For the first time, San Diego Comic Con welcomed a K-Pop group to its stage for the 2026 event. The six members of ENHYPEN appeared alongside the director and two cast members of Twilight to talk about the cultural impact of vampires.

The combination of Korean musicians and vampires might initially raise questions of their connection, but they are closer than you might think. ENHYPEN launched their vampire concept through music videos, beginning with Given-Taken in 2020, running through their most recent addition, Knife, earlier this year. In 2022, HYBE launched Original Story, which brings artists and music together with webtoons, novels, and animation. For ENHYPEN, that took the form of the members becoming vampire characters in Dark Moon.

Dark Moon: Blood Altar is a story about belonging, found family, and a dash of romance. It’s largely told from the perspective of girl who unknowingly finds herself surrounded by vampires and werewolves at her boarding school. The boys find themselves drawn to Sooha, but none of them know about their past as a princess and her vampire knights.

During their Ballroom 20 panel, ENHYPEN member Jaeyun Sim, known as Jake, explained the basics of the series for anyone who hadn’t already heard of it. “It’s a story where the boys, their memories were blacked, and they are sent to a future, and they come together. They form this brotherhood and they go on this huge adventure. They don’t know what they’re going to face, but they have each other.”

The success of the series keeps new stories coming, with the current number of Dark Moon options standing at six. This includes a prequel of the vampire boys called Dark Moon: Children of Vamfield, and two for the werewolves, which represent members of the band &TEAM. Both bands have stories currently uploading new episodes to Webtoon.

While the Webtoon and Wattpad novels started in 2022, and print publication started in 2023, the animation for Dark Moon: The Blood Altar launched in March 2026, bringing a whole new audience to the lore.

“We can elevate the experience of viewers with animation,” said the Head of HYBE Next Entertainment Business (NEB) and Original Story, Taeho Park via translator. “With animation, we can show a more dynamic or more versatile movement of each character and the actions could be a lot deeper.”

Park went on to say expanding into anime is not just a creative decision, it’s about business. “If you compared the size of the Webtoon market and the size of the animation market, the latter is a lot bigger.”

ENHYPEN and &TEAM are not the only HYBE bands exploring their own IP storylines through Webtoon and Wattpad. BTS and TXT’s finished series, 7Fates: Chakho and Star Seekers, respectively, are available to read online and in print editions for both the manwha and light novel. LE SSERAFIM’s Crimson Heart and ILLIT’s Summer Moon: The Quiprids are available on the Webtoon app.

As fans read through the various series, they might notice Easter Eggs for other storylines. HYBE says, they’ve been working to incorporate connections when possible since the beginning.

“That would be too much for us to say that we tried to become the Marvel Universe at this point,” Park said with a smile when asked about bringing all the stories together like Marvel does with the Avengers. “We actually make efforts to maintain the connection between different IPs. It actually helps with promotion, and the fans find it very joyful to find the collaboration where there is a touch point between the different IPs.”

One question fans continue to ask about these blends of musical artist and storytelling is how tied are the two aspects. This became especially relevant for Dark Moon this year when Heesung left ENHYPEN to pursue solo opportunities. In the ongoing Dark Moon: Two Moons story, his character, Heli, is Sooha’s love interest and operates as the main male character.

Park says, fans don’t need to worry about Heli being killed off the story just to match up with what’s happening to the band.

“We are not planning to force any major change or different approach when it comes to the universe and the lore of Dark Moon, because in the Dark Moon universe, ther are more than two dozen vampires and werewolves and other characters as well. They will be able to unfold the storyline as their own, so we are going to focus on the composition and the structure, the development of that storyline on its own.”

ENHYPEN’s Ballroom 20 crowd at their SDCC panel showed there is interest in their transmedia stratedy, but also room to grow. Crowd response indicated most fans were there for the music aspect with many learning about the anime and story in that moment. Dark Moon’s booth in the exhibit hall also gave HYBE an opportunity to introduce anime and manga fans to something new.

“The biggest lesson I would say, we are still finding why our fans love the work that we’re producing,” Park said. “Some fans would fall in love with the artist first and then they will find the content later. Or, sometimes, the order is reverse. This type of participation in Comic-Con would give us an opportunity to learn why and how our fans or the readers are finding our content.”

One of the ways HYBE helped fans of the music discover the story universe was through their off-site event at House of Blues. Lucky fans who won a ticket via lottery were treated to a special Dark Moon trailer that blended music video and anime clips, as well as a singalong to the anime’s theme song, One In a Billion. Actors brought the story to life as well, with Sooha making an appearance, and fans were pulled on stage to compete in a vampire queen contest. The evening culminated with ENHYPEN performing some of their vampire-themed hits, including Drunk-Dazed and Bite Me, and talking to host JoJo Wright about their characters.

“I feel like you get attached to your own character, a little bit,” Jake said on stage at House of Blues. “You hope your character is the strongest of them.”

The venn diagram circles of romance readers, fantasy readers, and K-Pop fans are converging and looking more like a single circle every day. HYBE proves it is ahead of the game and is ready to welcome fans from all fandom areas into their worlds.