> Most webtoons trending on domestic manga apps are not only translated but meticulously localized for a Japanese audience, with names, locations and various pr

> Most webtoons trending on domestic manga apps are not only translated but meticulously localized for a Japanese audience, with names, locations and various proper nouns all Japanized. Even the original illustrations can be altered to erase anything distinctly South Korean, such as the design of the police cars. Man, how the table has turned. This was exactly how South Korea imported Japanese manga and anime for decades. Up until mid-90s virtually all Japanese manga was "Koreanized" in a similar way, even though by that time everybody knew they were Japanese. In earlier days they wouldn't even tell us: there are a generation or two of Korean boys who grew up thinking Atom, Mazinga and Future Boy Conan were Korean animations. The wounds of colonization (1910-1945) were still raw, and admitting you liked Japanese culture was frowned upon for a very long time. (Which is ironic, considering most of children's prime time TV shows were made in Japan.) South Korea briefly had a renaissance of comics ("manhwa") in the 90s, but then widespread piracy together with the advent of the internet killed off the industry in the early 2000s. I remember a comic strip where the protagonist (the artist himself) decides to kill himself after going broke, so he turns on the gas valve and go to sleep. He wakes up the next day because the gas line was shut off for non-payment. I think a major reason why Korea embraced webtoon so easily is that the traditional comics industry was essentially burned to ground. Webtoons were initially a side dish, offered by web portals (which are still strong in Korea) to lure viewers because servers were cheap and artists were also cheap (where else would they go, anyway?). (It also explains why it's basically free and ad-supported.) But then it started to make money, and then money started to attract talents, and so on. If someone told me, only five years ago, that Korean webtoons will threaten Japanese manga industry, I would've laughed. "What are you talking about? It's Japan!"