Tapas Entertainment, Kakao Entertainment’s North American subsidiary, participated in Anime NYC, a representative animation event held in New York, USA, and announced Kakao Entertainment’s outstanding story intellectual property (IP) capabilities.
Kakao Entertainment announced on the 22nd that Tapas Entertainment, a North American story intellectual property (IP) forward base, participated in Anime NYC held from the 18th to the 20th and successfully concluded the event. Anime NYC, an animation festival held in New York, the largest city in the United States, is considered an event that attracts tens of thousands of global fans every year with various publishers, exhibitions, and panels from all over the world. This year, more than 50,000 global fans from Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Australia, China, Brazil, Japan, etc. visited the event venue.
At this event, ‘Beginning After the End’ was at the forefront. ‘The Beginning, Not the End’ is Tapas’ original IP discovered by Tapas Entertainment in the United States, and is a super IP that has built a large North American fandom through Kakao Entertainment’s Noble Comics system, which produces webtoons from popular web novels. Korean-American author TurtleMe wrote the original web novel, and author Fuyuki (fuyuki23) added a beautiful sketch to make it a webtoon. The work depicts in an exciting way the process of Arthur, a king in his previous life, being reincarnated in a new world full of magic and monsters and pioneering a life.
Both the web novel and webtoon are ranked first in Tapas, and have been translated into six languages, including Korean, Japanese, and French, and are loved worldwide on various webtoon and web novel platforms. In addition, it was published as a book in the United States, where comics publications are mainstream, and received great love. Recently, it was launched as an audiobook and became a hit, establishing a successful case of IP expansion.
In particular, on the first day of the event, about 400 people gathered for the talk show featuring artist Turtle Me, and fans gathered to the point where the Tapas Entertainment booth overflowed. Artist Turtle Me, who was preparing for an event pretending to be a staff member and suddenly went on stage and garnered cheers, said, “Meeting fans who flew in from all over the world, including the United States, Korea, and Japan, I realized how much love ‘The Beginning, Not the End’ received on the global stage. “I realized how much I was receiving it,” he said, adding, “I want to meet more with my fans.”
On this day, author Turtle Me also attracted attention by announcing the publication of an additional book, ‘The Beginning, Not the End’, which has gained great popularity along with web novels and webtoons. Together with Yen Press, which published the first volume, we decided to publish volumes 2 to 6 by 2024. Yen Press is considered one of the largest publishers of comics and novels in North America. In addition to an autograph session, author Turtle Me held a live talk show with Reddit, the largest community site in the United States, and over the next three days, interviews with local media, a meeting with Yen Press, publisher of the book ‘The Beginning, Not the End’, and Kino, Japan’s largest bookstore brand. Various events were held to communicate with fans, including an autograph session with Kinokuniya bookstore.
An official from Tapas Entertainment said, “Just a few years ago, booths featuring webtoons and web novels were rarely crowded. However, seeing the long line and the large crowd of people waiting to meet the author of Turtle Me, I was able to gauge the potential of ‘a beginning, not an end,’ as well as a bright future for the webtoon and web novel market,” he said. “We will develop our North American story IP business capabilities based on super IPs as well as Korean webtoons and web novels,” he said.
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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