During the Lunar New Year holiday, a South Korean comics exhibition on the theme of comfort women victims in the Japanese military was successfully held despite Japan's persistent interference.

On February 2, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced that they showed more than twenty comics and four videos describing the truth about the comfort women who suffered in the Japanese military at the 41st Angouleme International Comics Festival held in Angouleme, France from January 30 to February 2 (local time). The Angouleme International Comics Festival which first began in 1974 is the world's largest festival for published comics and this year in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, organizers exhibited a number of comics portraying war and sexual violence against women.

South Korea's exhibition under the title, The Flower That Doesn't Wilt was held on the first floor exhibition hall and lobby of the Angouleme Theater. The show was divided into three sections: past, present and future. The exhibition with the subtitle, "I'm the Evidence," included Oribal Nipponno (Japan Playing Innocent), by the chairman of the South Korean organizing committee Lee Hyun-se (cartoonist); The Song of a Butterfly, written and drawn by Kim Gwang-sung and Jeong Ki-young; Flower Ring by Tak Young-ho; and The Spring of a 14-year-old Girl by Oh Se-yeong. The artists Park Kun-woong, Keum-suk Gendry-Kim, and Shin Ji-su who are well known in Europe also displayed their respective works, Tattoo, Secret, and 83. On February 1 at the Angouleme Square Theater, the videos "A Girl's Tale," and "The Unfinished Story" by director Kim Jun-ki were also screened. Denis (55), a French visitor at the exhibition said, "I finally got to know about this tragedy. It is sad that someone holds these stories in her heart, and yet this is a courageous act." The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family conveyed that more than 17,000 people visited the South Korean exhibition during the four days.

"I finally got to know about this tragedy." On January 31, visitors at the South Korean exhibition in the Angouleme International Comics Festival at the Angouleme Theater in France appreciate the works depicting comfort women victims in the Japanese military. Yonhap News

However, the exhibition faced twists and turns even before it opened, as it came across interference from Japan and suffered a constant battle of nerves between South Korea and Japan.
Japan is known to have pressured the organizers of the Angouleme festival to cancel the exhibition. Frank Bondoux, the chairman of the organizing committee attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition on January 30 and said, "There was pressure from Japan to cancel this exhibition, but the organizing committee does not want a dispute between countries due to this issue." Japan prepared an exhibition, retaliatory in nature, to distort the truth about the comfort women victims, but had to tear down their exhibition booth due to opposition from the organizing committee. Nicolas Pinet, in charge of Asia at the organizing committee said, "It is not political to tell people an unknown fact; what is political is to tell people a distorted fact. The South Korean exhibition is art in nature for artists tell their memories and history, whereas the Japanese booth was extremely political in nature. So we had to tear it down."

However, there was an incident in which the Angouleme organizing committee blocked the South Korean government from promoting the exhibit. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family had planned to invite local reporters and figures from the cultural circle to the Korean Cultural Center in Paris on January 29, the day before the exhibit opened to the public, for a presentation ahead of the exhibit, but the festival organizing committee canceled the event claiming they would limit promotional activities to an official briefing by the festival organizers. In South Korea and France, this raised suspicions that perhaps Japan, which supports more than 30% of the operating costs for the festival interfered with the promotion plans.