Kakao Piccoma is Launching an "Anime" Tab

What could possibly go wrong? Everything, obviously.

For those who don’t know or live abroad, the Korean webtoon industry has been in the midst of a identity crisis since 2021. This isn’t up for debate, it’s a fact.

Pre-COVID, the goal for webtoons was to monetize internationally while looking for adaptations in the live action media space, specifically K-dramas. And when live action adaptations proved to be unreliable or untenable, the shift turned to anime and video games before eventually landing on the idea of short-form video content.

Lezhin is currently at the forefront of short-form adaptations of webtoons with Lezhin Snack currently available internationally on the iOS and Android markets (more on that here).

And, of course, Naver’s Cuts program has been in full swing for nearly a year. Kakao hasn’t launched it yet, but they’ve been promoting short ads built with their Helix AI system and RIDI has their short-form drama app, Kanta, which is currently active in Japan.

And now, the only webtoon conglomerate which hasn’t officially joined the short-form race has announced their own take on webtoon-adaptations for the mobile markets.

A New Wave of Anime (?)

Kakao Piccoma announced on May 9th that they’ll be launching an “Anime” category on their Japanese platform (Yonhap News). This tab will host short-form videos adapted from the webtoons and manga currently on available on Piccoma Japan.

It should be noted that the article specifically includes “Japanese manga and webtoon”. And while there have been plenty of manga and anime adapted by Hollywood for western audiences (Dragonball Evolution comes to mind… involuntarily, of course), the possibility of Kakao Piccoma using their established content translation pipeline to distribute a new wave of anime could change the game.

A Road to Riches (or Nowhere)

Of course, it could just be another pipedream.

The idea of animated webtoons mirrors Naver’s own push into this sub-genre with Cuts, the short-form animated content currently available on the WEBTOON app. While there aren’t any numbers on how animated short-form videos are performing on WEBTOON, it’s worth noting that the introduction of short-form content hasn’t prevently the quarterly decline in numbers.

And if that weren’t enough, there’s the AI of it all.

We’ve already seen what AI is capable of with Toptoon’s foray into adult webtoon AI animation (oof, that’s a mouthful… ew). While AI-powered animation may be a possibility in the future, recent endeavors have proven that it’s no replacement for actual animation.

But it remains to be seen whether Piccoma’s Anime tab is the stuff of dreams or just another death rattle as webtoon platforms attempt to stay relevant in a fast changing world.