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Larva (also known as Larvae) is a South Korean animated series made by TUBAn in Seoul, South Korea. Its main characters are two larvae that never speak, although they do make expressive sounds. The cartoon exists in their small world where miniature adventures occur.

Characters

Main

• Yellow - a dimwitted, hungry, good-natured and happy-go-lucky yellow caterpillar with one antenna. He has a contentious friendship with Red. Although usually he obeys Red, he loses his mind in front of food. He changes color from yellow to brown and he grows dark green shades around his mouth when feeling extreme emotions.
• Red – a hot-tempered, selfish and greedy red caterpillar. Red has tried to steal Yellow's love interest, Pink, but he always ends up alone. He shrieks, shouts and screams when in anger, fear, frustration and in a horrible panic. He is always showing off and abusing Yellow, but he often ends up hurting himself instead.

Recurring

• Violet – An oversized light purple ghost slug. He has an exposed inner body and roar, showing his sharp teeth.
• Brown – A brown and red dung beetle that gathers dung. To him, dung is a treasure, though it makes his breath stink. He hates it when other insects touch his dungball. He has a long strand of hair on his right cheek.
• Black – A horned atlas beetle that has great strength and is usually punching a cocoon (which he uses as punching bag). He's aggressive and will beat up whoever he thinks is messing with him. In the episode "Black's Back" he turns out to be a slug wearing beetle armor.
• Rainbow – A dark tan snail with a red and green shell. When in his shell, he moves slowly, but under that, he has a muscular human-like body and can function as humans do.
• Pink – A pink caterpillar with two antennae. She loves Yellow and Yellow loves her as well, but her presence often causes conflict between him and Red, who has a one-sided crush on her. She hides a great strength behind her cute, beautiful face.
• Ivory - A stick bug with brown skin, Ivory has a very thin body with brown skin color. He has black eyes and darker colored areas by his eyelids. He is often seen flying from a gust of wind due to his light weight. He has 2 antennae and little pink studs on. His girlfriend is Cocoa.

Minor

• Blue – A housefly that has numerous smells. Nobody can get close to him because of his repugnant smell. He often feels gloomy and lonely because nobody can approach him.
• Mosquito – A Mosquito who likes the taste of blood. He uses his fangs to take all of the blood from other characters. He is often hungry, but also lonely due to his hunger.
• Navy – A deep-sea fish appears when the sewerage is sunk. He appeared as a goldfish. When Red and Yellow threw him into a sardine can full of warm water, he changed into a deep-sea fish which is often seen whenever the sewer floods. He has a good enough appetite to eat up the caterpillars and other insects.
• Venus flytrap – A venus flytrap who eats up anything on the ground. In season 1, he is an enemy to all insects because he tries to swallow the other insects when he encounters them. But he is weaker than Violet. He appears to have a menacing set of teeth.
• Green (also known as Frog) – A green frog which often appears in the sewer, is sensitive, and tries to monopolize all power by eating insects and larvae. He is several times bigger than other normal frogs. He escaped from the sewer and went into the house where Red and Yellow lived in season 2. In season 3, he lives on the streets along with Grey & the Silvers.
• Bee – A honey bee who collects honey. She stings when someone touches the honey that she collected or makes her angry.
• Maroon – A brown and cream dachshund who wears a blue and yellow sweater who only appeared in season 2. He attacks when he sees moving things. He buries his valued bones in the ground and is quite temperamental. In the episode "Whistle", he does certain things when he hears certain whistling.
• Prussian – A hyacinth macaw which only appeared in season 2. He observes other friends and gives a sardonic laugh before attacking. He is also a predator to the caterpillars. The episode "Nanta" revealed that he used to live in the Amazon rainforest as a hatchling.
• Prism – A chameleon which appears intermittently in various areas of season 2, such as the living room, bathroom, rooftop, and even bedroom; he suddenly appears and attacks Red and Yellow without reason.
• Ephemera – A mayfly who appears in the titular episode. Red has a crush on her, but she dies quickly due to the lifespan of an average mayfly.
• Bomber bug – A bombardier beetle which bombed Yellow, Red, and Brown in the episode "Bomb Bug" in Season 2. He has the ability to bomb a place with acid which comes out from his bottom. He usually does that when he's angry, sad, or feeling disgusted.
• Grey – A hideous gray-colored rat that appears in season 3 and 5. He is an enemy to all larvae and other insects.
• Silvers – A pigeon duo using food scraps (a banana peel and a carved-out half watermelon) to protect their super reflective heads from the sun, they are enemies of the larvae. Each pigeon communicates with one word, "Yah" for the pigeon wearing the banana peel, and "Huh" for the pigeon wearing the carved out watermelon. These pigeons only appear in Season 3.
• Cocoa - A brown cricket. She is Ivory's girlfriend.
• Mite - A baby light-green mite who Yellow initially adopts, but turns out to parasitically prey on Yellow and the others. Then Yellow leaves it in a zoo.
• Mudskippers - A pair of fish. They live underground under the sands and can slap each other with their fins.
• Booby - A Blue-footed booby bird. He met the larvae when they landed on his island.
• Mango - A orange-yellow caterpillar Red has fallen in love with. When she first meets Red, she couples with him. When Red and Yellow escaped the island, she knew she had to leave her home to find her boyfriend.
• Chuck (voiced by Eddy Lee) - A human. He is the first character who can speak properly, although previously other characters occasionally spoke on occasion if it fits the scene.
• Clara - A seal that Red and Yellow befriended. She is playful and charming and has the same name as Chuck's girlfriend.
• Whale - A whale who appears in season 4.
• Crabsformer - A crab who accidentally ate an alien spaceship that turned him into a robotic crab. He has a crush on a lady crab; however, she and the other crabs are scared of his powers. This character appears in season 4 and 5.
• Malt - A dark grey tabby cat & the assistant of the bald bug capturing scientist who plans to use the captured bugs for his invention that uses bugs to create a hair-growth solution to restore his hair. He first debuts in Larva Pendant.
• Magenta - A young magenta caterpillar who was born in season 5 from Yellow who accidentally ate a pink egg, She would find care with Yellow and Red, who grew to care for the newborn. Eventually, she would metamorphose into a wasp.
• Big Brown - A easygoing pig-nosed turtle who is often seen meditating. He appears in season 5. He rarely gets upset and is a very good sensei, but he will stand up for his friends, should the need arise.
• Grizzly - A moth, that is as sneaky as he is greedy, can be invisible, and blind others with his smoke should his cover be blown. Despite this greed, he can protect others should push come to shove, and he has fallen in love with one of the bees that work in the hive. He appears in season 5.
• Mauve - An owl who is very protective of her little one, Tan. She may be fierce should anyone hurt her little one, but she means well, and while they got off on a rocky start she starts to think of Yellow, Red, and Magenta as friends. She would appear in season 5.
• Tan - Mauve's hatchling who became friends with Magenta, and like her, he would grow as well he would appear in season 5.

Production

Larva was launched by TUBA Entertainment in 2011, with adult viewers in mind. The producers aimed to create a cartoon that could appeal to an audience of a wide age scale. It debuted on the national channel, KBS and on cable television with short, 90-second episodes. The series quickly became popular, and as of September 2015 was sold to more than 40 countries, including Canal Plus in France, as well as merchandising contracts taking place in Taiwan, Germany, Turkey and Chile, among others. The creators earned 1 million won in royalties in the first three months of launching related merchandise, including toys and stationery products. In 2018, Netflix acquired rights to the franchise and announced they would continue the then-cancelled series with Larva Island. On February 2019, it was announced that Larva Island was renewed for a second and final season. In 2023, it was announced that TUBAn and Astro-Nomical are set to produce a feature-length Larva film with a script written by Erica Rivinoja.

Episode list

Series overview

Season 1 – Grate (2011)

Season 2 – House (2012)

Season 3 – New York (2014–15)

Season 4 – Larva Island (2018–19)

Season 1 (2018)

Season 2 (2019)

Season 5 – Family (2023)

Season 6 – Larva in Mars (2024)

Netflix films

The Larva Island Movie

The Larva Island Movie is an animated Netflix film that serves as the canonical finale to Larva Island. The film focuses on Chuck, who has returned to civilization long after the events of "Drift", telling the events of the final season to a reporter named Grace. The film was released on 23 July 2020.

Larva Pendant

Larva Pendant is 2022 animated 33-minute special that is set after the events of Larva Island and The Larva Island Movie. The film is about Red and Yellow discovering a city but must stop an evil man who is using bugs to help him grow hair. The short film was released on 25 May 2022.

Feature film

Larva the Movie

Larva the Movie is an upcoming film that takes place either between the events of Larva Family and Larva in Mars or after Larva in Mars.

Reception

Emily Ashby from the organization Common Sense Media rated Larva three stars. She praised the show for showing the perspective of Red and Yellow, stating "because the characters are the size of worms, everything around them is larger than life, and that perspective is always fun to see in action." Issac Butler of Slate described Larva as "the most terrifying show on Netflix" and mocked its excessive toilet humor in a tongue-in-cheek article. Ivan Lin of Asia First Media recognized the characters' innovative contributions in educational videos.

References

1. ^ "1st information of LARVA IN MARS!". Instagram. larvainmars.offical. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
2. ^ "'Larva' embraces all ages". www.americatimes.co.kr. 7 March 2013. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
3. ^ "Demonstration of characters in main homepage". Archived from the original on 17 May 2017. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
4. "'Pororo,' 'Larva' change game in Korean animation". The Korea Herald. 4 September 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
5. "Netflix Announces Larva Island". Netflix. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
6. Hobson, Jane. "Netflix and TUBAn partner on Larva Island". Kidscreen. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
7. Milligan, Mercedes. "Netflix Debuts Korean Toons 'Larva Island' S2 & 'YooHoo to the Rescue' in March". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
8. Moore, Kasey. "'Larva Island' Season 2 Coming to Netflix on March 1st, 2019". What’s on Netflix. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
9. ^ Milligan, Mercedes. "Astro-Nomical Ties Up with TubaN for 'Larva the Movie'". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
10. Jin-gu, Jang. "투바앤, 화성으로 떠난 라바의 흥미진진 탈출기 <라바 인 마스>" [Tuban and Larva’s exciting escape to Mars <Larva in Mars>]. I Love Character (in Korean). Retrieved 15 December 2023.
11. "Larva - TV Review". www.commonsensemedia.org. 29 January 2015.
12. Butler, Issac (31 October 2018). "The Most Terrifying Show on Netflix Is a Children's Cartoon Called Larva". Slate. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
13. "Destiny". Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2022.

External links

• Official Website at the Wayback Machine (archived 31 December 2016)
• Larva Island at IMDb

• 2010s black comedy television series
• 2010s South Korean animated television series
• 2011 animated television series debuts
• 2011 South Korean television series debuts
• South Korean children's animated comedy television series
• Korean Broadcasting System original programming
• Animated television series without speech
• South Korean English-language television shows
• Netflix original programming
• Seoul Broadcasting System original programming
• Korean-language television shows
• South Korean animated films
• Fictional butterflies and moths
• Fictional mute characters
• Animated television series about insects