Beyond Soft Power: KPop Demon Hunters and the Rise of Inclusive Koreanness

This brief examines how contemporary Korean popular culture is reshaping global understandings of Koreanness through the case of the animated film ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ (2025). While debates about the Korean Wave (hallyu) have often been framed through the concept of soft power— treating Korean cultural products as instruments of national influence—this article argues that such a framework obscures the hybrid and transnational nature of contemporary cultural production. Drawing on scholarship by Michael Hurt, Kyu Hyun Kim and CedarBough T. Saeji, the brief proposes understanding “Korea” not primarily as a national origin but as a flexible cultural signifier. Through analysis of two central narrative elements—the transformation of the Honmoon (“Soul Gate”) from a protective shield into a welcoming “rainbow portal”, and the mediating figure of the tiger-cat Derpy—the film symbolically reimagines Koreanness as inclusive, hybrid, and relational. Although such representations may still reproduce forms of cultural nationalism, the film challenges the dominant soft-power paradigm by presenting Koreanness as a dynamic cultural signifier assembled through transnational cultural interactions rather than a fixed national essence.