Hearts2Hearts' ICONIC HEART Era: From a Japan Debut to a Seongsu Pop-Up
Hearts2Hearts, SM Entertainment's eight-member girl group, is in the middle of its ICONIC HEART season. The Japanese debut single reached No. 2 on Oricon in August, its Korean version arrived on October 5 with music-show stages on October 15 to 17, a Hayuha character pop-up runs at KWANGYA SEOUL in Seongsu-dong through October 25, and the Arena of Valor collaboration "Next Chapter" came out on October 16.
ICONIC HEART: From Tokyo to Seoul
The song at the center of this season started in Japan. Hearts2Hearts made their official Japanese debut with the single ICONIC HEART on August 12, 2026, pairing the title track with Japanese versions of "Lemon Tang" and "RUDE!". The single reached No. 2 on Oricon's weekly singles ranking and No. 2 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, selling 65,176 copies in its first week. It built on a steady run of Japanese stages, from SMTOWN LIVE concerts to fashion-event appearances.
Then the song traveled the other way. "ICONIC HEART (Korean Ver.)" was released on October 5, a Jersey club-inspired dance track with bright synths and a bouncy beat. The group first performed it at Spotify's Closer concert in Seoul, then took it to the weekly music shows: Mnet's M Countdown on October 15, KBS2's Music Bank on October 16 and MBC's Show! Music Core on October 17.
Why release a Korean version of a Japanese single at all? Part of the answer is simple: a song that charted that high in Japan already has an audience, and Korean lyrics let the group perform it on home stages. For fans, it also means the same choreography now exists in two languages, so the mid-October music-show clips are worth watching side by side with the original music video.
Hayuha and the KWANGYA SEOUL Pop-Up
The cutest part of this release is not a member at all. Hayuha is the group's character-doll line, and on October 19 SMTOWN premiered an animated music video for "ICONIC HEART (Korean Ver.)" starring the dolls. The same day, an ICONIC HEART pop-up opened at KWANGYA SEOUL, the store on the first basement level of SM Entertainment's headquarters in Seongsu-dong, running through October 25. Inside, you'll find Hayuha transformed into a "magical girl" look to match the song's concept, along with merchandise built around the album mood.
For a visitor, this is the easiest Hearts2Hearts moment to fit into a Seoul itinerary. SM's headquarters sits beside Seoul Forest, so you can pair the pop-up with a walk through Seoul Forest and Seongsu, where the cafe streets and brand pop-ups make a full afternoon. Weekend afternoons draw the biggest lines at Seongsu pop-ups, so a weekday morning is the calmer choice. Opening hours and any queue or reservation system are announced on KWANGYA's official channels, so check there on the day you go.
If the pop-up has already closed by the time you land, KWANGYA SEOUL is still a stop worth knowing. It is one of the spots covered in our K-pop travel guide to Seoul, and SM regularly rotates artist pop-ups through the space.
"Next Chapter" and the Arena of Valor Collaboration
October also brought a side project with a very different audience. On October 16 at 6 p.m. KST, Hearts2Hearts released "Next Chapter," a collaboration single marking the 10th anniversary of the mobile multiplayer game Arena of Valor, co-developed by Tencent Games and Garena. The music video premiered on the group's own YouTube channel, and its theme is teamwork: facing something unfamiliar together.
It is a smart pairing. Arena of Valor is played widely across Asia, and a game soundtrack puts the group in front of listeners who might never open a music-show clip. The group is scheduled to perform the song live for the first time on October 23 at the game's Arena of the Decade esports event in Bangkok.
For anyone planning a winter trip around K-pop, the next big window is the year-end award and festival season. Our guide to K-pop concerts in Seoul in December covers how those shows work and how ticketing usually opens.
How Hearts2Hearts Got Here
The eight members are Jiwoo, Carmen, Yuha, Stella, Juun, A-na, Ian and Ye-on, with Jiwoo as leader; our introduction to Hearts2Hearts covers the lineup and the debut with "The Chase" in February 2025. Since then, the group has moved quickly. "RUDE!" (February 2026) gave them their first terrestrial music-show win on MBC's Show! Music Core on March 14, at a time when A-na was one of that program's MCs, and its music video later passed 100 million YouTube views, as The Korea Herald reported. The summer EP Lemon Tang followed on June 22 and became a half-million seller.
There is a quiet piece of K-pop history here as well. Hearts2Hearts is the first SM girl group produced without the involvement of founder Lee Soo-man, who left SM in 2023. This autumn, Lee's new label, A2O Entertainment, debuted its own girl group, A2O LITE, on October 13, 2026. Two branches of the same history are now releasing music in the same season, and for listeners that simply means more to enjoy. For fans who followed SM's story, that backstory adds an extra layer of interest to both debuts.
Sori's Note
What interests me most about "ICONIC HEART" is the direction of travel. For years, Korean groups recorded Japanese versions of Korean hits. Here a song was written for the Japanese market first, proved itself there, and only then crossed back to Seoul with new lyrics.
That small reversal says something about where a rookie group's audience now begins. If you're in Seoul this week, the Hayuha pop-up is the gentlest way to see it: a song that started in Tokyo, turned into cartoon dolls, sitting in a basement store in Seongsu. Watching Hearts2Hearts and A2O LITE share the same autumn, each on its own path, is part of the fun this season too.
