After the massive ticket triumph of the Spider-verse movies, Sony Pictures Animation returns with a completely new hero team-animated adventure called Kpop -demonic hunters. The long -term film, which falls into Netflix on June 20, follows a girl group called Huntrix, which must balance its dominance of superstar with moonlight as demonic hunters, saving the world using the power of music and magical girl action to protect their fans from an immediate demonic invasion.
Prior to his streaming broadcast, IO9 spoke to Arden Cho, May Hong, and Ji-Young Yoo-La voices behind the tripod Rumi, Mira, and Zoey-Think the emotion of staring at the film, the importance of meaning-to-Asian representation in the animation, and the unique challenge of bringing his title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jtvqtk36r8
Isaiah Colbert, io9: What attracted you by starring Kpop -demonic hunters? Were there any elements of the story or characters of the movie who immediately captured you as actors?
Arden Cho: At first I just loved the idea. I love K-Pop and I am about three fresh, wonderful, bad leaders who are Asian Americans-Korean Americans to be specific. I loved the story and I was so excited just to be part of it.
May Hong: I like how hard it is, but how vulnerable she really is. How sensitive she is. How loyal she is, and I am very related to that. That really attracted me.
Ji-Young Yoo: I’m a big fan of k-pop, and I love to make a voice over work, so this was the best of both worlds. The more I learned about it, the more I thought it would be so fun. I mean, from the title alone, whenever I tell my friends the name of the movie, they always start to smile, and I think that indicates how fun the movie is.
Io9: As advertised on the tin.
Yoo: Yes!
io9: Have you inspired various K-poice groups or supernatural shows while preparing for your roles in Kpop -demonic hunters? Were there specific performances or series that helped you bring to life your roles?
Give: To Rumi, I focused more on just her experience. She just goes through so much through the movie. She goes through many things. I want nothing to hurt, but it’s a great trip for her. I had a lot of focused on who she was not only as a friend, sister of the girls, but a boss, as well as a killer. I grew up loving so many shows that are in that world of strong females –Buffy the Vampire Slayer was literally my favorite, always – and that’s why I feel in sense [that] I wanted Rumi to be very strong and based. But also sweet and beautiful. We can’t credit the musical things because we’re not in that part of the girls, but I definitely wanted her to be as great as Blackpink, Aespa, Le Sserfim and all. It exceeded my expectations. But I feel like I didn’t do much for that. I can’t really credit about it. I feel that this was the world created for us.
Hong: I thought a lot about Sailor Moon. I grew up looking at it and I was so excited to see it and make the compositions of which everyone is too. Whenever we would play Sailor MoonI always wanted to be a sailor Jupiter.
Give: Wait, that’s appropriate.
Hong: I know, and I feel that Mira is a different version of Sailor Jupiter. I think the inspiration – they are hidden identities – I think it’s fun that they are transforming and they look exactly the same but fair [have] Different suits. I feel like Cowboy bebop It was a huge inspiration for me. I think a lot about it, and how much that music is so fully integrated into the story, and how core it is to sound and look like that. It feels like a perfect merger of those two things.
Yoo: I don’t know if I had specific things I have researched because I think this is such an original tone. You really didn’t need to pull references. But as I started talking about it with my friends more, I understood that there were things in the back of my head that floated and definitely influenced it. I grew up on Completely spies And Kim possible. I would say Zoey has some Starfire Adolescent titans—The original show, not Adolescent titans go. I’m a big fan of BTS, so that’s always in the back of my head.
Actually, I had a really fun conversation with a friend where he asked me if [KPop Demon Hunters] was something like that Jujutsu kaisen. Who it is. We exorcise demons, but Tonale is not nearly so dark. I am such a fan of the show that I was wondering if it is completely influenced by my performance. I don’t think I will ever know consciously. Maybe people can watch the movie and let me know.
Io9: Kpop -demonic hunters Brilliantly captures both the wonderful beauty of the idol scene and the Gremlin Nature of the Three Girls, where they receive Chibi and very lively with each other. Is this particular encouraging style where you had to make the vote later, or did you make the vote and Sony Pictures stirred their expressions to match yours during production?
Give: I remember my first sessions, we just made the voice, and they filmed us. So I felt a little shy.
Hong: (Laughs) The inner video, how is that?
Give: (Laughs) Yes, I like to show work in my pajamas, no makeup. All of these cameras are set up and I’m alike, “Oh no, wait what’s going on!” They look like, “Oh no, it’s just for art!” And I like, “Yes … art.”
Yoo: (Laughs) I guess the Chibi style was always part of the plan, but there were certainly moments where I would end up reading and they would be like, “We must notice that taking. Whatever face she did was perfect” and I was like “I don’t know if I like that.”
Give: I feel like the encouragement, the stranger, the worse, it was so perfect. This is what fun it is. We don’t have to feel the fear of it even though I felt afraid in the beginning and then I got used to it.
Yoo: I guess the answer is that we don’t know. Probably. Ia. Maybe. Yes?
Hong: (Laughs) We saw nothing. We are just screaming, and they would take videos that were used.
Give: We don’t know. We only appear and they make it awesome. I know the foods I would always feel so stupid. I would struggle with the fun noises with them. Some of these are difficult. I ate a lot and they wanted more fun (oral noises), but when you actually eat, you don’t make those sounds to make it more fun.
Hong: (Laughs) Talk for yourself.
Yoo: (Laughs) Yes, I said that sounds just as I eat.
IO9: Was there funny, memorable flowers that took place during your registration sessions?
Yoo: Too many to count, man.
Hong: A lot of running to be breathless. I think I felt the worst probably lap or I would need to really make three more returns to sound without breath. But then everyone looks at me to run in circles for a while.
Give: All actions were quite stupid and funny. Rumi has some romantic things. In the vocal world, you do it alone, so you feel very clumsy. But it is awesome and it joins so beautifully.
Hong: Oh, the bar too. There is some guard who is in front of the microphone. I would hold it and run instead. It is almost similar to exercise.
Give: Oh yes. I jumped about it and held for dear life all the time.
Yoo: It almost looks like a mini -ballet bar and they put it in front of the microphone and you can use it to lean. I climbed on it.
Hong: Who would think about it. Genius.
Yoo: Voiceover is a great flower.
Give: It really is. The days when you eat a ton and make all the fun sounds and then after you jump a lot around the performance and you look like, “Oh no, it was too early. That’s why they say you don’t swim right after eating.” Everything was fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMP06Qom9lQ
Io9: How significant is it for you to be part of a animated film by Sony Pictures, which aimed to bypass the surface-level appeal of K-pop and performance to genuinely highlight Korean roots in their story?
Give: It is so special that they are so respectful of Korean culture in the food, the city and the world. It is so magical to see how big and beautiful it was created in the world of Kpop -demonic hunters. It is also really good to see these young women, who, yes, are Korean, but they also only girls struggle with things very, well, normal, but not normal. Normal if demons were – well, maybe they are here?
Hong: (Laughs) Are they in the room with us?
Give: (Laughs) You know how people have their demons? The metaphor.
Hong: (Laughs) Yes. I love the universal pain and suffering of everything. First I was, “Is this Korean?” It felt it hit some chords for me, but then it was “this is just all.”
Give: It certainly hit those identity battles and the whole, “Who am I really? Am I hiding something?” The struggles that Rumi passes through, in a strange way, I related to so many Korean American. I feel that in itself is so remarkable, but also so special, because it is something that involves so much our culture, history, story and where we come from.
Hong: And it also looks Seoul so glorious, and it is glorious. Although fictionalized, hopefully, it is more interested in people actually going.
io9: If Kpop -demonic hunters Did you get a sequel to what would you love to explore about your characters in the future?
Yoo: When the movie appears, I actually have a very specific pitch I have already told [directors] Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans about. For Zoey, some of the things she goes through to be the only Asian American in the group [where] She feels out of place some time, which I think is very resonant with anyone. I would like to see her find a place where she doesn’t feel like she should like that. She spends a lot of energy trying to make sure everyone else is good, and I want Zoey to check if Zoey is in order. Maybe that’s the result.
Kpop -demonic hunters Premieres in Netflix on June 20th.
Do you want more Io9 news? Look when waiting for the latest Marvel,, Star Warsand Star Trek releases what follows for the Dc universe in movie and televisionand everything you need to know about the future of A doctor who.
