A quick overview of South Korean Animation

This is a brief introduction to the world of South Korean animation (and yes, there is North Korean animation, and boy is it weird). South Koreans have been producing animation for decades, but only in the past decade or so have their works blossomed on the world stage.

A Quick History
This section is based on A Brief History of Korean Animation at KoreanFilm.org.

For various reasons--most of them monetary--Korean animation was limited to a few TV commercials for the entire first half of the 20th century. A few film projects were attempted but fizzled before the films could be completed. Because of Korean wariness about Japanese culture, little anime was imported, and the most successful animated films were made by Disney.

The first Korean feature-length animated film, Hong Gil-dong, wasn't released until 1967...and moviegoers bought 100,000 tickets in four days. Unfortunately, subsequent animated films--all of them children's adventure stories--had so much competition from TV that the market collapsed, and from 1972 to 1976 no Korean animated films were released.

(Nobody seems to want to admit it, but: Korea was desperately poor for the early 20th century, so most animators couldn't get money or afford cels. One short was produced by buying 240 cels and washing the paint off after each use!)

Then came Robot Taekwon V, an homage to Mazinger Z, which was not popular and a violent shonen mecha story, opening the door to (slightly) more mature stories.

And here's where the trail gets fuzzy. Korean animated TV series seems to have picked up around this time, but mostly with knock-offs like Space Gundam V that re-used designs from Japanese anime. If you've seen Otaku no Video, you may remember a scene in which an interviewee talks about stealing character design sheets from Japanese anime studios; this must be the practice it's referring to.

The trail picks up again around the turn of the millenium, with numerous high-quality animation films and TV series.

TV Animation
1983's Space Gundam V is the earliest Korean anime TV series that I've found so far. It re-used character and mecha designs from Gundam and Macross, so if you've ever wanted to see Char Aznable pilot a VF-1J Valkyrie from Macross, this is your chance.

Other Korean animated TV series were, frankly, cheap knock-offs. They couldn't afford anything else. So it wasn't until the 2000's that Korean TV anime came into its own. A few examples:


 * Restol, The Special Rescue Squad (1999), about a group of teenagers who pilot giant robots to rescue people from natural disasters in a corporate-controlled future. Haven't seen this one, but sounds interesting.
 * Bastof Syndrome (2001), the story of a couple of tweens who get sucked into an MMORPG. The animation is laughably inexpensive, but the character designs work, and it's a strong concept.
 * Michel (2003), about a kid following the Black Hammer Gang, who all fall on an island inhabited by fairies and a tree of life. Haven't seen this one either.

Animated Films
1967's Hong Gil-Dong was based off a comic strip, and the next few Korean animated films released were based on the same strip. Then kids started watching TV, and the animated film industry died until 1976's Robot Taekwon V. Yes, Robot Taekwon looks exactly like Mazinger Z, mainly because Mazinger had recently arrived in South Korea and was hugely popular. Robot Taekwon's creator freely admitted that Robot Taekwon V was inspired by Mazinger and was an attempt to create a similar but essentially Korean mecha story.

But as with Korean TV anime, animated films in South Korea really blossomed in the 2000's. A few major works:


 * My Beautiful Girl Mari (2002), a slice-of-life story about a man reminiscing about his childhood, friends, and a mysterious girl.
 * Oseam (2003), a Buddhist family tearjerker about two orphaned children taken in by Buddhist monks. A bit like Grave of the Fireflies.
 * Sky Blue (2003), also known as Wonderful Days, a dystopian sci-fi film in the mold of the first Ghost in the Shell movie. Beautiful, lush animation.
 * Aachi & Ssipak (2006), an over-the-top, somewhat avant garde film. Think Ren & Stimpy. I couldn't stand to watch it, but the animation's impressive.

For more, see Wikipedia's article on Korean animation.