The digital comics platform WEBTOON is publishing the Hellbound comic, which is also a popular new Netflix horror series, in English for the first time. Previously available in Korea, Hellbound is based on The Hell by director and screenwriter Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan) with art by Choi Gyu-Seok, both of whom helmed the television adaptation. Hellbound is only the latest WEBTOON to get a television adaptation, joining Netflix’s Sweet Home and Crunchyroll’s Tower of God. Fans can head over to the Hellbound WEBTOON landing page right now to check out the original story that the Netflix series is based on.
Hellbound tells the story of a supernatural phenomenon that occurs in Seoul, South Korea, where apparitions have started appearing before those who have done wrong to notify them of when they will die. A new religious group explains these happenings as God condemning people to make them live more righteously. Detective Jin is assigned to investigate the latest incident, just as his wife’s murderer is scheduled to be released from prison.
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The Hellbound Netflix series premiered on November 19th. Its debut ranked as one of the most-watched Netflix programs in the world, with the streamer reporting that it was the #1 most-streamed non-English series the first weekend it launched. In total it had 43 million viewing hours. Second on the list was The Queen of Flow: Season 2, Squid Game: Season 1, The King’s Affection: Season 1, and Carinha de Anjo: Season 1. According to FlixPatrol analytics, the series was at the top of Netflix ratings in more than 80 countries a day after debuting.
Circling back to other WEBTOON webcomics to get TV adaptations, December 2020 saw South Korean thriller series Sweet Home debut as the first Korean series to enter the Netflix Top 10 in the U.S. The WEBTOON/Crunchyroll co-produced the Tower of God anime, which was a global phenomenon with more than 4.5 billion reads from worldwide fans. In January 2022, Netflix will also release the TV adaptation of the WEBTOON zombie horror series All of Us are Dead, which has been read over 2.7 million times to date on WEBTOON globally.
Starring Yoo Ah-in, Kim Hyun-joo, Park Jeong-min, and more, all six episodes of Hellbound are available to stream on Netflix. Hellbound also had a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes shortly after it debuted.
