Autoria por: Alexandre César Cunha Leite, coautor convidado, Professor no PPGRI/UEPB; PGPCI/UFPB e PPGRI/PUC-MG. 

  Giovanna Nóbrega, analista de redação da ANAPRI.

Revisado por: Elaine S. da Luz, coordenadora de comunicação e redação da ANAPRI.

The recent adaptations of Korean series from Korean webcomics, such as “All of us are dead”, “Hellbound”, “Business Proposal” and “The Uncanny Counter”, have got the international audience’s attention to a different style of comic books: Webtoons (“How Webtoons Became Go-to Source Material for Screen Adaptations in Korea,” 2022). Additionally, access to online platforms proposes an easy way to consume and promote these products, especially to international audiences. Therefore, understanding how this market was designed can better contribute to understanding where it’s going next. 

Image 1

Posters of korean dramas adapted from webtoons

Source: (Kim, 2022).

In Korea, we use the noun Manhwa to describe all kinds of comics, printed and digital. These comics recently gained much attention in the comic market usually dominated by American and Japanese manga comics (Chie, 2014). Regarding the comparison between manga, the most similar style to Korean comics, and manhwa, academics usually reinforce differences like the narrative, character building, genres, level of violence, and ways of reading (Fernández, 2018). Also, Korean comics are read from left to right, meanwhile, Japanese comics are read from right to left (Fernández, 2018). 

Concerning Manhwa’s production, as a way to establish their anti-colonial sentiment since the Japanese colonization, it was first produced as an adaptation of Japanese comics exported to Korea in the colonial period. Since then, the manga has been associated with violent and sexual contexts, also reinforcing the existing memory of the colonial period.  In 1965, with the restoration of diplomatic relations, all Korean imports from Japan were prohibited, which led to establishing a bad image for the Manhwas for its relation with manga (Chie, 2014). Even though it was very restricted to adaptations from Japanese manga, distribution of pirated books teaching to draw in manga style, and Korean artists who use manga style in their comics, its production reached its peak in the 1970s to 1980s (Chie, 2014).

  Before the 1990s decade, the consumption of comics in Korea was mainly focused on renting from libraries or borrowing a specific narrative. After Korea’s democratization, the number of publishing houses increased, which expanded the number of foreign comics in the domestic market, and also contributed to the increase of pirated editions of Japanese comics in the market (Chie, 2014). Consequently, this didn’t show a positive response according to the domestic market because of the bad image related to manhwa, as mentioned previously, and the anti-Japanese sentiment (Chie, 2014).

In the 2000s, Korea was still recovering from the 1997 financial crisis so it adopted several neoliberalist measures that caused the market to be extremely competitive (Chie, 2014).  Also, in that same period, political measures were taken to promote culture as a Korean national power by promoting popular cultural industries and developing technology as expected in their Five-Year plans (Chie, 2014). Although it wasn’t the most profitable product of the Korean Wave,  Korean comics benefited a lot from Korea’s technological development and being subjected to the measures taken by the government (Chie, 2014). This process of using popular culture as a resource for expanding the country’s influence, as presented by Joseph Nye, can be defined as soft power, meaning the ability of countries to cooperate with the interests of other actors as a way of establishing a favorable relationship. Also, this ability can be improved tremendously by the use of the Internet since it decreases the cost and increases the speed of information (Nye, 2019). 

 According to Thomas Maresca, an Asian correspondent for Arirang News, the digital version of manhwas, also known as Webtoons (Jang & Song, 2017), was first introduced in Korea by an old internet-provided named Chollian (Kim, 2022), followed by large Korean Web portals, such as Naver and Daum, at the beginning of the 2000s (Arirang News, 2022). As mentioned by the chairman of the Korean Webtoon Industry Association Seo Bum Gang, the term webtoon was created from the words “web” and “cartoon” and these contents are optimized by digital environments and their vertical scrolling format so they became more popular with the introduction of the mobile phone (Arirang Issue, 2022).

Table 1

Scale of the Global Comics Industry (print/digital) from 2010 to 2019

Source: (Jeong, 2020).

Webtoons became primarily known as a digital format of Manhwa and grew tremendously due to Korea’s infrastructure and technological development: firstly the high broadband diffusion rate made it possible for this content to be viewed anywhere, and then fast speed allowed downloads of webtoons with lots of details and effects and the diffusion of the smartphone supported the format which they were made and contributed to the increase of viewers (Jeong, 2020; Lynn, 2016). 

Nowadays, the Korean webtoon market reached almost US$3.745,40 million in 2021 and US$4.569,40 million in 2022 (Research Dive, n.d.), operating as a multi-sided market with sales of US$843 million in 2020 and huge potential to grow even more in the following years (Global K-webtoon Market Popularity: Endless Growth Potential, 2022). Currently, Webtoon (Naver’s Webtoon in Korea) is the largest with 89 million active users worldwide which stimulates the growth of the number of users not only for the comfortable format but also to the variety of genres and narratives that relate to consumers on a personal level (Kim, 2022).

Image 2

Homepage of Webtoon’s Naver 

Source: (Webtoons, n.d.)

From 2010 until 2016, the annual production of Korean webtoons increased from 163 to 1.817, with the market range estimated at US$130 million (Jeong, 2020). In 2018, the monthly user visits to websites to read those comics reached 203.4 million (Jeong, 2020). In the next year, the leading two publishers’ companies Naver and Kakao made their content available on the platforms Naver Webtoon and Kakao Page (previously Daum), which contributed 93.4 billion won and 52.2 billion won respectively (Richards, 2022; Park & Lee, 2019). Among these companies, 40% have an overseas unit to increase their market which must be an important aspect to other countries, for example, the United States and Japan (Park & Lee, 2019). 

Graphic 1

The values of the ten major comic publishers in 2020

Source: (Euc, 2022).

Korean webtoon revenue in the United States increased by almost US$300 million from 2019 to 2020 (Richards, 2022). As pointed out by Rob Salkowitz, senior contributor to Forbes, although it is a popular and very new product, webtoons are not very well established in the mainstream comics industry. They have some issues with payment to their creators and they aren’t portrayed as a huge threat to the well-established Japanese and American productions so they have problems dealing with the very competitive market (Arirang News, 2022).

Graphic 1

Global Webtoons Market Size & Forecast, by Region, 2021-2030 (USD Million)

Source: (Research Dive, n.d.).

Concerning the Japanese market, Korean webtoons correspond to 70% of the Japanese digital comics market share, upstaging even the traditional Japanese comic production companies (Koo, 2020). According to The Korean Economic Daily, even with these unique trades that got consumers’ attention, the lack of clear strategies limited the Korean webtoon’s outcome in the country. This led Kakao’s Japanese division to collect data about consumer patterns and cultural habits and generated a special selection of webtoons according to this strategy, and Naver’s American division created a space for amateur work, called Canvas Platform, which increased the views to over 250 million, showing that both strategies are a huge success (Koo, 2020).

In respect of the adaptations of Webtoons to K-dramas, the investment of OTT companies, such as Disney +, Netflix, and Apple TV+,  made these dramas not be limited to domestic television schedules (“How Webtoons Became Go-to Source Material for Screen Adaptations in Korea,” 2022). This means that since the consumers of korean dramas are no longer restricted to korean audiences, therefore it allows more projects to be produced and demands a lot of new content for writers and directors (Kim, 2022; “How Webtoons Became Go-to Source Material for Screen Adaptations in Korea,” 2022). Being an adaption from a webtoon doesn’t assure the complete success of a Korean drama, still the presence of many titles in the Top 10 list of some OTT platforms shows that they were well received by its users (Kim, 2022). For example, “True Beauty”, “What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim”, and “So I Married an Anti-fan” are some of the titles selected in the global top 10 list of the Viki platform (Kim, 2022).

Korean webtoons are considered the new product of the “Korean wave 3.0” because of the possibility of creating new jobs, market value, and added value for other industries. This importance was possible because of their availability on platforms, which increased the market value, public interest, and recognition tremendously, inducing an increase in the number of users (Kim & Yu, 2019). Therefore, even though it is a relatively small industry, it has a huge potential to become a really important actor in this market. 

References

Arirang Issue. (2022, July 20). [What is] What is Fueling the Rise of Korean Webtoons? [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwfKw1xkSYU+&feature=youtu.be

Arirang News. (2022, August 16). KOREA’S WEBTOON INDUSTRY TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h786S4mPvk&feature=youtu.be

Chie, Y. (2014). Manhwa in Korea:(Re-) Nationalizing Comics Culture. In Manga’s Cultural Crossroads (pp. 85-99). Routledge.

Euc, I. (2022, July 20). Are Korean Webtoons the Next Big Thing in Comics? ~ Europe Comics. Europe Comics. https://www.europecomics.com/are-korean-webtoons-the-next-big-thing-in-comics/

Fernández, P. A. (2018). Del manhwa al webtoon: reflexiones en torno al desarrollo de la industria de los cómics en Corea del Sur. Narrativas Visuales, 173.

Global K-webtoon Market Popularity: Endless Growth Potential. (2022, August 10). CCC International. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://ccci.am/global-k-webtoon-market-popularity-endless-growth-potential/

How webtoons became go-to source material for screen adaptations in Korea. (2022, October 9). Korea Times. Retrieved May 6, 2023, from https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2023/05/398_337444.html

Jang, W., & Song, J. E. (2017). WEBTOON AS A NEW KOREAN WAVE IN THE PROCESS OF GLOCALIZATION. Kritika Kultura, (29).

Jeong, J. (2020). Webtoons Go Viral? The Globalization Processes of Korean Digital Comics. Korea Journal, 60(1), 71-99.

Kim, J. H., & Yu, J. (2019). Platformizing webtoons: The impact on creative and digital labor in South Korea. Social Media+ Society, 5(4), 2056305119880174.

Kim, R. (2022, December 29). Why So Many Of Your Favorite K-Dramas Are Based on Webtoons. Time. https://time.com/6243447/rise-of-webtoons-k-dramas/

Koo, M. (2020, October 19). How Korean platform giants disrupted the digital comics market with webtoons. KED Global. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.kedglobal.com/k-webtoon/newsView/ked202008200004

Lynn, H. G. (2016). Korean webtoons: Explaining growth. Research Center for Korean Studies Annual, Kyushu University, 16, 1-13. 

Nye, J. S. (2019). Soft power and public diplomacy revisited. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 14(1–2), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191X-14101013

Park, E. M., & Lee, H. Y. (2019, October 28). Webcomics pose as new power behind K-wave with revenue to near $1 bn next year. Pulse. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2019&no=880894

Research Dive. (n.d.). Webtoons Market Size, Market shares, Growth, and Future Forecasts from 2021 to 2030. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.researchdive.com/8584/webtoons-market

Richards, J (Translator). ARE KOREAN WEBTOONS THE NEXT BIG THING IN COMICS? (2022, July 6). Europe Comics. Retrieved September 28, 2022, from https://www.europecomics.com/are-korean-webtoons-the-next-big-thing-in-comics/ 

Webtoons. (n.d.). Homepage. Webtoons. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.webtoons.com/en/

Sobre o co-autor convidado Alexandre César Cunha Leite: Graduado em Ciências Econômicas e mestre em Economia Política pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUCSP). Possui especialização (pós graduação) em Relações Internacionais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUCMINAS), doutorado em Ciências Sociais/Relações Internacionais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo e pós-doutorado em Ciências Sociais/Relações Internacionais (PPGCP/UFPE) e em Relações Internacionais (PPGRI/PUCMINAS).

Sobre a autora Giovanna Nóbrega: Graduada em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (UEPB) concluído em 2022. Membra do Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Ásia Pacífico (GEPAP). Foi Bolsista de Iniciação Científica do CNPq/UEPB/GEPAP no projeto “A construção da indústria audiovisual: os filmes como instrumento do Soft Power Sul-coreano” no período de setembro de 2021 a agosto de 2022 e Bolsista de Iniciação Científica do CNPq/UEPB no projeto “Cidadania entre muros: Um olhar contemporâneo” no período de agosto de 2019 a agosto de 2020.‌ Atualmente, atuante como analista de redação da ANAPRI.