NBC News: Your favorite new K-pop groups are from a Netflix animated movie
Zoey, Rumi and Mira from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters.”
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Move over, BTS: Two new K-pop groups are taking over the music charts — and they’ve never even performed live.
Saja Boys and HUNTR/X, fictional groups from the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters,” were brought to life by animators and filmmakers with help from a slew of people within the K-pop world. Now, they’ve become global superstars.
Within weeks, viewers of “KPop Demon Hunters” — which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation and released by Netflix — have flooded a Tumblr community page for the film with fan art. A Reddit thread continues to spark conversations about the movie, including speculation about whether there will be a sequel. On TikTok, videos of fans re-creating dances from the film, showing off their reactions to key scenes and debuting cosplays have amassed hundreds of millions of views. There are also Wiki pages dedicated to the groups.
From the “Josie and the Pussycats” cartoon TV show and movie to the boy band August Moon from the 2024 film “The Idea of You,” fictional on-screen artists have always been prominent in pop culture. But the popularity of Saja Boys and HUNTR/X has underscored something most in the music industry have known for years: K-pop and the fandoms surrounding the genre are a dominant cultural force.
Since it debuted on June 20, the film has been streamed by 33 million people, Netflix said, helping it rank among the platform’s top 10 movies in the 93 countries that are tracked. Billboard said this week that the film’s score is now the highest-charting soundtrack of 2025 and that it has surpassed Disney’s “Encanto” to become the highest-charting soundtrack to an animated film. Hits from the film, such as “Your Idol” and “Golden,” have also topped the U.S. Spotify charts in the K-pop categories in recent weeks.
“We go through, like, crying and happy and laughing,” Maggie Kang, a director of the film, said in a recent interview. “This whole last couple of weeks have just been like an emotional roller coaster, but in the best way.”
To read the entire article: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/kpop-demon-hunters-netflix-saja-boys-huntrx-top-music-charts-rcna217821
Photo credit: Netflix