This paper examines the question of whether liberation from colonial rule entails liberation from colonial sovereignty. This paper argues that the political-theological logic of colonial sovereignty persisted in post-liberation Korean society as an internalized structure of admiration, discipline, and competition, while Korea achieved independence from Japanese imperial rule in 1945. Using Carl Schmitt's concept of sovereignty and theory of political theology, this paper analyzes Japanese imperial rule as a sacralized form of sovereignty centered on the emperor, articulated through constitutional and legal frameworks. Colonial sovereignty functioned not only through force but also through the production of trained subjects oriented toward imperial order. To explain why this logic persists beyond the end of colonial rule, this paper turns to Giorgio Agamben's concept of the state of exception. It argues that colonial sovereignty did not disappear after liberation but became normalized and internalized, shifting from juridical authority into everyday life, labor, and forms of subjectivity. The admiration for imperial modernity was internalized, producing subjects who voluntarily participate in systems of constant effort and achievement. By reframing colonialism as a problem of sovereignty rather than occupation alone, this paper shows how colonial power can endure long after independence in Korea.