Before KPOP Demon Hunter, there is K/DA

Since the Netflix animated film in June, the fictional band of KPOP Demon Hunters has become the hottest musical performance on the planet.

Even before the release of Kpop Demon Hunters, the fictional K-Pop band of the film saw a comparison with Riot Games’ virtual girl group K/DA. The similarity was found not to be a stretched animated girls group, releasing a striking K-pop national anthem with its enemies with iconic weapons and combat costumes. Even some outfits and color schemes feel familiar, both groups have worked with the real world K-Pop Girl Group.

Although the team behind KPOP Demon Hunters may have been inspired by K/DA, there are not many comments on the comparison. One of the only official quotes from K/DA comes from Ian Eisendrath, music director at KPOP Demon Hunters, who confirm That riot virtual band is “one of our many influences” of Huntrix music. Eisendrath added that K/DA is just one of the “8-12 references” and is mainly used to “imagine what these songs sound like.”

Regardless of what inspiration K/DA has on KPOP Demon Hunters, the Riot K-Pop project proves that fans about seven years ago will be behind a virtual girl group.

Each member of K/DA is composed of league champions Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai'sa, dubbed and performed by real-world pop singers. American artists Madison Beer and Jaira Burns provide singing voices for Evelynn and Kai'sa, respectively, while K-Pop Group I-Dele (formerly (G) I-Dele) Miyeon and Soyeon Voice Ahri and Akali members provide singing voices for singing voices, respectively. The group is structured like a classic K-Pop girl group, each member has a display power, and their personality and style reflects certain K-Pop prototypes.

Founded in 2018, K/DA is the opening ceremony for the League of Legends World Championship and serves as a tool for selling its shiny Popstar outfits as a skin. Singles and music videos kicked off the same day as K/DA debut in Incheon, South Korea and took off quickly.

The debut single, Pop/Star, ranked No. 1 on the K-Pop music chart, No. 5 on the overall pop chart of Apple Music in the United States, and No. 1 on the World Digital Song Sales Chart on Billboard. The music video spread on YouTube, with more than 100 million views in the first month. Despite being a fake band, K/DA made history by becoming the first K-Pop Girl group to have a single platinum with pop music.

Creativity of the opening ceremony performance Viranda Tantula in a interview Pop/star success is a commitment to “the real world fantasy of champions.” Tantula explained that in order to sell this fantasy, they had to create a pop song that competes with real-world pop music and real-world stadium-level pop music.

Despite what K/DA debuted, it wasn't originally more important than a single single. “We really want to make the strange moments as excited as possible and deliberately don't think more about the future,” Tantula said in the same interview. When the pop/stars started taking off, the far-overshadowed music team had posted anything before, Tantula said the team started “talking about where this might be.”

K/DA has remained quiet for a while since its debut, although they are still popular among fans of the dance covers of art, role-playing and pop music and have spent a lot of cash on K/DA skins. After two years of speculation, the group finally broke out in 2020, unleashing the EP of five songs and once again presented the world opening with the enhanced authenticity of Lead Single Single More.

Although none of the tracks hit the virus peak seen by pop/stars, the EP itself is excellent – ​​in scripts, the drama is comparable to Huntrix’s records when it comes to writing.

Riot hasn't revisited K/DA since its full release – although it does try out a boy band, HeartSteel and an Akali-LED side project, which is real hurt, all of which exist in the same alternative universe in League of Legends. The rise of KPOP Demon Hunter seems to bring fans back to K/DA, but: Pop/Star YouTube comments are full of people who say they are watching because of KPOP Demon Hunter, and K/DA Subreddit is full of huntrix/k/da. mash up and Fan Art.

Some fans of Netflix movies' introduction to K-Pop even seem to be jumping to K/DA for the next fictional K-Pop Fix. While this may only be because both bands have similar voices, there is an argument to make that virtual behavior may be less intimidating for first-time fans who are not yet ready for the complexity of the K-Pop fan culture in the real world. Whatever the reason, K/DA and Huntrix have proved their successful gateway artists who have never been engaged to K-Pop before.

The similarities between K/DA and Huntrix may be undeniable, but there is one major element that sets these two groups apart: K/DA is a virtual K-Pop group, and Huntrix does not now exist outside of the Kpop Demon Hunters narrative. The difference is that K/DA is the real band in our world – they perform stadium shows, filmed music videos, and even interviewed directly through social media and went straight to fans.

Riot provides a template for K/DA as a virtual band’s handling, and Netflix can follow KPOP Demon Hunters well. exist reddit, however Along with members of the KPOP Demon Hunter team, a fan asked Huntrix and Saja Boys if they could be real virtual bands, and music director Ian Eisendrath replied: “I love it.”

Just like their previous K/DAs, Huntrix and Saja Boys are both blowing up the charts now – with some of the most popular real K-Pop group heads. When Huntrix ranked second on the US Spotify rankings, Huntrix surpassed Blackpink while Saja Boys surpassed BTS and Stray kids to become the highest K-Pop Boy Group. There is no news about Netflix's plans for any fictional group, but it's not hard to imagine them selling the stadium.