Summary

• Highly acclaimed K-dramas like "Nevertheless" and "Itaewon Class" started as popular webtoons, reaching acclaim with a diverse audience.
• "Business Proposal" successfully adapted a webtoon into a slapstick rom-com, winning multiple awards and gaining high viewership.
• "Memorist" stands out with its thrilling crime/mystery storyline, showcasing the power of adapting webtoons into binge-worthy K-dramas.

Comics and webtoons have always been a source of inspiration, and the best K-dramas based on webtoons are no different. In South Korea, WEBTOONS is a publishing portal launched by the popular search engine, Naver. Webtoons, as a medium, come up on many platforms. As webtoons gained popularity in South Korea, it sparked the idea to adapt some for the small screen. There are many highly talked about K-dramas on streaming platforms that were first a webtoon — many of which reached acclaim with those who have no knowledge or interest in K-dramas as a genre.

Some of the best K-dramas based on webtoons stick closely to their source material. However, this isn't always the case, as sometimes deviations are necessary for narrative reasons. Some long-running K-dramas also outlast the storyline of their webtoon predecessors. K-dramas have taken over streaming platforms like Netflix due to their binge-worthy storylines of drama, comedy, romance, action, and even a dash of horror for good measure — and some of the best K-dramas going started life as webtoons.

23 Nevertheless (2021)

Two Art Students Take Very Different Approaches To Relationships

Nevertheless sees two art students who work with very different sculpture mediums and who have had very different pasts with love enter into a tenuous relationship after they cross paths one night. They share friends in common but don’t know one another well. She has been hurt and no longer believes in love, or so she thinks, and he doesn’t want anything serious. There’s an undeniable chemistry between them that they can’t ignore though.

While the series isn’t award-winning, and it doesn’t feature an unusual concept, the love story itself and the performances in the series are heartfelt and genuine. The show stars K-drama darlings Han So-hee (The World of the Married) and Song Kang (Sweet Home) as the main couple, and an intriguing theme of butterflies throughout their relationship makes the story even more interesting.

Fans of the original webtoon do need to be warned though: the series doesn't feature the same ending.

22 Dinner Mate (2020)

Two Strangers Become Dining Partners

It took nearly a decade before the webtoon Would You Like To Have Dinner Together was adapted into the K-drama Dinner Mate. The story sees two people whose paths cross accidentally end up having dinner together. The strangers, who regularly dine alone, decide to become dinner partners so they don’t have to try out new restaurants on their own, meeting up regularly for meals at new places.

The nature of the meet-cute will make it clear to even unseasoned K-drama fans that Dinner Mate is actually a romance rather than a slice-of-life tale of restaurant hopping. It’s a sweet story that allows two people to bond over their common interest as they slowly get to know one another. Though the series was nominated for a slew of MBC Drama Awards, unfortunately, it didn’t bring home any wins for the cast and crew.

21 Pyramid Game (2024)

A Bullied Student Leads A Rebellion

Inspired by the Naver webtoon of the same name, Pyramid Game takes viewers back to school. In this series, a young woman finds herself at the bottom of the social pyramid in a competitive school and relentlessly bullied by her peers. To put a stop to the bullying, she decides to climb the social pyramid herself and lead a revolution among the students. The show has got some elements of Mean Girls and Pretty Little Liars, but it is very much a dark look at the nature of social standing in high school.

Jang Dah-ah was nominated for Best New Actress for the Blue Dragon Series Awards for her role in the show. The series itself has been named among Britain’s NME list of the Best K-dramas of 2024 even before the year is over.

20 Business Proposal (2022)

A Blind Date And Case of Mistaken Identity Make For A Hilarious Rom-Com

Business Proposal is a great example of how to adapt a webtoon into a drama. The rom-com took the tropes used in the original story and turned them on their heads, making the show more slapstick than most South Korean romances are, and it really worked in the show’s favor.

The series follows a woman who agrees to go on a blind date in place of her friend, only to discover that her blind date is with her boss, who now thinks she’s someone else. When she hides her employment status from him, he decides they should get married to avoid his family continuing to pressure him to date, leading to an entire comedy of errors.

Business Proposal was so successful during its initial airing in South Korea, that most of the episodes actually had higher ratings as the show continued, which is the exact opposite of what typically happens as shows go on. The most-watched episode of the series was episode ten with the finale only falling .2% below it. The series won five of the seven SBS Drama Awards it was nominated for, and it also won for Best Original Soundtrack at the MAMA Awards.

19 Vigilante (2023)

A Police Academy Student Dishes Out Vigilante Justice

Originally intended to be adapted as a film, Vigilante went into development from its webtoon of the same name in 2019. By 2022, however, it had become a series instead.

TV audiences who like shows like Arrow or Gotham in which someone decides to punish the criminals of the city when the police can’t get to them will enjoy Vigilante. The series isn’t as much like a superhero show as some might think though as it follows a police academy student who begins to enact his own brand of vigilante justice on the criminals of the city. Of course, the actual police begin to investigate his activities and a reporter is hot on his trail as well.

The series takes a more down-to-Earth approach than most of the vigilante superhero shows would, and that’s what makes it so good to watch. Vigilante has been nominated for Outstanding Korean Drama at the Seoul International Drama Awards. A second season of the series has already been ordered.

18 My Roommate Is A Gumiho (2021)

A 999-Year-Old Gumiho Falls In Love With A Human

The 2021 K-drama My Roommate is a Gumiho is a fantasy series following a 999-year-old Gumiho who takes the form of Shin Woo-yeo (Jang Ki-Yong). Initially a nine-tailed fox, Shin's dream is to become human one day and live a regular life with someone he loves. In most of the myths, it is a beautiful woman who is the Gumiho and her goal is usually to seduce a man and then eat their heart or liver. This takes an entirely different approach as this Gumiho is a man who wants to fall in love.

The live-action series that ran for 16 episodes started life as an original webtoon. While the series had only 16 episodes, the webtoon for My Roommate is a Gumiho ran for more than 150 episodes. The stories are the same, with a 24-year-old woman named Dam Lee moving in with the 900-year-old Gumiho after she accidentally swallows one of his beads, which means she has one year to get it out of her body, or she will die, and he will never become human.

17 Aftermath (2014)

A Man Can Foresee When Someone Will Die

Aftermath is a South Korean supernatural web series that follows Ahn Dae Young (Kim Dong Jun), a quiet high school student involved in a car accident. He then develops the ability to predict who is a killer and who is about to die based on the changing color of their eyes. If a person's eyes turn red -- from Dae Young's perception -- he knows they will die. What's more, he realizes he can intervene to prevent it.

The plot of Aftermath then unfolds almost like a comic-book story. Ahn Dae Young decides to become a hero and save people's lives using his newfound powers and he has a nemesis with the same power set, but this person is obsessed with murder. Aftermath is a streaming series with short episodes of around 10 minutes each, and it ran for two seasons in 2014, with 11 total episodes. The series is based on a webtoon by Kim Sun-kwon.

16 Itaewon Class (2020)

A Man Seeks Revenge Against The People Responsible For His Dad's Death

The 2020 South Korean series is based on the webtoon of the same name. The 16-episode series is a revenge story where a man named Park Sae-ro-yi (Park Seo-joon) tries to murder Geun-won (Ahn Bo-hyun) after his father is killed in an accident. Park's girlfriend, Oh Soo-ah (Kwon Na-ra), ends up getting her university tuition paid for by Geun-won, followed by a job with his company, the Jangga Group. However, when Park gets out of prison, he tries to start anew but still wants revenge for his dad's death.

Park then teams up with some new friends as they try to find success once and for all. The Itaewon Class webtoon the K-Drama is based on ran for 81 episodes, compared to 16 for the TV series adaptation. It ended in 2021, the year after the series aired. The series was very loyal to the webtoon and played the story pretty straight throughout. However, one problem comes with the character of Jo Yi-seo (Kim Da-mi), whose live-action character many online felt seemed to betray the independence and strength her webtoon character displayed.

15 Memorist (2020)

A Man Who Can Read People's Memories Solves Crimes

Based on a webtoon of the same name by Jae Hoo, Memorist became a top drama that aired in 2020 on tvN and is one of the best K-dramas based on webtoons. The crime/mystery drama tells the story of the main character with the ability to read people's memories. With this ability, Dong Baek (Yoo Seung-Ho) solves crimes as a police detective.

In this K-drama with a serial killer storyline, a string of gruesome murders occurs, and Dong Baek (Yoo Seung-ho) teams up with a criminal profiler to find the culprit. As they investigate, their troubled pasts surface, and the murders are much more complex than they imagined. Memorist is unique with its thriller elements and intriguing storylines. The series maintained steady viewership numbers over its 16-episode run and interestingly, saw actors Yoo Seung-ho and Lee Se-young reunite after appearing in Missing You.

14 Mystic Pop-Up Bar (2020)

A Woman Must Help People Overcome Their Struggles

Mystic Pop-Up Bar gained significant interest when it became available to stream on Netflix for worldwide audiences. The webtoon is titled "Ssanggabpocha” by Bae Hye-Soo and was first published in 2016. The webtoon was then developed into a series and released in 2020. Mystic Pop-Up Bar features some fascinating supernatural elements, and while it's only 12 episodes long, the series garnered high ratings among audiences and critics alike.

The show follows three main characters whose lives are intertwined in the most mystical way possible. A mysterious food cart owner runs a rooftop bar only open at night, and she has a story to tell. Forced to live out a sentence for her past deeds, she must listen and help customers overcome their internal struggles. Alongside her is a young man with the ability to get people to confess and the manager of the shop who was once her past love.