The Netflix smash KPop Demon Hunters should come as a rude awakening to anyone who thinks that churning out chart-topping singles and slaying demons is somehow easy.

It’s just not, OK?

OMG, there’s just SO MUCH hair and makeup and wardrobe and choreography, not to mention a gajillion worshipful stans scrolling and clicking and scrolling and clicking. It’s literally all they care about.

And that’s just the KPop part. Then there’s the freaking demons, who seem to hunt them as much as vice versa. Hey demons, can you maybe cool it with the demoning for two seconds? We’re singing, here. Rude.

Small wonder that Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, a.k.a. Huntr/x a.k.a. the KPDH, seem…kinda burnt out. Millions dream about having their lives, but what Huntr/x dreams about is self-care — soaking in a hot tub or flopping on the couch with snacks. Ironic.

Finally, here is a film brave enough to say it — saving the cosmos through the healing magic of song totally sucks sometimes.

Nothing is easy for our sword-wielding Supremes — first they have to heal the Honmoon, a mystical force tied to the collective soul of the fandom. So, if a Huntr/x single flops, REALITY ENDS. No pressure.

Then there’s the Saja Boys, five precision dancing demons who want to usurp the Honmoon to further their own crappy, boy band demon-y ends. Complicating matters, they have a competing smash single (Soda Pop, which you won’t be able to un-hear). For demons, the Saja Boys are super adorbs, especially heartthrob singer Jinu, who (bonus!) has a fuzzy pet tiger named Derpy. As one would.

Gorgeous Jinu and Rumi bond over Shameful Secrets From Their Past (I’ll never tell) that can only be overcome by radical self-acceptance, the healing magic of song, and “True Love.” Their demons are emotional, OK? the kind you can’t shove a sword into.

As KPDH builds to a shattering climax, global hits are rocked at top volume, friendship conquers discord, and Huntr/x’ insatiable fan base is briefly satiated. The End.

Consider yourselves entertained, earthlings. Exit through the gift shop. We take Venmo.

So…yeah. It’s like Charmed meets Josie and the Pussycats meets Dragon Ball Z, at a glitter mall/dojo in outer space.

And though not one frame of this movie is targeted at me, I couldn’t help admiring how well it captures all that pre-sexual energy of adolescence, and that terrible yearning for community and acceptance and good times. The voice work is strong. Rumi, Mira, and Zoey are a funny, jaunty crew who totally earned my rooting interest by the end. KPDH comes off both like a satire of KPop and the genre’s apotheosis. The movie pokes mild fun at KPop’s excesses, but in no way is it trying to take down this massively lucrative empire.

Because make no mistake, this is the product of an empire, one that must be obeyed in a non-negotiable, “you will be assimilated by the Borg” kind of way. Huntr/x works for Goliath, not David.

It made me a little sad: Here are three fabulous animated teens who will never age a day or gain an ounce, but are still run ragged constantly feeding the merciless pop culture, social media, fan service machine.

At one point, our beleaguered trio has to go out into the city, but in deep incognito lest they get mobbed by their own fans. Like the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, Huntr/x must always be asking themselves, “How did we get famous for this?”

Left to their own devices, Huntr/x would gladly flop on the couch and eat noodles. But no, the obligations of fame are always clawing at them and never, ever stop (Somewhere, Taylor Swift is nodding). Intriguingly, the movie and its stars seem on the verge of rebelling against its own storyline. (Memo to the producers of KPDH 2, the fulfillment of this plot twist would be genius.)

I get the sense Mira, Zoey, and Rumi secretly hate their own songs, hollow machine-tooled AI dreck that sound like they were spit out by one of the less imaginative chatbots. Halfway through the hit Golden, I wondered, will this song gestate inside me and then one day eat its way out of my chest like the xenomorphs in Alien? Well, will it?

Look, I have no problem with anime, escapism, or goofy teen stuff. But I can’t shake the feeling that everything in KPDH looks and sounds like polished aluminum, corporate, market-tested, cult-y, and vaguely fascist, which means that, sadly, it reflects our current era like, well, polished aluminum.

Am I really watching a sexless teen utopia where honest hormonal rebellion is co-opted by zombie scrolling and brain-dead consumer groupthink? When did being weird and obscure stop being a teenage priority? And when did becoming a relentless marketing juggernaut start?

Even while part of me was enjoying it, the whole project felt post-human — the goal here seems to be to get as far away from carbon-based real life as possible. Watching KPop Demon Hunters confirmed that nowadays, with our increasingly astonishing machines, it’s possible to get pretty damn far away.

Anything to avoid facing our stupid, ugly, lonely, vulnerable human selves. Screw that noise.

KPop Demon Hunters Could Use A Few Days Off was originally published in Fanfare on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.