 | |
Type of site | Digital comics platform |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, Spanish |
| Owner | RIDI Corporation |
| Founder(s) | Kisik Bae |
| CEO | Travis Kim |
| URL | manta |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | November 2020 |
| Current status | Active |
Manta is a South Korean digital comics (or webtoons, webcomics, manhwa) platform owned and operated by RIDI Corporation. [1] [2] It works with its own in-house studio as well as outside partners to create original digital comics. [3]
Manta is a subscription-based service that allows all members to read unlimited amounts of content on its app at a fixed price. The app is available for Android and iOS devices, [4] and all content can be viewed from its official website.
Manta is known to be the first subscription-based webcomic platform in the market. [5]
Many of Manta's webcomics share the IP with those in Ridibooks, which is RIDI Corporation's domestic South Korean business. Main titles of Ridibooks such as Under the Oak Tree (상수리 나무 아래) and Lady Devil (마귀) are also well known globally through Manta. [6]
The platform now serves both English and Spanish. [7]
Manta was founded by Kisik Bae, Founder and CEO of RIDI Corporation, in November 2020. [1] [3] In October 2023, Travis Kim, formerly with Amazon and LG Electronics, was appointed CEO of Manta. [8]
RIDI Corporation initially established its presence in the industry as an e-book publisher, and over time, it expanded into other content domains, with a particular focus on webnovels. Later, RIDI Corporation, with an extensive portfolio of IP it has acquired, started to adapt the stories into digital comic formats. A significant portion of the comics published on Manta are Manta-owned, and they also do collaborate with external partners and license certain series from them. [9]
It was a latecomer in the webcomic industry, but rather than pay-per-episode, Manta was one of the few subscription-based webcomics services available.
Four months after its launch in March 2021, Manta ranked first in the US Google Play Store's cartoon category. [10]
Manta focuses mainly on bringing original stories from RIDI, a Korean digital content platform also owned by RIDI Corporation, into webcomics. [11]
Most of Manta's titles are in the romance genre, with titles including Under the Oak Tree, a romance fantasy webcomic based on a web novel by Kim Suji, [12] Disobey the Duke if you Dare, [13] and Semantic Error, the latter having also been adapted into a live action streaming television series. [14] It also offers stories in other genres including action, thriller, and horror.
The platform also works with third-party IP rights holders to extend existing films and live-action storytelling into webcomics, such as Svaha: the Sixth Finger [15] and A Hard Day. [3]
In Q3 2022, two volumes of Semantic Error were released as ebooks on Amazon Kindle, marking the series the first of Manta's titles to be published outside its platform. [16] In March 2023, Manta announced that Disobey the Duke If You Dare would become its first title for distribution as printed graphic novels. [17] [18]
In an Interview, Kisik Bae said the app has reached five million downloads as of April 2022. [11] The number has gone up to eight million in October 2022, [7] then to 10 million by March 2023. [19] In a June 2024 interview, Manta's CEO, Travis Kim, mentioned that the number has now increased to 15 million. [20]
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Manhwa is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons. Outside Korea, the term usually refers to Korean comics. Manhwa is directly influenced by Japanese Manga comics. Modern Manhwa has extended its reach to many other countries. These comics have branched outside of Korea by access to Webtoons and have created an impact that has resulted in some movie, drama and television show adaptations.
Manhua are Chinese-language comics produced in Greater China. Chinese comics and narrated illustrations have existed in China throughout its history.
Digital comics are comics released digitally, as opposed to in print. Digital comics commonly take the form of mobile comics. Webcomics may also fall under the "digital comics" umbrella.
Webtoons (Korean: 웹툰) are a type of episodic digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.
Naver is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. Launched in 1999, it was the first web portal in South Korea to develop and use its own search engine. It was also the world's first operator to introduce the comprehensive search feature, which compiles search results from various categories and presents them on a single page. Since then, Naver has added a multitude of new services, ranging from basic features such as email and news to the world's first online Q&A platform, Knowledge iN.
The Naver Corporation is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the online Q&A platform Knowledge iN.
KakaoPage is a monetized content platform optimized for mobile devices, launched by Kakao Corp. in 2013 and currently owned by its subsidiary Kakao Entertainment. The service launched on April 9, 2013, as a digital content marketplace, allowing brands and individuals to create and distribute visual, audio, and written content such as webtoons, manhwa, and genre fiction. It entered the Indonesian market in 2018 and Taiwan in 2020.
The history of webcomics follows the advances of technology, art, and business of comics on the Internet. The first comics were shared through the Internet in the mid-1980s. Some early webcomics were derivatives from print comics, but when the World Wide Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By the year 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized.
Tapas, formerly known as Tapastic and originally known as Comic Panda, is a South Korean webtoon and prose publishing website and app owned by Tapas Media, a Kakao Entertainment company. It was created in 2012 by entrepreneurs Young-Jun Jang and Chang Kim, who is currently Tapas Media's CEO.
Aniplus Inc. is a South Korean television channel and anime distributor. Founded in 2004, the company also operates different businesses including a video on demand platform and a merchandising arm in its own country.
Webtoon is an American-South Korean webtoon platform launched in 2004 by Naver Corporation, providing hosting for webtoons and compact digital comics. The platform, controlled by Naver and the Naver-SoftBank Group joint venture LY Corporation through a Delaware-domiciled, Los Angeles, California-headquartered holding company Webtoon Entertainment Inc., is free and can be found both on the web at Webtoons.com and on mobile devices available for both Android and iOS.
Spottoon is a webtoon portal for English translated webtoons. It's a business run by RollingStory Inc. It is one of only two webtoon portals that offers licensed titles in English alongside Tappytoon.
Delitoon is a French webtoon service established by Didier Borg in 2011. Initially solely a Casterman product, Delitoon has since been partly acquired by Daou Technology Inc. and has partnered with Sina Weibo. Delitoon offers a large variety of both Korean and French webtoons and makes use of a micropayment system.
Lezhin Comics is a webtoon portal that was founded by South Korean blogger Han Hee-sung in 2013. It is based in South Korea and its services are offered in Korean, Japanese and English.
Studio N is a subsidiary of Webtoon Entertainment Inc. launched in August 2018 that produces drama films and television series based on stories from their Korean library of webtoons and web novels. The subsidiary is headed by Kwon Mi-kyung, who was a former head of the film business division of CJ ENM. Kwon describes the studio as a "IP bridge company that collaborates with existing film and drama production companies".
Web novels in South Korea have been growing in popularity in the 21st century. Among e-publishing fields, web novels are the core contents that are leading the e-book market. Just as webtoons grew in the early 2000s in South Korea, web novels have been growing rapidly since 2010.
Playlist Studio, better known as Playlist, is a South Korean web drama production company known for producing independent video content and can expand its business to various areas such as performances, webtoons, music sources, and games by using intellectual property rights (IP). It is also known for its several hit web dramas including Love Playlist, Seventeen, A-Teen, and Weak Hero Class 1. The production mainly focuses on the 10s and 20s aged audience and a time limit running time within 10 minutes.
Let's Play is a romantic comedy comic series by Leeanne M. Krecic, also known as Mongie, which is published by Rocketship Entertainment. Let's Play was published digitally on Webtoon from 2016 to 2022. It follows the romantic and professional life of Sam Young, who is discovering romance as she works on her video game development career.
Tappytoon is a South Korean digital webtoon platform that was developed and is operated by Contents First Inc., a venture-backed media and entertainment company founded in 2013.