Webtoon Dramas Surge as Kim Manager Hits 22.3 Percent Ratings

Korean entertainment’s webtoon-to-screen pipeline is having a defining summer, led by SBS drama Kim Manager and Netflix series True Education. Both titles are based on popular webtoons, and both are now being discussed less as niche adaptations than as proof that illustrated digital stories can still deliver mass-market television and streaming hits.

The clearest signal came from Kim Manager, the So Ji Sub-led action drama about an apparently ordinary father whose hidden past comes back into play after his daughter disappears. According to Nielsen Korea figures cited by Korean outlets, the drama’s sixth episode reached 22.3 percent nationwide ratings on July 11, pushing the series to another personal best only two weeks after launch.

That number puts Kim Manager in unusually rare territory for a 2026 television drama. Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the sixth episode surpassed SBS Friday-Saturday hits including The Fiery Priest, which recorded 22.0 percent, and Taxi Driver 2, which reached 21.8 percent. The drama now ranks second among SBS Friday-Saturday dramas by peak rating, behind only The Penthouse 2 at 29.2 percent.

The rise has been sharp. Kim Manager began with 9.5 percent for its first episode, crossed 20 percent by episode four with 21.6 percent, and then continued climbing to 22.3 percent with episode six. For broadcasters and advertisers watching a fragmented viewing market, that trajectory matters as much as the headline number: it suggests that viewers are not only sampling the series but returning quickly and in larger numbers.

Why Kim Manager Is Connecting

The appeal is not difficult to identify. Kim Manager packages its story around a direct, high-stakes premise: a former operative living as a family man must fight to find his missing daughter. The setup is melodramatic, action-heavy, and deliberately larger than life, but that is also part of the webtoon DNA that the drama appears to be preserving rather than sanding down.

News1 described both Kim Manager and True Education as dramas powered by cathartic, comic-style storytelling. In Kim Manager, the character motivations are simple and the drama leans into action and comic beats. In True Education, a fictional authority intervenes in school conflicts through a revenge-driven structure that has attracted both strong interest and criticism over its ethics and plausibility.

That debate has not slowed the wave. True Education, released on Netflix last month, spent four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on Netflix’s non-English show chart, according to News1. The report said the series had reached 51.3 million views by its fifth week, enough to move past The Glory in Netflix’s all-time Korean original drama rankings and place fifth on that list.

Kim Manager is also finding traction beyond domestic broadcast. News1 reported that the series recorded 10.5 million views on Netflix’s official Top 10 chart and reached No. 1 among non-English shows, while also topping charts in multiple markets including Singapore, Thailand, and Peru. The result is a rare two-front breakout: strong linear television numbers in Korea and visible global streaming performance at the same time.

Webtoon IP Becomes a Bigger Business Bet

The commercial lesson is clear for Korean platforms and studios. ChosunBiz reported that Naver Webtoon and Kakao Entertainment are accelerating screen adaptations as a way to extend the lifespan of popular intellectual property. A webtoon that already has readers, visual references, characters, dialogue patterns, and audience feedback can reduce some of the uncertainty that comes with expensive drama production.

Naver Webtoon has been especially aggressive. ChosunBiz cited 198 screen adaptations from 2014 through 2025 and 15 Naver Webtoon-based dramas or anime projects released in Korea and Japan this year alone. The report also noted ongoing projects tied to titles such as Kim Manager, True Education, Becoming the Legendary Chef, Chairman Kang: The New Employee, and Bloodhounds Season 2.

Kakao Entertainment, meanwhile, is described as taking a more selective strategy, focusing on titles with strong perceived hit potential. Its broader IP ecosystem also includes the global expansion of Solo Leveling, which has moved from web novel and webtoon into animation, games, and planned future screen projects.

The attraction for producers is practical. Webtoons offer storyboards of a kind before a camera ever rolls: character silhouettes, costumes, key scenes, emotional peaks, and weekly audience reaction. In a drama market where individual projects can cost tens or hundreds of billions of won, pre-tested IP can look less like a creative shortcut and more like financial risk management.

Still, the current boom carries complications. Webtoon adaptations can inherit the controversies of their source material, including debates over social themes, representation, or the past conduct of creators. True Education has drawn discussion over the ethics of its punitive premise, while reports around Kim Manager have noted renewed attention on past controversy involving the original webtoon’s production leadership.

For now, the market is rewarding the format. Kim Manager has turned a familiar rescue-action premise into one of SBS’s biggest Friday-Saturday ratings stories, while True Education has shown how a Korean webtoon adaptation can dominate Netflix’s non-English rankings. Together, they point to a Korean drama landscape where webtoon IP is no longer simply source material. It is becoming one of the industry’s most important engines for scale.