Three Hit Korean Webtoons Set for Anime Adaptations
The Remarried Empress, The Boxer and Teenage Mercenary are moving toward anime adaptations through a partnership linking Webtoon Entertainment’s Japanese subsidiary, animation studio Hayate and Crunchyroll.
Three of South Korea’s most widely read webtoon properties are heading toward anime adaptations, underscoring the growing international reach of the country’s digital comics industry.
The projects involve The Remarried Empress, The Boxer and Teenage Mercenary. Line Digital Frontier, the Japanese subsidiary of Naver Webtoon parent Webtoon Entertainment, has partnered with Japanese animation studio Hayate and global anime streaming service Crunchyroll to develop and produce animated versions of webtoon titles.
Under the partnership, the three companies plan to work together from the early development stage on about 15 selected webtoons that could be adapted for animation. Hayate will take the lead on development and production, while Crunchyroll is set to receive exclusive streaming rights to some of the completed series in selected regions.
The companies presented The Remarried Empress and The Boxer as new anime projects during a showcase at New York Comic Con. They join Teenage Mercenary, whose animation project had already been announced. New footage and character images for all three titles were also shown at the event.
The adaptations bring together Korean-origin stories, Japanese animation production and a major international distribution platform. That structure could give the webtoons a broader route to overseas audiences while allowing the partners to coordinate creative development and distribution from an early stage. Details such as release dates, episode counts and specific streaming territories were not announced in the report.
Each title already has a substantial global readership. The Remarried Empress, a fantasy romance webtoon adapted from a web novel, has accumulated 3 billion views worldwide. The property is also being turned into a live-action drama starring Shin Min-a, Ju Ji-hoon and Lee Jong-suk, which is scheduled to premiere next month.
Teenage Mercenary, a school-action series, has recorded 2.84 billion global views. The Boxer, another action-oriented title, has reached 1.06 billion views worldwide. Their combined popularity offers the production partners established fan bases as they prepare the stories for another format.
The three announced projects also illustrate how Korean webtoon companies are extending intellectual property beyond mobile comics. Animation and live-action adaptations can introduce existing stories to viewers who may not use webtoon platforms, while international streaming distribution can expand their visibility across multiple markets. The planned slate of about 15 titles suggests the partnership is intended as a broader pipeline rather than a one-off collaboration.