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K-pop and K-food, among other elements of Korean culture, form the core themes of the Netflix original animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters (KPDH), which has become the most watched original film in Netflix history. In a short period of time, it achieved widespread popularity across regions and generations, and its use of performance not merely as a device to heighten emotion but as a core narrative element that encouraged audience participation through challenges represents an exceptional achievement for an animated IP. Created by producers with Korean roots, the film conveys the “Korean-ness” they experienced in a vivid yet unexaggerated manner, while the choice of animation as an inherently unreal genre allowed global audiences to naturally accept Korean cultural elements such as “Korean shamanism”, which typically requires a high level of cultural interpretation. Even at the audience design stage, the creators strategically built a “fan experience package” that enabled audience participation through the OST, performances, and story.

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In 2025, the K-content industry experienced a true “global hit.” The protagonist of that moment was the animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters, released simultaneously worldwide on Netflix on June 20. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation and directed by second-generation Korean American director Maggie Kang, the film quickly earned the title of the most-watched original film in Netflix history shortly after its release, emerging as a global cultural phenomenon.

Set primarily in Seoul and featuring a K-pop girl group as its protagonists, KPDH weaves together Korean mythology and shamanistic narratives through the collaboration of multicultural talent from the United States, Canada, and South Korea. As a U.S. animated film that is simultaneously consumed as K-content, and as an OTT original that nonetheless encouraged collective theatrical viewing through preview screenings and sing-along showings, KPDH serves as a condensed illustration of the success of the Korean Wave in 2025.

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