Finally.
Over the weekend at New York Comic Con, we finally got the news we’ve all been waiting for. Webtoon Entertainment will be partnering up with Crunchyroll to produce 15 new animes based on WEBTOON properties (WEBTOON PR).
Considering the obvious cultural and potential for cross-pollination between audiences large groups of audiences, it’s a wonder we haven’t seen such a large deal until now.
I took a long hard look at the press release and walked away with three thoughts. And, surprisingly, they were worth sharing.
Something Old, Something Borrowed, and Teenage Mercenary
The choice of announcing The Boxer, The Remarried Empress, and Teenage Mercenary feels prepared. It’s doubtful that there are 12 empty slots that Crunchyroll and Naver are still talking about, but announcing these three titles covers all manner of audiences.
The Boxer, for one, is an incredibly old webtoon in Korea that was launched during the heart of COVID back in 2020 for international audiences. In addition to being massively popular on pirate sites, it was massively popular on WEBTOON.
The Remarried Empress is similar case having launched in English in late 2020, but it’s a massive IP with a live action K-drama set to premiere any day now. With The Boxer and The Remarried Empress, you have romance and action all in two titles.
And while they’re obviously old and past active publication, they launched during an era when the popularity of webtoons was on the rise but the content publishing capacity hadn’t peaked. In short, webtoons were popular and there weren’t as many of them.
Teenage Mercenary, on the other hand, launched in Korea back in 2021. It might’ve been late to the party, but it has one factor that The Boxer and the Remarried Empress don’t have. It’s still actively publishing.
Unlike The Boxer and The Remarried Empress, Teenage Mercenary will give Naver the opportunity to see what effect an active anime adaptation has on digital publishing while the title is still ongoing.
My guess? Sales go through the roof.
All Roads Lead to Japan
One of the biggest details in the deal is who is involved.
