Music, in an animated movie? Pfft, that’ll never catch on. But just in case it does, today’s episode is about a recent entry in the genre that’s mostly flown under the radar, assuming your radar is located somewhere on Mars. While global hit films are a bit outside the scale we normally work at, there are still a few things normal writers can learn from this film’s success. Other than the importance of having a bird and tiger in your story. That much is obvious.
Transcript
Generously transcribed by Ari. Volunteer to transcribe a podcast.
Oren: Welcome everyone to another episode of Mythcreants podcast! I’m Oren. Chris is taking a few episodes off because she’s very busy, so as a guest I would like to welcome my brother Ari.
Ari: Hello everyone!
Oren: Ari tends to make a great co-host, but feel for the transcribers because apparently no one can tell our voices apart. So, you know, say a prayer for them.
Ari: This is Oren, just actually doing, he’s learning his voice work right now, and I’m just him, but doing a second voice. So.
Oren: Yeah, it’s very complicated.
Ari: That’s why we agree on so much.
Oren: [chuckles] So today we’re talking about just a little cult darling, a small indie film, you probably haven’t heard of it. Netflix barely advertised it. They didn’t have any merch available or Halloween costumes. There’s no way it’s a mega hit, right?
Ari: No. Whatever you’re about to say, I’m sure I’ve never heard of it or have feelings about it.
Oren: Yeah. From some small obscure genre called… K-Pop?
Ari: Yeah. Yeah.
Oren: I don’t know what that is. That sounds like music, I suppose? Probably not a big, very passionate fandom attached to that.
Ari: It stands for “o-Kay Pop”, so it’s like, you know, it’s okay. It’s fine.
Oren: Yeah, yeah. It’s okay, y’know, nothing to write home about. And then you attach some demon hunters to it.
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Oren: And I suppose you got yourself a little urban fantasy movie.
Ari: Yep.
Oren: It’s so funny to me that Netflix absolutely did not believe in this movie, and it’s now [chuckles] it’s everywhere.
Ari: I am very interested for– ’cause I’m sure we’re gonna get more behind the scenes stuff as time goes on, and I’m fascinated to know what the rollercoaster of emotions was for all the people involved in this. Particularly the six main voice talents, both the speaking and singing voices, but then also the two creators behind it, the two main creators, what was that like? What is this one in a million shot for a movie? They call it “breaking containment” when a post goes viral and, uh, boy, howdy, this one broke containment.
Oren: I’ll admit, when Ari asked me to come watch this movie when it was out, I was kind of skeptical, I watched the trailer and I was like, “all right, that looks like a movie.” I was a little worried, it felt a little bit like everyone’s faces looked kind of the same. So I was like, “is this Pixar again?” But then I watched the movie and I thought that it was much better than I was expecting. And in fact, I would go so far to say it was quite good.
Ari: I adore this movie. I saw it pop up on some of the various online communities that I’m a part of from other animated shows that I’ve really enjoyed. It showed up around my– some spaces were talking about Amphibia or The Owl House, stuff like that, and I thought, “well, I have Netflix. It looks interesting.” I like the idea, but Netflix originals can be very hit or miss. So I thought I’d give it a shot, and it turns out it is one of my favorite movies ever.
Oren: Yeah, so this is the part, I think, where we have to say like, well, I don’t normally watch this kind of movie, but…
Ari: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Oren: This seems to be a common feature of K-Pop Demon Hunter discussion.
Ari: Yeah. I do watch these types. I do watch these animated musicals and things, so, that ain’t me. But I’ve seen lots of people say that, you know, “oh, this is not my normal thing, but it’s real good.”
Oren: I am a huge sucker for musicals, so this is also pretty much my normal thing. It’s like, “Hey, I also really loved Jentry Chau, and this feels like more of that.”
Ari: Yup.
Oren: I feel like Jentry Chau’s art style is a little more interesting.
Ari: Yes, I agree.
Oren: But it feels in the same vein. So, maybe this will convince them that we need more Jentry Chau too.
Ari: I hope so. That would be very cool. I really like that show. So I would love to see more of it, and I would love to see more skilled artistic projects get chances from this one.
Oren: Yeah. As the person here who only liked the movie a lot, I will be taking the critical view.
Ari: Yes. That’s fair. I don’t know how critical I could be, so this is a good space to be in.
Oren: Yeah. So the first thing that I think is interesting about this movie is I feel like its three characters are a very good example of the fundamentals of character design. Like, I don’t think that they’re gonna blow anybody’s mind. They’re fairly straightforward, but they work really well ‘cause you’ve got three main characters, we’ve got Rumi, Mira, and Zoe. Mira and Zoe are the supporting characters, so they need to be memorable with less focus. So we boil them down to “the hard ass” and “the cinnamon roll”, which is again, [it’s] just what you do in a movie like this. They both get their own small character arcs as a treat.
Ari: I think that, uh, for supporting characters, this is an excellent example for folks looking to make their own stories. That you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with your characters, just make it a really good wheel. And these characters, I think, are just an excellent demonstration of just solid writing and really good voice performances just across the board and how that can really elevate characters that could in other contexts be too simple. So I think that’s something that a lot of people can learn from. It’s not always just ‘complexity equals good’. You can do something simple very well and it will resonate with people.
Oren: Yeah. That’s sort of my philosophy, right? I’m always trying to tell people to master the basics before you try to do something real fancy.
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Oren: First of all, we should say spoilers, obviously. It’s probably a little late for that, but, spoilers. Rumi is more developed, right? She’s the main character. It’s interesting that her arc is, “I’m ashamed of the way I was born, but it turns out I didn’t need to be.” What’s that a metaphor about? Yes.
Ari: A lot of it can be a lot of things, for sure.
Oren: Right, and I think that is part of the movie’s popularity, is that if you wanna see it as a queer metaphor, you can, if you’re a, shall we say, less accepting kind of person, you don’t have to think that’s what it is. I’ll admit that is a little disappointing to me, is that to make something super popular, maybe we have to strip away anything too identifying about it. I’d like to think we can maybe do better than that, but I do think that is a factor in the movie’s popularity.
Ari: Although I would say that I think specifically body shame is something that this movie is very focused on. You can do a lot with Rumi’s character arc and her feelings around her demon side. But I think it is very clear that she is incredibly ashamed of parts of her physical appearance. And also you can see it in how her, essentially mother, treats her, tells her to hide and cover up, things like that. That is– I think there is some specificity to that that I think adds to the movie where it’s not just completely sanded down to where this could mean literally anything you feel bad about, which it can be. It can be, I think, a very wide application, but I do think that’s something important to note for it.
Oren: Although again, we should also keep in mind that it’s a body shaming thing on characters who are objectively still very attractive. Again, we’re not going that far with it, and I’m not gonna say that this movie needed to, when others don’t. I’m not, I don’t wanna hold K-pop Demon Hunters to an unreasonable standard, but it is, it’s noticeable, right? It’s noticeable when you see stuff like that.
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Oren: Jinu is an interesting bad boy romance.
Ari: Yeah. I like Jinu a lot. I don’t have as many bad boy romances to compare him to, but I’m interested to hear your take on him.
Oren: So he is at an interesting middle point between two ways that bad boy romances tend to go wrong. One is that they’re like, “he’s a bad boy, he breaks the rules” and like, “what did he do?” “Oh, like he jaywalked once.”
Ari: He’s a little rude.
Oren: He’s edgy.
Ari: He tipped his waiter 10% instead of 20%.
Oren: He wears a leather jacket and sunglasses and it’s like, all right, that’s not really a bad boy in any meaningful way.
Ari: Yeah.
Oren: And then it’s like “he’s a bad boy.” “What does he do?” “Well, he treats women like crap.” Like, all right I mean, that is a bad boy, I guess.
Ari: He executed Order 66 on that room full of children. You know, just a bit of a bad boy.
Oren: Just a rebel, you know? A rebel against not killing younglings.
Ari: Yeah, exactly.
Oren: So Jinu, I think, walks that line because he did do something bad, which was that he abandoned his family. But it’s in a way that you can kind of understand, and it’s not good, but it doesn’t make you go like, “eh, I wouldn’t, I would never wanna be attracted to him. Gross.”
Ari: Yeah. And I think that they did a good job that his mother is there too, so it’s somewhat understandable why even in the flashback that they’re not condemning him in those short scenes we have. Jinu’s role as still a child, late teenager at that point, I think that helps make him feel more sympathetic ’cause he wasn’t the most senior person in that family group.
Oren: Yeah, he’s not abandoning his own children. Although we don’t know what he was doing in the demon realm since then.
Ari: He was hanging out, you know, he met a tiger and a bird.
Oren: Yeah, he was working on his, uh, on his vocal lessons. We’ll say that much.
Ari: Yeah, he was really good though. So, you know, that was time well spent I think.
Oren: The tiger and the bird do confuse me. I understand that they are a real life cultural reference, but in universe I do not know what they are.
Ari: I don’t know what the intent for them was besides maybe just having some cute mascot characters and also the role of non-speaking animal characters, the world over, of giving a character someone to talk to so the audience can hear a thing in the proud tradition of Avatar: the Last Airbender’s Momo. But I think that now that the movie has taken off, they signify the world is wider than the original, very short, ‘this is how the hunters came to be’ section would indicate, because we see Rumi does not know what they are either, so they’re obviously something. They don’t appear to be demons because they’re not doing the whole murder-people-and-eat-their-souls, so what are they? We don’t know. And so whatever their original role was, I think now that it’s a space to say the world is wider than we thought it was from the first movie,
Oren: That’s what the sequel’s gonna be about. K-pop Demon Hunters: What The Heck Is Going On With This Bird And This Tiger?
Ari: Rumi’s singing voice, Ejae, for Halloween took a photo where she was dressed in a big tiger onesie, so that was just a preview of what the next movie’s about.
Oren: Yeah, they’re sending us subliminal messaging.
Ari: Exactly. The Easter Eggs have already started.
Oren: What do you think about the possibility of a sequel?
Ari: Um. I want more. I want more. I just want to see more of these characters. Without getting too much into some of the issues that I had with the movie, seeing more of them is something I really wanted from this, and so I would be happy with just about anything. I would consider myself a superfan, so I’m probably not the right bar for that. I think that there are interesting spaces for them to explore, like Gwi-Ma isn’t dead or whatever, banished, defeated, whatever. Whatever happens to that guy, he’s still around, presumably. You know, Jinu may or may not be dead, that’s a rescue mission we may embark on. I mean, if certain parts of the fandoms we need to save all the Saja Boys, ’cause they’re all sweet boys that need our protecting.
Oren: Yeah. They never did anything wrong, really.
Ari: They never did a single thing wrong and they’re all great. But then there’s also characters, like we still don’t know what happened to the other Sunlight Sister, there’s three. There could be as many as maybe even two more generations of hunters still alive if they didn’t die prematurely for whatever reason. So, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s the whole space of exploring what the hunters are. Celine was just barely in the movie, so more of her. I think unlike some movies that feel like they answered all the questions and now they need to scramble, I think that there is still threads that can be tugged on for another movie.
Oren: I mean, we beat up Gwi-Ma, I think is how you say that.
Ari: Gwima? Or Gima?
Oren: There’s a W in it. I’m not sure if you pronounce the W.
Ari: Yeah, I’m not sure.
Oren: But the king of demons, right? Who’s a big old fireplace, we beat him up real good, so I’m a little concerned about him being a villain again. You could make it work, but once you’ve defeated a villain like that, it’s just not as scary the second time.
Ari: There’s always the trope though of going to the demon realm where they are at their strongest, right? Like the whole, you know, ‘you only defeat a demon if you defeat them where they come’ from that a lot of fiction series use and then, you know, give Gwi-Ma a handsome singing avatar of some sort and you know, you got– you got something, maybe
Oren: he does need a humanoid appearance to do singing, like somehow he needs to be able to sing, right?
Ari: That is very important and like, I hope they don’t bring back the eyes. I thought that that was very silly looking when he grew eyes right at the end.
Oren: I can tell you’ve seen the movie more than me because I can’t even visualize that. I’ve seen it a few times and I have no memory of this.
Ari: It’s right at the end where he is super, super powerful before he like, Kamehameha Blasts Rumi, he gets eyes. He reminds me a little bit of the Cookie Monster at that point. I don’t know if that’s the look they were going for. I’m gonna assume it’s not, but uh, you never know.
Oren: That’s that’s funny. Okay. Yeah, I think it would be interesting to do a– you’ve mentioned before the idea of bringing back the third Sunlight Sister ’cause we don’t know what happened to her, like what even is her deal. I think she could make an interesting villain with Gwi-Ma as the dark voice on her shoulder kind of thing, play up the whole like, “I’m so devoted to destroying demons that I’m gonna ally with the demon to destroy demons.”
Ari: Or like, she doesn’t know it’s a demon, that kind of thing?
Oren: Yeah. Yeah, I think that could be interesting.
Ari: For me, it’s like what haven’t we seen at the moment in the world? And that is hunters fighting other hunters. And from a visual design perspective, I think that could be a very fun space to explore. I am going to assume that the budget for this next movie will be larger than this first one given how Netflix held it in regard at the start and how they are now. So longer, more intricate fight scenes I think are in our future and having hunters with different weapons. We know Celine’s weapons were dual swords of some type based on the credits, and I think we might know what the other ones were, I think Rumi’s mom used a bow based on concept art. Concept art is of questionable canoninity, but whatever weapons they use, it’s different than just demons running at you and trying to get ya.
Oren: Yeah, I mean, the hordes of demons are not especially dangerous.
Ari: Yeah, they’re just, they represent, they need to overcome their emotional struggles so they can punch all the demons.
Oren: Right. I mean, that’s the fights in general, right? This is not like a particularly gritty world where you’re like, “oh man, I really hope she can pivot on her central axis fast enough to dodge that hit.” It’s like, “eh, that’s not really what we’re doing here, you know?”
Ari: No, we’re not. We’re not here for that. The fight reflects the feelings.
Oren: Which of course is, I think, the whole point of a musical, right? I [think] it is funny, I occasionally see people talking about how like, “oh, well if you take the music away, this movie wouldn’t, is, you know, not that great.” [chuckles]
Ari: [chuckles] Uh, yeah, you’re right, I guess.
Oren: Which it is true. [chuckles] Yeah? It’s a little like if you take the soundtrack away, Star Wars isn’t very good. [laughs]
Ari: True. If we took all the special effects away from the Marvel movie, [it’s] just a bunch of people in a green box! What’s even the point? That’s a wild take. Like of course! It’s a musical! Even more important than sound already is in movies, it’s incredibly important in every movie. If you don’t think that you’re wrong. It’s extra important in a musical, especially a musical about musicians, there are layers on layers of how important the music is.
Oren: I do think that the plot is another example of having good fundamentals. Nothing too fancy, which is probably what the movie needed. Like we’ve got a pretty good tension arc we introduced at the beginning Things seem to be going pretty well, and then they start to get worse with ties into the main character’s arc, which is something that a lot of new authors could learn from, honestly. Probably my biggest thing that I have to deal with as an editor, or maybe not the biggest, but one of them is having a story where there’s a big external conflict and then a character arc that’s just kind of unrelated to it.
Ari: That’s a tough one.
Oren: And that happens in a lot of published stories too. That’s not just [an] unpublished author problem. So the way that we see here, the thing that starts to make everything go wrong is Rumi’s character problem, and so those are inextricably tied together.
Ari: I think simplicity was super important, not just ’cause this is a kids’ movie and some clear, good fundamental storytelling I think is very good for that genre, but also just how short the movie is. They don’t have a lot of time. They gotta keep things moving and straight and to the point. And if Rumi’s Conflict and the actual, like the main conflict for everyone else wasn’t related This movie just would’ve been very strange. I don’t think it could have functioned at all with the constraints it was under with runtime and whatnot.
Oren: It’ll be interesting with the sequel as a stress test of Do movies get worse if you give them a bunch more money? Like a thing some people talk about and like sometimes it correlates. Not always, but sometimes.
Ari: For me it’s more of, do movies get way worse when you rush out sequels? And the answer is generally yes, and I am actually made more hopeful by the fact that it’s going to still be multiple years until the next one. I am certain someone in some office wanted to rush out either an animated show or a K-pop Demon Hunters 1.5, like Beauty and the Beast, One and a Half from the early aughts or the late nineties or whenever that came out.
Oren: How about a 20 minute short that we stick in front of other movies for no reason?
Ari: Yeah, I love that. I’ll just go to those movies just to watch K-pop Demon Hunters.
Oren: Just give it the full Frozen treatment.
Ari: So I am made somewhat hopeful that it seems like the creative team behind this Seems aware of some of these pitfalls and they seem to have retained control over this project. It’s not being taken over by some bigger name in hopes that that will somehow make it better. I don’t think there’s any guarantee, ’cause this movie was so good that a sequel will be as good or Better, but I’m not dooming over the sequel at the moment.
Oren: You know, it could end up like Frozen 2.
Ari: Ugh. Don’t say that.
Oren: I mean, it could, right? Like–
Ari: I don’t wanna hear that.
Oren: There are some signs, but not all of them. Because one of the biggest problems that Frozen 2 had is that the characters resolved their arcs pretty fully. And it does feel like Rumi’s arc is mostly resolved, but it’s possible to give her a new one, or we could focus more on the other characters.
Ari: I think that the main spaces that I can see just from this movie is that Rumi’s relationship with Celine is a huge source of conflict because I think that the way they portray Celine in this movie, she is obviously also indoctrinated into the same like she is older, but you can see that in the few scenes she’s in, at the very end of the movie, when she’s quoting their mantra that that was taught to her by someone else. And she’s obviously built into that, all of that same dogma that the hunters had. So. And she fails Rumi, she fails the other hunters. But I do believe the character when she says, “I do love you, it’s just that doesn’t always mean everything will work out.” And so it’s not that she’s just evil, how are Rumi and her gonna work that out? I don’t know. I think that could go a lot of different ways. But I also think that the space for the other two characters, at least in the interpersonal conflict, is that I don’t know if Rumi is gonna be stronger than them because she’s also a demon, in a lot of settings that would make her stronger. K-pop Demon Hunters might buck that trend, but Rumi say, single-handedly solving all of their early fight problems, establishing like these two characters feeling like they’re not necessary anymore, You know, that is I think, a space for some interpersonal drama. I don’t think either of those would be the primary conflict of a movie, but I could see either of those being good spaces for characters to have emotional moments with each other.
Oren: I think the second movie should be about them realizing that they are actually workaholics and you know, having a little bit at the end where they’re like, “no, we rested up enough and now we can go back to work.” It’s like, “no! you didn’t!
Ari: No.
Oren: “You didn’t rest up enough. You barely took a break!”
Ari: Look, we can just hope that all they meant was that they just wanted to say hi to these cute kids who were obviously super into their work. That’s what I’ll hope, I’ll hope they continue to have some time off from their actual jobs.
Oren: All right, so we’ve got a few minutes left, we’re not quite at the end yet, and we haven’t talked about the music that much. And I’m not a music person. I can mostly just say songs that I like and songs that I don’t. So real quick, which is the best song and why is it Take Down?
Ari: Uh.
Oren: [laughs]
Ari: Oof, I mean. My favorite song is How It’s Done. I think what makes it my favorite is that I love that confident declaration that ‘we’re good and we know we’re good’, especially given how well this movie did. Where they say like, “the whole world is singing our sound”, or, I can’t remember the exact lyric right now. Where they say that, that’s true, That’s just happened. “Whole world playing our sound”. That’s the lyrics. That’s my favorite. Take Down is also very good. The idea of the diss track, there’s a lot of emotion built into that song that I can see why it’s a lot of people’s favorite.
I think that really, for me, the odd one out is Soda Pop. I know it’s supposed to be the kind of artificial intentionally and fake, cutesy, bubbly pop. It’s doing its job and I actually appreciate that it is also the one that is the closest to my range, so it’s the one that’s the easiest for me to sing. I like what Maggie Kang, one of the directors said that while she was working on this she knew that these songs needed to feel like K-pop songs. They needed to be a song another K-pop group would create, and I think that that shows through in the stand aloneness of these songs. I think there’s a range in musicals where, how well does this song stand on its own, you just listening to it without watching the movie that it’s connected to at the same time? I think most of them pass that test for me. I think there’s a couple, like the duet song, I don’t think that really works on its own. I still think it’s a good song and I like listening to it, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense without the movie.
Oren: Yeah. If I had not seen the movie, I don’t think Free, which is the duet song, would’ve worked super well. I’ve heard some fun covers of it, but it’s, [sigh] Soda Pop is intentionally kind of annoying.
Ari: Yes.
Oren: So it doesn’t feel fair to say Soda Pop is my least favorite.
Ari: I mean, it does its job. If we’re not including Soda Pop, I think Free is probably my least favorite for that reason that you just stated. That’s one of the big ones.
Oren: So the one that I see that is very popular, which I like but is not my favorite, is Your Idol. Everyone loves a villain song and seen that one held up as [a] favorite, which I also like. I don’t think there’s any on here that I actually dislike, but Your Idol is a very effective villain song for like raise intention for the climax.
Ari: Yeah, I really like that the choreography of the characters for your idol, I think is doing a lot of work. I like your idol a lot, but whenever I’m listening to it, I am imagining the poses of the Saja Boys more than I imagine any of the accompanying animation for the other song, like when I’m listening to Golden, I’m not like playing the movie back in my head the way I do with Your Idol.
Oren: It is interesting to me that Golden is sort of the song that they picked to be like the face of the movie at music awards and such.
Ari: I can see why it’s the one that gets sung, it gets reprised more than the others, and I think it’s often called the “I Want” song. I think Golden is the closest to that, where they’re like building this, what ends up being a false ideal for themselves. Which is interesting as why it’s the face of the movie, but I, I can see why. And I think it’s also just, it’s very impressive. I don’t know a ton about the technicalities of singing, but Golden feels like a very effective demonstration of how skilled the voice actors are. I think that’s another reason is that it gives all the voice actors, I think, a really good time to show off what they can do.
Oren: Yeah, I’ve been told by people who know more about music than me that it is a very technically complex song. I have no choice but to believe them ’cause I have no idea. I don’t know how music works, so I’ll take their word for it.
Ari: You know, I have some natural singing talent and that one’s hard. That one’s real hard to sing. And it’s not just the range issue, there’s a lot going on in that one. I think it makes sense as the poster for it. Even though it’s not my favorite, I would be interested to see I’m sure someone has done a survey. I would like to see what the general feeling is as to [a] favorite song from that movie.
Oren: Alright, well we are at the end of our time, so I’ll go look that up. If I find one, I’ll put it in the show notes so we can all find out together as a family.
Ari: Excellent.
Oren: So for those of you at home, if you enjoyed this, you can feel free to support us on Patreon. Go to patreon.com/mythcreants. And before we go, I wanna thank a couple of our existing patrons. First we have Ayman Jaber. He’s an urban fantasy writer and a connoisseur of Marvel. And we have Kathy Ferguson, who’s a professor of political theory in Star Trek. We’ll talk to you next week.
Ari: Bye everyone.