WEBTOON Entertainment is running a wider slate of adaptations while absorbing a larger Marvel digital library and reorganizing its Korean leadership. Its Q2 2026 operating loss widened to US$15.6 million, a quarter it attributed to currency effects.
WEBTOON Entertainment's year has been about building distribution and production capacity while its finances stayed uneven. In October 2026 Crunchyroll, HAYATE Inc. and LINE Digital Frontier agreed to co-produce around 15 webtoon anime starting at the development stage, with Crunchyroll streaming in select territories. The same Crunchyroll slate carried adaptations of The Remarried Empress and The Boxer. On the games side, WEBTOON took a 60% stake in RI Games Holdings and planned multiple games from webtoon IPs over four years, starting with an Overgeared action MMORPG from GrayGames and Nexon.
The company also expanded into original comics outside anime. Marvel announced three vertical-scroll series at San Diego Comic-Con, and a separate deal moved Marvel Unlimited's library to a WEBTOON-run Marvel Comics app after the old subscription ends in December 2026. Paramount's two original Star Trek series, Stargazers and Recollection, put Webtoon's vertical format on a major licensed property. Webtoon Productions paired with French studio OuiDo! Productions on an animated series based on Emma Krogell's Lumine, with Bryan Q. Miller as showrunner.
Corporate structure changed too. Naver Webtoon appointed Yongsoo Kim and Gyu-nam Kim as co-CEOs on October 1, while founder Junkoo Kim moved to chairman and CEO roles at WEBTOON Entertainment. The second quarter, covering 2026, showed an operating loss of US$15.6 million against US$8.8 million a year earlier, with revenue down 2.8% to US$338.5 million; currency-adjusted revenue grew 5.2%, Korea rose 16% and Japan fell 15.6%.
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LINE Digital Frontier will invest roughly 10 billion yen over three years in original content originating in Japan, president Kei Mori said at a Tokyo presentation on October 22, 2026. The plan covers in-house production, co-production with studios and publishers, and support for individual creators. Global expansion includes the Global Drop simultaneous distribution project and a 2027 launch for WEBTOON CANVAS in Japan.
Crunchyroll's New York Comic Con showcase included a development deal with Hayate and Line Digital Frontier for around 15 webcomic adaptations, plus adaptations of The Remarried Empress and The Boxer. Sekiro: No Defeat will debut in January 2027 as an eight-episode series, and Ghost of Tsushima Legends targets a 2028 release.
Crunchyroll, HAYATE Inc., and WEBTOON Entertainment subsidiary LINE Digital Frontier have partnered on co-productions of anime adaptations for around 15 select webtoon titles, starting from the development stage. All the titles are available through LINE Digital Frontier's app, including the already announced The Boxer, The Remarried Empress, and Teenage Mercenary. Crunchyroll will stream the resulting anime in select territories.
Marvel Unlimited will end service on December 7, 2026, about 19 years after the subscription app launched in 2007. A new app called Marvel Comics, run by WEBTOON, launches on November 16 with roughly the same subscription price and more than 35,000 comics at launch. Purchased comics transfer through individual redemption codes, and libraries can be viewed until December 21 before the app is removed on December 28.
WEBTOON Entertainment's Korean subsidiary Naver Webtoon appointed President Yongsoo Kim and Chief Administrative Officer Gyu-nam Kim as co-CEOs on October 1. Yongsoo Kim keeps the WEBTOON Entertainment presidency while overseeing Naver Webtoon operations; Gyu-nam Kim holds both the CAO post and the co-CEO role. Founder Junkoo Kim steps down as Naver Webtoon CEO to focus on his chairman and CEO roles at WEBTOON Entertainment.
Kakao Entertainment will close its North American webtoon and webnovel platform Tapas and merge its two South Korean platforms, Kakao Page and Kakao Webtoon, into a single service centered on Kakao Page by the end of 2026. The company plans to notify publishers and rights holders about the Tapas shutdown on Tuesday, covering the service end date, content management and settlements, with no details yet on user refunds or how content and user data will be handled. In South Korea, the consolidation will gather content, user data and about 16,000 original IPs onto Kakao Page. Kakao Entertainment is expected to announce a detailed transition schedule for users of both services on September 29. Most Kakao Webtoon reading histories, remaining cash balances and unused paid reading passes are expected to transfer to Kakao Page, with separate guidance promised on which assets qualify and how the transfers work.
Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency announced 20 finalists for the 2026 World Webtoon Awards. Readers worldwide can vote from September 17 to October 19, with judges' scores and reader votes each counting for 50 percent. The awards received 7,318 nominations from 4,038 fans, covering 941 submitted works. The ceremony is December 3 at Starfield Library in COEX Mall, Seoul.
WEBTOON Entertainment reported an operating loss of US$15.6 million for the second quarter of 2026, widening from US$8.8 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 2.8% to US$338.5 million, a decline the company blamed on the weak Korean won and Japanese yen. Currency-adjusted revenue would have grown 5.2%, with Korea up 16% and Japan down 15.6%.
WEBTOON Entertainment announced a definitive agreement to invest in RI Games Holdings, gaining a 60% stake at closing. The company plans to develop multiple games based on webtoon IPs over four years. The first title is an action MMORPG based on Overgeared, developed by GrayGames and published by Nexon, launching this year alongside the anime.
Marvel Comics and WEBTOON announced three original webcomic series created exclusively for the WEBTOON platform during Marvel's Next Big Thing panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. The slate includes Tony's Girl, That Time Deadpool Fell Into WEBTOON...and Found The Longest Title of All Time!!!, and X-Men Korea, all designed for vertical-scroll reading.
Naver WEBTOON launched byUs, an AI-powered story chat service that lets users create stories by interacting with characters from creator-approved webtoon IPs. The service offers Original Stories and Fan Stories, with features like AI-suggested replies and contextual images. It launched with the webtoon Ctrl+Alt+Resign and is currently available only in Korea. The service follows the earlier Character Chat chatbot, which exceeded 100 million messages by June 2025.
Webtoon Entertainment's Webtoon Productions has partnered with French studio OuiDo! Productions to develop an animated series based on Emma Krogell's fantasy webtoon Lumine. The project will be introduced at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival's Mifa market. Bryan Q. Miller will serve as showrunner and co-writer.
Naver Webtoon has launched Cuts Make, a new app that lets users create short-form animated videos using officially licensed webtoon IP. The app features Character Meme and Webtoon MV tools, with nine titles available at launch including Romance 101 and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. It is available on Google Play in Korea with an iOS release pending.
The 2026 World Webtoon Awards, organized by Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOCCA, opened reader nominations from June 15 to July 24. The awards shift to a nomination-only system, introduce cash prizes for the first time, and add a category for international works. The ceremony is set for December 2 in Seoul.
WEBTOON and Paramount have released the first of two original Star Trek webcomic series, Stargazers and Recollection, as part of a partnership announced last September. Stargazers debuted on Sunday, while Recollection is set for later this summer. Both series feature new characters and stories within established Star Trek canon.