With the river in blue and with blood variations. I wanted to have some crossover from my gtn cover, making things partially destroyed , like the side flaps. As well as having the sword in the same position, Gideons presence is still there! Even if she, herself, is not 🥲
After attempting Casual by Chappell Roan but zosan, then Casual by Chappell Roan but sanuso, I’ve decided to scrap all of the angst and make a goofy zolu version where Zoro gets gaslit by Luffy who doesn’t know what casual means
I think one of the saddest things about Garp's relationship with his grandkids is that we have these moments when he takes notice and acknowledges the struggles they're going through. It would almost be easier if he were completely estranged, but he sees Ace's turmoil here, and back during Impel Down took time to visit him in prison. Like, Garp is physically quite far away from the execution platform, but he's still picking up on Ace's anguish.
A little out of place analysis, but I think this is the thing that makes Garp so unforgivable in the eyes of many fans, myself included.
Garp isn’t stupid or ignorant. He’s probably as emotionally intelligent as Luffy, and he has empathy for the people around him. He just refuses to do anything about it, and that’s worse than not noticing. If he didn’t notice he’d have that excuse. He’d have some shield against the people who want to know why he didn’t do anything.
Elbaf spoilers under the cut
With the recent chapters of the God Valley incident, we do get to see some of Garp’s thought process. It recontextualizes Garp’s actions on Marineford as one of faction loyalty for the little guys, the protector of the cadets. The main problem is we don’t see cadets anymore. Garp isn’t out here protecting all the marines. He’s out here protecting Koby who is a high ranking hero of the marines.
On top of that, the marines are our antagonists. These are the people on the opposite side of Luffy and trying to kill Ace. Garp being sympathetic towards them over his grandson is infuriating. In Ace’s flashbacks, we see Garp also wasn’t equipped to raise someone with so much self hatred, but he saw that Ace was struggling from such a young age. If he had dedicated more time to Ace, told him his father wasn’t a spooky monster, told him they were friends, etc. this would’ve changed the trajectory of Ace’s life.
Garp’s story is one of so many missed moments, missed opportunities, things he doesn’t get right due to inaction, and that’s why he’s charging straight into pirate island to save Koby in the egghead arc. The thing is, Koby is a marine. Garp has always said he’d protect the marines, even 40 years ago.
I think Garp is interesting and deeply nuanced as a character, but since Marineford, I could never let go of what he failed to do. I love his nuance, but it absolutely makes me hate him as a person. These panels made me think, and I wanted to get it all down not in tags. Maybe I’ll do this more idk
I was going to make a post about how it messed me up a little to remember that Gideon’s first response to shit going down was to grab her two-hander because like, that’s her mom. Gideon wanted to get her MOM 🥺
But then I was like. What a crazy ass spoiler lol Yeah sure, Gideon’s mom is in her sword and her dad is an ex-twitch streamer whose polyamorous friend group accidentally became a cult. That’s a crazy thing to say if you’ve only read GtN.
At some point I really need to do a tpp drafts dump. Some of that is funnier than I remember, and I’m getting back into Juno as well as trying to get all my friends into it. Plus there’s 65 of these fuckers and I can’t keep them in containment for too much longer.
He’s an asshole. He’s a Lady. He’s 99% trauma. He’s a tough guy. He’s whiny. He has the charisma of a drowned cat. He’s everyone’s crush. He’s terrible to his friends. He would kill for his friends. He hates literally everyone. He was ready to die for civilization. He’s objectively a terrible person. He’s not irredeemable.
The significance of Honmun for Korean Spiritualism in KPOP DEMON HUNTERS
Previously, I wrote how this movie did an homage to the history of Korean music/pop when they were narrating the history of the demon hunters here. In this post I wanted to talk about an important plot element from this movie, the 혼문 (honmoon). For the record this term is NOT an actual thing in Korean spiritualism/shamanism/folklore, but it definitely was made with some aspects of that in mind.
FYI: Some stuff I might propose is pure speculation based on my own knowledge of Korean culture, and not something anyone in the KDH crew has said officially, so take it with a grain of salt. If there is any official interviews/info that do come out later down the line, the post will be updated. Also possible mild movie spoilers
First the word 혼문 itself is significant. It seems to be a mix of two different words: 영혼 (younghon) which is the word for soul/spirit, and 문 (moon) which is commonly the word for door (sometimes can be used to mean gate). So the literal meaning of honmoon is the "Soul door/gate." And it works, because the hunters sing to emotionally connect with their audience's/fans' souls, creating a mystical barrier to shut out the demons.
Using the 무당 (mudang) trio to demonstrate the early instances of making this honmoon with the hunters, as mentioned in my prev post, is not just coincidence. Mudang were important figures in Korean shamanism (Muism) and performed various rituals/rites for all kinds of people, many serving as spiritual guardians in their villages/community. The rites are called 굿 (gut) and the purpose of them range widely (there are also regional differences).
A common theme with the gut is that these are never PERMANENT. A good example is the 도당굿 (Dodang-gut), usually an annual/semiannual rite to ensure a village or a community continues to maintain its well-being and prosperity. This is no different from how each generation of demon hunters must perform to maintain the honmoon, otherwise their purpose would have been fulfilled by the first generation and ended there.
Speaking of how there are multiple generations of demon hunters, even that seems to be covered in the movie too. A woman can be a mudang via two ways: inheriting the business by bloodline aka 강신무 (Kangshinmu), or being initiated into it aka 세습무 (Seseummu). In the current generation of demon hunters we see today, Rumi is a reference to the Kangshinmu (her mother was the prev demon hunter) while Zoey and Mira are referring to Seseummu (recruited/trained by Celine). But the mudang today don't really differentiate themselves by what type they are so might be just a fun coincidence.
Going back to the honmoon, the movie seems to have a general set of colors to represent the honmoon's condition. By default it's blue, gold at the height of its power/function, and purple/red when weakened. I am not sure if the colors have much significance other than simple association (i.e. weakness is depicted in purple/reds since Gwi-ma and the demon underworld is that color) outside of gold, which associated with high status (but that's not just a Korea thing tbh). The one thing that is neat is at the end of the movie, the coveted "gold" color that Rumi and the girls wanted to achieve to reinforce the honmoon is not present at all. It is a wholly different iridescent color.
This too is significant since their performances, which are like big musical gut to help their world from demons, is breaking away from the usual tradition of hiding their insecurities and identities for duty. Hilariously enough muism thrive on building new traditions too. Mudang and muism are not like other organized religion in that there is no central leadership or clergy, and there is a lot of different variations on how a gut is performed. So a dodang-gut performed in the Chosun era would not be the same as a dodang-gut that is performed Korean village today, which would still have their own regional differences.
So whether on purpose or not, Kpop Demon Hunters really feel like a homage to not just kpop but aspects of Korean culture that is not as well liked or known. Hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what else you might want, or point out any errors in my writing!
References in the older generation of demon hunters from the movie KPOP DEMON HUNTERS
It is not the BEST animated movie of all time but it got all the little Korean cultural references that feel like it is catering to me....in particular I really loved the narration sequence of how the Demon Hunters came to be!!! So I decided to make a post about it
The first generation of demon hunters we see are set in the 조선 (Chosun) era, which is a VERY common place to start for a lot of Korean media. There are no specific singers/performers they are referring to here, but they are based on 무당 (mudang). Korean female shamans. There are male shamans as well but those are not as well known and not popular. That is why the boy band Saja Boys are based on 저승사자 (Jeosung Saja) aka Korean underworld magistrate/grim reaper.
Anyway the mudang have various roles in Korean paganism/spiritualism. Instead of flashy musical numbers with weapons, they perform 굿 (gut), rituals that vary by region and function.
The second generation of hunters we see have the flapper girl aesthetic (American 1920s fashion) which was popular in Korea around the 1960-70s. This also is probably shouting out to the og Korean "girl group" aka the Kim Sisters (김시스터스) of the 1950-60s. They might not have been the MAIN influence but the trio singer composition and their fame for being popular among US troops in Korea (which launched their career in the US) doesn't feel like just coincidence.
The third generation we see has the Korean 1970s to maybe super early 80s aesthetic. I couldn't think/find any trio girl groups during this time, but they feel like a mix of The Pearl Sisters (펄 시스터즈), Lily Sisters (릴리 시스터즈) and Kye Eunsook (계은숙). Not the most confident with this one. Thanks to a kind bsky person, it does seem like it was MOSTLY based on the Pearl sisters, esp if you look at an old video of their performance.
The fourth generation is the 1980s, which is when the word "k-pop" starts being used to describe the songs. BUT MAN, THIS SET PISSES ME OFF BECAUSE WHY ARE THEY ALL DIFFERENT 80S KPOP STYLES? COORDINATE GIRLS!!! Again no specific girl groups jump out at me but looks like this is a reference to Settorae (세또래, aka "The three friends") seen by their performance video, which capture similar vibes.
The fifth and final generation we see before Rumi/Mira/Zoey are STRONG 90s K-POP. The whole aesthetic of stars and the hairstyles SCREAMS S.E.S which is one of the classic 90s kpop girl groups of the time.
In particular their appearance for the music video "Dreams Come True" comes to mind. The video now feels really dated but back in the day, the effects and stuff they used were the HOT SHIT. Extremely nostalgic Korean media
And ofc we got the modern trio, which I won't really comment on because they are mix of the current (2010s to 2020s) kpop and I feel like the current fans will have better knowledge of this than I about it. so that's it for now! Of course there may be some other stuff I missed or got wrong possibly, which I will fix if anything comes up. Feel free to correct me as well in the replies!
Update 6/26/25: I think people got confused on what I was trying to cite in terms of time period for the hunters. If we go by strict fashion sense it definitely harks earlier decades of AMERICAN HISTORY. But I am looking at all of this thru a Korean lens so some of the recognizeable early American fashion were popular during different times in Korea specifically. Feel free to reblog/comment the fashion refs bc that in itself is interesting too.
And speaking of fashion, I do really like how each of them have the iridescent accents on their outfits, which are reminescent of Najeonchilgi (나전칠기), the Korean art of inlaid mother of pearl pieces on furniture, jewlery, etc.
If you got more stuff you want me to write out, lmk too!
Since it is the queer month, it's important to recognize that One Piece is inherently a queer show. Even if you don't ship the queer ships or don't like the explicitly queer characters (Iva, bon clay, Yamato, etc.), One Piece is queer. The theme of the show is freedom, freedom to express who you are, live the life you want to live, be the person you want to be. Those themes resonate with many queer ideas and beliefs, even if they don't for you. I'm tired of seeing people actively try to remove or ignore these aspects because it makes them uncomfortable. Arguing with people online about the validity of certain characters identities isn't going to change the underlying themes of the anima/manga, and the sooner to accept that, the sooner you will enjoy the brilliant and beautiful story of One Piece.
