How Korean Tradition Captured the World

In 2025, the Netflix anime《K-pop Demon Hunters》became more than just a hit; it became a symbolic case demonstrating that the visual and mythological motifs of Korean traditional culture could be consumed, enjoyed, and even loved worldwide.

Goblin (dokkaebi), village guardian totems (jangseung), shamans (mudang), and the goddess of childbirth (Samsin Halmeoni)—symbols deeply embedded in the Korean collective unconscious—now reach global audiences as no longer foreign or obscure, but instead as familiar sensations.

Based on the rhythm and visual language of K-pop, these mythological beings have been revived within a dazzling new universe, expanding into entertainment experiences that everyone can share.
 
What is striking is that these are not “culturally familiar” motifs. Rather, elements of Korean folklore, religion, and traditional symbols—potentially alien to outsiders—have nonetheless achieved global universality. This is the strategic core of the work.


 
The Key to Success: Re-Narrating Sensory Experience

Overseas critics consistently emphasize that the success of《K-pop Demon Hunters》lies not in preserving or reproducing folklore, but in translating it into the language and sensibilities of today.
 
The “South China Morning Post” praised the show for integrating music, characters, color, rhythm, and visual reinterpretations of traditional motifs into a cohesive sensory system. “Salon” analyzed how the Saja Boys and Huntr/x embody the intersection of traditional shamanic figures with the modern symbolism of K-pop idols. In this anime, folk paintings and shamanic myths are no longer archaic mysteries but instead become “narratable symbols” that resonate emotionally with Gen Z and global audiences.

Here, “sensory” refers not simply to visual beauty, but to a structure in which images are transformed into narratives that mediate and circulate emotions.

Why Doesn’t Art Speak the Same Language?

Contemporary Korean art possesses artistic experimentation and refined sensibility, with hundreds of exhibitions and thousands of artists active every year. Yet this energy does not easily translate into the language of the content industry. Once an exhibition ends, its meaning disperses and is easily forgotten, while the artist’s thought fades into oblivion.
 
Even though contemporary Korean art successfully captures “the meanings and sensibilities of an era,” it still lacks sufficient structures and languages to move across into other industries or cultural contexts.

The Shift Toward K-Art as IP (Intellectual Property)

Korean art does not need to abandon its essence in order to become content. Yet as long as artists’ voices remain confined within closed art-world structures and artworks are not platformized, even the finest works risk being discarded as “unshared, isolated images.”
 
Art can no longer survive on critical legitimacy alone. In today’s content era, the essential question is how multi-layered an image, language, and narrative can be, and how they connect with audiences both sensorially and narratively.
 
《K-pop Demon Hunters》offers a concrete strategic model: it narrativizes traditional motifs, transforms them into characters, builds a structured sensory system with music and visuals, and sets up conditions for expansion into fandoms, secondary creations, covers, and viral challenges.
 


Art That Is Not Remembered Cannot Exist

Today the world is watching nearly every cultural product produced under the name “Korea.” Whether K-Art will lead as the next wave after K-pop, K-food, K-beauty, and K-drama depends on how the Korean art world structures sensory experience, accumulates narrative, and designs transitions into other languages and industries.

This is not merely about archiving or translation. It is about ensuring that narratives are recorded, artists’ thoughts are explained, and works can generate further content—a system where, in other words, one work can give birth to ten stories.
 


What Is Needed for Art to Speak Again

What K-Art needs now is not only “completion of works” but also “the power of narrative distribution,” as well as connections with audiences as co-creators rather than passive spectators.《K-pop Demon Hunters》demonstrates most clearly how the artistic archetypes of Korean tradition can become content that operates within global sensibilities. Likewise, for contemporary Korean art, works without relationships to global art lovers will struggle to survive.
 
From this perspective, even fine art must be designed as a processual content. As quickly as possible—before this momentum fades—contemporary Korean art must record itself, narrate itself, and refashion itself into an international language that can be used and reused. This, above all, is the critical lesson that the success of《K-pop Demon Hunters》offers and that the art world must urgently learn and embrace.