Best New K-Comics to Read: February 2025

Ah, February, the shortest month with those two most venerable holidays, Valentine's Day and the even more beloved (and fake) Cheap Chocolate Day. It's no surprise that a lot of the K-Comics coming out across reading platforms are so romance-heavy this month, although if we're being honest, sites/apps like Lezhin and Manta have made an artform out of specializing in the genre and all its permutations. But whatever your taste, there's good reading to be had, with or without a box of chocolates by your side. As always, I'm not including print releases or Tappytoon in this little roundup, the latter because it doesn't put dates on its releases.

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If You're Looking for Forbidden Love: Beyond the Walls of the Duke's Mansion

The Hallmark Channel might have the monopoly on sugary sweet holiday-themed romances, but that's not what everyone wants. What if, for example, you're more into spicy than sweet? Or polyamorous relationships? Or polyamorous relationships between siblings of the m/f/m variety? Well, if that's the case, then Lezhin has you covered with Beyond the Walls of the Duke's Mansion. Based on the novel by Jung Plum and adapted by Linwoo and Black Salamander, this incredibly NSFW title takes place in a pseudo-19th century European world where pre-marital sex is A-Okay, no matter what your gender. Or at least, it's supposed to be – Lady Aris is more than ready to explore her sexuality by hiring a hot gigolo like she hears her (adult) younger brother Leon doing every night with multiple courtesans. Still, her older brother Evan won't allow it. He also won't allow her any suitors, and Aris has had enough. So she does what any reasonable wealthy noblewoman would do: secretly hires a male sex worker to come to her room. Imagine her surprise when Evan shows up instead, having sent the other man packing and more than prepared to teach Aris about the pleasures of the flesh himself.

Yes, this is absolutely and unabashedly trashy. Aris' brothers – both blood-related, as far as we know in the first eight chapters – have apparently been lusting after her for quite some time, and if the prologue is accurate, they're about to embark on a polyamorous incestuous relationship in a big way. (Which, incidentally, is also how you can describe the genitals in this series. No censorship here!) It barely wastes time with the plot before diving right into the sexy bits, embracing its raison d'être with nary a blush in sight. This is a story for readers who just want the smut, and honestly, I kind of respect that. And for all of that and her poor choices, Aris isn't a terrible protagonist – she wants to take charge of her own body and pleasure, and she's not going to let either brother take advantage of her; in fact, she flat-out tells Leon “no” when neither of them have contraception. If this is the sort of romance fiction you enjoy, it does it well, whether you're reading it because you like it or because you can't look away from its festival of bad ideas.

If You're Looking for Sweet BL: The Pizza Delivery Man and Gold Palace

But fortunately, romance is a broad genre, and if you're looking for something more on the sweet side, Manta offers The Pizza Delivery Man and Gold Palace. Written and illustrated by u-pi, this BL series is based much more on the characters' emotional needs than anything else. Woowon is trying to support his sick mother by working a variety of jobs when he lucks into a pizza delivery gig at a restaurant known for its attractive staff. Because of their good looks, delivery drivers are often tipped Western-style by the wealthy elites living in the high-end apartment complex Gold Palace, meaning that Woowon can make a lot more money than he ever did before. That's not where he meets Seoan, but rather where they reconnect; a few weeks prior to the start of the story, Woowon offered Seoan an umbrella when he was caught in the rain. This took on outsize importance to Seoan, who suffers from debilitating anxiety and panic disorders, and when they meet again at Gold Palace (where Seoan lives), he wonders if Woowon could be the one person he can be comfortable with.

Unusually for manga and manhwa, Seoan regularly sees a therapist, who helps him to see how significant it is that he accepts Woowon's help in the first place and that Seoan's mental health issues are treated seriously. Woowon, on the other hand, keeps his troubles largely to himself, but what he lets slip tells us that he's been struggling for a long time, both financially and emotionally. The story is grounded in the fact that both men need someone to understand and support them, and although the existence of both an all-ages and an R-rated version indicates that things will get physical at some point, right now, the story seems set to cater to the mental health and emotional needs of the characters before going anywhere more sexual. It feels like a story that respects its characters, and the art helps to show how much Seoan is struggling in his posture and the dark circles under his clearly-tired eyes. It has a lot of potential, both as a love story and as a character-driven tale.

If You're Looking for Young Adult Romance: William of the Wardrobe

Still, when you come right down to it, it's hard to beat classic YA fiction for romances that make you want to simultaneously scream at the characters and roll around on your bed squealing while clutching your pillow. That's precisely what William of the Wardrobe brings to the table. Published on Manta, this series by Dokjin and Minuju based on the work by YOOPAULHEE is a fever dream of young adult romance. The story takes place in Pasadena, California, where Julia struggles with hearing loss in her right ear and her parents' increasingly acrimonious relationship. On the night of her twelfth birthday, a beautiful boy emerges from her bedroom's antique wardrobe. He tells her an incredible story of being born in London in 1875 and later taken in by a conman with magical powers, who hatched a plan to have him steal jewels through time, enchanting the wardrobe. The boy, William, has been living in the 16th century for the most part, where he was adopted by a glover named John and dabbles in acting. I'll give you three guesses about who young Will actually is, and the first two don't count.

After that night, William vanishes from Julia's life for three years, returning when she's fifteen and saying it's only been a month for him since he left her. Now that they're the same age, the story seems set to really kick off, and it's none too soon: Julia's been tentatively involved with Hunter, the boy next door, who only talks to her at night outside of school and ignores her otherwise. Julia's hurt by this, especially since Hunter's parents have put him in the same position she's in with their constant fighting, and she yearns for William to come back – and when he does, she begins to put the pieces together as to who he really is. Does this mean that they can never be together? Her name sounding awfully similar to “Juliet” doesn't bode well, but time travel romances are all about changing the impossible. This is highly addictive in that way that only YA fiction is, and the art has a dreamlike quality that enhances the unreality and romance of the plot. Even if it ends up having a bittersweet or sad ending, I'm at real risk of becoming obsessed.

If You're Looking for Medical Drama: The Great Surgeon

Luckily, there are some interesting new releases outside the romance genre this month, and one of them is The Great Surgeon on Tapas. Adapted from the novel by susulim by SUPERCOMIX STUDIO, the story follows eager young ER intern Jihoon Kim as he begins his journey toward medical greatness. Set in 1993, we first meet Jihoon during his very first shift at bustling Seoul Hospital, a downtown establishment with a packed ER. Jihoon is almost naively determined to do his absolute best, and he quickly runs up against having to balance his desire to help with the rules he's meant to follow. He knows that he's supposed to wait for the attending doctor before beginning treatment or even diagnosing someone, but when they can't or don't answer his calls, he's got the guts to begin treatment on his own…which could go very badly if he's wrong. That doesn't happen in the first five chapters, but one of his cases, a woman in a diabetic coma, is dangerously close to getting to that point. Jihoon's knowledge is all book-based, and he's getting a crash course in hands-on medical situations.

Although the story has its unrealistic elements, such as I desperately hope the shortage of attending physicians is (if that's true, my family has been exceptionally lucky), as well as Jihoon's almost preternatural ability to treat patients properly, it feels like this may be in service of setting up later drama. One of the other interns, Gapsu, is lazy to the point of incompetence. Because of him, Jihoon ends up working thirty-six hours straight – hardly an ideal situation. Lee, the head of the ER, is keeping an eye on Jihoon, but whether or not that's a good thing isn't yet clear, and the way he simply lets Jihoon pick up Gapsu's slack is concerning. Things are going well for Jihoon thus far, but as Dr. Lee says, that may be more a case of the patients saving him rather than him saving the patients, meaning that he's been more lucky than skilled. With art that excels at showing the tension in a given scene, this has a lot of potential for medical drama fans and is worth keeping an eye on.

If You're Looking for Sports Drama: Deadpoint

WEBTOON also has a new series that's devoid of romance (although you could probably put your yuri goggles on if so inclined), Mayorac's Deadpoint. Combining sports drama with the paranormal, the story is about a high school student and an amateur climber, Hoji. When she was in elementary school, her firefighter mother died trying to save a child from a burning building, and from that moment on, Hoji was able to see black webbing over people's heads. She quickly realized that these are “talent ceilings,” a marker of how high someone can climb, literally and figuratively. Until her third year in middle school, Hoji's wasn't fully formed, but witnessing the Olympic dreams of sixteen-year-old Aseong crumble on the world stage caused it to close. Hoji's not sure if Aseong's fall specifically did it, but she gave up on climbing at that moment…or so she thought.

As you can guess, Hoji's not nearly as done with climbing as she thinks she is, but now that South Korea's Olympic dreams have (temporarily) ended with Aseong's injury, many of the climbing gyms are closing down, including the one that has the special grip that Aseong failed to grasp. The first six chapters primarily focus on Hoji trying to come to terms with both the talent ceiling she feels closing in on her and the lingering pain of her mother's death, and both of them are tied up in her drive to climb and her love of the sport. Mayorac's art uses color particularly well to highlight both Hoji's power and motivation (her bright red hair) and the looming, smokey look of the ceilings, and if some liberties are taken with the sport – something the creator fully admits – they're in service of making the story feel more urgent and Hoji and Aseong's relationship more interesting. It's a fascinating start to a series with enormous potential, especially if you like your sports drama to have something beyond just the rigors of training and Olympic ambition.

If You're Looking for a Trope-Filled Romance: Just Contract Lovers

But in February, romance is inescapable, and the greater part of the new series across the platforms I surveyed falls into that category. Fortunately, there's plenty of variation across the genre, as Tapas' Just Contract Lovers shows. This BL title takes up that most ridiculous of tropes, the idea that you can't write fictional romance unless you've lived in real romance. (Funny how no one says that about any other genre…) In the case of Hyunsoo, however, this feels at least a bit like an excuse he can use to start a relationship with his high school junior, Sungyoon. The two men fell out of touch after Sungyoon's marriage, but now, three years later, Sungyoon is divorced and not involved with anyone. He and Hyunsoo meet unexpectedly at a bookstore, where Hyunsoo is doing a signing of his latest work, and the two reconnect over drinks – by which I mean “Sungyoon accidentally gets Hyunsoo drunk and he ends up in the hospital.” It turns out that Hyunsoo hasn't been eating properly because he's struggling with the romantic suspense novel he's writing, with his editor's chief complaint that the romance angle isn't good. From there, it's a short step to Hyunsoo suggesting that Sungyoon enter into a contract relationship with him so that he can make up for the hospital visit and help his old buddy successfully write his novel.

If it feels like a thin pretext on Hyunsoo's part, I suspect that's on purpose. The implication is that he's always had a crush on Sungyoon, and he distanced himself after the other man got married in an attempt to forget about him. And honestly, Sungyoon isn't all that upset by the idea of dating another man, and more specifically this man, hinting at a mutual crush that never came to fruition. The major draw here is that neither of them is making any noises about “but I'm not gay” or “gay for you” nonsense; they're just two friends trying something different in their relationship that they both want but feel they need an excuse for. The first five chapters do an excellent job of setting that up, and even though this doesn't appear to be on the more explicit side of things, there's still some lovely fanservice if that's what you're after. Just Contract Lovers seems set to take one of my least favorite tropes and do something good with it, which is always an accomplishment.

If You're Looking for Dangerous Romance: Dive

Contracts can take many different forms, though, and the one in Dive on Lezhin is far from the semi-innocent deal in Just Contract Lovers. Based on the novel by Yuyung Woo and adapted by chmun and Doyo, Dive has a creeping sense of dread permeating its pages. The heroine, Eunyoung, used to be a world-class diver, but she quit after her father's reaction to her silver medal win was to tell her she looked like a sex worker in her very modest bathing suit. That's part of a pattern in her family: nothing Eunyoung has ever done has been good enough for her emotionally abusive father, and it's nearly turned her into a doll-like being who keeps all of her thoughts and feelings buried deep. She doesn't want to meet Incheol, a man who works for her dad, on a date, but because her father asked (demanded) it of her, she does.

Something is unsettling about Incheol, though. Not only is he not of the social status her father demanded of her sisters' husbands, but he's also got an almost predatory gleam in his eyes. He's been watching Eunyoung since her diving days, and everything he does has an air of the sexual about it. By the time he gets Eunyoung in bed in chapter three, he's worn down her defenses while also plying her with the sort of praise her family never gave her. Eunyoung likens it to the dangerous feel of diving from a high board before you hit the water, a sense that life hangs in the balance, and she's attracted to that in the same way she was drawn to diving. But there's an unsettling sense that perhaps Incheol wants Eunyoung for some reason other than herself, and the way he introduces a BDSM element to their sexual relationship gives the illusion of asking for her consent without the reality of it. It's dark, explicit, and has an element of danger that sets it apart from the other February releases on this list. If nothing else, these series show that love comes in all different flavors. Hopefully, one of them will be to your taste.