earticle

영어

The history of Korean animation has been treated as a byproduct of film (young-wha) and the comics(man-wha) or even sometimes been ignored to have its own history up until today. As the Korean term for animation, “manwha youngwha (the comics film),” that designates its position as being in between comics and film, presents its characteristics, animation has never sat on the driver's seat in history. It is not only because of its in-between position, but also because of the policies on animation. Even though the animation has been influenced by the film industry, policies and regulations from its birth and during its growth, it has only been considered as a children's genre, that is, same as comics. Thus, Korean animation was included in industrial estimates but not taken into theoretical, critical or historical consideration. It is largely due to the definition of animation that is accentuated on its relations with children and educational aspect. Such perspective has led the film history to have a double standard and contradictory attitude toward animation. Recently, as animation has been recognized as an independent medium, there is a growing atmosphere supporting the production of animation for theatrical release which had almost disappeared since the 1990s. However, it is hard to say that there exists a market for animation in Korea. It is partly because the feature length animation had not been produced enough to obtain stable audiences but largely because animation has been dependent on the film policies as a byproduct of film industry, and suffered the deep rooted bias stemmed from journalists and critics who treated it only as a children's entertainment, which had negatively influenced the general audience's view. Therefore, the reason why animation is unable to take a stable position is not due to its poor scripts or the marketing or production systems, but to the long history of prejudice agains“t manwha youngwha.” This article deals with the two periods when Korean animation had its blooming days but also during which such prejudices had formed: the mid 1960s, the beginning of theatrical feature animation begun with Hong Gil-dong, directed by Shin Dong-hun in 1967, and the late 1970s, the era of Robot Taekwon V , directed by Kim Chung-ki in 1976, which led to the General Tori series begun in 1979(also directed by Kim).By retracing the position of feature animation in between the film industry and policy, and the journalistic and critical reception, I will examine the historical meaning of Korean animation. In order to take an independent place in Korean film industry, animation needs to be recognized in its own place in the Korean film history by historically reevaluating on its past that shared the same industrial regulations and policies with the film. By doing so, deep-rooted prejudice against 'manwha youngwha' could be corrected and Korean animation can find its place in the present.