NCT WISH Returns Complete: 'Poppop' and the Significance of Riku's Comeback

NCT WISH announces the release of their second mini-album Poppop, set for April 14, 2025. The comeback carries added significance: member Riku, who suspended activities in October 2024 due to health concerns, returns to the group for this release. For an act whose formation story was built on full ensemble presence, the return to a complete lineup makes Poppop more than a routine second album.

Who NCT WISH Is — and Why the Second Album Matters

NCT WISH is the sixth and final sub-unit of NCT, SM Entertainment's experimental multi-group project. The group consists of six members — Sion, Riku, Yushi, Jaehee, Ryo, and Sakuya — with a configuration that is notably international even by NCT standards: Japanese and Korean members in a unit that SM simultaneously activated in both markets. Their debut single in February 2025 established their presence; their debut mini-album Steady in September 2024 gave them a full release to build around.

A second mini-album arriving seven months after the first is standard K-pop pacing for a group in their first full year. What is not standard is the return of a member who stepped away for health reasons. Riku's absence had changed the group's dynamic during promotional activities in late 2024, and his reintegration into Poppop represents a full-group reset rather than a continuation of a compromised lineup. For NCT WISH's fanbase, the emotional dimension of Poppop is not primarily musical — it is the restoration of the group as it was originally imagined.

The Sound Direction: 'Poppop' and What to Expect

SM Entertainment has positioned NCT WISH as a group with a brighter, more upbeat sonic identity than many of NCT's other sub-units. NCT 127 occupies a harder-edged hip-hop-influenced space with a sound built around high-concept production and assertive choreography; NCT Dream has built its identity around youthful pop energy calibrated for an audience that grew up with the group; WayV operates in the Mandopop market with a Mandarin-language repertoire; and SUPERM functions as a selective supergroup configuration. NCT WISH, debuting with a clean pop orientation aimed at a younger international audience and designed to work in both Korean and Japanese markets simultaneously, slots into the formation as its most straightforwardly accessible unit — the entry point for listeners who may encounter NCT through any of its many doors.

Poppop, based on its title and the group's established sonic identity, appears to continue in that direction. A second album for a debut-year group typically consolidates rather than reinvents — establishing what the group is rather than pivoting away from it. If Steady introduced NCT WISH, Poppop is where the group begins to define what their identity means as a sustained creative output rather than a debut statement.

The simultaneous Korean and Japanese market strategy that SM has deployed for NCT WISH remains in effect: releases are designed to function across both markets, which positions the group differently from the typical fourth-generation act that treats Japanese promotions as secondary. For an audience that spans both Korean and Japanese fandoms, this makes Poppop a genuinely dual-market release rather than a localization of a primary market product.

Riku's Return and the Full-Group Significance

In K-pop, the return of a member after a health-related hiatus carries particular weight. Fan communities that have followed the group through the absence are invested not just in the music but in the restoration of the group's intended form. The months of Riku's absence were months when the group was, by definition, incomplete — when performances were adjusted, promotional images were reconfigured, and fan interactions happened with a gap where a member should have been. Riku's participation in Poppop means the album will be experienced partly as a reunion — a listening experience that doubles as confirmation that the group continues as designed, and that the health concerns that prompted his hiatus have been adequately addressed.

That emotional dimension does not make Poppop more or less interesting as a musical object, but it shapes how the album will be received. The songs will matter; the fact that all six members are performing them together will also matter. For NCT WISH, April 14 is not just a release date. It is a completion.

NCT WISH in Context: SM's Long Game

SM Entertainment's NCT project has always been more conceptual than commercial in its orientation — an ongoing experiment in how many configurations of talent, genre, and market could operate simultaneously under a single umbrella. NCT WISH, as the project's final sub-unit, represents the completion of that framework. With all six sub-units now active, SM has assembled the most sprawling single-group project in K-pop history.

Poppop's release on April 14 will be watched not only for its chart performance — which will establish whether NCT WISH can sustain or improve on the commercial foundation Steady built — but for what the music itself indicates about how NCT WISH develops as a creative entity in its first full year. Second albums for debut-era groups often reveal more of what a group actually is than the first, once the initial framing is set aside and the ongoing identity begins to emerge. By April 14, NCT WISH will begin to show theirs.