Why Wanna One Reunited Without Kang Daniel

Wanna One got back together in 2026, seven years after the project group split up. Nine of its eleven members filmed a reality series and performed together at KCON LA in August — but Kang Daniel, the member most recognized outside Korea, was not one of them.

He was several months into mandatory military service. Fellow member Lai Kuan-lin, who left the entertainment industry entirely in 2024, was also absent. Neither gap was a choice made by the group, and neither is unusual once you understand how project groups like this one actually work.

Nine of eleven, seven years later

Wanna One formed in 2017 from Produce 101 Season 2 and became one of the era's best-selling acts, with singles including "Energetic" and "Beautiful" topping domestic charts before the group disbanded in early 2019.

Mnet confirmed the reunion in January 2026 with a teaser referencing the group's 2017 debut single. The reality series "WANNA ONE GO: Back to Base" premiered April 28 on the Mnet Plus streaming platform, followed by a television broadcast two hours later.

Nine members filmed together in the school uniforms they wore during their original 2017 competition:

• Park Ji-hoon, Lee Dae-hwi, Kim Jae-hwan
• Ong Seong-wu, Park Woo-jin, Yoon Ji-sung
• Hwang Min-hyun, Bae Jin-young, Ha Sung-woon

In August, the same nine performed at KCON LA — the group's first KCON stage since 2017. Members addressed the gap directly on camera rather than letting it go unmentioned, at one point saying they were "together from afar" with the two who couldn't join. It was the group's first real activity since a one-off stage at the 2021 Mnet Asian Music Awards.

One survival show, eleven separate companies

Wanna One never belonged to a single company the way most K-pop groups do. It formed through that same competition show, in which roughly a hundred trainees, already under contract to dozens of different talent agencies, were narrowed down by viewer vote over several months to eleven spots in a temporary group.

Under Korea's agency system, a company recruits and trains a performer for years, sometimes five or more, controlling debut timing, schedule, and public image long before that person ever appears on stage. Wanna One's eleven winners kept those individual training contracts running the entire time they were promoting together.

A separate company, YMC Entertainment, was created solely to manage the group's shared schedule. It was layered on top of eleven agreements it did not otherwise control, and it had no authority over any of them once Wanna One's own contract ended.

A contract that was always going to expire

The group's activities together were bound to an 18-month contract that ended December 31, 2018. Wanna One held a farewell concert titled "Therefore" from January 24–27, 2019, and disbanded on its final day.

This wasn't the result of internal conflict. Project groups assembled from survival shows are deliberately built with a fixed end date, unlike standard K-pop contracts that can run up to seven years, so members can return to their original companies once it passes.

Every member has been on his own company's calendar since 2019. That is exactly why reassembling the group now depends on nine, ten, or eleven separate schedules lining up, not one shared decision by one label.

Military service has already sidelined half the group before

South Korea requires able-bodied men to complete military service, generally by their early thirties. Three other Wanna One members have already served and been discharged during the years since disbandment: Yoon Ji-sung (2019–2020), Ong Seong-wu (2023–2024), and Hwang Min-hyun, who completed alternative public service duty ending December 2025.

None of those absences drew this much attention because the group wasn't active at the time. Kang Daniel's service is simply the one that happens to overlap with the reunion window — not a special case, but the same mandatory process every male member eventually goes through.

Several other members have not yet completed their service either. Whenever those enlistments come, they will create the same kind of gap Wanna One is navigating now — a recurring condition of the format, not a one-time problem tied to any single member.

Conscription runs on its own calendar

Enlistment dates are set by the state and cannot be pushed back to accommodate a comeback or a reunion. Kang Daniel enlisted as an active-duty soldier on February 9, 2026, with a scheduled discharge of August 8, 2027.

His agency confirmed in advance that he would only be able to film a limited portion of the reunion before leaving. In effect, the show's production schedule was built around his enlistment date, not the other way around — members have said filming with him was prioritized early precisely because his window was closing.

Kang Daniel's agency has changed twice since Wanna One

Kang Daniel's post-Wanna One career has also run through more company changes than his groupmates'. In 2019, he entered a legal dispute with his agency at the time, LM Entertainment, over rights he said had been transferred to a third party without his consent. The two sides resolved the case through mediation that September.

He then founded his own one-man label, Konnect Entertainment, later in 2019. Konnect was dissolved in 2024 after Kang filed a criminal complaint against a majority shareholder for alleged embezzlement and forgery. He signed with a newly formed agency, ARA, that July — his current representative, and the company that negotiated his limited role in this reunion.

Lai Kuan-lin left the industry, not just the group

The other absent member's situation is different in kind. Lai Kuan-lin, originally from Taiwan, won a 2021 court ruling that ended his contract with Cube Entertainment after a separate legal dispute.

In June 2024, he announced he was retiring from performing to pursue directing, and by June 2025 had formally joined a Chinese production company in an entry-level role. He briefly reunited with member Ha Sung-woon in Beijing during filming for the reunion show but has not returned to performing.

How the show and the stage were built around two absences

Rather than obscure the gap, the production leaned into it. The show's premise — a shared hideout called "Wanna-Base" where members gather to make new memories — was staged with nine members, while messages and footage connecting Kang Daniel and Lai Kuan-lin were folded into the same episodes.

At an April 6 pre-show fan event in Seoul, the nine present members appeared on a blue carpet while organizers acknowledged the two who could not attend. The same nine-member lineup carried the group's August KCON LA set, its first appearance at the festival in nine years.

What's still unresolved

Kang Daniel is scheduled for discharge on August 8, 2027. No announcement has confirmed whether an eleven-member Wanna One stage or release will follow once his service ends.

Lai Kuan-lin's path is less certain still. He has described building a new career from an entry-level position at a Chinese production company, with no stated plans to return to performing.

Whether either gap closes — and when — has not been addressed by the group, Mnet, or either member's representative. For now, the reunion that exists is the nine-member version, built around the calendars everyone could actually clear.

Wanna One members' military service timeline

Frequently asked

Why wasn't Kang Daniel in the Wanna One reunion?

He began mandatory military service on February 9, 2026, so his agency confirmed in advance that he could only film a limited portion of the reunion before enlisting.

Is Lai Kuan-lin still in Wanna One?

He left the entertainment industry in 2024 to pursue directing and joined a Chinese production company by 2025, so he did not perform in the reunion.

When does Kang Daniel finish his military service?

His scheduled discharge date is August 8, 2027, and no eleven-member Wanna One activity has been announced for after that.