Move Over Manga: Why Manhwa and Webtoons Are Taking Over US Bookshelves

Walk into a Barnes & Noble today and something's different. Tucked alongside the familiar manga shelves — the Naruto box sets, the My Hero Academia runs, the perpetually restocked One Piece volumes — there's a growing section of vertically formatted, full-color comics with Korean titles and names you might not recognize yet. Give it another year or two, and that section is going to be a lot harder to miss.

Korean manhwa and webtoons from across Southeast Asia have been quietly building a massive American fanbase, and the physical retail market is finally catching up to what digital platforms already figured out years ago. Here's the full picture.

What's the Difference, Exactly?

If you're new to the space, a quick breakdown helps. Manga is the term for Japanese comics — traditionally printed in black and white, read right-to-left, and structured in tankobon volumes. Manhwa refers to Korean comics, which read left-to-right and have historically appeared in both print and digital formats. Webtoons are a specific digital-first format — scrollable, full-color, panel-by-panel storytelling optimized for phone screens — that originated in South Korea but now includes creators from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and beyond.

The LINE Webtoon app (just called "WEBTOON" in the US) has been the dominant platform for this format stateside since it launched its English service in 2014. But the real explosion in mainstream visibility came later, as titles that built massive audiences on the app started getting physical print editions — and bookstores realized the demand was real.

The Titles Driving the Conversation

A few series have done the heavy lifting in terms of introducing American readers to manhwa and webtoons as legitimate storytelling formats.

Solo Leveling is probably the biggest crossover success story. Originally a Korean web novel that was adapted into a manhwa, it became a phenomenon on digital platforms before getting a print release from Yen Press that sold out almost immediately. The anime adaptation that dropped in early 2024 pushed it into mainstream anime conversation — but the manhwa had already built a devoted US fanbase long before that.

Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe is a fascinating case because it's a webtoon created by a New Zealand artist that draws heavily from Greek mythology and romance storytelling conventions. It's been a New York Times bestseller in its print editions and proved that the webtoon format could attract readers who had no prior connection to Asian comics at all.

Then there's The Remarried Empress, I Love Yoo, True Beauty, and Tower of God — titles that have racked up hundreds of millions of views on WEBTOON and are steadily making their way into physical retail.

Why This Format Hits Different

The scroll-based format isn't just a technical difference — it changes how stories are paced and experienced. Webtoon creators have developed a visual language built around the phone screen: dramatic panel reveals as you scroll down, color used for emotional atmosphere rather than just illustration, and cliffhangers calibrated for the "just one more episode" reading habit that apps encourage.

For younger American readers who grew up consuming content on phones, this feels completely natural. There's no learning curve around right-to-left reading, no adjustment to black-and-white art if you're not already into that aesthetic, and the episode-based release schedule mirrors how Gen Z consumes everything else — in short, regular bursts rather than collected volumes.

That accessibility is a big part of why WEBTOON's US audience skews younger and more diverse than traditional manga readership. A significant portion of WEBTOON's American creators and readers are women and people of color, and the platform's storytelling reflects that — romance, fantasy, and slice-of-life stories with protagonists who look and feel different from the defaults in mainstream manga.

What This Means for the Manga Market

Here's where it gets interesting from an industry perspective. This isn't necessarily a zero-sum competition. Most fans who discover manhwa through WEBTOON don't abandon manga — they just add it to their rotation. The comics reading habit, once established, tends to expand rather than shift.

But publishers are absolutely paying attention. Yen Press, Seven Seas, and Viz Media have all ramped up their manhwa and webtoon print licensing in the last few years. Retailers like Target and Books-A-Million have started stocking titles they wouldn't have carried five years ago. And the fact that Solo Leveling could launch an anime and immediately have both the manhwa and the original light novel sitting in brick-and-mortar stores is a sign of how integrated this ecosystem is becoming.

The bigger question is whether manhwa and webtoon creators will get the same cultural recognition that manga artists have earned in the US fan community. Conventions are still largely manga-and-anime-centric. Cosplay of manhwa characters exists but is far less common. Fan wikis and discussion spaces are growing but haven't hit the critical mass that long-running manga series have built over decades.

Where to Start If You're Curious

If you want to explore this space without feeling overwhelmed, here are a few entry points based on what you already like:

• If you're into action and power progression: Solo Leveling, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Tower of God
• If romance is your thing: Lore Olympus, True Beauty, The Remarried Empress
• If you want something weird and experimental: Bastard by Carnby Kim, Noblesse
• If you're just dipping a toe in: The WEBTOON app is free, and most series have dozens of episodes available at no cost. There's no reason not to try a few.

The shift is already happening. American readers are hungry for more stories, more formats, and more perspectives — and manhwa and webtoons are delivering exactly that. The bookshelves are just starting to catch up.