“Marry My Husband,” has garnered significant attention. (Photo: a screenshot from Naver Series)
SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – Webtoons, a popular digital comic format, are capturing the imagination of readers with themes reminiscent of traditional morning dramas – filled with secrets, infidelity, and revenge. These ‘extreme webtoons,’ while sometimes lacking in plausibility, have hooked their audience with satisfying revenge plots and spicy dialogues.
One such webtoon, “Marry My Husband,” has garnered significant attention. The story revolves around Kang Ji-won, who, betrayed by her husband and best friend, faces an unjust death and then travels back in time to exact her revenge.
This work, which first shone in the Naver Web Novel’s biggest competition in 2019, was transformed into a webtoon in 2021. Despite criticism for its flat characters and forced plot developments, it has achieved over 810 million views, blending themes like infidelity, terminal illness, reincarnation, and revenge.
“The Remarried Empress” is another webtoon centering on infidelity and revenge. (Photo: a screenshot from Naver Series)
“The Remarried Empress,” known for its advertisements featuring actress Soo Ae, is another webtoon centering on infidelity and revenge. It tells the story of Empress Navier, who, after being divorced by the emperor infatuated with a concubine, remarries a younger prince from a neighboring country.
First serialized as a romance-fantasy web novel in 2018, it became a webtoon the following year and continues to be a hit, holding the first place in female readership and second in the romance genre on Naver Webtoon, with over 1.9 billion views.
“I’m the Queen in this Life,” a webtoon based on a web novel, mixes elements from the previous two works. Set in a romance-fantasy universe with a king and cardinal, it follows the protagonist Ariadne, who, after being betrayed and killed by her sister and lover, goes back in time for revenge. This webtoon has reached 220 million views.
The appeal of these so-called extreme webtoons lies in their familiar morning drama-like narratives, enhanced with brisk pacing and novelty. Unlike dramas that often prolong the protagonist’s misfortunes, webtoons quickly move to revenge narratives. The protagonists, armed with the knowledge of their past life or reincarnation, are aware of the impending events, while their former lovers and rivals remain clueless.
Webtoon critic Choi Yoon-ju notes that while revenge dramas have been popular for a while, their adaptation into the 2D world of webtoons brings a fresh perspective. The combination of webtoons’ genre codes with the universally loved revenge theme results in more mainstream creations. However, the repetitive nature of these stories, centered around infidelity, betrayal, and revenge, is often seen as a drawback.
Despite these criticisms, such webtoons have played a role in transitioning traditional morning drama viewers to webtoon readers. Choi suggests that this trend could expand the reader base, viewing it not merely as a negative phenomenon.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
