Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” Named Time’s 2025 Breakthrough of the Year; Also Included in Forbes’ 100 Most Influential Women List

Netflix’s animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” was selected by the American weekly magazine Time as its “Breakthrough of the Year” for 2025. On the 9th of last month (local time), Time announced its choice, stating that it would feature members Rumi, Mira, and Joy of the group HUNTR/X on its December 29th cover. Time evaluated the film by saying, “No animation has spread so naturally into everyday life since ‘Frozen’ in 2013,” and added, “In the 10 years since Netflix began releasing original films, no work has attracted as many viewers as ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ which surpassed 325 million views just three months after its release.” The magazine also highlighted its global success, noting that it entered the top 10 in 93 countries. The American business magazine Forbes also placed the “women of KPop Demon Hunters” at number 100 on its list of “The World’s 100 Most Influential Women of 2025.” Forbes explained its decision by stating that these women “led fanbases across traditional boundaries of age, gender, and nationality and shaped the cultural zeitgeist of 2025.” Moira Forbes, vice president of Forbes, justified the group’s inclusion by mentioning that nearly 50% of the approximately 750 people listed in the film’s credits are women, and that about 80% of K-POP fans are female. “KPop Demon Hunters” follows a fictional K-POP girl group named HUNTR/X as they carry out secret missions to defeat demons. After its release on Netflix on June 20th of this year, it became one of Netflix’s most-watched films ever, and in August, it achieved the remarkable feat of having over 1,300 theater showings sold out worldwide. This success has even been proposed as a model for Daegu’s city branding strategy. On the 11th, the Daegu Policy Research Institute held a policy seminar titled “In the Era of K-Culture: Daegu’s Hallyu Brand Strategy.” Park Yang-ho, director of the institute, explained that Daegu has built up a variety of cultural festivals such as its designation as a UNESCO Creative City for Music, the Daegu International Musical Festival (DIMF), and the International Beauty Expo. Additionally, events like the incorporation of Gunwi, the expansion of large-scale infrastructure such as a new airport and the Dalbit Railway, the adoption of a national strategy to make Daegu a capital for AI and robotics, and the hosting of APEC have created a golden period for creating Hallyu brands. Park suggested that “KPop Demon Hunters” has generated new Hallyu momentum through genre fusion in music, animation, fashion, and merchandise, as well as fantasy storytelling, and that this framework can be expanded into a city-level brand. Park Kyung-suk, an associate researcher, introduced “World Challenger” as a key strategy. This is an Olympic-style structure where teams selected through national qualifiers compete in Daegu in the finals, with five categories gradually being implemented: K-POP, K-beauty, K-fashion, K-food, and K-games. The finals are scheduled to take place at major cultural hubs in Daegu, such as Dongseong-ro. Park emphasized that “collaboration between the government, local governments, the media, and domestic entertainment companies is crucial for hosting such events,” adding that “the Dongseong-ro tourism district, as a global Hallyu hub, will have an opportunity for rapid development worldwide.”