The Korea Creative Content Agency and CJ ENM will host “KCON:TACT season 2,” an online affair that will kick off Thursday and continue through Oct. 25. The shows can be viewed at the Mnet K-pop and KCON official YouTube channel by purchasing a membership. “I hope ‘KCON:TACT season 2’ sets an example for promoting stellar K-contents like games, webtoons, characters among others to the international audience,” said Park Seung-ryong, head of KOCCA’s overs

Refund Sisters’s debut single “Don’t Touch Me,” released at 6 p.m., Saturday, swept major online music charts within the first 24 hours, topping both BTS’ “Dynamite” and Blackpink’s “Lovesick Girls” for the top spot. Refund Sisters is a quartet of singers with strong personalities brought together in MBC’s “Hangout with Yoo.” The group -- consisting of Lee Hyo-ri, Uhm Jung-hwa, girl group Mamamoo’s Hwasa and ra

Three dramas from different broadcasting stations -- JTBC’s “Private Lives,” tvN’s “Tale of the Nine Tailed” and KBS’ “Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol” -- began last week, competing for Wednesday-Thursday viewership. The dramas all had online press conference Wednesday afternoon, before their first episodes, a presage of the head-on competition ahead. The viewership rating of the first two episodes showed tvN’s “Tale of the Nine Taile

When the Korean War ended in 1953, Korea did not have many journalists skilled in reporting in the English language. Many reporters did not have a chance to study in an English speaking country and had to consult the dictionary to find just the right word while writing their stories. One of the earliest reporters for English newspaper The Korean Republic, founded in 1953 and later renamed The Korea Herald, was Lee Hi-chang. Born in 1928 in South Pyongan Province in today’s North Korea d

Andaz Seoul Gangnam releases 100 Lucky Room Vouchers Andaz Seoul Gangnam is launching a special Lucky Room Voucher offer to 100 guests, worth a maximum of 12 million won ($10,400) in celebration of its first anniversary on Oct. 8. The Lucky Room Voucher includes a one-night stay in a randomly assigned room, which means guests can get anything from a standard room to the top suite, the Gangnam Penthouse. Also included in the voucher are breakfast for two at the Jogakbo restaurant, the Andaz Se

When webtoon “Neon Future” debuted on Naver’s English webtoon platform Canvas on July 13, many noticed one of the character’s resemblance to DJ Steve Aoki and soon discovered that he was one of the authors of the webtoon.. “Neon Future,” co-written by Aoki, Tom Bilyeu and Jim Krueger, is a webtoon -- an online comic read vertically -- set 30 years in the future where advanced technology is illegal. It deals with the conflict between the Augmented, who have c

Director Kim Kang-min became the first Korean to take home both the Nelvana Grand Prize for Independent Short and the Public Prize at the 44th Ottawa International Animation Festival, with his short film “KKUM” on Saturday. “KKUM,” meaning “dream” in Korean, is a black-and-white stop-motion animation about a mother who has prophetic dreams of the dangers her son will face and how the son matures in her love. “Winning the Grand Award at Ottawa was one

YG Entertainment is considering editing a scene in Blackpink‘s “Lovesick Girls” music video following outcry over Jennie’s nurse outfit. In the music video of “Lovesick Girls” released Thursday, Jennie is dressed as a nurse in red high heels and in a white nurse costume. Social media posts with hashtags such as #Stop_Sexualizing_Nurses and #nurse_is_profession started appearing on social media in protest. In an official statement released Tuesday morning, Y

Gen.G Esports kicked off the 2020 League of Legends World Championships in Shanghai with two victories, besting North America and China over the weekend. As the players bowed to the audience following their victories, the team’s new uniforms caught the attention of many. The new LoL team uniform is just one of the efforts by Gen.G to succeed on all fronts. In July, Gen.G brought onboard designer, artist and DJ Heron Preston as its executive brand adviser. The appointment reflected th

One of the trainers in the first season of popular YouTube show “Fake Men,” “Lieutenant” Rhee Keun, also known as Ken Rhee, uploaded a 91-second video Monday morning announcing that the monetary conflict with one of his acquaintances, identified as Kim, has been resolved and that he has paid back all debt owed to him. The conflict rose to the surface when Kim posted on Instagram on Friday accusing Rhee of not paying back 2 million won ($1,720) he had borrowed. Although&

Along with eating traditional food and getting together with family, for many, one of the highlights of this year’s Chuseok holidays was watching local broadcaster KBS 2TV’s “2020 Chuseok Grand Plan Republic of Korea Again Na Hoon-a” on Wednesday. The 2-hour and 40-minute recording of 73-year-old trot singer Na Hoon-a’s first-ever online concert, which took place Sept. 23 and aired Wednesday, got a record-breaking viewership rating of 29 percent, according to mark

Leading up to the 2020 League of Legends World Championships, many knew this year would be different. COVID-19 not only put an end to travel across China for the 10th year of LoL esports, but also made it impossible for teams from Vietnam to participate -- they were considered dark horses in the tournament. The South Korean members of PSG Talon would have to join the team later than planned due to quarantine and visa issues. Also, all players aside from the Chinese teams had to go through a m

One of the traditional foods associated with Chuseok is tteok, or rice cakes. When people think of tteok, many think of traditional forms like baekseolgi and garaetteok that have a rich rice flavor, but in recent years more and more tteok treats have strayed from traditional flavors, and cooking methods targeting younger customers have been coming into the spotlight, with social media marketing leading the trend. The rise of fusion tteok like cream-filled tteok and ice cream tteok came with th

The first season of Netflix original drama series “The School Nurse Files” was released Friday, bringing Chung Se-rang’s fantasy novel “School Nurse Ahn Eun- young” to life in over 190 countries around the globe. The highly anticipated drama series reached the top of the list of most popular TV shows on Netflix in Korea upon its release, according to data analytics firm FlixPatrol. The six 50-minute episodes of the first season of “The School Nurse Files&rd

People all over the world have been stuck at home for several months now due to COVID-19. More and more concerts and performances have moved online, and some movies have been released on Netflix or other online content platforms exclusively or prior to opening in theaters. With myriad offerings available in these quarantine times, some people are looking to enhance the online experience by setting up sound systems for their homes. The visual experience of an online performance can also be enha

Although webtoons shown on major portal sites have been popular for almost two decades, they have never been subjected to as much criticism as they are getting now. Controversy over webtoon content has been especially heated since August, when popular webtoon author Kian84 uploaded an episode that was criticized by fans. The most recent controversy occurred Sept. 18, when author Joo Ho-min of “Along With the Gods” made a contentious remark during a Twitch broadcast after a viewer as

‘Thanks Mom’ package at Novotel Ambassador Seoul Doksan Novotel Ambassador Seoul Doksan prepares a special staycation package for the upcoming Chuseok holidays for children to give their mothers a relaxing night at the hotel. The package includes a one-night stay, complimentary use of the swimming pool and fitness center and a lalaChuu makeup gift package. The lalaChuu makeup gift package includes six different makeup items -- tension cushion (No. 21), ampoule cleanser, soothing e

Local animations funded by Korea Creative Content Agency projects are grabbing international attention. KOCCA has been trying to raise the competitiveness of Korean animations with many annual projects, including the domestic animation production support project that funds up to 2 million won ($1,700) for promising animations. One of the funded animations, “Bread Barbershop” by Monster Studio, was listed among the global top 10 most popular TV programs by Netflix just 14 days afte

As more and more K-pop groups create backstories and universes of their own, FNC Entertainment’s newest K-pop group, P1Harmony, is debuting in a sci-fi movie starring the six band members. The 99-minute movie, “P1H: The Beginning of a New World,” by director Yoon Hong-seung, who also goes by “Director Chang,” shows the P1Harmony universe and how each member of P1Harmony finds his own superpower that can help save the world from a deadly virus. The movie will come

When writer Emily Jungmin Yoon released her 2018 book of poems “A Cruelty Special to Our Species,” it was to inform North American readers about the “comfort women,” a euphemistic term for military sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. With the publication of the Korean translation of the book Aug. 14 with the full English version included in the back, Yoon sees her purpose as not to inform, as many Koreans are familiar with the history, but to c