TVXQ
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50 free TVXQ trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
TVXQ, known to many fans as DBSK, debuted at the end of 2003 as a five-member vocal group and went on to become one of the most successful acts K-pop has produced. They helped carry Korean pop across Asia, filled the biggest venues in Japan and kept going as a duo after a very public split. This quiz covers the whole story. Expect questions on how the group was formed and named, the members and their work outside the band, the best-known Korean and Japanese singles and albums, the tours and sales records, the contract dispute that changed the industry, and the fan club behind it all. The opening questions suit anyone who knows a few of the songs, while the later ones are for fans who have followed every era. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so even a miss teaches something new about the group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01TVXQ made their debut in December 2003 at a showcase for a labelmate and which American pop star?
Britney Spears
Britney Spears shared the bill on December 26, 2003, when the five teenagers sang their first single and a carol a cappella. The group still treats that date as its debut anniversary.
Q 02TVXQ's 2005 signature song Rising Sun is heard early in which 2009 Hollywood action film?
Fast & Furious
Fast & Furious uses the track in Paul Walker's opening scene, four years after its release. In South Korea the album it came from was the fourth best-selling record of 2005.
Q 03In October 2006 an anti-fan handed TVXQ leader Yunho a drink laced with which household substance?
Super glue
Super glue in the drink sent Yunho to hospital in the middle of a variety show shoot. He asked police not to press charges against the fan, who was the same age as his younger sister.
Q 04A talent scout spotted TVXQ's Changmin at fourteen while he sang and played which sport in gym class?
Badminton
Badminton was the game, and he had no interest in becoming a singer. His mother, who hoped to meet the label's biggest star, urged him to go to the audition anyway.
Q 05The title track of TVXQ's 2004 debut album Tri-Angle samples a famous symphony by which classical composer?
Mozart
Mozart wrote the Symphony No. 40 in G minor that the song borrows. The track also features the rock band TRAX, yet it was never sold as a physical single.
Q 06In January 2010 TVXQ broke which British singer's Japanese record for first-week single sales by a foreign artist?
Elton John
Elton John had held the mark for twelve years. TVXQ's single Break Out! passed it and was among the last releases by the five-member lineup, whose Japanese activities were suspended that April.
Q 07TVXQ's Japanese singles Asu wa Kuru Kara and Share the World were both theme songs for which long-running anime?
One Piece
One Piece used the first song as its seventeenth ending theme in 2006. Share the World followed in 2009 as an opening theme for the same series.
Q 08TVXQ's 2006 album 'O'-Jung.Ban.Hap. takes its title from a theory credited to which German philosopher?
Hegel
Hegel is the thinker behind the thesis, antithesis and synthesis idea that the three Korean words in the title stand for. The album became South Korea's best-selling record of 2006.
Q 09What do the members of TVXQ wear in the video for Balloons, their 2006 remake of a Five Fingers song?
Animal costumes
Animal costumes were picked to charm younger listeners, a sharp contrast with the album's dark lead single. The bubbly single was also aimed at older listeners who remembered the original.
Q 10TVXQ's Yunho was the only Asian performer invited to appear at a tribute concert for which late American pop star?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's tribute show, This Is It, booked Yunho for its Korean leg. He has also trained in the United States with people who once worked closely with the singer.
Q 11The official South Korean fan club of TVXQ, which once claimed 800,000 members, is named after which constellation?
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia members showed their numbers after three singers sued the agency in 2009, when 120,000 fans petitioned a Seoul court against long-term contracts. Fans in Japan join a separate club, Bigeast.
Q 12Which 2004 debut single gave TVXQ a first music show win and stayed on the Korean chart for ten months?
Hug
Hug sold fewer than 5,000 copies in its first month, then took off once the group began appearing on television. An English version was later released for the Japanese market.
Q 13Which producer assembled TVXQ in 2003 from five teenage trainees in four different training teams?
Lee Soo-man
Q 21Which 2011 TVXQ comeback album, whose title track is called Why in Korean, was the first made by just two members?
Keep Your Head Down
Keep Your Head Down ended a year-long hiatus and topped charts across Asia. Some listeners heard a message to the three who had left, but the duo said the song was about a man whose lover had gone.
Q 22Which original TVXQ member went to school in Fairfax, Virginia, and was the last of the five to join?
Micky Yoochun
Micky Yoochun began training only a few months before the group's first showcase. He later turned to acting and won a best newcomer award for the 2011 drama Miss Ripley.
Q 23Xiah Junsu, the first member picked for TVXQ, had trained in a trio with two boys who later joined which group?
Lee Soo-man wanted a successor after his boy band H.O.T. split up in 2001. When three members left in 2010, he was also the one who suggested the remaining pair carry on as a duo.
Q 14The Korean name Dong Bang Shin Ki, shortened by fans to DBSK, gives TVXQ a name with which meaning?
Rising Gods of the East
Rising Gods of the East is the usual translation of the four characters. An earlier choice, borrowed from a martial arts hero known as Invincible East, was dropped because its characters looked unattractive.
Q 15TVXQ were re-introduced to the Japanese market in 2005 under which name?
Tohoshinki
Tohoshinki is the Japanese reading of the group's four-character name. Their first Japanese single only reached number thirty-seven, yet by 2014 they had sold more CD singles in Japan than any other foreign act.
Q 16After leaving TVXQ in 2010, the three departing members formed a trio under which name made from their initials?
JYJ
JYJ takes one letter from each member's given name. The trio's legal fight with their old agency ended in November 2012, when both sides agreed not to interfere with each other's work.
Q 17In July 2009 TVXQ became the first Korean group to perform at which landmark Japanese concert venue?
Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome hosted the last two nights of the Secret Code tour, which drew 279,500 people over 21 shows. The concert DVD then topped Japan's rankings, a first for a foreign artist in twenty years.
Q 18TVXQ's 2014 Japanese album Tree took a record for big opening weeks from which American rock band?
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi had held the record for thirteen years. Tree made TVXQ the first foreign band in Japan with three studio albums in a row that each sold more than 200,000 copies in a week.
Q 19TVXQ's 2019 album XV passed which SM labelmate's record for number-one albums by a foreign artist in Japan?
BoA
BoA was the singer whose success in Japan had inspired TVXQ to sign with a Japanese label back in 2004. XV gave the duo an eighth chart-topping album there.
Q 20Which colour, seen on the light sticks waved at TVXQ concerts, represents the group's fandom?
Red
Red is so tied to the group that a colour in the words of their 2006 remake Balloons was switched to match it. The original band's leader later said nobody had asked his permission.
Super Junior
Super Junior later took in both boys, Sungmin and Eunhyuk. Junsu had joined SM at eleven and was first trained as a solo singer, and the three appeared together on a 2002 audition show.
Q 24TVXQ sang on Kumi Koda's 2007 single Last Angel, the Japanese theme song for a film in which horror series?
Resident Evil
Resident Evil: Extinction used the track for its Japanese release. The single reached number three and won Best Collaboration Video at Japan's MTV Video Music Awards.
Q 25After the TVXQ lawsuit, which South Korean regulator capped entertainment contracts at seven years?
Fair Trade Commission
Fair Trade Commission reforms also cut the penalties for stars who end a deal early. The three singers had challenged a thirteen-year term, the kind of deal the press came to call a slave contract.
Q 26SM Entertainment claimed that three TVXQ members sued in 2009 so they could freely pursue which side business?
A cosmetics company
A cosmetics company called CreBeau was at the centre of the agency's claim. Its complaint against the firm never reached court, because prosecutors found too little evidence.
Q 27TVXQ's 2008 hit Mirotic drew controversy for sounding nearly identical to Under My Skin by which German singer?
Sarah Connor
Sarah Connor had been sold the very same composition. SM explained that the team who wrote the song sold its copyright to both acts in January 2008.
Q 28Why did a South Korean youth protection commission rule TVXQ's hit Mirotic harmful to minors in November 2008?
Overly sexual lyrics
Overly sexual lyrics were the charge, so the album got a sticker barring under-19s and the song could air only after 10 PM. SM made a clean version, then won a court ruling against the decision in March 2009.
Q 29Which January 2008 release became TVXQ's first single to debut at number one on Japan's weekly chart?
Purple Line
Purple Line made TVXQ the first foreign boy band, and only the second Korean act, to top the Japanese singles chart. Its video was shot in South Korea, a first for one of their Japanese singles.
Q 30In 2008 TVXQ became the first Korean group invited to which prestigious Japanese New Year's Eve music show?
Kōhaku Uta Gassen
Kōhaku Uta Gassen is broadcast by NHK every December 31. TVXQ's 2009 appearance on the show turned out to be the last time all five original members performed together in public.