Franchise

Space Jungle: Don’t Panic! is a 2014 South Korean kid’s cartoon TV series. Using CGI characters shot in live-action settings. The show revolves around four tiny (Around 10cm) aliens crash landing on Earth, and facing strange dangers.

The show participated in the 2012 Kid’s Screen Summit. It was highly valued for its unique humour, and character designs.

## Plot

On a planet called Baba, there the aliens lived, but the planet is in crisis! Because the planet will collapse in just a few hundred years, however the Baba aliens (Babanease) had discovered a new hope that is a similar planet located 60,000 light-years away, so the Baba aliens (Babanease) crafted a devious plan to conquer, and colonize their new discovery to turn it into their new home. Big problem though, the coordinates were wrong, therefore they could not find their destination. A scouting party was formed, but their time, and resources are running out. What was once a crew now skeletons was what’s left on the mother-ship, and everyone else joined the search efforts. Kao, and three other comrades weren’t a part of the original scouting party, but still took on the search mission due to it being very important. After weeks of searching, Kao, and his comrades had discovered a planet: Earth. Unfortunately their team’s spaceship stopped working, therefore leading it to crash on Earth which being specifically the countryside of South Korea. Thankfully they’ve survived the crash, but since the spaceship’s busted now they can’t go back. To make matters worse all forms of communication are rendered dysfunctional thanks to the incident, and Earth was a hostile place for these tiny alien bodies. They are now forced to survive working as a team, and to fix the spaceship in order to escape. The adventure of the tiny aliens facing strange dangers ensues!

## Seasons

**Season 1** focuses on the aliens surviving on Earth, after their spaceship had crashed. Then **season** **2**’s storyline revoles around the aliens breaking in Mr. Lee’s house, and then attempting to retrieve the spaceship back, as well as trying to escape riding it after it was unknowingly taken by Mr. Lee, around the end of season 1, while introducing the new antagonists Ji-hoon, and Ji-woo stirring up more trouble for the aliens after what the aliens believed that they had gotten used to their surroundings. Episode length is also increased in season 2.

## Production

### Shooting

The show is mainly filmed in Yangpyeong. True-to-size paper dolls of the aliens are used to help get an idea of the size of them when shooting.

### Concept art

This concept art comes from the Adobe Flash COAN Studio website:

Concept art 7Concept art 8Concept art 9#10#11#12#13

### Animation

Toonshading is used in the animation to make the characters appear more 2D. A video of the animation process is also posted on the official Naver Blog.

### Early designs

Earlier designs are showcased here showing differences between the finished show. It seems the show was originally going to be full CGI.

There are also animations of these designs. Click on the text below: (These videos are hosted on Coan’s website)

* Space Jungle trailer 1 “Don’t Panic!” (3D effect version)

* Space Jungle trailer 1 “Don’t Panic!”

* Space Jungle trailer 2 “Just Survive”.

* Space Jungle trailer 3 “Glass Bottle”. (An early version of the episode “Bottle” presumably)

## Foreign language titles

* Korean - 이얍! 스페이스 정글.
* Chinese - 来自奇星的小伙伴
* Spanish - Jungla espacial
* Japanese - スペースジャングル

## References

1. ↑ http://coanstudio.com/eng/main.html
2. ↑ https://www.tvtime.com/en/show/324724
3. ↑ https://www.tvtime.com/en/show/324724
4. ↑ http://www.coanstudio.com/mcoan/html/news\_04.html
5. ↑ http://coanstudio.com/eng/main.html
6. ↑ https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=space\_jungle&logNo=220434148852&targetKeyword=&targetRecommendationCode=1
7. ↑ https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=space\_jungle&logNo=60213708093&navType=by
8. ↑ https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=space\_jungle&logNo=220322088063&navType=by
9. ↑ https://m.blog.naver.com/space\_jungle/220306050292
10. ↑ https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=space\_jungle&logNo=220007530986&navType=by

## Gallery

10cm Alien Interview ver.1Mock-interview of Space Jungle