Lezhin Comics, a South Korean webcomics publisher, announced its partnership with Anime-Planet to provide exclusive animation content for English-speaking online readers.
The collaboration would allow Lezhin to provide numerous webtoon programs and episodes via Anime-Planet’s portal exclusively. Users could choose to read episodes free on Anime-Planet and acquire links to more reading content at Lezhin Comics.
Founded in 2001, Anime-Planet extends its reach worldwide, with over 5 million monthly subscribers. The Anime-Planet platform, a popular site for webtoon enthusiasts, contains a wide range of content such as manga, manhwa, webtoons, light novels, OELs, and more. It could also track a user’s reading history and suggest recommendations based on preferences and browsing data.
Webtoons or webcomics originated in South Korea. The digital comic books, popular in East Asia, currently possess a market value of 1 trillion won ($843 million). The webtoons include background music and special effects to create an enticing reading experience.
Lezhin, one of the most popular webtoon companies worldwide, pioneered the industry in 2013 and offers webtoon materials in Korean, Japanese, French, and English.
Diversifying Content
Jae Heung Jeon, President of Lezhin Entertainment’s U.S. division, stated that it looks forward to its partnership with Anime-Planet. Leizhin Entertainment could share its incredible webtoons with a global audience thru Anime-Planet.
Lezhin entered the U.S. comics market in 2016 by supplying English versions of South Korean webtoons via its webcomics app. The Lezhin’s app, more prevalent in Google’s app store, obtains higher sales than Marvel and D.C. Comics in 2018.
Through the exclusive partnership with Anime-Planet, Lezhin hopes to expand its business in targeting fans with diverse inclinations. Lezhin could provide more genres and more webtoons for Anime-Planet in the future.
The company introduced Lezhin Studios, which focuses on video content-making earlier this year to reconstruct popular webtoon series into films early this year.
