One of the more unusual titles on Netflix’s slate of animated projects was something called “KPop Demon Hunters” — the name alone attracted attention, and we’ve been waiting to see just what they were thinking for months now. As of today the trailer is out there and….yup, it was certainly well-described.

Rumi, Mira and Zoey are Kpop superstars. They zoom around the world in their jet and perform every night to millions of screaming fans. But when they find out a horde of monstrous demons have been haunting their concerts to steal the souls of their fans…well, that just won’t do and they HAVE to get directly involved. They strap on their fanciest sparkly battlesuits and beat the unholy snot out of them!

Unfortunately, after a few months of this, the demons come up with a smarter plan. Realizing they can’t beat Rumi, Mira and Zoey on their own terms, they decide to even the odds — by transforming into an attractive Kpop boy band. Soon the fans that used to swarm our heroes are now drooling for the New Kids on the Korean Block, and if the three can’t figure out how to stop them, not only will they lose their dream jobs, but all souls will be lost in the process.

There’s potential here: the movie was produced and animated by Sony Animation, which means it will employ more inventive visual tricks than your average CG toon, a la Spider-Verse (Sony emphasizes in the trailer that they made that film). Rumi, Mira and Zoey are wacky anime girls brought to faux-stop-motion life, their faces contorting into superdeformed takes whenever anything startling happens (which, for this trio, is almost all the time).

At the end of the day, though…you can surround yourself with all the eye-catching gimmicks in the world, but the most important element of any movie are the characters. Are Rumi, Mira and Zoey the kind of folks we’d like to spend time with? This more than anything will ultimately decide their fate, and if they can gain a rabid fanbase in real life.

KPop Demon Hunters stars the voices of Arden Cho (Rumi), May Hong (Mira), Ji-young Yoo (Zoey), and Ahn Hyo-seop as Jinu, the leader of the demonic boy band. The supporting cast includes Yunjin Kim, Joel Kim Booster, Liza Koshy, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong and Byung Hun Lee. Of course a film like this needs some actual KPop in it, so both the movie and the trailer boast an original feature song performed by Jeongyeon, Jihyo and Chaeyoung of TWICE.

KPop Demon Hunters premieres on Netflix June 20.

The post The KPop Demon Hunters Have Arrived appeared first on Anime Superhero News.