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What I do know is that I hate finances, I hate fairytale-themed restaurants, and I hate Horace! You stuck with me, now you’re stuck with me. |
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Min-Gi Park (박민기) is one of the two main protagonists of Book 4 - Duet and a passenger aboard the Infinity Train. He is accompanied by his best friend Ryan and denizen companion Kez throughout their journey in Book 4.
Appearance[]
Min-Gi is a young adult of Korean descent.
His outfit before getting on the Infinity Train and after meeting the Steward in the Party Car consists of a grey-blue Members Only like jacket, a white polo from his Dumpty's shift, grey pants, and white runners.
Min-Gi plays with more than one instrument. He has his Stylophone Gen-X1 with him for the rest of the season after episode 6. In the episode "The Twin Tapes" Min's viola makes an appearance and in "The Train to Nowhere" he plays a "Barold MAYO-90" (the shows play on a Roland JUNO-60).
From episodes 1-5 Min wears the One uniform that Amelia wore in Book 3 and the gravity boots previously seen used by Simon, though Simon’s were modified for the gravity effect.
Personality[]
Min-Gi is an earnest, down-to-earth, and hardworking young man who puts a lot of thought into his future. He shows a humble and somewhat stressed personality, even bordering on worn-down at times. Like Ryan, he is passionate about music, but self-doubt and differing expectations from his parents cause him serious hesitation in indulging in his pursuits. Min-Gi also has difficulties expressing his emotions, though has a bit of a bull-headed streak.
History[]
Min-Gi was born in Powell Lake, British Columbia, Canada to a couple from Korea in the mid to late 1960s. He befriended Ryan Akagi, a boy who was in the incubator next to him.
They dreamed of becoming a musical duo, but his parents pushed him into a more stable life path.
Min and Ryan both studied at Powell Lake high school. They entered a battle of the bands at one point, but he chickened out and Ryan was forced to go on alone. Instead of joining Ryan as a musicians after graduating in 1985 Min picked up a job at Dumpty's Diner and applied to study finance in University.
While working at Dumpty’s Diner, Ryan visits to convince Min-Gi to join him on a trip to New York. After Min shares that he is busy and can't come, Ryan runs away with his keys to the diner in an effort to get him to follow his dreams. Upon entering a train, the pair ends up discovering a portal to the Infinity Train, Ryan throws Min-Gi's keys in to which he and Min-Gi follow.
Book Four - Duet[]
"The Twin Tapes"[]
He and Ryan are shown being proceeded in the Passenger Preparation Car.
"The Iceberg Car"[]
He and Ryan wake up in an Iceberg Car, where a hovering call bell named Kez greets them and explains that they are in a pocket where they are confronted by three fish in parkas. Kez takes the pair to a thermometer she used and when they try it, the car suddenly turns into a field of lava with the fish now rocks. He takes it and the car suddenly becomes a jungle, Min-Gi realizes it controls time as the parka entities, now gorillas, attack them. They use it again and end up in a desert being pursued by giant eyes. He and Ryan eventually fight over it and up in a futuristic city when the thermostat is set to the central.
They are confronted by the parka entries, now aliens, who chase after them. He and Ryan exit the train and see the Wasteland, they angrily confront Kez about it and she says the train took them to help them. They say they are friends when Kez sees them fighting. They head into the next car, only to be confronted by cowboy insects for helping Kez.
"The Old West Car"[]
After being confronted by the cowboy insects, Kez distracts them and they head into town to hide. They find a salon and talk to the bartender. After she sees that his and Ryan’s numbers are the same, and that they got on the train at the same time, she agrees to hide them but quickly turns them in for the reward money. In jail, Kez manages to escape and leaves the two passengers behind. Using bits of Kez's cage, Ryan reaches for the keys and asks Min-Gi if he thinks their families miss them, with Ryan doubting his misses him. He gets the keys but the guard comes back and takes the two to stand trial.
As Ryan tries to represent them, the judge, Judge Morpho, decides they are guilty of aiding Kez in staining their town charter. When they are being brought to a giant bug zapper to be executed, Min-Gi tells Ryan to think like Kez and, seeing a bell by the charter, yells that Kez is their and the town rushes over to stop her. Just then Kez and The Cat arrive and tell them to run. As they walk, he and Ryan talk and their numbers go down to 180.
"The Pig Baby Car"[]
After finding themselves in a large gravity defying kitchen, Kez hides in a chef’s hat and asks them to call her “Lorraine”. After asking Kez what she did in that car, they are approached by a giant Pig Baby and a Cow Creamer. After the Cow Creamer learns they did not bring a treat, she has them make one to appease Pig Baby, but that they are low on butter. Ryan jumps up to find a cookbook despite Min-Gi telling him to wait. They find that it is filled with post war American food with Min-Gi suggesting they make brownies, but Ryan thinks Pig Baby would eat anything. However, nothing they make pleases him and the Cow Creamer suggests they make brownies.
To get more butter, Kez takes them to the microwave where she inadvertently started a grease fire that destroyed the other cookbooks. They scrape as much of the butter off as the can and make brownies. When they are done, he completes Ryan for taking his time their numbers drop to 178. After Min-Gi says he thinks Ryan was supposed to be on the train by himself and that he would help him get his number down, he inadvertently causes their numbers go back to 202, causing him to think Ryan forgot his lesson. After appeasing Pig Baby, Cow Creamer demands more treats and refuses to let them go. After seeing the exit in Pig Baby's mouth, they reveal the Kez is with them causing him to cry and they jump into his mouth to escape. Once out, he tells Ryan he will help him get them off the train.
"The Astro Queue Car"[]
As they are in a car with a semi-completed infant puzzle, he smugly encourages Ryan to complete it and leave when the exit opens. He tells Ryan to keep learning lessons as they enter a car with a line of astronauts waiting to be let into a club. Ryan goes directly to the bouncer, who doesn’t let him in as Min-Gi tells him to wait in line. He helps Ryan try to sneak into an air vent, but it doesn’t budge, and refuses to help Ryan dig in and does nothing as his friend is stuck in goo. As Ryan runs through portals to try and get inside, his friend skids and nearly falls off a floating rock.
He and Kez save him and he scolds Ryan for not listening when he said they should wait in line, however he backs into the astronauts and they fall down, revealing they are skeletons. After realizing following the rules wasn’t the right answer. His number goes down to 192 before returning to 202 for not apologizing to Ryan. After Ryan convinces him to act like they are performers, they make disguises and Kez makes it look like the astronauts are fans. They are let in, but their boots stick to the ground and the car and Kez start to glitch as metal tentacles emerge from behind a beaded curtain.
"The Party Car"[]
When the Steward emerges, they freeze in place but are told by it that they’re belongings are there’s, dropping off a metal crate before the car returns to normal. After finding their clothes and interments, they enter to find actual friends of Kez who want them to play. They change into their regular clothes and Kez takes them to a waiting room after mistaking it for the bathroom. As they wait, he starts to play a song he and Ryan wrote when they were six. Key gets them at, while he is ready at first, he chickens out and heads for the bathroom.
After Ryan goes on stage alone, he finds Min in the bathroom who expresses his fears that even if they do become famous musicians, he afraid that being Asian will cause them problems down the line. After Ryan names a few Asian musicians, they start to compose a new song and are joined by Kez as their numbers go down to 172 and they unlock the exit.
"The Art Gallery Car"[]
After entering an Art Gallery Car, he and Ryan start chatting it up as if they were still in high school. However, the further into the car they go, the colder they get and they start to argue with each other, Min saying Ryan is screwing up his life while Ryan says Min doesn’t have to act like everything is alright all the time. They split up before a larger argument breaks out, only to be interrupted by Kez. After looking at a mobile from a certain angle, Ryan realizes it is the exit and he and Kez get out but Min-Gi doesn’t see them. As he realizes he is alone, a creature made of arms starts to lean over him. Min-Gi starts to panic but finds the exit and gets out. While Ryan is happy his friend is alright, Min-Gi starts to cry and accuses Ryan of abandoning him.
"The Mega Maze Car"[]
As Min-Gi berates Ryan for abandoning him, Ryan says he chose to stay but doesn’t elaborate. Kez announces that the next car is here home and they enter to find a castle surrounded by a maze. Kez guides them as they head to the castle. As they walk, he and Ryan talk about their lives. Min-Gi expresses his distain for the life in finances his parents want and his job as an assistant manager of a chain restaurant while complementing Ryan on his budding music career. Ryan expresses his jealousy over Min-Gi having loving parents and a position as a university student, something he believes he can never get into.
However, as they talk, Parka Denizens, Judge Morpho, Cow Creamer, the bouncer (named Nigel), and Pig Baby, aged into a toddler, enter the car with the intent to hunt them down. They evade their pursuers and make it into the castle. They watch as Kez is chased by Judge Morpho and urge her to come inside when the drawbridge starts to close. Kez makes it just in the thanks to Pig Baby eating the Judge. Once inside, she introduces Ryan and Min-Gi to her roommate Morgan, and the castle starts to talk.
"The Castle Car"[]
As Morgan starts yelling at Kez for bringing more passengers to her, she accuses Kez of trying to replace Jeremy Bradford, a passenger who took care of her. He and Ryan accuse Kez of lying to them as Morgan drags them to Jeremy's room and starts to pelt Min-Gi and Ryan with hats and mini quiches. As he and Ryan are constricted by clothes. Kez manages to get Morgan to calm down. As Kez apologizes for Morgan's behavior, Ryan berates her for not realizing when she makes mistakes and leaving without fixing them. Min-Gi confirms this by saying never apologizes and Ryan asks her to leave. They see their pursuers camping out outside the moat and Min-Gi reads Jeremy's journal.
After reading through it, they learn that Jeremy spent five years with Morgan and Kez before the entries stop. After learning from the last entry he was going to have breakfast with Kez, they sneak out to find her when Morgan is asleep. She tells them how the day Jeremy left, she and him were talking about the survivors guilt he had from the car crash that killed his mother and sister. She tried to help him and eventually succeeded when his number reached zero. She explains how she called for Morgan to come, but she arrived just as Jeremy went through the exit. Min-Gi says she helped him and Ryan reluctantly agrees. However soon the car starts to glitch again and a steward appears, telling the passengers the train is theirs and unlocking their boots before leaving. Their numbers start to move but stay at 202. Ryan starts to laugh hysterically before storming off, ignoring Min-Gi's please to help.
"The Train to Nowhere"[]
A few days later, Ryan has locked himself in a room while Min-Gi is bringing him food, which he has not touched along with previous meals. Ryan laments that they could be on the train for years while he says they will eventually get their exit. At that Ryan reveals he already got his while Min-Gi was trapped in the art gallery and considered taking it, calling himself a monster as Min-Gi and Kez leave. Later that night he practices his stylophone as Ryan finally leaves his room. Min-Gi reveals he has no ill will towards Ryan as he just had a bad thought. He angrily rejects the path others want him to take and agrees to tour with Ryan.
Soon after he gets his exit but Ryan's number still says 202. Morgan pressures Min-Gi to leave but he refused to go with out Ryan. In retaliation, Morgan let’s their pursuers in to try and force Min-Gi out. As the angry denizens race to them, Ryan and Min-Gi tell Kez to apologize for her actions, which she does and they start to forgive her and apologize, except for Judge Morpho, who bursts out of Pig Baby's mouth to attack them only to be swatted away by Morgan. As they use the Parka Denezin's device to repair the damage, Ryan realizes he was forced both him and Min-Gi into this life and he gets a second exit. They say their goodbyes to Kez before leaving the train.
After an unknown amount of time, he and Ryan are performing a song they wrote, “Train to Nowhere” at a club in Utica, New York. They receive a mostly positive reaction from the crowd. A woman in the audience asked for a cassette tape and they tell her they’re working on it.
Trivia[]
- Min-Gi’s full first name is a hanja combination. Mín (民) means "people, citizens", and Gi (起) means "rise, stand up, begin". His last name, Park, comes from the Sino-Korean work 樸 or 朴 (bak) which means "plain, unadorned, simple". It is the third most common surname in South Korea behind Lee and Kim. The first part of his first name is also a pun of his mini-synthesizer.
- Him and Ryan are the first known case of two people boarding the train at the same time in the same place. Sharing the same number (202)
- Min-Gi and Ryan were accidentally revealed on an Instagram post about the Infinity Train yearbook the crew received.[1]
- Min-Gi's Canadian origin is inspired by Ryan Pequin. Pequin is from Powell River, BC.
- When asked about Ryan and Min's birthdays, Owen Dennis responded with "I'll just say 1966" on his Reddit. AMA[2]
- Min-Gi can play the stylophone, keyboard, and viola.
- Coincidentally, in a YouTube video titled "12 Things You Need To Know about Infinity Train" posted by Cartoon Network about three years before Min-Gi debuted, Owen Dennis was seen playing stylophone.[5] Whether this was intentional foreshadowing or just something the crew decided to implement later is unknown.
- The Gallery Nucleus exclusive shirt, which features the Battle of the Bands poster, confirmed the Min-Gi was around age 18 to 19 when he graduated High School in the year 1985.[6]
Gallery[]
Click here to view this page's gallery.
References[]
- ↑ https://twitter.com/TrainVisuals/status/1359325506370482178
- ↑ 2021 Reddit AMA: Owen confirms Ryan and Min's birth year.
- ↑ 2022 Instagram AMA: Answer for birth date.
- ↑ Instagram AMA July 2022 clarifying the answer for characters birth date.
- ↑ Cartoon Network official trivia video
- ↑ https://www.gallerynucleus.com/detail/32166/#
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