Kakao Webtoon Thailand held its first-ever event at Thailand Comic Con 2022, showcasing some of its most popular webtoon titles such as “Solo Leveling,” “Villains Are Destined to Die,” and “Solitary Lady.” 

As an exclusive official webtoon sponsor for the event, the company gave local fans the opportunity to get up close and personal with Kakao Webtoon’s premium content IPs, following the launch of Kakao Webtoon Thailand in June 2021.

The event was held at the Royal Paragon Hall of the Siam Paragon in Bangkok from October 28 to October 30. Since 2014, the pop culture festival, one of Southeast Asia’s largest cultural events each year, has been a magnet for comic book fans in the region. 

After being held online for four years due to the pandemic, this year’s in-person event saw 79 renowned global brands take part, including Disney, Bilibili, Bandai, and Capcom, with an estimated 70,000 visitors gathering to check out the offerings. 

The Kakao Webtoon Thailand booth was built to offer interactive experiences with the Kakao Webtoon brand and the company’s leading webtoon titles. Three of Kakao Entertainment’s super IPs were present, including “Solo Leveling,” which has accumulated over 14.2 billion views worldwide, the fantasy romance series “Villains Are Destined to Die,” and “Solitary Lady.” Some 3,000 people visited the booth, many of whom arrived in full cosplay regalia of various popular characters in Kakao Entertainment’s webtoon stories. 

Thai webtoon titles were also introduced at the booth, catching the eye of many of the local fans. “Love Destiny” is a local webtoon produced by Super Comics Studio, a subsidiary of Kakao Entertainment, based on a popular Thai novel and TV drama. “How to Make Phra Aphai Fall in Love,” another local webtoon, is based on work by the beloved Thai poet Sunthorn Phu, and “One Day, My Favorite K-Pop Idol Group Leader Disappeared!” is about Thai veterans who fought in the Korean War.

“We’re always on the look-out for great local stories that we can develop into webtoons for our fans and expand into other content formats to reach an even larger audience. We’re looking forward to working on some excellent stories from Thailand, which will come out next year,” said Hyun Yang-won, head of Kakao Webtoon Thailand.

There were a variety of events held for fans at the booth, including a mini webtoon concert. Kakao Webtoon invited Thai singer Nan Sathida to sing the soundtrack of three webtoons, including “Solitary Lady,” “Love Destiny,” and “How to Make Phra Aphai Fall in Love.” 

“I started reading Kakao webtoons to find inspiration for my song lyrics, but I fell completely in love with them,” said Sathida. “This was the first time I wrote all the lyrics myself, which just goes to show how passionate I became about this project.”

There was an event for cosplayers attending as well. Thames Malerose, a popular influencer known for posting cosplay outfits online, played the part of Carlitos Regulus, the main character from “Villains Are Destined to Die.” Earnies Hime, another popular local cosplayer, showed up as the main female character, Penelope Eckhart, wearing a costume that took 30 days to create. 

To round things out, the booth held drawing shows, workshops, and talks with local artists and webtoon studios. A session was also held to introduce Kakao Entertainment’s efforts to root out webtoon piracy through a dedicated global task force.

In addition to Comic Con, Kakao Webtoon Thailand has been running a special K-webtoon exhibition in Bangkok in partnership with the local Korean Cultural Center. The show will run through January.