban classes mounted sustained challenges through the second half, and the margin separating all three teams reflected genuine audience investment rather than early indifference.

The win gave the 10-ban class the distinction of claiming the competition — but the show's real conclusion came not in the vote count but in the 우정고 축제 (Friendship High School Festival), the performance event designed to reunite all three classes one last time. Whatever separations the competition had imposed, the festival erased them.

OST "We Go" and the Sound of What Comes Next

Alongside the finale broadcast, SM Entertainment released the show's official soundtrack, "We Go" (위 고), written, composed, and arranged by KENZIE — one of K-pop's most trusted hit architects, whose fingerprints appear across decades of SM catalogue including chart-toppers from Girls' Generation, BoA, and beyond. The timing was deliberate: the OST dropped at 6 p.m. KST on April 10, hours before the final episode aired, giving fans something new to anchor their emotions to as the show came to a close.

Described as a dance-pop track infused with nostalgic warmth, "We Go" carries the specific emotional register of a beginning dressed as an ending. The lyrics capture the excitement of a new chapter opening — a fitting capstone for a show built around the idea that honoring the past is the surest way to earn the future. The song is available across all major streaming platforms.

The track lands at a moment when SMTR25's trajectory feels genuinely open-ended. Reply High School was never framed as a debut competition in the traditional sense — no official debut date was announced as a prize — but few who watched the show would dispute that the trainees have already crossed the invisible threshold between aspirant and artist.

What SMTR25's Reply High School Run Means for SM's Next Chapter

SM Entertainment's approach to introducing SMTR25 through Reply High School represents a calculated evolution in how Korean agencies build anticipation around pre-debut acts. Rather than revealing trainees through conventional showcase formats or manufactured survival competition, the agency opted for a show built around cultural inheritance — asking its new generation to demonstrate not just technical ability but an understanding of lineage.

The results appear to have landed convincingly. The 9.34 million votes suggest a fanbase that formed genuine connections over the show's run rather than simply registering for a contest. The performance party clips spreading across social platforms indicate that SMTR25's stages are being shared and re-watched for their own merit, serving as content that stands independently of the competition framing.

For SM, navigating a moment of significant transition in K-pop's commercial landscape, the emergence of a trainee group with proven audience engagement and a clear stylistic identity is meaningful. Reply High School gave SMTR25 something rare: a public history before their public debut. The show introduced them not as newcomers but as inheritors — of songs, of a company's aesthetic tradition, and of the expectations that come with the SM name.

The performance party highlight video on Mnet K-POP's YouTube channel brings that history into one place: the rehearsals, the class rivalry, the reunification, and the first steps toward whatever comes next. Featured on Mnet's official broadcast channel, the clip stands as both a document of the show and a preview of an act that is clearly ready for something larger. The question now is not whether SMTR25 will debut — it is when, and just how loud the response will be.