S.Korean webcomics inspire foreign screen adaptations

South Korea’s digital comics are reaching beyond borders with a boom of their adaptations into foreign movies and TV series thanks to global over-the-top (OTT) media like Netflix Inc., which actively introduce global audiences to popular Korean TV series based on web cartoons.

Kakao Entertainment Corp., the entertainment subsidiary of Kakao Corp., announced on Monday that its webtoon “Nth Romance” will be adapted into a TV series in Taiwan by local production company IndieZ Entertainment. 

Webtoons are digitalized comic series for mobile devices that are read vertically by scrolling through short and full-color episodes. 

“Nth Romance” is a Korean romance webcomic published on Kakao’s webtoon platform called Kakao Webtoon from 2018 to 2019, recording cumulative views of 130 million. 

It landed in Taiwan in June 2021, and its TV series remake will air at the end of 2025, according to the Korean company. 

But this is not the only Korean webcomic turned into a movie or TV series in another countries, and global streaming platforms are behind the drive of Korean webtoons’ page-to-screen adaptations, industry experts said. 

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“Itaewon Class,” a 2020 webtoon-based Korean TV series, will also be remade in Taiwan with a star  local cast.

Production of the Taiwanese remake, “Fired Up,” will begin next month, its local production companies announced last week. 

The story was originally told on one of the major Korean webtoon platforms as a vertical cartoon, and its screen adaptation became a big hit at home and later in other parts of the world thanks to its release on Netflix. 

It was already remade in Japan as “Roppongi Class,” which aired on TV Asahi last year with a Japanese cast and local twists in its scenes and storylines to cater to Japanese audiences.

The local language spins on popular Korean webtoon-based TV series or movies, which were already big hits on global OTTs, are expected to guarantee their success on their home turf, given that they are well-known stories.

While the core concept remains the same, foreign-language remakes also can add more local feel to the originals with a local cast and changes in social, family and relationship dynamics that are different from culture to culture.

Such localization is expected to make foreign adaptations different from their Korean originals, and more screen adaptations of Korean original vertical comics and web novels are readying to sweep the globe. 

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Chinese OTT iQIYI on Oct. 26 started streaming the TV adaptation of Kakao's original web novel “The Ideal Relationship” in Thailand with a new title “My Dear Gangster Oppa.”  

Another popular web novel “A Business Proposal,” the TV spin of which was already a big hit in Korea, will be available in a new, localized TV series in Hong Kong via ViuTV on Nov. 27.

Naver Webtoon’s Korean original intellectual property “My ID is Gangnam Beauty!” is set to hit the Thai TV market next year. It was already remade into a TV series in Korea. 

Its Thai original webtoon is also due to make its TV debut next year in the Southeast Asian country. 

Korean webcomic IPs are actively sought after as screen adaptations, especially in Southeast Asia, Kakao Entertainment official said. 

Webtoon is a webcomic platform launched by Naver Corp., and has a bank of its original webcomics and web novels in various languages across the world.  

Kakao Entertainment also operates webtoon and web novel platforms, including Kakao Webtoon and Kakao Page, to offer both Korean and foreign originals in multiple languages. 


Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.