What is the most-watched webtoon-based K-drama on Netflix?

Teach You a Lesson. According to Netflix Tudum, it drew 67.2 million views in its first 91 days, which puts it at No. 10 on Netflix's all-time list of non-English series. The only other Korean titles on that list are the three seasons of Squid Game, so it is the only webtoon adaptation there.

Do people read the original webtoon after watching the drama?

Yes, in large numbers. Naver says 53 Naver Webtoon titles adapted for the screen between June 2019 and June 2023 saw original views rise 33 times on average, comparing the 10 days before and after the adaptation came out. When a web novel became a webtoon, the novel's views rose 179 times on average across 145 titles.

Is Reborn Rich based on a webtoon or a novel?

A web novel. It was serialized on Munpia in 2017 by the writer San-gyeong. The JTBC drama ended on December 25, 2022 with a 26.9% nationwide rating, according to Nielsen Korea.

K-Dramas Based on Webtoons: The Numbers (2026)

Q: How many K-dramas are based on webtoons?

There is no official yearly count. One academic analysis of 386 miniseries found that the share adapted from an existing work rose from 30.6% in 2021 to 39.5% in 2024, with the source material heavily concentrated in webtoons and web novels. A second academic study of 318 dramas with a known source found webtoons and web novels were the largest group, at 42.1%.

The short answer

One academic analysis of 386 Korean miniseries found the share adapted from an existing work rose from 30.6% in 2021 to 39.5% in 2024, mostly from webtoons and web novels.
The webtoon adaptation Teach You a Lesson drew 67.2 million views in 91 days, No. 10 on Netflix's all-time non-English series list (Netflix Tudum).
Dramas send readers back to the source. Original views of 53 adapted Naver Webtoon titles rose 33 times on average (Naver).
It works on network TV too: SBS's Agent Kim Reactivated peaked at 23.1% with episode 8 and ended on 23.0% with episode 10 (Nielsen Korea, nationwide).

Watch enough Korean dramas on Netflix and you start noticing the same line in the credits: based on the webtoon. So how many shows really start that way, and what does a hit drama do for the comic or novel behind it? Here are the numbers as of October 2026.

If you want the bigger picture first (what a webtoon is, the ₩2.2856 trillion industry in 2024, and what creators earn), that is all in our guide to Korea’s webtoon industry. This piece sticks to one question: what happens when the original goes on screen.

How many K-dramas are based on webtoons?

Close to 4 in 10 Korean miniseries now have a source work, and that source is usually a webtoon or a web novel. The catch is that Korea publishes no official yearly count of webtoon-based dramas. The most careful figures come from academic papers.

According to an analysis by Kim Mi-suk in the journal Munhwa Yeongu (vol. 13, no. 2, October 2025), 142 of 386 miniseries aired on network, cable and general-programming channels and on Korean and global streaming services from 2021 to 2024 were adaptations of an existing work, or 원작 (wonjak, “the original”). The share climbed from 30.6% in 2021 to 39.5% in 2024, and the sources were heavily concentrated in webtoons and web novels.

That is a jump of about 9 percentage points in three years. A wider study points the same way. Lee Moon-haeng’s analysis in Global Cultural Contents (no. 67, May 2026) looked at 318 dramas whose source could be identified and found webtoons and web novels were the biggest group, at 42.1%. Watch the denominator here: that is 42.1% of dramas with a known source, not of all dramas.

Just Netflix?

Naver Webtoon material from October 2023, cited by the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) in its Global OTT Trends vol. 4, says 26% of Netflix's Korean original dramas released from 2019 to 2023 were based on Naver Webtoon titles. That excludes Kakao Webtoon and KakaoPage, so the real share for all webtoons and web novels is higher. The same material says every Naver Webtoon-based Netflix drama made the global Top 10 (it does not say how many titles that was).

Newspapers count titles too. Tenasia’s own tally put webtoon- and web-novel-based films and dramas at a little over 10 in 2024 and at 15 or more in 2025 (at least 6 films and more than 10 dramas).

What is the most successful webtoon K-drama?

On Netflix’s official all-time chart, it is 2026’s Teach You a Lesson. It is based on the Naver Webtoon series Chamgyoyuk by Chae Yong-taek and Han Ga-ram, and its 10 episodes premiered on June 5, 2026.

67.2M views

Teach You a Lesson, first 91 days: No. 10 all-time non-English series (Netflix Tudum, viewed Oct 29, 2026)

33×

Average rise in original webtoon views after the adaptation (53 Naver Webtoon titles, Jun 2019 to Jun 2023)

179×

Average rise in a web novel's views after it became a webtoon (145 titles, Naver)

$27.4M

Webtoon Entertainment IP adaptation revenue, Q2 2026 (investor results)

Netflix Tudum ranks non-English series by views in their first 91 days. Four Korean titles are in the all-time top 10: Squid Game seasons 1, 2 and 3, and Teach You a Lesson. Only one of them is a webtoon adaptation.

Netflix's all-time top 10 non-English series by views in the first 91 days: Squid Game Season 1 265.2 million, Season 2 192.6 million, Season 3 145.8 million, Money Heist Part 4 106.0 million, Lupin Part 1 99.5 million, Money Heist Part 5 99.2 million, Money Heist Part 3 80.0 million, La Palma 70.3 million, Lupin Part 2 68.4 million, and the webtoon adaptation Teach You a Lesson 67.2 million

The show got there fast. With only 25 days on the service before the half-year cutoff, it logged 48.2 million views and finished sixth among all Netflix series in the first half of 2026, the only Korean title in that top 10 (Netflix’s What We Watched report). According to the Korea Times, it opened with 6.4 million views, No. 1 among non-English shows and in the Top 10 in 48 countries, and Netflix’s weekly data show it held the non-English No. 1 spot for four straight weeks.

Webtoon hits did not start in 2026, of course. Just keep in mind that Netflix has changed its yardstick over the years, from households to hours to “views”, so the figures below are not directly comparable with each other.

🎬 Notable webtoon and web-novel adaptations and a headline number for each (metrics differ by title)

Title	Source	Released	Headline number	Basis
Itaewon Class	Webtoon, Daum Webtoon	JTBC 2020	5% first episode → 16.5% finale	Nielsen Korea nationwide, via Soompi and Korea Times
Hellbound	Webtoon, Naver Webtoon	Netflix 2021	No. 1 non-English TV, 43.48M hours in week one	Manila Bulletin report
All of Us Are Dead	Webtoon, Naver Webtoon	Netflix 2022	361.02M hours, Top 10 in 91 countries	Netflix announcement (June 2022)
Reborn Rich	Web novel, Munpia	JTBC 2022	6% first episode → 26.9% finale	Nielsen Korea nationwide, KOCCA
Marry My Husband	Web novel (also a webtoon)	tvN 2024	11.951% finale	Nielsen Korea nationwide, via Wikipedia
The Trauma Code	Web novel → webtoon, Naver	Netflix 2025	34.1M views, H1 2025	Netflix What We Watched
Weak Hero Class 2	Webtoon, Naver Webtoon	Netflix 2025	19.6M views, H1 2025	Netflix What We Watched
My Daughter Is a Zombie (film)	Webtoon	Cinemas 2025	5.6M+ admissions, top Korean film of 2025	Korea Times report
Teach You a Lesson	Webtoon, Naver Webtoon	Netflix 2026	67.2M views in 91 days, No. 10 all-time non-English	Netflix Tudum
Agent Kim Reactivated	Webtoon	SBS 2026	Ep 1 9.5% → ep 8 23.1% (peak) → ep 10 finale 23.0%	Nielsen Korea nationwide, via Money Today, Soompi and Star News

Agent Kim Reactivated (Kim Bujang in Korean) had the steepest climb. In Nielsen Korea’s nationwide figures compiled by Money Today, it opened at 9.5% with episode 1, passed 20% with episode 4 (21.6%) and peaked at 23.1% with episode 8 on July 18. The 10th and final episode drew 23.0% nationwide and 23.4% in the Seoul metropolitan area, according to Star News, and Soompi reported it as the second-highest-rated SBS Friday-Saturday drama ever. For the full 2026 ratings picture, see the highest-rated K-dramas of 2026.

A famous source is not a guarantee, though. According to Tenasia, the 2025 film adapted from the web novel Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint cost ₩30 billion and drew about 1.06 million viewers, far short of its 6 million break-even point. The same year, My Daughter Is a Zombie passed 5.6 million. For the cinema side, see Korea’s all-time box office.

Do webtoon-based dramas get higher ratings?

In crime and thriller dramas, at least, one analysis says yes. Professor Kim Jung-hwan’s analysis, published in KOCCA’s Global OTT Trends vol. 4, split 50 crime, thriller and mystery dramas from 2021 to 2023 into webtoon adaptations and originals.

📺 Webtoon-based vs original dramas: TV ratings (50 crime, thriller and mystery dramas, 2021 to 2023)

Measure	Webtoon-based	Original script	Difference
Average rating	7.88%	5.88%	About 34% higher
Peak rating	10.42%	7.48%	About 39% higher

Fifty shows in one genre is a small sample, so this does not prove that every webtoon adaptation wins. It does explain the appeal for producers: a story millions have already read to the end is a smaller bet. Why there are fewer dramas and why they cost more is covered in why Korea is making fewer K-dramas.

  Why viewers go back to the source: In KOCCA's 2025 content IP trading survey, as cited by Newsis, the top reasons for reading or watching the original were curiosity about how it differs (38.4%) and being a fan of the original (34.6%).

How much does a drama boost the original webtoon?

By 33 times on average, according to Naver’s own figures. In a January 2025 press release for the launch of The Trauma Code, Naver said original views of 53 Naver Webtoon titles adapted for the screen from June 2019 to June 2023 rose 33 times on average, comparing the 10 days before and after release. Koreans call this kind of comeback 역주행 (yeokjuhaeng, “running backward up the chart”).

Rise in views of the original after the drama aired: the TVING army-cook drama's source web novel 170 times, Pansa Lee Han-young's source web novel 147 times, All of Us Are Dead 80 times, Sinipsawon Kang Hoejang 43 times, the Naver Webtoon average across 53 adaptations 33 times, Teach You a Lesson 21 times, Spring Fever 10 times. Comparison windows differ by title

The figures for single titles were announced by Naver Webtoon and reported by Korean media. Each uses a different window (10 days either side of release, two weeks after compared with before the teaser, and so on), so read them as a range rather than a ranking.

All of Us Are Dead (2022): according to Asia Economy, weekly views rose about 80 times within about two weeks of release, and 21 times for the English edition.
Pansa Lee Han-young (Judge Lee Han-young, MBC, 2026): according to Asia Economy, downloads of the source web novel rose about 147 times and webtoon views more than 20 times. The same report put Spring Fever (tvN) at about 10 times.
Chwisabyeong Jeonseori Doeda (a TVING drama about an army cook who becomes a legend, 2026): according to MTN, the web novel rose about 170 times and the webtoon about 61 times around the official teaser.
Sinipsawon Kang Hoejang (a JTBC drama, roughly “New Hire Chairman Kang”, 2026): the same report put domestic views up about 43 times in the two weeks after release.
Teach You a Lesson (Netflix, 2026): the same report put original webtoon views up about 21 times. Naver noted the webtoon is still running, so its normal readership is already high and the multiple looks smaller.

Is it a webtoon or a web novel?

A lot of today’s hits actually began as web novels. Reborn Rich (Munpia), Marry My Husband, Lovely Runner (KakaoPage), The Trauma Code (Naver Series) and three 2026 dramas, Pansa Lee Han-young, Sinipsawon Kang Hoejang and the TVING army-cook drama, all started as a 웹소설 (web novel). Many were turned into webtoons before the drama came along.

So the usual path has three steps: web novel, then webtoon, then drama. Even the first step is a big deal. According to Naver, when a web novel became a webtoon, the novel’s own views rose 179 times on average (145 titles, 30 days before and after the webtoon launched).

When sales say more than ratings

Lovely Runner (tvN, 2024) peaked at a modest 5.762% (Nielsen Korea, nationwide). But according to Kakao Entertainment, as reported by MTN, sales of the source web novel in the two weeks after it began airing were 8.2 times the two weeks before, and webtoon sales 5.5 times. TV ratings alone miss a lot of what an adaptation does for the original.

How much do webtoon companies earn from adaptations?

Naver Webtoon’s parent, Webtoon Entertainment, makes tens of millions of dollars a quarter from screen adaptations. It is listed on Nasdaq, so the numbers are in its investor filings.

Full-year 2024 IP adaptations revenue: $99.4M (down 8.3%, up 6.7% at constant currency).
Q2 2026: $27.4M (down 2.6%, up 4.2% at constant currency), and $47.2M for the first half. That is about 8.1% of total Q2 revenue of $338.5M, by our calculation.
According to MarketBeat’s summary of the Q2 earnings call, three WEBTOON titles made Netflix’s global Top 10 that quarter.

Most of the money still comes from readers paying for episodes and from ads. Adaptations are a small slice, but as the multiples above show, they feed readers and spending back into the comics.

What can you do in Seoul?

Read the originals, find the filming locations, and visit the comics museum. Webtoon pop-up stores change place and dates with every run, so we have not named any here.

Before and during your trip

Read the original in English. WEBTOON, Naver Webtoon's global service, runs on iOS, Android and the web, with English, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, French and German. Tapas, Kakao Entertainment's North American platform, unlocks some episodes free every three hours. English editions sometimes carry a different title from the drama, so searching by the original creator's name is often quicker.
Teach You a Lesson's webtoon is offered in six languages (Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Indonesian, Thai and French), according to MTN. Check in the app whether an English edition is available where you are.
Filming locations. Officially confirmed Seoul spots, including Itaewon Class, are in our guide to K-drama filming locations in Seoul, with directions.
Watching in Korea. How Korean streaming apps and TV channels fit together is in what Koreans watch on OTT and TV.

To see Korean comics and webtoons in person, Bucheon beats Seoul. The Korea Manhwa Museum is at 1 Gilju-ro, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon, near Samsan Gymnasium Station on Line 7. It opens 10:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:00), closes on Mondays, and a standard ticket is ₩5,000. Floor-by-floor details and the free comics library are in our webtoon industry guide.

📍 Open in Naver Map — Korea Manhwa Museum

K-entertainment by the numbers

Sources