Okay. I know SUPERKIND disbanded. Not only that, I know they disbanded after barely any promotion of their three major singles. They came and went like dust in the wind.

I don’t care.

“MOODY” is a masterpiece.

I honestly think we should just have DeepStudio team up with Kakao or Studio Dragon and make a K-Drama out of whatever the concept was intended to be here, because there was so much untapped potential in this video alone, and the group overall. I really want to see the other members grow and develop as artists because they all had so much raw talent. Eugene in particular is a significant standout because of how subtle and detailed his acting ability is, but SiO, Daemon, Gaon, and JDV are all tour de forces in their own right.

Of course. I’d be remiss to talk about SUPERKIND without talking about the purple-haired webtoon villain in the room. Seung is so fascinating here, and I think part of the reason SUPERKIND wasn’t able to get the audience they rightly deserved was because DeepStudio didn’t understand why Seung worked here so well, but he and Saejin didn’t work as well in SUPERKIND’s other singles.

Hyper-realism isn’t what makes a CGI character realistic. It’s the interaction with the space and real life actors that makes them realistic.

Take the Sonic The Hedgehog movies, for example. They could have done the Team Sonic characters by just taping a tennis ball to a stick at the approximate height – but they didn’t. They actually had puppeteers working on set to do some of the Team Sonic character movements, so that they would interact realistically with other characters and the space. Not only that, all of the actors are incredibly dedicated to their roles and act as though the characters are full-blooded individuals.

The most realistic parts of “MOODY” by SUPERKIND, in short, are the ones where the members are either directly interacting with Seung, or where Seung is realistically placed in the space in such a way that he feels like he’s supposed to be there. The least realistic parts, in turn, are the ones where we see close ups on his face dead on, or the vines are encircling him. It’s like being shown all the tricks in the magician’s bag before they try to do a trick – it draws attention to the fact that he’s not real.

It’s easy to fall into the trap that “he’s never going to look real, because he’s a CGI character.” However, that’s not quite true. Something looking unnatural doesn’t mean it looks bad. Take, for instance, the Saja Boys in K-Pop Demon Hunters. While every other character is animated one pose every two frames – a stylistic choice done by Sony Animation – the Saja Boys are animated one pose every frame. This gives them an otherworldly feel intentionally – breaking reality for the sake of making a point. They look real in the space, but there’s enough that keeps them distinct. Similarly, in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, the CGI characters are of course pivotal to the story, and there is a level to which we as the audience must suspend our disbelief. However, because they interact with the space and characters organically, the suspension of disbelief is a feature, not a bug.

SUPERKIND’s “MOODY” strikes this balance perfectly where their other videos don’t because Seung interacts organically with the other members and the space. An effort is made to make Seung feel otherworldly through the use of CGI, but also like he belongs there. There also isn’t much emphasis put on him as a full-fledged member like there is with Saejin in “WATCH OUT” (there is honestly undue emphasis placed on him there over everyone else) but rather a plot device to further the story of Eugene and the other human members. Honestly, this should have been the desired vibe from the start.

“MOODY” will always have a place in my heart. But not for the reason DeepStudio thought it would.