It’s Time to Eat Up BTS’ Comeback

Back in March of 2026, BIGHIT ENTERTAINMENT’s BTS made their comeback album after over 3 years of the whole group being on hiatus. BTS launched it with the announcement of a new studio album, “ARIRANG,” and a new tour, which kicked off in April, and the recent release of a special collaboration with OREO.

The hiatus began due to South Korea’s mandatory military service required of men of age. During that time, the 7 members served in the South Korean military and pursued solo projects, which have all brought them back together this year.

Ever since, fans have been elated of the iconic boy group’s new beginning, shown through the recent popularity following the release of their new collaboration with OREO. This collaboration launched a new brown sugar pancake flavor, which is based on a popular South Korean street food snack called hotteok.

Diving deeper into the collaboration itself, the cookies are the first purple OREO wafers with a dual-layer brown sugar pancake creme in between. There are also thirteen unique designs on different cookies; the group members chose themselves as a tribute to the fans.

As someone who’s tried both hotteok and the cookies, I found the flavor to taste more like a typical pancake drenched in syrup rather than hotteok. While they were perfectly sweet and had a good balance of flavor, they didn’t quite have the same feel and taste you would get when you eat hotteok, which consists of a fried dough with a sticky and gooey brown sugar filling on the inside. When you bite into it, you’ll taste a hot and comforting treat.

While the collaboration wasn’t exactly what I expected, it was still well done, and fans seem to be enjoying them through the many positive reviews left on online platforms. I wish they had connected the cookies more to their album and utilized symbolism representing the songs from the album and the group as a whole.

Overall, BTS remains successful throughout their career with over 37 million monthly listeners just from Spotify alone and their crazily high ticket prices. In the end, no matter whether or not you love or hate BTS, you can’t deny the OREO collaboration is extremely creative and well done or that the group is thriving.