Film

Kpop Demon Hunters fans are shipping Polytrix and we’re here for it: ‘They should all kiss’

KPop Demon Hunters has was a huge hit on Netflix.

KPop Demon Hunters has was a huge hit on Netflix. (Netflix)

KPop Demon Hunters has was a huge hit on Netflix. (Netflix)

KPop Demon Hunters is the surprise smash-hit musical animation of the summer, wracking up tens-of-millions of hours of viewing time and beating out real life K Pop groups like BTS in the charts.

It has quickly gained a loyal fanbase of youngsters and adults alike, but the online fandom’s rapid-fire creation of countless polyamorous fan-works has perhaps been the most surprising thing about its release.

The film, which released on 20 June, was directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans. Several big name producers and songwriters in the world of Korean pop music were involved in creating the soundtrack, as well as nine-piece girl group TWICE recording their own version of the film’s song “Takedown” for it.

The movie follows Rumi (Arden Cho/Ejae) Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami) who are members of girl group Huntr/x. A superstar group to the public, the girls are secretly demon hunters who use the power of their voices to protect the world from soul-sucking demons led by their evil king, Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun).

As the trio work to seal the Honmoon once and for all – the magical barrier between the demon world and ours – by turning it golden, a demon named Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop/Andrew Choi) proposes a new strategy to Gwi-Ma to weaken the Honmoon: form their own rival, demon K-pop boy group called the Saja Boys.

With its eye-popping animation and earworm songs, KPop Demon Hunters has achieved a 95 per cent rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and created a musical buzz that has not been seen since 2021’s Encanto – even beating out Wicked to become the highest charting film soundtrack of the year. As reported by Variety, the official song of the film, “Golden”, is being tipped for an Oscar nomination.

Rumi, Mira and Zoey are demon hunters as well as K-Pop idols (Netflix)

Like with any big fandom, ship wars are near enough an inevitability. Think Bellarke vs Clexa from The 100, Kataang vs Zutara from Avatar the Last Airbender or Team Edward vs Team Jacob in heydays of Twilight – you get the picture.

Despite only being about three weeks old, the KPop Demon Hunters fandom is already no stranger to ship wars. But, unlike other media, where it is often a main female positioned between two possible male suitors in a love triangle, fans of the film are instead passionately debating (to put it lightly) whether lead character Rumi should be with Jinu and her other female bandmate in a polycule.

A more-than-friends version of the trio has been cutely dubbed Polytrix in a portmanteau of their band name and polyamorous. Polyamory is described as ethical, consensual non-monogamy and is where all parties – whether three, five or more people – are open and honest, and reject the view that sexual and/or loving relationships are exclusively between two people.

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There has been plenty of fan art receiving tens-of-thousands of likes on social media and Polytrix has already amassed nearly 500 fics on the Mira/Rumi/Zoey tag on Archive of Our Own (AO3), whilst Jinu/Rumi is leading with just shy of 1000.

This is not to say people are not shipping members of the band with each other in separate, monogamous pairings, such as Zoey/Mira, but Polytrix is certainly the most popular. Why have ship wars within the band when you can just make them all kiss, we guess?

“i sometimes forget not everyone in this fandom is a lesbian that ships polytrix so whenever i step out of my little circle i expect everyone to ship polytrix too so whenever i see rujinu instead im just like oh!” one fan wrote on X, adding in a second post: “this is not even hate btw i just genuinely be forgetting that people are straight and ship het ships im crying 😭”

“Fr fr, I got severe Polytrix brainrot right now and sometimes I’m reminded that the heterosexuals exist and it’s a mildly jarring experience lol,” a different user said in reply.

“Seeing a poly ship be so popular and accepted is so refreshing, I love polytrix sm,” another fan wrote on the platform.

Another summed it up pretty accurately: “GOD WORKS FAST BUT YURISHIPPERS WORK FASTER”

KPop Demon Hunters is available to watch now on Netflix.

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