The art of Korean animation, or Han-guk Manhwa Aenimeisyeon (한국 만화 애니메이션), has gone from hand-held flip books in early times to studios that produce most of the work for major American and Japanese animation companies. The South Korean animation industry can be considered dynamic in that there are around 120 animation studios, mostly competing to 'pick up the crumbs' the larger studios throw smaller studios by way of overseas rxport market (OEM) work. Notable examples of Korean animation include all episodes of The Simpsons, Family Guy and Justice League Unlimited which were made and drawn in Seoul, South Korea. While it is mostly firms in South Korea that contract with Western studios, some of the work is reported to be subcontracted to North Korea as well.

The Korean animation industry was in a period of crisis throughout the noughties^{[clarification needed]} as depression born of the realities of being merely an industry the West gave factory-type drawing work to, began to sink in. This followed the 1990s, a period of explosive growth for the industry when Korean studios made most of their profits from OEM, mostly from the United States.

The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.