Ghost Messenger

Ghost Messenger (Korean: 고스트 메신저) is a South Korean animated series made by STUDIO ANIMAL.

Ghost Messenger
Poster of the 2014 movie version.
Directed byBongHue Gu
StarringEunJung, SungTae Park, JungHwa Yang, JaeHeon Jung, and more
Music byd. a.(Jimmie Park)
Production
company
STUDIO ANIMAL
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean

First released in 2010, it revolves around a series of events that happen as Ghost Messenger Kanglim(voiced by SungTae Park) accidentally meets Little Kanglim(voiced by EunJung), a human boy with extraordinary spiritual power.

It falls under the genres science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural, though STUDIO ANIMAL officially states its genre as 'Oriental SF Fantasy'.

Synopsis

THEIR WORLD. HIS BATTLE.

In the World of Death, beings beyond the sight of mortal humans use advanced technology to control the life and death of all living kind on Earth. When a mortal’s time has come, their spirit is summoned to join the ranks of the Dead. Some restless spirits refuse to follow these orders and remain among the physical realm, and that’s when the Ghost Messengers are called into action. Ghost Messengers are ‘in-between’ beings who can travel freely between the worlds of the dead and the living and are supplied with the technology to capture rogue spirits and bring them to the World of Death. While on a spirit-retrieval mission, Kang-Lim, a particularly powerful Ghost Messenger, mistakenly becomes trapped in his own Soul Phone – the device used by the Messengers to capture ghosts – and is discovered by a human boy with extraordinary psychic powers that allows him to see spirits. When an unknown force begins unleashing mythological demons to disrupt the strict balance of the lands of the dead and the living, a bond is formed between Kang-Lim and the human boy, known as ‘Little Kang-Lim’, and they join forces in an effort to retain order as the world becomes increasingly unstable. [1]

Characters
Little KANGLIM (꼬마 강림)
Little Kanglim is a human child with extraordinary spiritual powers.
He runs a antique shop with his grandfather. He is able to see spirits but does not have the ability to stop them from doing harm. But after a Soul Phone comes into his hands, he starts to get involved with the fight.
KANGLIM (강림 도령)
Kanglim is a Ghost Messenger with strong potential power.
He is in charge of Area 202 in Seoul. Burying the sad stories of his past, Kanglim became a Ghost Messenger after making a contract with Yumla. He has no interest in others, standing alone in the world. One day he accidentally gets captured in his own Soul Phone and encounters Little Kanglim. He is about to change.
Kanglim's Soul Phone is Black Shark. It has a memory capacity of 15 Dan, and can be transformed into a sword-like form. Black Shark is greatly efficient for one-on-one battles.
BARI (바리 낭자)
Bari is the head commander of Sesung Pyeonjeon and has gone through various positions of the Underworld.
She is a smart, brave girl and an excellent Ghost Messenger who always shows perfection on her mission. She has a crush on Kanglim, but in order not to reveal such feelings, she is colder to him than any other. But when Kanglim runs into trouble, she is the first person to stand up for him.
Bari's Soul Phone is Fan Crane. It is a smartphone with a huge memory capacity, and can be transformed to display things on a half transparent, fan-shaped screen. When in battle, Bari usually summons spirits using Fan Crane, rather than having herself fight.
SARA (사라 도령)
Sara is a Ghost Messenger who belongs to Seocheon Hwarang-bu.
Though he may seem cruel and merciless from the outside, he has a strong belief in the rules of the Underworld and keeps emotions out of the way while on his missions. Being unable to stand anything that is not beautiful, Sara has a sense of great self-respect. But surprisingly, he also has a sensitive side.
Sara's Soul Phone is Guns N' Roses. It is a pair of Soul Phones that have a memory capacity of 42 Dan(combined, probably), and can be transformed into handguns. Specially-made bullets allow Sara to destroy the Marman of his targets quickly and effectively.
MAGO (마고 할미)
Mago is a Ghost Messenger with smooth mellowness.
She was originally the goddess of life, but when she saw evil spirits killing so many precious lives, she decided to become a Ghost Messenger.
Mago's Soul Phone is Soul Wave. Its memory capacity is unknown, and can have the form of a long smoking pipe. Soul Wave allows Mago to access Yumla-net's main server directly.

Cast

Little Kanglim was voiced by EunJung

Kanglim was voiced by SungTae Park

Bari was voiced by JungHwa Yang

Sara was voiced by JaeHeon Jung

Mago was voiced by JiYun Park

Little Kanglim's grandfather was voiced by ManYeong Park(in episode 1)/YongJun Kim(in episode 2 & the movie version)

Daesu was voiced by BumKi Hong

Monsters were voiced by YeongJun Shi, HoSung Kim, and KyuHyeok Shim

Operators were voiced by EunJung

Little Kanglim's friends(extras) were voiced by EunJung, SungTae Park, JungHwa Yang, JiHye Park, Jisu Kim, and EunSu Lee

Theme

The theme of Ghost Messenger is "to cover, not too lightly nor too gravely, the (Korean) traditional aspect of death and how the living remembers and mourns the dead, and to think about how a boy would change while going through such situations."[2] Accordingly, the world of Ghost Messenger is based upon the Korean traditional view of the afterlife, and many characters are named after characters in Korean traditional folklore and more or less resemble them in some way, though more differences are noticeable than similarities.

Production
Development

Back when smartphones weren't widely used, STUDIO ANIMAL planned Ghost Loader, a mobile TCG game in which players would fight by downloading digitized spirits to their phones. However, due to the circumstances at the time, the game ended up not being developed. 2 years later, when browsing various websites on KOCCA, STUDIO ANIMAL came to read information about various Korean traditional folklore and culture considering the underworld, and when the company combined Ghost Loader with Korean folklore, the concept of Ghost Messenger was born.[3]

During the time when the title of Ghost Messenger wasn't decided between 저승사자 강림 (The Ghost Messenger KANG LIM) and the current title, STUDIO ANIMAL first made the 1st promotional video of Ghost Messenger. After the PV was made, a Spanish animation company, BRB Internacional, contacted STUDIO ANIMAL and planned to fund them for the production of Ghost Messenger as a TV series,[4] but as BRB asked too much(such as saying the main character needs to have a girlfriend and the girlfriend needs to get kidnapped in every episode or suggesting for the studio to draw a fantasy future city instead of Seoul[5]), the co-production deal between the two companies was broken.

Due to the lack of money and considering the various limitations on Korean TV animations-such as those on violence-STUDIO ANIMAL decided to make Ghost Messenger as an OVA series. Currently episode 1 and 2 of the OVA have been successfully released.

However, in a 2019 article announcing its global distribution by Portfolio Entertainment, Ghost Messenger THE MOVIE has been mentioned as the first part of a trilogy, with each episode being in feature-length[6]. Due to various on-going projects STUDIO ANIMAL has not yet officially commented on this by itself, but seems to do have plans for a sequel.

Sound Effects & Recording

The insertion and arrangement of sound effects and recording of voices were done by YeongBin Lee of Legend Sound.

Music

The overall background music for the first episode of the OVA was edited and/or replaced when it was combined with the second episode into the movie version.

The opening theme song is Connexion by Outsider. The ending theme song is track 9 by SoRa Lee.

Variations of just wanna (Original) by H. Matilda are often used related to the series, and My world (Original) by Jeebag is used in the first episode of the OVA.

Most songs, except for the ending theme, were composed by d. a.(Jimmie Park)

Release

The DVD of the OVA's first episode was released on December 21, 2010.

The DVD of the OVA's second episode was released on August 19, 2014.

OVA episode 1 and 2 were combined and edited as a movie, 고스트 메신저 극장판 (Ghost Messenger: MOVIE.1). On May 22, 2014, it premiered in Lotte Cinema theaters, the Korean Manhwa Museum, and Seoul Animation Center. The official release date of the Blu-ray of this version is January 9, 2015.[7]

Media mix
고스트 메신저 무제경전
Cover of 고스트 메신저 무제경전
EditorSTUDIO ANIMAL
AuthorJiYeon Kim, EunJi Yu
IllustratorJinha
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
GenreLight novel
PublisherD&C Media
Publication date
March 31, 2014
ISBN9788926783009


On March 31, 2014, a novel based on the series that tells what happened between OVA episode 1 and 2 was released: 고스트 메신저 무제경전. Published under the Korean light novel brand Seed Novel, the story revolves around a novel-original male shaman character named 상후(SangHu). Characters from the animation, mainly Little KangLim and KangLim, also appear and interfere with the novel's story.[8]

고스트 메신저 일월차사전
Icon of 고스트 메신저 일월차사전
Publisher(s)TTU Soft.
Publication dateJune 11, 2015
Genre(s)TCG, Visual Novel
Language(s)Korean

On June 11, 2015, the mobile trading card game made by the collaboration of STUDIO ANIMAL and TTU Soft., 고스트 메신저 일월차사전, was released on Google Play.[9] On September 18th, 2016 the game officially went out of service due to issues of the game company. Set a few years after the animation's temporal background, the game mainly focused on what happened as the main character 지오(Jio), an original character that has not appeared in the animation nor the novel, became a ghost messenger after he suddenly died for an unknown reason.

gollark: Impossible.
gollark: Are you amazed by the *size* or the *efficiency*?
gollark: Annoying Social Trend #125908125: "X seems hard therefore I shall not bother learning X"
gollark: Why don't YOU learn?
gollark: I need to fit in the crafting CPUs, crafting cuboids, drive arrays, (in future) defragmenter, and non-cell storage.

References
  1. "Ghost Messenger - Portfolio Entertainment".
  2. Ghost Messenger Handbook 1 included in the Special Edition DVD of OVA 01. STUDIO ANIMAL. December 21, 2010.
  3. "리뷰/단신 > iMage즐겨찾기 :: 서울애니메이션센터 ::". Seoul Animation Center. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
  4. "고스트 메신저 #02. [Interview] 구봉회 감독 인터뷰, 얄미운 꼬마의 주인공 선언". AComics.
  5. "고스트메신저 관객과의 만남, 구봉회 감독 20140601 (Ghost Messenger GV with Ku Bong-hoe)".
  6. "Portfolio Packs 'Hero Elementary,' 'Doomsday Brothers' for MIP, Debuts Feature Slate". Animation Magazine.
  7. "고스트메신저 극장판 블루레이 패키지 출시~!!". 염라샵. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
  8. "2014-05-23 tweet of STUDIO ANIMAL Official Twitter". STUDIO ANIMAL Official Twitter.
  9. "2015-06-11 tweet of STUDIO ANIMAL Official Twitter". STUDIO ANIMAL Official Twitter.
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