KPop Demon Hunters is one of the biggest movies of 2025, and in a few weeks, it has a pretty legit shot at becoming an Oscar-winning film. If that happens, it will hopefully make all the hard work that went into the film worthwhile, because the process of making KPop Demon Hunters was clearly quite difficult. The filmmakers have spoken about how difficult it was to sync music with animation for the film, but there were other hurdles, including, hilariously, nipples and abs.
The focus of KPop Demon Hunters, available with a Netflix subscription, is, of course, the trio of girls that make up Huntr/x. But apparently deciding just how to portray the Saja Boys on screen took a lot of conversation and debate. One of the most debated topics was the Saja Boys' nipples, specifically whether or not they would have them. Animation director Joshua Beveridge recently told EW…
I can't tell you how many meetings there were about whether or not the boys should have nipples and where they should be placed on the chest. That was a whole journey.
You may or may not have noticed, but in animation, most characters don’t even have nipples, so not having them wouldn’t have been unusual. However, in this case, since we’re talking about a K-pop boy band, it perhaps made sense to include them when showing the boys with their shirts off.
These decisions were likely made with multiple character models showing how they would look. And things may have changed over time. Animated movies don’t work like live action. Things can change in a plot or in a character design in the middle of production if the filmmakers find a way to make the movie better.
Ultimately, the decision was made to include nipples, but to do it in a way that didn’t necessarily draw attention to them. Producer Michelle Wong explained…
We did it with the lightest texture as possible. One of our art directors, Wendell Dalit, his joke was like, 'More spec! More spec!' Which means you're adding more light to the abs.
And then there were the abs. You can’t have a K-pop boy band without abs, so they were important to get right. Arden Cho, the voice actor for Rumi, revealed that co-director Maggie Kang told him exactly how long it took to create the abs. He said…
Maggie said, 'Six months! Six months to make those abs.
Those six months of work on the abs are likely all worth it. KPop Demon Hunters has a solid shot of walking away with two Oscars next month for both Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, and it will be one of only two nominees to perform at the event. On top of that, it has already launched a franchise with sequels, and likely a great deal more, on the way.
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