BTS Universe guide: K-drama Youth tells the BTS members’ story, plus Save Me webtoon, BT21 Line Friends characters and Break the Silence: The Movie
From documentary Break the Silence to webtoon Save Me – here are 5 standalone projects that unravel the BTS Universe, the superhero-inspired semi-fictional storyline filling out the South Korean supergroup’s origins
In August 2019, during Big Hit Entertainment’s corporate briefing, CEO Bang Si-hyuk announced that “We will be expanding the universe storyline … experimenting with other platforms such as webtoons, novels, games, animations, dramas and movies.”
Slowly but surely, this goal is becoming reality. The BTS Universe (BU), a fictional narrative created by the agency that unfolds in BTS’ music videos, includes a webtoon (online comic series), a book series and short films. The story sees the fictional counterpart of BTS member Jin trapped in a time loop that he can only escape after helping his old friends overcome their various personal troubles.
BU’s latest addition is the K-drama Youth, the casting list for which recently dropped. The series itself will be out in 2021.
But what is Youth exactly, and what other media have BTS featured in? Read on to find out.
Youth K-drama series
Rather than a documentary series, Youth is a K-drama based on the BU storylines that the group has been building through its music videos. This narrative is another reason why new songs cause such hype among fans; BTS’ Army is as eager for more pieces of the stories as they are for new music. Although the stories involve fictional versions of the artists, the characters’ names are the same as their real-life counterparts.
Touching especially on the theme of growth, the drama will portray the characters meeting for the first time and learning to overcome obstacles together.
Rookie actors Seo Ji-hoon, Noh Jong-hyun, Ahn Ji-ho, Seo Young-joo, Kim Yoon-woo, Jung Woo-jin and Jeon Jin-seo will be playing BTS’s Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook, respectively.
