What is this?

<Byung-mo Koo's debut novel won the 2nd Changbi Youth Literature Award for Wizard Bakery. Koo Byung-mo's first novel without the label of 'juvenile fiction,' Ami is the story of Gon, a man who gained the gills of a fish as a result of his struggle for life in the face of death, and the secret and heartbreaking fate of the characters surrounding him.

A man is pushed to a dead end by a series of misfortunes, including a crisis in his livelihood and his wife's desertion. In irreversible despair, he jumps into a lake with his son in his arms. The man ultimately drowns, but the child survives. The child's instinctive will to breathe in the scarce oxygen gives birth to gills on its neck. The child is taken in by an old man and his grandson, Kang-Ha, who live near the lake, and named Gon.

Gon breathes through his gills, the scales on his back shine, and he swims through the quiet, deep waters of the lake. He can't reveal his human and fish selves anywhere, so the old man, Kang-ha, and the lake are the only worlds he experiences. But it's enough for him to feel a boundless serenity and freedom in the water. Given gills at the threshold of death by a terrible reality, Gon lives his life, cut off from the world.

Those who know Gon's identity. Kang-ha's grandfather, Kang-ha, Kang-ha's mother, In-yeong, and Hae-ryu, a woman who accidentally fell into the water and was saved by Gon. <Through the secret and heartbreaking fate of Gon and the three people surrounding him, Ami is a novel that tells the story of how we lost the world that Gon symbolizes, and why we can't help but miss, love, and fear it.

"Gills" is a feature-length animation adapted from the novel of the same name by author Koo Byung-mo. A producer introduced the work as a story about a boy who suddenly develops gills at the end of his life and people who live with their own scars.

Director Ahn said, "I thought that the scars and wounds we incur on our bodies and minds as we live might eventually become the gills of life," and added, "I hope this film will make viewers living in this day and age think about their own gills."