BT21: when idols draw their own mascots

Most music mascots get made somewhere in a design studio, far from the artist whose name they'll later carry. BT21 was different. When BTS and LINE FRIENDS began working together in 2017, the members didn't just sign off on finished characters, they were handed paper, pens, and the job of designing them themselves.

And luckily, the whole process was filmed. In the BT21 Universe series, you can watch RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook drawing their first sketches, coming up with names and personalities for their characters, discussing each other's ideas, and, predictably, commenting on and teasing each other about them. From a pile of odd little drawings, LINE FRIENDS' professional designers then helped develop the characters into the ones we know today.

KOYA grew out of RM's drawings. The blue koala is smart and talented, but perpetually sleepy, and especially recognizable for the ears that pop off when he's startled or shocked. RM drew a whole series of koalas during the design process before the final KOYA came together.

RJ is Jin's white alpaca, polite, gentle, and always hungry. He loves cooking and eating, and is recognizable by his fluffy fur and red scarf. Of all the members, Jin is maybe the one who shows off his BT21 character the most, RJ has shown up alongside him so often over the years that he's practically become his permanent companion.

SHOOKY is proof a mascot doesn't need to be big to cause chaos. SUGA designed a tiny brown cookie who loves pranks and hanging out with his cookie crew. He also has one big enemy: milk. A pretty inconvenient phobia for a cookie, but details like that are exactly what make the BT21 characters fun.

MANG is j-hope's character and has been tied to dance from the start. For years we knew him by his blue mask with a heart-shaped pink nose, with whatever was underneath never revealed. It wasn't until 2023 that j-hope took part in creating a new look for MANG, and the mask finally came off. A new character was revealed, with a face resembling a squirrel and a heart-shaped smile, and the whole reveal got its own storyline.

CHIMMY, designed by Jimin, is a yellow puppy in a hoodie and one of the most recognizable BT21 mascots. CHIMMY is persistent, playful, and loves working hard at whatever he starts. When creating the character, Jimin wanted him to represent a puppy that keeps trying no matter the obstacles.

TATA is hard to mistake for any other character. V drew a red heart-shaped creature with a big head and a blue body, and gave him a much more ambitious backstory than an ordinary earthly one: TATA is a prince from the planet BT. He can stretch his body and uses various powers, and it's his arrival on Earth that kicks off the whole BT21 world's storyline.

COOKY is Jungkook's pink rabbit, who looks completely harmless at first glance. Then the eyebrows and the muscles show up. Jungkook envisioned him as a strong, energetic character who wants to become even stronger, and the contrast between the cute pink bunny and his fighting-spirit personality very quickly became COOKY's trademark.

And then there's VAN, the eighth member of the crew. VAN isn't a personal mascot for one BTS member, but a space robot who protects BT21 and represents ARMY. That gave the fandom its own place in the world the members created, not as an eighth character, but as someone standing alongside them, watching over them.

There's an interesting story behind the name too. During the process, the members considered various options, and BT21 was ultimately chosen. V suggested including the number 21, with the idea that BTS and their characters should last and be remembered through the 21st century. What started with drawings around a table in 2017 quickly grew into a much bigger project.

Today BT21 has its own animated stories, games, stores, and a huge range of products, and the characters are known even by people who might not know how they came to be. Their origin is still the best part of the story, though. KOYA, RJ, SHOOKY, MANG, CHIMMY, TATA, and COOKY aren't just mascots that later got assigned BTS members' names. The first versions of these strange little creatures genuinely came out of their own notebooks.