Warning: spoilers for KPop Demon Hunters are in play. If you haven’t seen Netflix and Sony Animation’s sleeper animation hit, you really owe it to yourself to change that.
No one could have predicted that of all of the 2025 movies to date, KPop Demon Hunters would have become a massive hit. When I previously talked about why you should watch KPop Demon Hunters, it was sitting at #2 on Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the U.S. - which isn't a bad place to be.
Well, that’s changed now, as it’s currently topping those charts; on top of having an impressive RT score! In light of this great news, I’m afraid I have to bring up a rather sensitive subject; and it involves a deleted scene that's caused quite a stir. Consider this your last call for spoilers, as I think it’s time to dive into the tank with what could have been.
Rumi And Jinu Were Supposed To Have An Aquarium Date
At one point in KPop Demon Hunters’ demon hunter Rumi (Arden Cho) and antagonist Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) orchestrate what could be considered a series of dates. One such clandestine meeting leads to the absolutely beautiful sequence where KPop superstars EJAE and Andrew Choi sing one of the many catchy tunes on the soundtrack, a duet named “Free.”
Showing a moment where the half-demon member of the fictional band Huntr/x reaches out to her would-be nemesis, it’s a pivotal segment for our would-be/could-be couple. Or at least it could have been, if character designer Marion Bordeyne’s pitch made it into the film.
As she showed on social media, her idea for this moment is the now infamous “aquarium date.” Which, as you’ll see in the boards below, ended with a moment you could have sworn was going to happen when the music faded:
Ah, the kiss; or rather what should have been “the kiss.” When my wife learned that this moment was removed, she proclaimed herself a “child of divorce.” Plenty of other devotees who have been discovering one of the best reasons to have a Netflix subscription are just as upset; and I do sympathize.
However, after thinking a little longer on the matter, I have some thoughts on why this is actually a good thing. So, all of you Rujinu shippers need to put your demon hunting weapon of choice down for a moment, and let me explain.
‘Rujinu’ Needs More Time To Properly Build In The Universe Of K-Pop Demon Hunters
Animated storytelling has evolved in huge ways since the Disney Renaissance kicked off with The Little Mermaid in 1989. After 2013’s Frozen poked fun at underdeveloped animated romances, another huge step was taken to stop merely shipping characters together in a storybook ending. Do Rumi and Jinu make sense as a romantic couple?
They absolutely do; but the story was more about the de facto leader of Huntr/x learning to accept her half-demon identity. Rumi needed to love herself, and by extension her friends/partners, which we saw take place through another blazing tune on the soundtrack, “What It Sounds Like.”
Don’t worry Rujinu stans, there’s plenty of room for this budding romance to flower. As co-director/co-writer Maggie Kang told Variety, we’ve only scratched the surface:
We’ve set up so much for potential backstory. Obviously, there’s a lot of questions that are left unanswered and areas that are not explored, and we had to do that because there’s only so much movie you could tell in 85 minutes. This was Rumi’s story, and we have backstories for Zoey and Mira – ones that we actually put in the movie, but it just kind of rejected it. It just wasn’t the movie for those stories.
I can sense some broken hearts out there on the other side of the screen, and I can’t abide by that. If you want to see what KPop Demon Hunters’ aquarium date could have looked like, then you should check out this fan animated version of what the storyboards showed us:
Another bright spot in waiting for Rumi and Jinu's potential first kiss is that the strenuous animation process for KPop will also have more time to further develop. So, the moment this ship sets sail, it just might look even better than it would have if it left the dock this time around.
If, by some chance, you’ve read through this story without seeing or hearing a scrap of KPop Demon Hunters, you can currently stream the picture on Netflix. As for those of you who are already on multiple viewings, feel free to discuss any additional theories, clues, or easter eggs you want to bring up in the comments section. Maybe all of this chatter will help the studios in the driver’s seat greenlight those sequels faster than we can say 'Soda Pop.'
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