A Classroom Turns Into a Bloodbath Survival Story: The “Jiwoohak” and “Girigo” Craze Expands the “Dark Academy” Genre Built on Endless Competition

The end of romance—classrooms become a blood-red survival fight... The world gets hooked on 'Girigo'

No more romance of first love is breathing in classrooms. A strange app appears on smartphone screens, turning teenagers’ daily lives into a brutal survival game. It’s the chilling shockwave launched by the Netflix original 'Girigo'.

Within just two weeks of release, this English-language YA occult drama topped the charts globally in the non-English TV category, laying bare the raw face of a classroom where desire and curses intertwine. The school as a “safe greenhouse” consumed by past pop culture has completely collapsed. Now, global viewers are falling head over heels for the vicious appeal of 'K-academy fare', a fusion of thrillers and occult horror.

A Small-Scale Replica of Class and Violence—The Evolution of the 'Dark Academy' Genre Spun by Endless Competition

A school is a sturdy, closed ecosystem—perfect staging ground for a gruesome drama. The 'Pyramid Game', which legalizes targets of class division and bullying through homeroom votes; 'Hierarchy', which digs into the hidden side of an elite private high school rigorously ranked by wealth and power; and 'All of Us Are Dead' (hereafter 'Jiwoohak'), where students fight to survive amid a mass of zombies. With each new variation, dark academy fare has become the most powerful box-office guarantee in today’s OTT market.

Experts say a bitter self-portrait of Korean society lies beneath this chilling trend. Culture critic 'Kim Heon-sik' said, “Real schools turn everyone except a tiny number of winners into dropouts—a ruthless gambling arena,” adding that the collapse of public education and the survival crisis facing teenagers are being sharply captured by genre storytelling. Culture critic 'Ha Jae-geun' also noted, “The power relationship within the classroom is a perfect microcosm that compresses social injustice.”

Teenage Horror That Adults Can’t Stop Watching—and the Psychology Beneath It

One interesting point is that adult viewers react even more intensely to these blood-soaked battles staged by students in uniforms. That’s because the teenagers’ story doesn’t stay confined to a “club of their own,” but instead connects precisely with the absurdities of the organizational society adults face every day.

'Ha Jae-geun', a critic, says, “Violence and hierarchy inside a closed space form a mirror image of the reality adults experience, creating a shared understanding that cuts across generations.” He adds that the more modern society fragments, the more the school’s distinct “dense face-to-face contact”—where you must meet everyone day after day—ironically generates the most primal fear. In an era where non-face-to-face life becomes the norm, there is no space as perfect as a school for maximizing the 'fear of alienation'—the dread of being thoroughly isolated within a group, is the sharp point made by critic 'Kim Heon-sik'.

Beyond Dopamine Addiction—The Sustainability That 'K-academy fare' Must Prove

Now the spotlight shifts to next projects lined up for launch, including 'Jiwoohak' season 2 and 'Study Group'. Even amid a relentless run of hits, there are still painful cautionary voices. Self-replication locked only onto provocative depictions and a “dopamine blast” ultimately chews up the genre’s lifespan.

'Kim Heon-sik' emphasizes, “At this point, it’s not enough to simply display the dark underside of schools in the same mold again and again. It’s time to prove an immersive narrative and expandability.” Only when the genre can deliver not just the catharsis of violence and accusations, but also the recovery of humanity and warm insight that blooms even amid the ruins will 'K-dark academy fare' be able to persist as an irreplaceable mainstream genre in the global market.