Red Dog Culture House, a South Korean animation studio, said on Oct. 27 that it will adapt its original webtoon “Latna Saga: Survival of a Sword King” into an animated series for Japanese broadcast and online streaming platforms. While Red Dog Culture House will partner with Japanese animation studio Pierrot for distribution, this marks the first time a Korean animation studio has directly produced and distributed original animated content in Japan.
Korean animation is breaking out of its traditional subcontracting role to enter the Japanese market directly. In the past, Korean animation studios primarily served as subcontractors for American and Japanese productions. But now Korean studios are producing their own content and making direct inroads into Japan, the home of anime. “This shows Korean anime is also capable of growth beyond just webtoons,” said Red Dog Culture House CEO Bae Kiyong.
Red Dog Culture House built its reputation by producing globally successful Netflix animated series such as “Love Death + Robots” and “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf,” although the intellectual property (IP) for these works belonged to the U.S. Since 2020, the studio has been developing its own webtoons and web novels to secure original IP for animation, leading to the creation of “Latna Saga: Survival of a Sword King” into an animated series.
Previously, it was common for Japanese companies to animate Korean webtoons. However, as the quality of Korean original content and animation production has improved, Korean studios can now handle the process independently. “In the past, Japanese studios would handle everything, from planning to financing and distribution, after acquiring Korean webtoons,” explained an industry insider. “Now, Korean companies are now actively involved in every stage.”
More Korean webtoons are being adapted into anime by local production studios and released in Japan. The popular webtoon “True Beauty,” originally published by NAVER Webtoon, was recently animated by a Korean studio and began streaming on Japan’s U-NEXT platform earlier this month.
Another popular webtoon, Gosu, which has amassed 1.4 billion views, will also be animated by NAVER Webtoon’s drama and film production subsidiary Studio N, in collaboration with Korean production company Studio Mir and Japan’s Toei Animation. “The old model of ‘Korea for webtoons and Japan for animation’ is disappearing,” said a source in the Korean animation industry.
Korean animation studios’ entry into the previously tightly guarded Japanese anime market is a testament to the country’s increased production capacity and rising reputation.
Global hits like “Love, Death + Robots,” “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf,” and “Dota: Dragon’s Blood,” all created by Korean studios for streaming platforms like Netflix, have underscored the quality of Korea’s anime production.
The growth of streaming platforms like Netflix has also revitalized the global animation market. Data from Parrot Analytics, a data analytics firm, shows that while dramas still dominated streaming content with a 39% share in 2022, animation claimed 13%, doubling its share since 2018.
To meet rising demand, platforms are ramping up investment, with Netflix quadrupling its animation budget from $1.1 billion in 2018 to $5 billion in 2022 and Amazon Prime increasing investment from $300 million to $1.9 billion.