South Korean animation, or aeni (; ), has become an industry that produces characters for other countries' companies, exports its creations globally and generates billions of dollars in profits. Etymology The word aeni comes from the English word "animation" as written in Hangeul, 애니메이션 (aenimeisyeon), similar to Japanese アニメーション (animēshon). Just like anime, aenimeisyeon was shorten to aeni. However, aeni usually refers to Japanese animation in colloquial usage, although it can refer to Korean animation or animation in general. To distinguish it from its Japanese counterpart, Korean animation is often called hanguk aeni (; lit. Korean animation) or guksan aeni (; lit. domestic animation). A Sino-Korean term manhwa yeonghwa (; Hanja: 漫畫映畫), a portmanteau of manhwa and the Korean term for movie, is also used as a general term for all animation. History The South Korean animation industry was in a period of crisis throughout the 2000s. Depression at the reality of being an industry that the West merely gave factory-type drawing to begin to sink in. This followed the 1990s, a period of explosive growth for the industry when Korean studios made most of their profits from OEM, mostly from the United States, or Japan. In many ways, 2011 was a bright transitional year for Korean animation, with home-produced animated feature films finally finding box office success in South Korea, instead of facing the usual financial failure. As far as overseas export market is concerned, the likes of Rough Draft Korea (RDK) kept on landing new contracts, which have seen Rough Draft perform the manual work on over 45 popular Western cartoon titles over 16 years. South Korean animation has boomed in popularity in Eastern Asia with the success of the series Pororo the Little Penguin and Origami Warriors in 2011, leaving fans wanting to discover more Korean animations. This success is due in part to perfecting the Korean animation technique, and financial returns being reinvested into new animated products. Some Korean animators still blame the booming Korean game industry for draining the animation industry's talent pool, but the box office success of the Korean animated film Leafie in 2011 in South Korea is inspiring a new generation. Animation industry Animation contracts for Korean animation studios range from collaboration/minor contribution contracts, to most of the work. The South Korean animation industry can be considered dynamic as there are more than a hundred animation studios. While it is mostly firms