How to Throw a KPop Demon Hunters Party and Make a Huntr/x Costume

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American capitalism has failed me in many ways, but none more ironic than the utter lack of Kpop Demon Hunters merchandise. The movie came out in mid-June and, by late August, when my daughter requested it as the theme of her eighth birthday party, it was on track to be Netflix’s most-watched movie ever, had three songs make the Billboard Top Ten, and was basically a certified cultural phenomenon.

Yet, somehow, among Seattle’s many, many commercial enterprises—including three entire stores devoted solely to K-pop—the grand total of tangible Kpop Demon Hunters stuff I was able to locate in the region amounted to some keychains at The K-Pop Empire in Lynnwood, a few cups from a vendor at the Puyallup Fair, and some stickers at a pop-up art market.

I’m generally a “couch, couch, couch” kind of party planner—the less I have to do, the better—but it became clear I was going to have to figure this out on my own. The great powers that be (tweens wielding their parents’ credit cards) have since spoken, and there is finally a slow trickle of merch hitting store shelves, but now that I’ve figured out how to do this DIY style, I figured I should pass on the wealth of information to you.

What to Do at a KPop Demon Hunters Party

The easiest part of the planning was the main activity: watching the sing-along version of the movie. But, while I love that it’s a mercifully short movie (I believe all movies should run 90 minutes), it meant we needed a few other activities.

My one complete failure was Pin the (Pony)Tail on the Rumi. The plan for this fell apart when I couldn’t find a Rumi poster locally and the one that I ordered online got delayed the day it was meant to arrive, and suddenly instead of coming Tuesday for a Saturday party, it would come in two weeks (it’s not here yet). Should you acquire one, you could do what I planned to: trace the ponytail and cut that shape out from pieces of purple construction paper.

More successful was my demon piñata, which the girls very much enjoyed smashing to pieces. With no KPDH piñatas in stores, I popped by my local Mexican market, La Conasupo, and picked up a random purple-ish one—it happened to be for the movie Wish. Then I printed pictures of the Saja Boys and glued them over the Wish graphic. Where the old design showed through, I painted over it with acrylic paint from one of the kids’ art sets, and added painted demon patterns to make it all look purposeful. Watching my 8-year-old daughter use an old shovel handle to whack at Jinu and friends with her thick, waist-length purple braid flapping behind her was my personal highlight of the night.

How to Make a DIY KPop Demon Hunters Costume in Seattle

Obviously, the birthday girl needed to be Rumi, and multiple parents asked me for costume advice to make their own demon hunter for Halloween. My top tip: The best time to raid thrift stores for Rumi costume supplies was last month. The second-best time is right now.

The minute my daughter committed to a Rumi costume for both the party and Halloween, I ran for the car and headed to Goodwill for a black jacket before everyone else had the same idea. She already had a white tank top and shorts, and we scored an Old Navy faux-leather jacket. We hit up Seattle ReCreative for gold ribbon and twine that I braided into the details for the jacket and stuck on with fabric tape. A gold chain off an old dress-up purse, clipped around her waist, was a dead-ringer for the belt.

For the hair, I bought long purple braiding hair from a hairdresser friend—most beauty stores should sell it. TikTok helpfully fed me 1,000 instructional videos to weave the fake hair into the real and create Rumi’s hairstyle, then I sprayed it all into place with purple hairspray from Walgreens.

How to Serve a DIY KPop Demon Hunters Meal in Seattle

I’m a food writer, of course the scenes of Mira, Zoey, and Rumi eating their personal flavor of ramyun, housing whole rolls of kimbap, and scarfing shrimp chips needed reenactment. Washed down with Dr. Han’s tonic and popcorn from Abby’s so-hot abs, naturally.

For the ramyun, I had hoped someone would sell stickers I could slap on to instant noodles. Or at least sticker templates I could print onto labels. They did not. I ended up just buying templates for the ramyun and tonics (uh, Capri-Sun) from Etsy and sticking them on with double-stick tape. They weren’t perfect, and the template size dictated which brands of ramyun I could use. But you know who did not care, and could not have been more excited? Second-graders. As my daughter pointed out with the tonics, it was just like in the movie, when they realize it’s actually grape juice

I had hoped to get more interesting ramyun, but between the template size, dietary restrictions, budget, and H Mart’s Ballard store selection, I stuck with two options—a fun sounding cheese and classic Cup O’ Noodle chicken. They looked pretty cool, and that was all that mattered.

When I checked out at H Mart, the cashier immediately pegged me as purchasing for a KPDH party and told me they had just received a shipment of the actual KPDH-branded Shin Ramyun. She ran to the back and grabbed one to show me—they weren’t cups, so they wouldn’t work for the party, but I bought one for later anyway. (Unfortunately, even using only half the seasoning packet, they were too spicy for my 9- and 8-year-old.)

To attempt to get the girls to eat a little food before the candy, I served everything except the popcorn during the first half of the movie, then paused for the piñata and doughnuts (birthday girl is not a cake person).

I probably could have thought through handing a bunch of kids boiling water better. But we brewed them off to the side, filled them a little low, and handed them the cups with the option of an ice cube to cool it down. The only spills came later, when folks had kind of forgotten about them and knocked them over during an impassioned rendition of “Takedown.”

This Is What It Sounds Like

Fifteen second-grade girls unabashedly singing their hearts out to Huntr/x turned out to be about the most delightful and earnest sight imaginable. Each time one of the snacks came on the screen they giggled and pointed at their version. If, for a single moment, I had any doubt about the value of paying for the templates, printing them at FedEx, and cutting them out until my hand ached, it was completely erased by the time the girls left; many insisting on bringing home their empty containers of Dr. Han tonic and half-eaten Rumi ramyuns.