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The List - 5 Korean Animation Companies Anime Fans Should Know

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So let's take a look at some of the local animation studios that we'd love to see bring more Korean stories to the world!

Jacki definitely has a point here, but the sad fact is that "Korean stories" were attempted in the past, and pretty much bombed every single time, at least when released abroad. DR Movie's Michel was a children's series inspired by The Little Prince that ADV brought over, one that even had Yasuhiro Imagawa help out with scenario creation, but no one cared about it. ADV also tried out Dongwoo Animation's BASToF Lemon (or Syndrome, if you prefer), and I believe even tried pushing it a bit, but likely did even worse than Michel did (Michel at least got a boxset release). Daewoo Animation's movie My Beautiful Girl Mari is probably the more well-regarded of them all, but obviously got lost in the shuffle of the mid-00s bubble. And that's to say nothing of other Korean movies that saw some sort of English release, like Space Armageddon or Red Hawk (or any of those really old knock-off films from the 70s & 80s), or Korean anime that we simply never got in English to start with, like the movie Oseam or TV series Restol, The Special Rescue Squad.

Honestly, probably the most successful Korean-made anime was probably Pucca. All of this is not to say that Korean studios aren't capable of putting out great works, though. I've read some damn good manhwa in the past, & it always baffles me why Korean studios don't simply adapt those. I'd love to see Korean anime adaptations of stuff like NOW, Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun, or Chronicles of the Cursed Sword, but sadly those will probably never happen, especially since webtoons are the big thing today.

All those series you mentioned were released in the late 90s or early 00s though, which doesn't explain why Korea still has cold feet when it comes to producing their own content now, especially with the plethora of popular stories that have sprung up since then. The only reason I can think of for this is that perhaps there isn't much of a demand for animation in Korea as there is in Japan and the US...

I can't say I've watched any Korea-based animation but one of my favorite cartoons was animated by Moi Animation, Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters, which is an American re-imagining of the Japanese Duel Masters franchise; so a bit of a funny situation there. Honestly, I don't think this series got the attention it deserved.

Sky Blue was an interesting piece of Korean animation. Samsung dumped a bunch of money into the production. It even got an English dub but it didn’t seem to do very well.

There was a Korean-produced animated film starring Hollywood voice actors released last year called Red Shoes that gained a lot of local attention. As you can see from the trailer ([url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8KJe8VOwmU[/url), it was marketed towards a younger audience. There is simply no real demand for so-called "mature" Korean animation, especially because when such projects are released, they don't match up to the standards of Japanese anime we've been watching for years. So when they, inevitably, financially fail, production committees in Korea are more reluctant to invest in that sector, especially when the government is pushing for international promotion of Hallyu culture (live-action dramas and Korean pop). Those industries are just much more profitable than Korean "anime". This is why most Korean animation that is not made specifically for children tends to be indie projects that usually take years to be produced.