K-Pop and K-Dramas: A Breakdown of the BT21 Characters

Hey! Hallie here!

If you’re a BTS fan you’ve probably seen the cute characters from the photo above. If you don’t know who they are, however, these characters are the BT21 line BTS and LINE FRIENDS collaborated on. Each character was created by a member of BTS with the help of some very talented LINE FRIENDS artists. A good chunk of BTS’s merchandise, especially before the Tiny Tan line dropped, have been based on these guys. Even the band members themselves own pillows, pajamas, and plushies of the characters they created. The members of BTS also sat down to decide on the stories for each character, and the collective storyline for all the characters together. With their ideas in mind, LINE FIRENDS have been releasing shorts depicting all of the things the group discussed. We’ll be heading into more major story arcs for the BT21 characters soon, so, in honor of new content incoming, here’s a master list of all the characters, the members who created them, and their story so far.

Tata:

Tata is an alien who’s head resembles a very large heart. Tata was created by Kim Taehyung, or V. Taehyung prefers unique designs when it comes to character creation. In creating Tata he incorporated stretching limbs and various different contrasting shapes in order to make him extremely different from anything seen anywhere else. Tata’s the leader of BT21. He’s a prince from the planet BT, but dislikes the uncaring ways that his family uses magic. In order to prove that his caring and loving approach is more important, Tata left the planet to spread love on Earth. After seeing a BTS music video, he decides the best way to reach people and spread love is to create a music group. He finds the other members of BT21 is order to complete the music group and attempts to put his plan into action. Unfortunately, his brother doesn’t understand his methods and attempts to thwart his efforts in order to bring him home. Tata’s story is only just starting to get interesting with the introduction AT21, the rival group Tata’s brother joined.

RJ:

RJ is a large, fluffy, alpaca with a scarf. Kim Seokjin is the creator of RJ. Jin’s main goal in creating RJ was to create something fluffy and adorable. He also knew pretty early on that he wanted to create an alpaca because he is sometimes told that he looks like one (Why?). RJ grew up on a small hillside where his family, and all the other alpacas who lived there, would shave themselves and sell their fur for money. On one occasion, when the entire hillside was set to shave their fur, RJ left. He left partly because he didn’t want to shave his fur and partly because he wanted to hide his alter ego. Evidently when RJ gets dirty, he turns into Rolo, an evil version of himself. Rolo himself is in AT21, but RJ hasn’t shown this alternate side to BT21 yet. In fact, he’s so passionate about their cause that he decides to shave his fur and sell it as clothing in order to help their struggling finances. RJ’s story is so ridiculously hilarious, only Jin could come up with it.

Mang:

Mang is a purple horse wearing a blue mask. His creator is Jung Hoseok, or J-Hope. J-Hope was told for most of his school life that he resembled a horse (Once again, why?), and while most of these comments were mean-spirited, he obviously took it in stride. His main idea for his character was a horse in honor of these comments, but most of his initial designs weren’t the adorable style that the rest of the group was going for. With some tweaking by designers, an adorable horse character with a lot of the uniqueness J-Hope wanted was created. Mang is a dancer who finds his joy in competing. While he isn’t confident about his true identity, he feels comfort in wearing a mask that resembles his former teacher. Mang is recruited by Tata for his dancing skills and he uses them to win competitions and cash prizes to help BT21’s finances. Unfortunately, the rival dancer he’s been competing against is part of AT21, and he’s not above cheating in order to win.

Cooky:

Cooky is a pink bunny who’s strangely muscular. He was created by Jeon Jungkook, the resident artist of BTS. Jungkook decided to sketch a bunny almost immediately, and it didn’t take much tweaking to settle on the design we see today. Jungkook also sketched him with a giant body-builder-like body, which the designers incorporated later on as a joke, and created a small best friend for him that was actually a cookie. We’ll get back to the cookie later. Cooky is a boxer who spent most of his time with his boxing friends. Until one of his friends brutally injured the other during a boxing match and then disappeared. Cooky was looking for his absent friend when Tata found him. Cooky uses his boxing abilities to win competitions for money, much like Mang. However, Cooky finally locates his friend at one of the boxing matches and, of course, he’s part of AT21.

Shooky:

Shooky is a small brown cookie with a generally mischievous expression. Shooky was created by Min Yoongi, or Suga. Suga wanted to create a dog character based off of his own dog, but Jimin’s dog design ended up preventing his original designs from being completely accepted. Fortunately, Suga’s sketches were mostly faces with various expressions he related to his dog. Designers took Jungkook’s cookie character and added a face based off of Suga’s design to create Shooky. Shooky is one of many cookie children. He was sent to find a replacement baker to take the place of his grandfather when his grandfather became sick, but hoped to find a cure in the meantime. Around this time was when Tata recruited him. Shooky became fast friends with Cooky and spends most of his time playing pranks on the other members of BT21. But Shooky left behind a cookie sibling who was left burnt and forgotten at the bottom of the oven, and he naturally joined AT21.

Chimmy:

Chimmy is a dog wearing a yellow onesie. Chimmy was created by Park Jimin. Jimin was one of the members who wanted to create something obviously cute, and a puppy was one of the first things that came to mind. He created various different outfits for his dog character, but the designers eventually decided to portray him in the onesie Jimin created for him. Chimmy is a lonely dog who was left behind after various puppies were left in a box for sale on the side of the street. He attempted to create friends out of random objects he found in the street, but none of these attempts ever went well. His only comfort was playing his harmonica. Until Tata found him and brought him into BT21. Chimmy busks for money, and sometimes he’ll take all of the members of BT21 out to play music with him as practice for their future careers. However, he’s unaware that another lonely dog was watching him and had just got up the courage to talk to him when Tata found him. Feeling betrayed, the other dog joined AT21.

Koya:

Koya is a blue koala often showed sleeping. He was created by Kim Namjoon or RM. RM created a few designs. He created both a koala and a crow-tit, unsure which would be a better design. The design team encouraged him to go with the koala, and RM focused his attentions on sketching a koala character. Koya was just a normal koala who’s kindness inspired most of the creatures of the forest. He spent most of his time sleeping, but his abnormally high intelligence earned the attention of Tata, who decided to recruit him. Koya is the only reason why BT21 knows who AT21 is. He managed to track them after the group received a sketchy email. He also now knows about the equally intelligent koala who is responsible for AT21’s formation.

VAN:

VAN is a white and gray robot who’s much larger than the other members of BT21. He was created by the design team as a surprise for BTS. VAN acts as BT21’s bodyguard, and as a representations of ARMY. VAN initially belonged to Tata and is the reason why Tata was able to get to Earth in the first place. He helped Tata locate every member of BT21 and he protects the entire group. Most recently AT21 crashed into him, causing him to break. The repair part he needed was then thrown into a large jug of milk. Shooky jumped into the jug of milk to retrieve it, potentially causing his death. This story has yet to be continued, but obviously Shooky will remain unscathed. Suga was distressed enough when the other boys began considering killing his character off. Hopefully we’ll get a continuation of the crazy plots BTS comes up with soon!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie