Seoul, South Korea
For the previous 40 years, South Korean animators have been the invisible workforce behind lots of North America’s most beloved cartoons.
These artists, usually referred to as “in-betweeners,” are accountable for drawing the majority of an episode’s roughly 30,000 frames.
But in contrast to studios in North America and Japan, South Korean manufacturing homes have struggled to create authentic animations that resonate with audiences, at house or overseas.
“The craft of animation is being done at a very high level, but it’s being done in ways that don’t allow for creative expression,” says Daniel Martin, affiliate professor of movie research at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon.
That’s altering, although. The current success of “K‑Pop Demon Hunters” — a North American manufacturing about Korean tradition — has triggered recent debate about why South Korea hasn’t had its own animated hit; and a billion-dollar government investment hopes to unlock the nation’s unrealized animation potential.
You may not acknowledge the title Nelson Shin, however you’ve virtually actually seen his work.
The 89-year-old animator, by means of his animation studio, AKOM, has had a hand in iconic cartoons from “The Simpsons” to “Batman: The Animated Series,” and have movies like “The Land Before Time” sequels, and “The Transformers: The Movie.”
Shin, usually referred to as the “godfather of animation” in South Korea, was considered one of the main figures in the nation’s outsourcing trade. He realized animation in South Korea’s fledgling movie scene, however dealing with restricted alternatives, left for the US in 1971.
It was a turbulent decade for American animation, which was experiencing a expertise scarcity, and Shin discovered work at DePatie–Freleng Enterprises — the studio behind the Pink Panther titles — the place he animated the lightsaber results in “Star Wars” (1977). When the studio was offered, turning into Marvel Productions in 1981, Shin was promoted to animation director.
But budgets stored shrinking; even Disney reportedly had simply 125 animators in 1985. Marvel Productions was desperately attempting — and failing — to discover animators for its upcoming launch, “My Little Pony: The Movie.”
“Then, the (Marvel) Vice President Lee Gunther, he asked me: ‘Why don’t you go to Korea and establish a company?’” remembers Shin. At the time, South Korean wages had been low, however there have been loads of expert animators. So with Marvel’s monetary backing, Shin returned to Seoul in 1985 to set up AKOM Studios.
His studio launched with 400 top-tier animators, lots of whom, he says, left opponents as a result of he paid greater than six instances the home norm. Over the subsequent 4 many years, the studio — which grew to become the largest in the nation — labored on North American hits like “Arthur” and “Pinky and the Brain,” in addition to “The Simpsons,” which it nonetheless animates immediately.
While outsourcing nonetheless accounts for a big a part of South Korea’s 1.13 trillion received ($760 million) animation sector, it’s in decline. Between 1984 and 2024, South Korea’s economy exploded, with GDP rising eight-fold, and the rising value of labor has made it less competitive for outsourcing since the early 2000s.
That stress has fueled a push to develop the nation’s authentic animation sector. But there’s been a scarcity of urge for food from traders and audiences alike for homegrown cartoons.
Shin skilled this himself when, in 2005, he personally bankrolled $6.5 million to make AKOM’s solely authentic function, “Empress Chung,” an adaptation of a standard Korean folks story. Although the movie was critically acclaimed, it earned again simply 2% of its funds on opening weekend, and by no means obtained a house launch.
Martin says the lack of curiosity in Korean animation stems again to the 2003 animated function “Wonderful Days.” Advertised as the nation’s first animated blockbuster, it was set to embody a gaming universe and merchandising. But the movie “disastrously failed” at the field workplace, and studios started to rethink funding in animation, says Martin: “It was more than 20 years ago, but I think, in a way, the industry is still feeling the effects of that failure.”
Since she was a baby, Jiwon Han needed to be an illustrator.
“I think differently while I’m drawing,” she says, recalling days spent in her grandmother’s comedian bookstore — generally known as a manwhabang — immersed in colourful tales.
It’s simple to hint a straight line between her grandmother’s retailer and Han’s directorial debut, “Lost in Starlight” — Netflix’s first original Korean animation, described by acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho as a “visual masterpiece.”
Set towards a dreamy, retro-futuristic pastel cityscape of Seoul in 2050, the 96-minute movie is a few Martian astronaut, Nan-young, and her star-crossed romance with aspiring musician Jay. Lauded by critics, the movie obtained nominations for two worldwide awards, and made the checklist of 35 movies thought-about for the Academy Awards animated function class — the solely South Korean-produced film amongst the entries.
But towards a backdrop of scarce funding and restricted alternatives for authentic animation, getting right here has been something however simple, she says.
“Most people in Korea don’t take animation seriously,” says Han, including that there’s a pervasive notion that animation is simply for children.
But streaming platforms don’t depend on field‑workplace success, she says, which makes them extra keen to fund animated options geared toward adults.
The success of Netflix’s “K-Pop Demon Hunters” has had a huge impact on the sector, each good and dangerous, says Han: whereas there’s extra consideration from audiences and traders, it’s additionally created some confusion, as many individuals suppose the movie is a Korean animation. Han has seen it held up for example of South Korean animation, together with at authorities and trade occasions she’s attended, which will be irritating for the nation’s artists given the funds constraints and differing alternatives in the native animation market.
Things are altering, slowly: the reputation of international animated movies that concentrate on extra mature audiences, like “Suzume” (2022) and “Your Name,” (2016) by Japanese filmmaker Makoto Shinkai, has inspired Korea to do the same with initiatives like the “Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning,” (2024) an adaptation of the common Korean fiction novel sequence “Toemarok.”
Last yr, the Korean authorities launched a $1 billion fund to help the animation sector over the subsequent 5 years, with a purpose to enhance the sector’s income to 1.9 trillion received ($1.27 billion), with $170 million in exports and 9,000 folks working in the trade by 2030.
While Han is hopeful that authorities grants — which she says had been important to serving to her get into the trade — will assist, in lots of instances, she says the circumstances through which animators can obtain help are unrealistic: for instance, unattainable deadlines, or requiring impartial animators to set up corporations, which creates heavy tax burdens.
While Korean animation (generally known as “aeni”) nonetheless lacks a cohesive visible language, there are a rising variety of boutique animation studios who “are inventing their own stories” and artwork type, says Han.
“We don’t have that one unique or one specific style, because (our) originality is starting right now, so it all looks different,” she says, including: “Where we are at right now is a turning point from outsourcing company to creative studios.”
Last yr, the Oscar-winning “Parasite” was toppled from its place as the highest-grossing Korean movie in the US.
Its successor was stunning: “The King of Kings,” an animated retelling of the lifetime of Jesus Christ.
The movie, which grossed greater than $83 million worldwide, was the directorial debut of Seong-Ho Jang, a veteran in Korea’s visible particular results (VFX) sector and founding father of Mofac Studios.
Over three many years in VFX, Jang labored on greater than 250 movies and 400 film trailers, honing his storytelling abilities. In 2015, he launched into a brand new journey: directing.
“While K-content was achieving tremendous success, animation was relatively weak,” says Jang, including that spotlighting its potential “was one of the things I really wanted to do.”
But, like Han and Shin, funding for the movie was not possible to discover. He managed to pull collectively round $25 million — a fraction of the quantity spent by Hollywood, the place manufacturing budgets for Disney and Pixar usually vary between $150 to $200 million.
His technical know-how helped him to stretch his restricted funds. Mofac used Unreal Engine — a real-time 3D creation and rendering platform usually utilized in online game improvement — to construct a completely digital manufacturing setting for “The King of Kings,” permitting Jang and the cinematographer to previsualize scenes with movement seize and shoot them utilizing a digital digicam.
“We made it so that the cinematographer can see the footage on a monitor, and with an Xbox controller, he can film it as if he were playing a game,” explains Jang.
Treating the animation like live-action filmmaking — blocking, capturing, modifying and reshooting earlier than prices escalated — diminished trial and error in the animation stage, says Jang.
Some elements of the movie nonetheless required a extra conventional method, he says, and whereas it began with a group of simply two, round 300 folks — together with outsourcing studios in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand for elements of the animation — in the end labored on the mission.
Now, Jang is refining this course of. In October 2025, Mofac obtained a 6 billion won ($4 million) funding from international enterprise capital agency Altos Ventures to additional develop its manufacturing know-how, together with an “open-source AI, developed in-house.”
He’s additionally a part of a authorities sub-committee targeted on the animation sector, which he hopes may help construct up primary infrastructure and insurance policies that can “cultivate an animation industry … for the long-term.”
There are a number of authentic options already in the pipeline: considered one of the nation’s largest administrators, Bong Joon-ho, is at the moment making a 70 billion received ($47.6 million) animated function, anticipated to launch in 2027; and award-winning director Kim Tae-yong is collaborating with Locus Studios on a feature-length animation.
Han is growing her subsequent function movie — “like an adult version of ‘Inside Out,’” with aliens, she says — along with her twin sister, who’s a profitable visible artist in her own proper; and Jang is already engaged on his subsequent animated function, in addition to a sequence about Ok-pop.
South Korea’s animators “already had the potential to be creative,” however the trade lacked the infrastructure to help that expertise, says Jang. But with extra animated hits storming Korean cinemas, “there’s a sudden surge of interest,” he says, including: “I think things will work out.”