A scene from the movie "Heartsping: Teenieping of Love" / Courtesy of SAMG Entertainment

Korean animations such as "Heartsping: Teenieping of Love" and "Bread Barbershop: The Birth of Bread Star" are soon to be released in movie theaters here, aiming to join the ranks of the increasingly popular animation genre in the Korean cinema scene.

In recent years, while big-budget films have generally underperformed, animated works have been receiving positive reactions from audiences.

This trend has been particularly noticeable in foreign animations, especially from the United States and Japan. Currently showing in theaters, Pixar Animation Studio's "Inside Out 2" has attracted over 8.1 million viewers in Korea alone, gaining popularity across all age groups. It has become the highest-grossing Pixar film ever in Korea as well as internationally and ranks third in domestic box office sales for 2024.

DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 4," which was released here last April, garnered 1.77 million viewers, and Disney's "Wish," released in January, also recorded 1.4 million viewers.

Considering that only 16 films in the Korean film market have attracted more than 1 million viewers in the first half of this year, these animated films are showing encouraging results.

This popularity of the animation genre began to stand out from last year. "The First Slam Dunk," a movie version of Japanese cartoonist Takehiko Inoue's hit comics "Slam Dunk," exactly struck a chord with audiences in their 30s and 40s who enjoyed the comics in their youth, garnering over 4.8 million viewers after its release in January 2023.

This animation, centered on high school basketball players and still showing in some theaters here, surpassed 3.81 million viewers in March last year, breaking the record for the highest-grossing Japanese animation in Korea previously held by the 2016 Japanese animation "Your Name." The animation then soon became the first Japanese animation to reach the 4 million mark in Korea.

Expanding audiences

The new Korean offerings aim to capitalize on this trend by targeting both children and "kidults," adults who enjoy cute characters and fantasy genres.

"Heartsping: Teenieping of Love," set to hit domestic theaters on Aug. 7, is the first movie version of the popular TV animation series "Teenieping."

"Teenieping," which is popular not only in Korea but also overseas, including China, is an adventure animation about Princess Romi of a kingdom searching for scattered fairies called Teeniepings. With its solid storytelling and cute characters, the TV animation has been very popular since the first season aired in 2020.

A scene from the movie "Bread Barbershop: The Birth of Bread Star" / Courtesy of Bread Barbershop

In particular, Teenieping fairy toys have become very popular among children, leading parents to face constant requests from their children to take them to see the silver screen version.

Kim Su-hoon, founder and CEO of SAMG Entertainment, which produced this animation series, stated that they created this movie version with the aim of making it enjoyable for families together.

"(This movie version) is a story about how the love between a small teenage girl and Teenieping finally creates a miracle, overcoming things that stem from distrust," Kim, who also served as a director for the movie version, said in a statement released by the company on Wednesday.

"Through this movie, I wanted to show how much positive effect and miracles the emotion of love can create."

"Bread Barbershop: The Birth of Bread Star" is the second cinematic release of the TV animation that began airing in 2019.

This animation series, which has also been made into a stage musical, features cute bread characters.

Broadcast not only in Korea but also in several other countries, this animation revolves around stories centered on Bread Pitt, the owner of Bread Barbershop and a prominent barber, and his employees. This movie version is set to be released in September.