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Korean Characters as International Business

Before the emergence of Korean domestic characters, characters that enjoyed popularity were mostly overseas characters from the United States of Japan. However, as the industry matures and grows in size, domestic characters does not only get preferred domestically but also internationally.

Growth: Korean Character Market

Domestic Scale of the Market

Number of Business & Workers

Category	2014	2015	Increase by
Number of Character Business in Korea	2,018	2,069	2.5%
Number of Workers in Character Business in Korea	29,039	30,128	3.8%

Sales & Value added (Unit: \)

Category	2014	2015	Increase by
Gross Sales of the Industry	9,052,700 million	10,080,700 million	11.4%
Value Added	3,794,400 million	3,987,500 million	5.1%

International Significance of Korean Character Business

Export & Import Condition 2015 (Unit: $)

Category	Amount	Increase by (compared to 2014)
Export	551.46 million	12.7%
Import	168.24 million	1.8%
Difference between Import and Export	383.22 million	18.3%

Exporting Countries From Korea (Unit: $)

North America (26.8%)	China (21.5%)	Europe (21.3%)	South East Asia (11.6%)	Japan (6.3%)	Other (12.5%)
147.79 million	118.56 million	117.46 million	68.93 million	34.74 million	63.97 million

Character Preference of Korean People

Character preference of Korean People 2016

Rank	Name	Rate
1	Kakao Friends	14.3%
2	Little Penguin Pororo	9.8%
3	Crayon Shin-chan	6.0%
4	One Piece	4.9%
5	Dooly the Little Dino	4.4%
6	Doraemon	4.2%
7	Larva	3.8%
8	Pokémon	3.3%
9	Hello Kitty	3.1%
10	Frozen	3.0%
11	Other	43.3%

History

Years	Characters
1980's	Dooly the Little Dino, Hodori
2000's	Mashimaro(bizarre rabbit), Pucca, Little Penguin Pororo
2010's	Line Friends, Kakao Friends

Noticeable Korean Characters

Dooly the Little Dinosaur (1983)

Korean domestically-produced characters have their origin in 'Dooly', which was created by Sujung Kim in 1983. Before dooly, characters that enjoyed popularity internally were mostly overseas characters from the United States of Japan. The character of 'Dooly' started as a cartoon character in a published cartoon in a printed medium. Little Dinosaur Dooly started its life in the comic magazine <Treasure Island> in 1983 and then was published as a comic book. In 1987, a TV animation was produced, and in 1996, a theatrical full-length animation was created. Dooly was expanded into various cultural contents sectors as OSMU (one source multi-use).

Story Feature

Baby dinosaur ‘Dooly’ returns to Earth, Seoul, Korea. He was trapped in the ice glacier during the Ice Age. Dooly meets friends from different spaces. They use their magical power to time-travel from past to future. Dooly misses mother dinosaur and wishes to find her.

Hodori (1983)

Hodori

Hodori was the official mascot of of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. The motive of this character is a tiger. Some characteristics Hodori is it is wearing a Korean traditional style hat and a Olympic rings shape necklace. Meanwhile, the name Hodori was decided by a public naming contest after the official design of the official mascot was announced. The female mascot was named Hosun. In addition, Hodori and Hosuni were introduced to the entire Olympic Games in addition to the basic events of the sport, including the sport of archery, horseback riding, and the sport of golf, badminton, and wheelchair games.

Mashimaro (2000)

Mashimaro is s cute rabbit character created by CLKO entertainment in 2000, and was introduced as 7-part episodes. At the time, the word "bizarre" was gaining popularity, and Mashimaro earned the nickname of "bizarre rabbit". The character became widely popular among internet users, was developed into character products, and was exported to overseas markets. It attained a big success.

Story Feature

Mashimaro is also known as Yeopgi Tokki ("Bizarre rabbit" in Korean). The original Mashimaro cartoons are full of toilet humour. Mashimaro himself is often portrayed with a plunger stuck to his head. Mashimaro is portrayed as an obese and obnoxious bully, and often resorts to violence to impose his will on others.

Pucca (2000)

Pucca first appeared in Flash Animation “Pucca Funny Love” in 2000. Compared with other Flash-animated characters that appeared in the same period, a focus was put on character product development. "Pucca" penetrated overseas markets in 150 countries as well as domestic markets and gained huge success. Pucca’s figurative form resembling a little Chinese girl and strong contrast between red and black hues distinguishes itself from other characters.

Story Feature

The main character, Pucca, is a 10-year old niece of three Chinese noodle house owners. The noodle house, known as the "Goh-Rong", is located in Sooga Village, a small village in the mountains. Pucca is in love with the 12-year-old ninja, "Garu". Pucca always seems to beat him in combats and unintentional competitions, simply by sheer wit.

Pororo The Little Penguin(2003)

Little Penguin Pororo

Little Penguin Pororo was first aired on EBS in 2003. It is an educational TV animation created for preschoolers with consideration of character merchandising from the beginning.

Strategy

In domestic character markets, the first internally-produce characters were planned as OSMU for overseas market penetration from the early stage. Target analysis and market research was thoroughly conducted. Pororo's globalization strategy succeeded by adopting common character image favored by children all over the world and by developing educational story contents.

Story Feature

The series revolves around the adventures of Pororo and his friends who live in the snowy village of Porong Porong Forest. In each episode, they often encounter challenges and learn practical and moral lessons.

Line Friends (2011)

Line Friends Booth at Comic Exhibition

Line Friends was born in 2011 as a sticker character for the mobile messenger ' Line '. Line Friends characters, which give users pleasure and empathy, can be found in the background of their daily lives, beyond the birthplace of mobile phone s. There are about 5,000 characters in various areas, including 5,000 character products, animations, games, cafes, hotels, theme parks, and theme parks.

Kakao Friends (2012)

File:Kakao Friends RYAN.png

Ryan of Kakao Friends

Kakao Friends was first introduced as sticker character for mobile messenger 'Kakao Talk'.

Story Feature

Along with each individual, the Kakao friends is accompanied by eight characters : Ryan, Muzi, Apeach, Frodo, Neo, Tube, Con, and Jay-G. Eight different characters have different personalities, and they are loved by many different ages, reflecting the unique aspects of people who can easily see and interact with each other around us. The witty look and actions of the Kakao Friends create a broad range of sympathy and a pleasant smile.

Transition in Character Production Methods

Designs of Korean domestic characters have matured with the media transition. The market flow for domestically-produced characters can be classified into three periods based on media with respect to Marshall Mcluhan's expansion of senses: First, the 1980s and 1990s, the era of published cartoon characters. Second, the the 2000s, the era of two-dimensional Flash-animated characters fueled by the spread of internet. Third, the era of three-dimensional animated characters utilizing computer.

Period of Published Cartoon Characters (1980s~1990s)

As factors that contributed to cartoon characters’ expansion into character industry in this period, Hak-Soon Im (2002) suggests the following. First, the 1980s had not yet seen the spread of internet and printed-media comic books were a major cultural contents medium for many. Second, characters of this period were supported by solid story lines which originated from creators’ imagination and background research. Third, these cartoon characters possessed highly symbolized iconic visual images

Two-Dimensional Flash Animated Characters (the early 2000s)

Internet use became widespread in the 2000s, and Flash was introduced as a moving-image creation tool for the internet. Flash-animated characters flourished in this environment.The Flash program developed at that time was a vector-based animation program which enabled easy animation production through relatively simple methods. Small file sizes allowed high-speed transmission, and vector-based graphic images did not turn blocky or pixelated. Graphics of various stage size or resolution could be generated, and the program provided optimal settings for online transmission. All these merits attracted internet users, and Flash diffused rapidly gaining much popularity. Representative Flash-animated characters from the period include Mashimaro, Pucca, Jolla Man, and Raincoat Boy.

Mi-Hee Hong (2002) explains the dominance of Flash-animated characters in domestic character industry in the 2000s through the following factors. The first factor is the ease of production. Flash animation is vector-based, and therefore scaling does not harm the image quality. Flash animation files are also 1/16 of the regular moving image files in size, and allow high-speed transmission. Production in Flash thus had many advantages in terms of production-time and cost over the cell animation. The production method was also simple, so anyone could create Flash animation by familiarizing oneself with basic tools. The second factor is Flash characters’ ripple effect generated through internet penetration. South Korea has rapidly achieved high internet penetration rate. Flash animation pieces were introduced through the internet with constant intervals and reached a large number people. The third factor is unique story configurations that accompanied the Flash cartoon characters. Pre-Flash characters were embedded in stories mainly targeted at children, but Flash characters were involved in stories related to social issues of the time such as “yeop-gi (bizarre)” and “comic”. Such story configurations formed a consensus among adults as well as children.

Three-Dimensional Animation Characters (the mid-2000s)

3D animation indicates moving images in three-dimensional spaces. In domestic markets, 3D animations are mainly produced with 3D STUDIO MAX or MAYA programs. Gyong-Ran Jeon (2010) defined the most distinctive characteristics of 3D animation as follows. First, whereas 2D animation characters are expressed on a flat space with X and Y axes, 3D animation characters are built with additional Z axis, and objects and backgrounds are rendered in three-dimension. Second, 3D characters can acquire more realistic movement and texture compared with other production methods since they are modeled and rendered in three-dimensional space and then movements are added and produced like live action filming. Third, from the early stage, 3D animation characters are planned considering OSMU. Production cost for 3D animation is enormous when compared with 2D Flash animation. Therefore, 3D animation characters are developed with possibility of expansion into other media formats from the very beginning.