World Webtoon Festival returns to Seoul on massive scale

Visitors take a look around a pop-up store at Lotte World Mall in Seoul, Thursday, operating as a preliminary event for the 2025 World Webtoon Festival. Yonhap

The World Webtoon Festival is set to return to Seoul for its second edition from Sunday to Wednesday, transforming Lotte Town in Jamsil — the complex including Lotte World Mall and other locations — into a premier destination for global comics enthusiasts.

Building on its mission to strengthen Korea’s status as the webtoon industry’s originator, this year’s festival boasts a notably expanded scale, featuring massive pop-up stores, a special history exhibition and fan-centric events across the complex in southeastern Seoul.

The four-day celebration concludes with the World Webtoon Awards, a ceremony to honor the year’s best works.

Co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), the festival aims to create a vibrant space for interaction among creators, platforms, production houses and fans.

A map of the 2025 World Webtoon Festival / Courtesy of World Webtoon Festival

Jamsil becomes webtoon hub

The Lotte Town Jamsil complex will be transformed into a cultural hub as the site of the largest webtoon festival of its kind in Korea. The event features more than 200 webtoons and combines exhibitions, experience zones and various pop-up stores.

Festivities are already underway with the opening of various pop-up stores, which will remain open until Oct. 26 across five floors of Lotte World Mall. Twelve companies are participating, showcasing and selling around 1,200 types of webtoon-related merchandise.

Elaborate themed zones have been set up for major titles. For instance, the zone for the hugely popular “Maru is a Puppy” adopts a bakery cafe concept, while the “Lookism” area features an arcade game space. The “Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint” zone sells themed food and beverage items, and the “How to Hide the Emperor’s Child” zone unveils special merch inspired by Lotte Tower itself.

Global hits like “The Remarried Empress,” “Solo Leveling” and “Tomb Raider King” are also offering first-edition hardcovers and other limited-edition items.

Visitors browse webtoon-related merchandise at the "Maru is a Puppy" pop-up store for the 2025 World Webtoon Festival at Lotte World Mall in Seoul, Thursday. Newsis

Diverse programs, interactive experiences

The main festival offers a wealth of programs for fans of all ages.

Lotte World Ice Rink will host a special exhibition, “The Chronicle of Webtoons,” a six-part display tracing the history and evolution of the webtoon.

The venue will also feature a range of diverse and engaging activities, including screenings of webtoon-based animations such as “Maru is a Puppy” and “Dragon Girl,” live drawing demonstrations, author signings and a highly anticipated live dubbing show by celebrated voice actor Nam Doh-hyeong. Major industry players including Naver Webtoon, Netmarble and Wacom will host exhibitions and experience booths.

Lotte Cinema World Tower will host key events, including a talk where original authors of works successfully adapted into other media, such as “Terror Man,” “Shark” and “Itaewon Class,” will share their experiences.

Other events include a screening of the animated webtoon adaptation “Acorn Cultural Center,” a mentorship lecture for aspiring writers by Kakao Entertainment producers, and awards ceremonies for webtoon contest winners.

Visitors participate in the 2024 World Webtoon Festival in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, which ran from Sept. 26-29, 2024. Courtesy of Korea Creative Content Agency

Awards ceremony

The World Webtoon Awards ceremony will be held Wednesday at Lotte Cinema World Tower. The judging panel selected 10 winners for the main awards. They are: "The Uncanny Counter," "Myst, Might, Mayhem," "The Fourth Time's the Husband," "Like Mother, Like Daughter," "Maru is a Puppy," "Mirae's Antique Shop," "Tears on a Withered Flower," "Father, Unrivaled," "Omniscient Reader" and "Get Schooled."

Among these works, the winners of the Grand Prize, the Jury President’s Award and the Reader’s Choice Award will all be announced live at the ceremony.

The culture ministry expressed its commitment to fostering the event’s growth, vowing to continuously support its development to solidify the nation’s global reputation as the webtoon industry’s originator.

“We hope that the World Webtoon Festival and Awards will serve as a venue to encourage professionals in the webtoon industry, who are driving the global growth of K-content, and expand into a platform for webtoon fans around the world to interact and exchange,” a ministry official said.

Comics fans attend a panel discussion held during the 2024 World Webtoon Festival in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, which ran from Sept. 26-29, 2024. Courtesy of Korea Creative Content Agency

Overcoming limitations

While the second World Webtoon Festival takes a major step toward internationalization, its success in becoming a truly global event — one that highlights a diverse range of works beyond Korea’s own hit titles — remains to be seen.

Last year’s inaugural edition, held in Seoul’s trendy Seongsu-dong area, was praised for its visual appeal, but faced criticism for being predominantly Korea-centric and lacking English language accessibility, thus falling short of its ambitious goal of becoming “the Cannes Film Festival of the webtoon industry.”

Furthermore, the festival’s showcase nature, heavily featuring major platform operators like Kakao Entertainment and Naver, led to criticism that it primarily served as a promotional venue for already successful domestic works, rather than a celebration of diverse global creativity.

To overcome these limitations, the World Webtoon Awards introduced the Reader’s Choice Award, determined by global online voting, to make the event more inclusive for international audiences. Among the 26 exceptional nominees for the main awards, three of the finalists are works by Japanese artists, indicating a move toward recognizing international talent.

Entry to the exhibition and experience zones is free, and some events require preregistration, either through the official festival website at www.wefe.kr or on-site.