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Before KPop Demon Hunters, There Was K/DA

In: Gaming, News

KPop Demon Hunters’ fictional bands have become some of the hottest musical acts on the planet since the Netflix animated film released in June–but before Huntrix and Saja Boys were tearing up the charts, a quartet of League of Legends characters were making waves in virtual K-pop.

Even before KPop Demon Hunters was released, the film’s fictional K-pop band was seeing comparisons to Riot Games’ virtual girl group, K/DA. It’s not a stretch to spot the similarities–two animated girl groups releasing catchy K-pop anthems in between fighting enemies with signature weapons and battle costumes. Even some of the costumes and color schemes feel familiar, and both groups have collaborated with real-world K-pop girl group Twice.

Though it feels likely that the team behind KPop Demon Hunters was inspired by K/DA, it hasn’t commented much on the comparison. One of the only official references to K/DA comes from KPop Demon Hunters’ music supervisor Ian Eisendrath, who confirms that Riot’s virtual band was “one of our many influences” for Huntrix’s musical sound. Eisendrath adds that K/DA was just one of “8-12 references” that was mainly used to “envision what these songs could sound like.”

No matter what level of inspiration K/DA had on KPop Demon Hunters, the Riot K-pop project proved almost seven years ago that fans would get behind a virtual girl group.

Made up of League champions Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’sa, each member of K/DA is voiced and performed by a real-world pop artist. American artists Madison Beer and Jaira Burns provide the singing voices for Evelynn and Kai’sa, respectively, while members of K-pop group I-dle (formerly (G)I-dle) Miyeon and Soyeon voice Ahri and Akali, respectively. The group is structured like a classic K-pop girl group, with each member having a performing strength, and they mirror certain K-pop archetypes in personality and style.

K/DA was formed back in 2018 as an opening act for the League of Legends World Championship–and as a vehicle to sell their shiny popstar outfits as skins. The single and music video launched the same day as K/DA’s debut augmented-reality performance in Incheon, South Korea, and quickly took off.

The debut single, Pop/Stars, charted at number one on the K-pop music charts and number five on the overall pop charts for Apple Music in the US, as well as topping Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart. The music video went viral on YouTube, reaching over 100 million views in its first month. Despite being a fake band, K/DA made history by becoming the first K-pop girl group to have a single certified platinum with Pop/Stars.

Viranda Tantula, the creative lead on the opening ceremony performance, explained in an interview that Pop/Stars’ success was all about commitment to the “fantasy of the champs being in the real world.” In order to sell this fantasy, Tantula explained, they had to create a pop song that stands up against real-world pop music and a performance that competes with real-world stadium-level pop.

Despite how much went into K/DA’s debut, it initially wasn’t intended to be any more than the one single. “We really went into it wanting to make the singular moment as dope as possible and intentionally weren’t thinking much further into the future than that,” Tantula said in the same interview. When Pop/Stars started taking off, far eclipsing anything the Riot music team had released previously, Tantula says the team started “chatting about where this could go.”

K/DA was quiet for a while after their debut, though they remained popular with fans who created art, cosplay, and dance covers for Pop/Stars–and spent plenty of cash on K/DA skins. After two years of speculation, the group finally returned with a bang in 2020, releasing the five-song EP All Out and once again gracing the Worlds opening ceremony with an augmented-reality performance of lead single More.

While none of the All Out tracks reached the viral peak that Pop/Stars saw, the EP performed well as a musical release in its own right–with play counts on Spotify comparable to Huntrix’s discography at the time of writing.

Riot hasn’t revisited K/DA since the All Out release–though it did experiment with a boy band, Heartsteel, and an Akali-led side project, True Damage, all of which exist in the same alternate universe of League of Legends lore. The rise of KPop Demon Hunters seems to have brought fans back to K/DA, however: The Pop/Stars YouTube comments are full of people who say they’re watching because of KPop Demon Hunters, while the K/DA subreddit is full of Huntrix/K/DA mashups and fan art.

K/DA X Huntrix. (Art by Sumzip_)
by u/Short-Ad224 in KDA

Some fans who were introduced to K-pop by the Netflix film even appear to be jumping to K/DA for their next fictional K-pop fix. Though this could just be because both bands have a similar sound, there’s an argument to be made that virtual acts may be less intimidating for first-time fans who aren’t ready for the complexity of real-world K-pop fan culture. No matter the reason, both K/DA and Huntrix have proven themselves successful gateway artists for fans who have never engaged with K-pop before.

The similarities between K/DA and Huntrix may be undeniable, but there’s one major element that sets the two groups apart: K/DA is a virtual K-pop group, while Huntrix doesn’t exist outside of the narrative of KPop Demon Hunters–for now. The difference is the conceit that K/DA is a band that really exists in our world–they’ve performed stadium shows, filmed music videos, and even held interviews and addressed fans directly via social media.

Riot’s handling of K/DA as a virtual band provides a template that Netflix could very well follow with KPop Demon Hunters. In a Reddit AMA with members of the KPop Demon Hunters team, a fan asked if Huntrix and Saja Boys could become bona fide virtual bands, and music supervisor Ian Eisendrath replied, “I would love that.”

Just like K/DA before them, both Huntrix and Saja Boys are blowing up the charts right now–going head to head with some of the most popular real K-pop groups. Huntrix surpassed Blackpink as the highest-charting K-pop girl group when it hit number two on the US Spotify charts, while Saja Boys surpassed the likes of BTS and Stray Kids to become the highest-charting K-pop boy group. There’s no word yet on Netflix’s plans for either fictional group, but it’s not hard to picture them selling out stadiums.