KAWS reveals Chul-su figure ahead of Squid Game Season 3 premiere — and j-hope of BTS is already a fan

KAWS just pulled the lever again. With less than two weeks left before Squid Game season 3 detonates on Netflix, the artist unveiled a new figure that already feels like part of the arena: CHUL‑SU, a 15-inch vinyl echo of the now-iconic Young‑hee. Dressed in dystopian grayscale or somber earth tones, stamped with the classic X-eyes, and released in brutal scarcity, the figure enters as a signal.

The arena is shifting. What began with marbles and red light now sharpens into something darker. And while millions wait to see who returns, who falls, and what new designs the game has in store, the aesthetic world around Squid Game continues to expand.

j-hope of BTS, a devoted KAWS collector and creative partner, remains one of the most recognizable figures in this visual circuit. From the custom Young‑hee mask he received to the album visuals shaped by KAWS himself, j-hope moves alongside the game, shaping its visual aftershocks through taste, memory and design.

Vinyl turns to relic. Childhood turns to threat. CHUL‑SU steps into the ring fully formed.

The countdown to Squid Game 3

The third season of Squid Game arrives on June 27, and everything surrounding it has been set in motion with surgical precision. From cryptic teasers to limited edition collaborations, the series prepares its return not as simple continuation but as a sharpened ritual of spectacle, control and aesthetic warfare.

CHUL‑SU stands at the heart of this shift. First glimpsed during the finale of season 2, he emerges now not as an accessory to Young‑hee but as her reflection inverted, broader, heavier, designed for impact.

His vinyl form carries the same rigid posture and unsettling silence, amplified by eyes marked with Xs and clothes stripped of childhood color. Dressed either in grayscale or deep earth tones, his presence redefines the visual lexicon of the arena.

Every element surrounding his release tightens the atmosphere. The timeline accelerates, the tension coils and the board resets. Squid Game moves not toward repetition but toward escalation.

j-hope and KAWS: a shared language of symbols

Before CHUL‑SU stepped into the spotlight, the bond between Squid Game and visual art had already been sealed through the hands of another player. j-hope of BTS, known not only for his music but for his curatorial eye, has long maintained a creative dialogue with KAWS. Their connection runs through collector shelves, artistic commissions and shared moments of cultural power.

When j-hope invited KAWS to design the cover art for his solo album Jack In The Box, he aligned visions rather than borrowing prestige. The jagged energy of the album met the clean distortion of KAWS’s lines, forming a visual statement that lingered long after the music stopped. It marked a shift in how j-hope positioned himself—as collaborator, not just performer.

That bond deepened when KAWS sent him a Friends and Family edition of the Young‑hee mask, a limited piece tied directly to the world of Squid Game. More than promotion, it carried the weight of personal recognition. A mask once shaped for control and surveillance reached the hands of an artist whose entire language turns observation into rhythm.

As CHUL‑SU takes his place beside Young‑hee in the unfolding mythology of the series, j-hope remains anchored in its orbit. His image continues to echo through this expanding arena, not through advertisement but through layered trust, cultural memory and aesthetic intent.

Curated fear: why j-hope’s aesthetic matters in the Squid Game era

There’s a quiet tension in how j-hope of BTS builds his image. His presence moves across stage lights, museum corridors, album sleeves and sculpted silence. Every frame is intentional. His collaboration with KAWS reveals only the surface of a larger instinct, one that shapes emotion through precision, and transforms fear into design. In a world drawn by visibility and control, j-hope steps into the frame already knowing how to hold the gaze.

His aesthetic leans toward friction. From the warped outlines of Jack In The Box to the stark geometry of his wardrobe, every detail invites both attention and hesitation. There is rhythm, but it pulses through structure. The lines stay clean, the palettes stay restrained, and the emotion sits just beneath the surface. Like the vinyl bodies of Young‑hee and CHUL‑SU, his image lingers in the uncanny.

This alignment places him deep inside the atmosphere of Squid Game. The series lives in consequences, repetitions and architecture, and j-hope responds with movements choreographed to resist collapse. His work with KAWS emerged not from chance but from mutual recognition—two artists fluent in distortion, balance and the psychology of stillness.

The Young‑hee mask he received folds into that archive. A symbol built for enforcement now rests among relics of self-discipline, tension and poise. j-hope collects with intent. In the space between movement and stillness, he draws presence. In the space between childhood and control, Squid Game builds myth.

As CHUL‑SU joins that landscape, j-hope’s influence circles beneath the surface. No need for slogans or spotlights. His taste reverberates through the culture these figures emerge from—curated, symmetrical, and steeped in quiet tension.

CHUL‑SU, childhood’s ghost rewritten

Names in Squid Game arrive with weight. Young‑hee, the towering doll from the first round, brought more than menace. Her name echoed a familiar duo etched into Korean childhood—Young-hee and Chuls-u, two placeholders in schoolbooks, reading drills and national memory. Designed to teach, repeat and reassure, they once stood for structure. Squid Game reconfigured that memory into something brutal.

CHUL‑SU completes the fracture. Not a sidekick, not a brother, but a mirrored figure shaped for intimidation. His body carries mass, his posture resists movement and his role distorts familiarity into control. The series never spells it out, but the design speaks clearly. These aren't children from language lessons. They are watchers, they are weapons. Weaponized toys and stories.

The release of the CHUL‑SU figure makes that shift tangible. Stripped of innocence, dressed in grayscale or soil-heavy tones, his vinyl form introduces him not as mascot, but as judge. His face gives nothing. His arms hang without grace. His eyes, crossed by KAWS’s signature X, seal the transformation.

Chulsoo once stood beside Younghee to help children learn. Now he returns to show them what happens when they fail.

Toys, relics, and the quiet power of collection

Figures like CHUL‑SU operate beyond commemoration. They extend the logic of the series. What begins in fiction migrates into rooms, shelves and timelines. The game leaves the screen and enters the home, not as narrative but as object. Scarcity becomes part of the message. A figure sold in limited quantities, tagged with digital verification, presented in monochrome or bruised color, reminds the buyer that even ownership follows a design.

Squid Game cultivates this process with precision. The decision to enlist KAWS, to shape objects like Young‑hee and now CHUL‑SU, folds the audience into the structure without broadcasting a single scene. These vinyl bodies speak through posture and silence. They no longer instruct. They regulate.

Within that aesthetic circuit, j-hope of BTS holds a position defined by more than celebrity. His relationship with KAWS is built on shared visual language, rhythm and instinct. When he received the Young‑hee mask, it arrived not as a token, but as an artifact exchanged between two creators fluent in spectacle and restraint. His presence in this expanding arena remains steady, not through direct association with CHUL‑SU, but through the way his image and taste ripple through the culture that surrounds it.

CHUL‑SU enters with blank expression and locked limbs, but his arrival reverberates far beyond his molded frame. Through vinyl and myth, surveillance and childhood, Squid Game assembles its world with precision. Not only through rules, but through objects. And somewhere in the orbit of that machinery, j-hope continues to collect, connect and transform.