South Korea continues to be haunted by Japan’s occupation of the nation at the turn of the 20th century. Historical memories and disputes over reparations from the colonial era impact Japan-Korea relations in the present day. Therefore, it is valuable to explore the collective memory and cultural trauma of the Japanese occupation of Korea in the contemporary South Korean consciousness. Why does the past continue to haunt the present and how do subsequent generations mediate with Korea’s colonised past? Here, the focus I will take is on how the colonial past is represented in on-screen media aiming to address the extent to which memories and traumas of historical violence can be transmitted across generations via popular culture. 

Through literary textual analysis of the South Korean dramas Gyeongseong Creature (2023) and Tomorrow (2022), how the colonial past is perceived in contemporary South Korea will be identified. The narratives and genre of the dramas can be used to establish how the trauma and memories of the colonial past are represented through the narratives and the genres of supernatural fantasy and horror. Here, on-screen forms of television dramas will be considered as sites of memory and mediators in the transmission of trauma and memory. By concentrating on more recent television dramas, how the current generation in South Korea interact with and construct the inherited memories and legacies of the colonial period will be considered. Japan’s colonial rule over Korea has continued relevance within the consciousness of present-day South Korea which calls for careful consideration of why it holds such prevalence.