Since emerging almost two decades ago in South Korea, the genre has grown rapidly thanks in part to technology companies such as Naver and Kakao, who created platforms for the format.
Despite strained relations between China and South Korea, stemming from the latter’s 2016 decision to deploy a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system, “there is no border when users are accessing content,” according to Kim Jung-hwan, an assistant professor of transdisciplinary studies on human ICT at Pukyong National University in Busan, in southern South Korea.
“I think Cho’s content had a point that appealed to the Chinese audience and led to them having a natural connection [with the movie],” Kim adds.
According to the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), a bureau charged with governing South Korea’s cultural content, successful adaptations of webtoons into dramas and films pushed total sales of the Korean web-based comic market to 1.6 trillion won (US$1.3 billion) in 2021, up almost 50 per cent from the previous year.
China is one of the major markets for South Korean webtoons, accounting for 23 per cent of overseas consumption of the format. Naver Webtoon has been providing services in traditional and simplified Chinese since 2014.
“There are more than 7 million [monthly active users] in Greater China: China, Taiwan and Hong Kong,” says a Naver Webtoon official.
“With the recent increase in interest in filming original webtoons in China, the collaboration between large Chinese video platforms and Naver Webtoon is steadily increasing.”
Taipei-based content director Hsu Yang-jen says she first came across webtoons after watching the Korean blockbuster Along with the Gods (2017).“I really liked the movie and noticed it had a webtoon version for free. So I read the whole story.”
The 28-year-old is now a regular webtoon consumer and visits mainly two platforms – Kakao Webtoon and Line Webtoon (the global version of Naver Webtoon) – for content. The platforms offer a wide range of genres including fantasy, drama, action, romance, historical stories and horror.
Hsu’s favourite titles include Omniscient Reader: “I just love the story’s background, and the tempo of the storytelling is really good as well.”
She adds that what she likes most about webtoons is their structure: “Unlike traditional manga – I love manga as well – a webtoon is designed to be read by scrolling. It makes it easy to read. So I can enjoy a webtoon almost at anytime.”Korean webtoons, reproduced in video format, have also been made available on Chinese platforms this year.
Bitten Contract was released as a short-form drama on Kuaishou, Gaus Electronics as a drama on iQiyi, and Oh! Holy and The Girl Downstairs as animations on Bilibili.“In terms of securing the diversity of works, we are striving to discover local creators in various regions,” says a Naver Webtoon official, “and we are concentrating our capabilities as the webtoon IP copyright business is growing, to expand into a secondary business as a whole, including the Greater China region.”
Han Chang-wan, a professor of comics and animation at Sejong University, in Seoul, says the growing popularity of South Korean webtoons in China has pushed competition to produce motion pictures based on webcomics, especially among China’s domestic platforms.
“I think there are higher chances of success for films based on webtoons, and there has been an increasing number of movies and series based on webtoons on platforms such as Netflix,” Han says.“Because China does not allow foreign streaming platforms but has its own, they are attempting to pull people into the subscription economy, demanding original scripts, especially from webtoons.”
China is just one of many countries to have become spellbound by webtoons. Naver reported it had 86 million monthly subscribers to its Webtoon platform globally, and 52 per cent of its sales now come from outside South Korea.
“South Korea first invented webtoons in the early 2000s and the format was introduced overseas, but it wasn’t popular because it was based on the computer, which had limited mobility compared to comic books,” Han says.
“But after smartphones were introduced in the 2010s, mobility got better … and since the 2020s, teens under lockdown at home because of Covid-19 just had their phones to look at, which gave them a chance to know what webtoons are.”Kim at Pukyong National University says webtoons’ increasing global popularity comes from their web-friendly environment and a diversity in content unprecedented outside South Korea.
“The reason webtoons are growing in popularity overseas is because the webtoon platforms have a variety of content portfolios,” Kim says.
“Although there were digitised offline manga before, web-friendly content like webtoons, which readers can read by scrolling, did not exist in other countries in the past.
“Naver entered the global market more than 10 years ago. Instead of saying that webtoons drew popularity in a short period of time, I think [it’s more accurate to say that] the platform is now seeing rewards after a long-term investment.”
Park Ki-soo, a professor of international culture at Hanyang University, echoes the view that webtoons’ popularity worldwide “did not happen all of a sudden”, but as the result of experimenting and analysing data pertaining to readers’ preferences since the beginning of the webtoon industry.
“Naver and Kakao have done various experiments and produced a lot of good work, which grew their value as an original supplier as webtoons came to be adapted for dramas and films,” Park says.
“Recently, it became common to collect big data using these experiences, and they got the know-how to produce the cartoons that can target the users’ preferences.”
Park adds that the animation industries in the United States and Japan remained “stagnant” in recent years but South Korea increased its competitiveness in the market by appealing to a new generation of consumers.
KOCCA runs a webtoon industry event called “K-Story & Comics” that was launched in 2021 to promote the export of Korean webtoons worldwide.
The first exhibition of this year was held in May in Japan, and hosted 10 South Korean webtoon and content companies. The event will also be held in the US, Europe and China in the second half of this year.
“The purpose of this event is to promote South Korean webtoons overseas through business consultation,” a KOCCA official says. “Ten companies will participate in the event in China.”
Kim says the webtoons industry’s “powerful” portfolio, and the fact that companies like Naver have been expanding to recruit overseas artists, will help the webtoons continue to grow in popularity.
“There are preferences for a certain genre or drawing style, so it has a potential to expand in the overseas market,” Kim says.
“There are also cases where authors outside Korea are contributing to these webtoon platforms. So outlining a platform that can benefit the creators will become a significant factor in the development of future webtoons.”
Park expects the value of original suppliers of drama and films to increase, and that South Korean webtoon companies will continue to use data about foreign users to expand their businesses worldwide.
“I think the prospect is very bright. When I went to Europe, the word ‘webtoon’ is now used daily,” Park says.
“South Korea’s major webtoon companies have enjoyed success in Japan, and they are now entering Europe and the US. Naver has moved its webtoon headquarters to the US, which is a statement of intent to take over the global market with webtoons and web novels.”
Additional reporting by Jiwon Park
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kuaqyxKyrsqSVZLKvwMSrq5qhnqKyr8COmqmtoZOhsnB%2FkWtsb3BkZLWww4ycn6KmkWKzprjLZqOorpViuLC%2BxJqlZq%2BVl8Gwu82sZJqmlGLEqcWMn6arpZGpwG6y1K2sq51dq7KzxYybqaKfmKl6s7HSrWSwp6KhsQ%3D%3D