SamBakZa is the name of a group of Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

n artists that run the website sambakza.net. SamBakZa is the Korean phrase for "three beats." The group was named so because it consists of three people, known as Amalloc (아말록), SongSongHwa (송송화), and Sogong (소공).

Website and Staff

Amalloc is the webmaster and perhaps the most famous of the three, for he is the only one who speaks English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 to a comprehensible level, and also speaks Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

. He is also responsible for the most popular part of the site, the Flash animation section. SongSongHwa and Sogong are both female, and have posted numerous drawings and comic strips on the site. SongSongHwa is responsible for many comics, and has created a group of cartoons about a few of her plant-like characters. Sogong has more art that one would call serious, and also dabbles in Flash. Most visitors of their site appear to belong to English-speaking countries, but as one can see at the forums, there are also a number of Japanese, and of course, Korean, visitors.

Popularity

The massive appeal to English, Korean, and Japanese speakers alike is probably owed to the same thing as Amalloc's fame. Amalloc's popular Flash cartoons have almost no words in them besides the background music, so the basic plot and chain of events can be understood by people from all around the world. But even so, it is said by Korean viewers that the animations are more enjoyable if you can understand the song lyrics.

SamBakZa's popularity with the Western world was most likely sparked by the creation of There she is!!

There she is!!

There She Is!! is a Flash cartoon series produced by a three-person team and hosted on the Korean website SamBakZa. The cartoons became particularly popular during the spring of 2004 when they were exposed to American and European audiences. The series is noted for its classic manhwa style...

, a Flash animation by Amalloc made in 2004. The animation was recognised by most Flash audiences when it was submitted on the very popular Flash animation host Newgrounds

Newgrounds

Newgrounds is an American entertainment and social media website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal...

. It rose to high acclaim shortly after its publication for the quality of animation and the accompanying story.

Awards and Legacy

There she is!! won both the Professional Award and the Cyber Jury Award at the Anima Mundi Web Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2004.http://www.animamundiweb.com/Animamundi/calandra.nsf/Paginas/Gallery2004?OpenDocument It had a precursor, "Hot Fish", which is currently withdrawn due to an issue with copyright. Its sequel, Cake Dance was published in March, 2005 to equally high acclaim, and won that year's Ursa Major Award for "Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series". A third animation in the series, "Doki & Nabi", was expected to come out in August, 2006, but was delayed, and eventually released in 2008. According to SamBakZa's website, they now have funding for the rest of the series. The GDCA (Gyeonggi Digital Contents Agency: 경기디지털콘텐츠진흥원) in a project called "New Media Contents Production Project 2007 (2007년도 뉴미디어 콘텐츠 제작사업)" has chosen this project for funding. This means many good things, but also some bad. The good are that they will be able to finish remaining parts of the series by 2008 in a proper production environment. They will have other staffs aiding them as well so faster production is ensured. The bad news is that the rest of the series will be the property of the GDCA, so all copyrights and distribution decisions will be theirs. However, there are talks between SamBakZa and the GDCA to get free release on the internet, and the GDCA seems to be taking it in a positive manner, so it may turn out well.

As of September 2010, SamBakZa's videos have over 11 million views on Newgrounds

Newgrounds

Newgrounds is an American entertainment and social media website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal...

.http://sambakza.newgrounds.com/flash/