k-pop demon hunters saja boys party

Like pretty much everyone else cool, K-Pop Demon Hunters has infiltrated our minds and hearts. This year is my son’s year for a big party (only his second one), and while he went back and forth on theme ideas throughout the year, once he had the idea for K-Pop Demon Hunters (as an excuse to cosplay as Jinu), he was set.

Scouring the internet for inspiration, I couldn’t find very many K-Pop Demon Hunter-themed parties, and most only had print-outs of Huntrix, or the Saja boys, and weren’t going hard on the theme. So, if you want some Saja Boy-specific party inspo, buckle up.

With H’s Jinu cosplay as a central point for him, I decided to build from there. Though there wasn’t a lot out there to guide me, my googling did give me a few good foundational pieces. One was this lovely soda pop poster. We had already decided that my son’s must-have’s were: Huntrix ramyeon + pre-show carb loading, and a dirty soda bar. With these pieces in place, I made up a few table sketches, and we decided to lean full Saja Boys (aside from the ramyeon and snacks), which worked well, since the Soda Bar was going to be the dessert. The Saja Boys poster colors were a strong inspiration, as well as the Soda Pop video.

Using a balloon kit, I made a pink backdrop for photos or dancing (that, sadly, had to be moved due to high winds), with star balloons, pictures of the Saja Boys, and a hot pink custom banner kit I found at Target that I used to spell “Join the Pride”.

A bright yellow tablecloth was decorated with hot pink streamers, which also continued around the bushes to give the effect of the corrupted Honmoon. Hell yes, full Saja. I found some super cute hexagonal iridescent hot pink palates that reminded me of the Saja Boys Logo, and had purple forks, and teal napkins to really bring that vibe home.

Food stations had super cute labels, and we had a Derpy eating ramyeon poster, both thanks to the 40Aprons blog—the only fully-fledged K-Pop Demons Hunters party I could find, and she, incidentally, had done a similar food situation, and offered free downloads.

The soda pop poster (that was meant to hang over the table but couldn’t stay there due to annoying strong winds at the start of the party) and a cluster of clear iridescent, orange, and purple balloons finished off the bubbly vibe.

–– special thanks here to my friend and neighbor who took the balloon project upon herself, while I ran around trying to get everything outside—it turned out so well. ––

ramyeon bar

For the ramyeon bar, I bought individual Jin ramyeon in bulk, and set out a carousel (covered in photos, because: wasps) with toppings: green onion, nori, dehydrated fish cakes; dehydrated kimchi mix; enoki mushrooms, and some hard boiled eggs—though Wendy stole one before the party.

To create the Huntrix ramyeon you see in the film, I bought some ramyeon downloadables off etsy, and hand cut and glued 24 cups and tops to each ramyeon. It was a task. We already had a large thermos dispenser, but I wrapped it in green cellophane to make it extra cute.

pre-show snacks

I refused to make any food, since this party’s decorations were over-the-top, so we bought some shrimp crackers and rice crackers at the asian market (foregoing other sweet treats in the movie, since we had a crazy dirty soda bar), as well as kimbap from our favourite Korean restaurant, Yummy’s. We got three rolls, and they disappeared—they were a huge hit. But, that’s no surprise, because it’s the best kimbap I’ve had.

Despite the soda bar, H insisted on getting a strawberry bingsu from Yummy’s, too. He loves it, and it’s literally in the movie (“couch, couch, couch”), so I acquiesced. This was topped with a 생일 축하해 (Happy Birthday), because I was also told by the birthday boy that writing needed to be in Hangul, since that’s the only alphabet he knows how to read. Fair enough.

soda bar

I went hard. I bought some plastic can-shaped cups, and wrapped them in another etsy downloadable: the Saja Boys soda from the film. For my son, I bought him the glass cup with the entire group on it froth Netflix shop, so he’d have a fun longer-term memento. I stacked the cups in a tower that was very wind-unfriendly, and bought some color-coordinating boba straws.

Since I’m not a soda-drinker, and some of my guests weren’t either—plus, there were a bunch of kids who I wanted to encourage to not put one of everything into a drink—I bought this adorable notebook that reminded me of Abby’s shirt, and had ChatGPT craft up some recipes ideas. (Which, yes, I could have done myself, but there are so many moving parts, this one didn’t feel worth it to me.) But I’m most proud of the boy-flavoured recipes—one drink inspired by each Saja Boy.

— peep the recipes with pictures done by G, and recipe items written out in ‘boy handwriting’ by Todd. I was very dedicated to the details —

Everything being added to the drinks was sweet, so I bought one package of each kind of Fresca (citrus, peach, black cherry) to keep the base less sugary. I had intended to buy cheong from our favourite drink shop, but they stopped selling in by the jar, so Todd and I spent 3 hours, the week before, hand-crafting grapefruit, peach, and strawberry cheong. It was laborious, but turned out amazing.

For syrups, I went with Monin after tons of research, because I wanted syrups that actually tasted nice, instead of artificial, and I was very happy with them (and now have so much syrup, omg you guys). I bought a vanilla, and then one flavor for each Boy: grape for Jinu, blueberry for Mystery, watermelon for Baby, mango for Abby, and strawberry for Romance. Then, we had vanilla cream, coconut cream, cold foam, and lime wedges, because why not.

As a non-soda person, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them.

activities

As for the partying part of the party, we had two events: dancing and karaoke. I learned and was planning to teach the chorus of Soda Pop, but ended up letting the video tutorial I used do the work, and it was the perfect amount of time for our young guests (ages ranging from 2-10).

Then, we turned on the karaoke machine we bought for this occasion, and let the kids belt their hearts out the the songs from the movie. I was surprised that pretty much everyone participated, and the karaoke machine was in use until we started party breakdown 1.5 hours after the official ‘end-time’. And, just for fun, I handed out hot pink glow stick necklaces, since, in K-Pop Demon Hunters, when the masses sing to Huntrix, they glow blue. We were team Saja for the day, so we glowed pink.

Finally, our party favours were these amazing iridescent stickers with each of the child-guests’ names in Hangul. It was a feat, and just the coolest, most fun vibes. I hope this can inspire you if you’ve got Demon Hunters fans, too!