K-Drama, Webtoon and K-Pop Characters

Mira

HUNTR/X · Visual and dancer

Mira is the tall, deadpan member who wields a curved polearm in battle. She has a blunt sense of humour and a strained relationship with her family, and she's the quickest to call out nonsense. Under the cool attitude she's fiercely protective of her bandmates.

Voice

May Hong (speaking), Audrey Nuna (singing)

Zoey

HUNTR/X · Rapper and lyricist

Zoey is the youngest, the group's songwriter and rapper, and its burst of nervous energy. She fights with throwing knives and writes in notebooks full of doodles.

Voice

Ji-young Yoo (speaking), Rei Ami (singing)

Jinu

Saja Boys leader · Demon

Jinu is the leader of the Saja Boys, a demon boy band sent to steal HUNTR/X's fans and break the Honmoon. He's charming and guilt-ridden: centuries ago he made a deal with Gwi-Ma that cost him his family. His bond with Rumi, two people hiding what they are, is the film's emotional core.

Voice

Ahn Hyo-seop (speaking), Andrew Choi (singing)

The Saja Boys

Demon boy band

Besides Jinu, the Saja Boys are Abby, Mystery, Romance and Baby. Each is built on a familiar K-pop member "type", from the muscular one to the mysterious one, which the film plays for laughs. They're Gwi-Ma's tools for feeding on fans' souls.

Gwi-Ma

Demon king · Main villain

Gwi-Ma is the ruler of the demon world, a voice and a mouth of flame more than a body. He wants to consume human souls and feeds on the shame and secrets of the people he controls, which is why Jinu and Rumi are so vulnerable to him.

Voice

Lee Byung-hun

Celine

Former hunter · Rumi's guardian

Celine is a member of the previous generation of singing hunters who raised Rumi and trained the group. She loves Rumi but taught her to hide her demon side, a choice the film treats with sympathy and criticism in equal measure.

Voice

Yunjin Kim

Bobby

HUNTR/X manager

Bobby is the group's frazzled, devoted manager, juggling schedules and promotion without knowing what his clients do at night. He's mostly comic relief.

Voice

Ken Jeong

Cho Sang-woo (Player 218)

Squid Game season 1

Sang-woo is Gi-hun's childhood friend, the neighbourhood success story who went to Seoul National University and then stole from his clients. He's smart and increasingly ruthless, and his choices show how quickly desperation can erase loyalty.

Actor

Park Hae-soo

Kang Sae-byeok (Player 067)

Squid Game season 1

Sae-byeok is a North Korean defector who needs money to bring her mother over the border and care for her younger brother. Guarded and tough, she slowly lets herself trust Gi-hun and Ji-yeong. Her role made HoYeon Jung an international name.

Actor

HoYeon Jung

The Front Man (Hwang In-ho)

Squid Game

The masked overseer of the games, revealed to be a former winner and the older brother of police officer Hwang Jun-ho, who infiltrates the island looking for him. In season 2 he goes undercover as a player, which makes him one of the series' most complicated figures.

Actor

Lee Byung-hun

Yoon Se-ri

Crash Landing on You (2019–20)

Se-ri is a South Korean heiress and self-made fashion executive whose paragliding accident blows her across the border into North Korea. Used to giving orders, she has to rely on a village and a soldier she knows nothing about. Her mix of bossiness and loneliness makes her very easy to root for.

Actor

Son Ye-jin

Captain Ri Jeong-hyeok

Crash Landing on You

Jeong-hyeok is the North Korean officer who finds Se-ri and hides her. He trained as a classical pianist before family tragedy pushed him into the army, and his father is a senior official. Quiet, capable and secretly soft, he's one of K-drama's most beloved romantic leads.

Actor

Hyun Bin

Crown Prince Lee Chang

Kingdom (2019–20)

Lee Chang is the heir to the Joseon throne in a period zombie thriller. Cut out by the queen's powerful family, he goes south to investigate his father's mysterious illness and finds a plague of the living dead. He learns to put the people before his own claim to power.

Actor

Ju Ji-hoon

Seo-bi

Kingdom

Seo-bi is a physician's assistant who survives the first outbreak and becomes determined to understand the resurrection plant behind it. Calm and methodical, she's the show's scientist, and its most reliable way of making sense of the plague.

Actor

Bae Doona

Queen Consort Cho

Kingdom

The young queen and her father, Cho Hak-ju, keep the dying king hidden to protect their family's grip on power. Her ambition and willingness to use the plague make her one of the series' most chilling villains.

Actor

Kim Hye-jun

Woo Young-woo

Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022)

Young-woo is an autistic lawyer with a near-perfect memory and a deep love of whales, starting work at a major Seoul law firm. Each episode is a case, but the real story is her colleagues learning to see her as she is. Her palindrome greeting became a meme.

Actor

Park Eun-bin

Moon Dong-eun

The Glory (2022–23)

Dong-eun was viciously bullied in high school and spends nearly two decades planning revenge on her tormentors, led by Park Yeon-jin. She becomes a teacher at the school of Yeon-jin's daughter. It's a slow, cold, precise revenge story.

Actor

Song Hye-kyo

Park Sae-ro-yi

Itaewon Class (2020)

After his father is killed in a hit-and-run covered up by the powerful Jang family, Sae-ro-yi goes to prison for assaulting the driver. When he gets out, he opens a small bar, DanBam, in Itaewon and sets out to beat the Jang family's food empire. The drama is based on Jo Kwang-jin's webtoon.

Actor

Park Seo-joon

Vincenzo Cassano

Vincenzo (2021)

Vincenzo is a Korean-born adoptee who became a consigliere for an Italian mafia family and returns to Seoul for hidden gold. He ends up using mafia methods against a corrupt conglomerate, alongside lawyer Hong Cha-young. It's a dark comedy built around a very polished anti-hero.

Actor

Song Joong-ki

Kim Shin

Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Goblin), 2016–17

Kim Shin is a Goryeo-era general cursed to live for centuries as an immortal goblin with a sword in his chest, which only his destined bride can remove. He ends up sharing a house with a grim reaper. The drama's mix of comedy and grief made it a classic.

Actor

Gong Yoo

Shim Su-ryeon

The Penthouse (2020–21)

Su-ryeon is a wealthy, elegant resident of the luxury Hera Palace tower who discovers a terrible secret about a girl's death there and turns to revenge. The Penthouse is a deliberately outrageous makjang drama, full of twists.

Actor

Lee Ji-ah

Cha Hae-in

Solo Leveling

Hae-in is an S-rank hunter and vice-guild master of the Hunters Guild, a skilled swordswoman with an unusual ability to sense mana as smell. She becomes Jin-woo's ally and love interest.

Twenty-Fifth Bam

Tower of God · SIU

Bam is a boy who grew up alone beneath the Tower and enters it to follow Rachel, the only person he knew. He's an "Irregular", someone who opened the Tower's door himself, which makes him both powerful and hunted. His innocence slowly hardens as the Tower shows its true nature.

Khun Aguero Agnis

Tower of God

Khun is a cool, strategic member of a powerful Tower family who teams up with Bam on the first floor. He is the brains of their group and one of webtoon fandom's most popular characters.

Cadis Etrama Di Raizel

Noblesse · Son Jeho & Lee Kwangsu

Rai is a noble vampire who wakes after 820 years of sleep and enrolls at a Korean high school run by his loyal servant, Frankenstein. Hugely powerful but baffled by modern life (and instant noodles), he protects his new human friends.

Jin Mo-ri

The God of High School · Yongje Park

Mo-ri is a cheerful taekwondo prodigy who enters a nationwide martial arts tournament looking for strong opponents. His connection to the Monkey King of Chinese legend is one of the series' big reveals.

Lim Ju-kyung

True Beauty · Yaongyi

Ju-kyung is a high-schooler who masters makeup after being bullied about her looks, and becomes a "goddess" at her new school while hiding her bare face. The story is about self-image as much as romance. It became a 2020 drama.

Park Hyung-seok

Lookism · Park Tae-jun

Hyung-seok is a bullied, overweight student who wakes up with a second, conventionally handsome body, and alternates between the two. It's an action-heavy series about how differently people are treated based on appearance.