Animated hit nears 2 million admissions as young viewers see their own job struggles in its cute but grim world
Even as the terminally online keep raging over a political thriller about a first lady's assassination, the normies have moved on to something far less divisive and a lot more wholesome: a movie about a timid, hamster-like creature that is quick to burst into tears.
"Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island" led the box office again over the weekend with 321,042 tickets sold, according to the Korean Film Council. Over those two days, it drew nearly three times as many viewers as runner-up "The Assassin(s)," the very movie that's been feeding the ragebait machine.
The animated feature is now about 170,000 admissions shy of 2 million, three weeks into its Sept. 30 release.
Off the screen, the hype has reached a whole other level. Long lines have been forming at the franchise’s official merch store in central Seoul, with some fans camping out overnight for limited-edition drops. A few of those items now fetch 10 times their retail price on resale sites.
The weepy little hero got its start in 2020 as a comic strip posted on Twitter by a Japanese illustrator named Nagano. Its name, Chiikawa, is a portmanteau of the Japanese words chiisai (small) and kawaii (cute).
Korean fans put their own spin on the wordplay, shortening the series’ Korean title to “meonjakgwi,” which roughly means “something small and cute.”
The webcomic took off on social media, and by 2022 it had become a TV anime made up of bite-sized one-minute episodes. This summer, the series hit theaters in Japan for the first time, drawing on one of its longest-running storylines. It went on to become the country’s highest-grossing film of 2026 so far.
Chiikawa, the shy lead, mostly communicates in whimpers and sobs. Its best friend Hachiware is a chatty, upbeat cat who always has its back, while Usagi, a rabbit, screams its way through most scenes.
The real hook, however, is what’s hiding under all the cuteness. The world these small creatures inhabit is a tough one, where they have to scramble for low-paying jobs and luck often decides who gets ahead.
To make ends meet, our heroes pull weeds, slap stickers on lemons on a factory line or take on life-threatening jobs. Better-paying work requires passing a selective certification exam, though even that only gets you so far.
Chiikawa fails the exam but lives in a nice home after winning a housing lottery. Hachiware passes, yet still lives in a cave and eats from cracked bowls.
The movie pushes that realism into bleaker territory. In it, Chiikawa and friends fall for a job posting that promises 100 times the usual pay, only to land on a remote island where things turn out to be far worse than advertised — a premise that will sound familiar to anyone who’s ever been burned by a too-good-to-be-true offer.
Even before the film arrived, the series had caught on with young people across East Asia, who saw their own daily struggles in it. In China, where young people face fierce competition for school and jobs, fans have nicknamed the series “digital ibuprofen” for how closely it mirrors their own lives.
Judging by the reactions online, young Koreans can relate all too well. They’re also the ones filling the seats: At multiplex chain CGV, nearly 70 percent of the film’s ticket buyers are in their 20s or 30s, according to the company's booking data.
In a country where youth employment has been sliding for nearly four years and housing prices keep climbing out of reach, a cartoon about hustling to get by and hoping for a lucky break hits close to home.
“Honestly, it’s cute before anything else, but there’s this dark streak running through it,” Park Min-ji, a 28-year-old office worker, said. “Some of it hits a little too hard, but I see a lot of myself in it.”
"Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island" is now playing in theaters nationwide.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com