The Best New K-Comics to Read: March 2025

March is the proverbial month of lions and lambs, but the K-comics that are debuting don't necessarily follow that pattern. If anything, it's almost all lions, although that may be because the major flavor of comics on the sites/apps that are available in English is “spicy romance.” But there are other genres, like an increasing number playing with the “urban dungeon” idea popularized by Solo Leveling, as well as sports stories and plenty of reincarnation. Our round-up this month is a little shorter due to other upcoming features, but still, take a look and see what you can find to start your spring off right!

As always, this list doesn't include Tappytoon titles due to a lack of dates or physical releases.

If You're Looking for a Dungeon Fantasy: Welcome to the Dungeon Hotel

Twenty years ago, dungeons suddenly appeared all over the world, and some people awakened as Hunters who could delve the dungeons, close them, and save mankind, blah blah blah. Okay, so you've heard the setup to Welcome to the Dungeon Hotel before. But this series, adapted by jijingu from the novel by Ignar and available on Tapas, isn't interested in being the next Solo Leveling knock-off. Instead, it takes a different approach to the urban dungeon genre by making the story about a young woman who runs a dungeon hotel.

Not that it's Jeonghyo's goal to be a dungeon hotelier. She'd like nothing more than to stay as far away from dungeons as possible – her father was an S-ranked Hunter who died in a dungeon when she was in high school. She wants to run a café by the sea in a town he always talked about, so when she walks into her newly-purchased building and is greeted with a screen telling her that she has Awakened as a Hotelier, she's not happy. But as she begins to complete quests like “clean rooms” and “host first guest,” she starts to understand what she's really doing: saving the lives of people injured in the dungeons. A stay at her hotel, which has a revolving door that opens to a random dungeon where a client is, heals wounds, refreshes energy and mana, and offers Hunters a chance at survival that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Sure, Jeonghyo's still baffled by the entire thing, including her guiding Spirit of Service, who takes the forms of a handsome bellhop or a golden retriever depending on who's around, but it's not hard to see that this is going to be equal parts fantasy and healing in its scope. The implication, seen in both her first guest and in the in medias res first chapter about her S-rank high school classmate Wuhyeon, is that the hotel appears when someone is at risk of death and thinks about someone they love, so there's room for an interesting psychological angle as well. It's just different enough from its genre brethren while still tapping into what makes the urban dungeon genre popular in the first place.

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If You're Looking for a YA Romance: Secret Lessons in Love

Technically this ought to be classed as “romantasy,” but the magic (fantasy) element is negligible, and I loathe the word “romantasy” with every fiber of my being. But even without quibbling about the finer points of genre classification, Secret Lessons in Love, adapted by Sawool and Kim Byul from the novel by slope, is a picture-perfect young adult romance. Set in a mild fantasy version of nineteenth-century Europe, the story follows Rose Bell, who, after her father spiraled into a gambling addiction and ruined the family, lost her status as Rosalie Beldon and moved to a distant northern province with her mother. At sixteen, she moved back to the capital to enroll at a prestigious academy as a scholarship student, a position she more than earned with her top grades. But three years later, her scholarship is in peril – a snooty teacher seizes the chance to fail the “upstart commoner,” knowing full well it will cost Rose her scholarship. A blow that stings even more because it happened just after Rose learned that her father gambled the deed to their house away. But like all YA school-set romances, a handsome rich boy is waiting in the wings – Jasper Conway, who, naturally, fell hard for Rose on her last day as Rosalie eight years ago. Jasper, who is in no way keen to lose Rose again even if he's terrible at expressing it, offers to pay her tuition if she tutors him, and thus a plot as old as time begins.

Although this story doesn't do anything all that new in the genre, it more than makes up for it by being incredibly easy to read, with smooth writing and art that emphasizes Rose's cuteness in the best possible way. Rose is almost certainly deliberately unaware of Jasper's feelings, because goodness knows he's not being particularly subtle about them. But she's also trying very, very hard not to borrow more trouble, and having rumors circulate about her and Jasper will land her squarely in everyone's eye. Jasper can't understand that, but he's also carrying around the hurt of Rose just vanishing years ago, and that's piled on top of his older brother trying far too hard to push an arranged marriage on him. The two keep bumping against each other, trying to make their points, confused by each other's motives and unaware of the minutia of what's actually happening. It's like reading candy, that feeling unique to YA fiction, and if you enjoy that, head over to Manta and read it.

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If You're Looking for a Mafia Romance: The Gilded Cage

If there's one truth we can all agree on, it's that no one reads mafia romances for the respectable characters and good decisions. Park Hyojin and Jinna's The Gilded Cage fully understands that in its first eight chapters. Louis Léon is hilariously described in the text as “a nobleman, the last aristocrat in France, and secretly a member of the mafia,” which either sounds like the most deranged fanfiction ever written by a feverish high schooler or like someone played “romance trope bingo.” He's also casually racist towards most Asians and the sort of misogynist who never sleeps with the same woman twice…so naturally he falls hard for Eunsae Yoon, our luckless heroine. Eunsae is about to be engaged to her childhood acquaintance and sort-of friend Joohwan, something she's decidedly not enthused about. She's not excited about much of anything in her life; all her privilege has gotten her is people telling her how to live and making comments on her weight. (Apparently she's too thin for their liking.) But don't worry, because as soon as Louis meets her at her engagement party, he determines to have her, and no sooner has Joohwan dropped her off than a truck slams into his car. The next thing Eunsae knows, she's waking up in an opulent bedroom at Louis' home in France.

This is not the series to pick up if you're a fan of sweet romance, and although things don't get sexual in the first eight chapters (not always a certainty with Lezhin, which largely handles smut), it's almost certain that they will later on, and there's no guarantee that it will be consensual. But again, that's not why most people read mafia romances. You read them for the terrible people and the fantasy that they can be tamed by the right romance, for the thrill of vicariously experiencing a dangerous, sexy story that you'd never want in your real life. And that is precisely what The Gilded Cage delivers. It is also gearing up Eunsae to learn to fight back, find her voice, and take control of her own life. While I would like to see it end with her striking out on her own, that's not likely to happen. Still, it will be one hell of a ride no matter what.

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If You're Looking for An Actual Villainess: My Sister Covets my Fiancé

Literature of all stripes is full of terrible siblings, but Katherine Topana from Manta's My Sister Covets my Fiancé, written by Danmyoha and illustrated by Maru Comics, is one of the worst. Katherine despises her younger sister Neris for the crime of having been born, and that seething hatred eventually led to her demise – but because their father had given his favored child a special amulet, Katherine was able to return to a time before her plunge from the cliff. Like many a villainess before her, Katherine is determined to avoid her doom this time – but unlike Katarina and her ilk, Katherine is an actual, honest-to-God villainess and has zero interest in being anything else. She's unquestionably in the wrong. And she both doesn't see it and wouldn't care if she did.

She's also really not great at this rewriting history thing, although in all fairness, she may have returned to the past at a point where it was impossible to change the inciting incident, her refusal of Duke Ian Deyfried's proposal, and forcing Neris to accept it instead. Katherine knows that Duke Deyfried will be a hero and Neris will be his fêted duchess, so she wants to prevent that and make sure it's her in the wife role. To that end, she also travels to Deyfried's lands and begins attempting to sabotage Neris. I've made this sound like it's primarily from Katherine's perspective, and she does get some of that, but this is Neris' story. But Katherine's role in the first eight chapters is absolutely more important, and it makes us appreciate Neris and the duke much more as they begin to realize what Katherine is up to. The art is floral and gorgeous, but what makes this story is that Katherine is so different from the villainesses who have become popular in the past few years. She's time looping, but she doesn't deserve it, nor is she likely to be redeemed. Neris has a true bad guy on her hands and needs to learn to come out of her shell if she's going to triumph – and that's the one thing Katherine wants at all costs to prevent.

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If You're Looking for a Reincarnation Story: This Wasn't in My Adoption Plan!

From The Emperor's Daughter to Who Made Me a Princess, stories about people reborn as the child of a tyrant are hardly rare in the manhwa-sphere. But This Wasn't in My Adoption Plan!, available on WEBTOON, manages to throw in a decent twist or two. Aerin, the heroine, was murdered at the behest of the corrupt duke she worked for in her previous life, and when she opens her eyes again, she's his niece, slated to be his adopted daughter. Havenik isn't like the other evil dads in most of the genre – he's really evil, and Aerin doesn't see any way to change that. Instead, she sets her sights on her other uncle, Geoffrey, a mad scientist who she knows will come up with a magic formula that will change the world. Aerin, therefore, decides to use her future knowledge (because in her previous life, Aerin was already dead by Havenik's hand) to convince Geoffrey to adopt her, thereby securing a safe future for herself.

The poor kid's got her work cut out for her, though. She's working through the trauma of her previous life, when she was also an orphan, beaten down by the world even before she ended up working as Havenik's fixer. She knows the grim future awaiting her as Aerin, and she's trying to both save herself and separate her new life from the old one, which is not an easy or comfortable feat. While it looks like she's going to succeed – she piques Geoffrey's interest and there are signs that he's also suffered at Havenik's hand, to say nothing of their father, the old (now current) duke – she's still far from safe. There are some scenes of child abuse across the first five chapters, so proceed with caution, but Takbon and Aeramsi's series has enough to both recommend it to genre fans and set it apart from other series that it's worth checking out.

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If You're Looking for Historical Fiction: The Forbidden Marriage

Part romance, part comedy, The Forbidden Marriage by Sanchaek based on the work by Chun Ji Hye, may already be familiar to K-drama viewers. But now the comic is available to read in English on WEBTOON, and whether you know the show or not, it feels like a treat. Taking place during the Joseon era, the story focuses on a seven-year period when the reigning king, Heon, forbade marriage for anyone in the kingdom. (This is, as far as I know, complete fiction.) That's because seven years before the story's start, Heon's fiancée, crown princess Ja-Yeon, died under mysterious circumstances – most people believe she killed herself, but Heon is firmly of the opinion that she was murdered, and he steadfastly refuses to marry anyone else. And if the king won't marry? Nobody will marry. Even people like his childhood friend Inspector Shinwon, who also had a romantic mishap and is in no hurry to find another bride, recognize that Heon's behavior is destructive and terrible, but Heon won't be swayed, especially since he's convinced that Ja-Yeon is haunting him.

Enter Sorang, the heroine. Sorang has recently arrived in Hanyang, the capital, and she's set herself up as a rogue matchmaker, claiming spiritual powers that she in no way has. Heon and Shinwon are frustrated with not just Sorang, but all illegal matchmakers, but Sorang's bad enough at her job that she's the one they catch. (Telling siblings they're destined to marry was not, perhaps, her best move.) But even being jailed isn't enough to make her give up, and Sorang pretends to be channeling the Korean god of marriage, which is enough to buy her some time and set up a love triangle between Sorang, Shinwon, and Heon. The writing is cheekily self-aware, commenting on its own fast pace and the ridiculousness of the plot, while the art is expressive and attractive. Even if you didn't know this had already been filmed as a K-drama, you could tell from the energy the story puts out – it's addictive. Fans of historical series will want to check this one out, especially if you like your history with a side of romcom.

And that's it for this month! Hopefully you'll find something worth your reading time, but if not, fear not – there'll be more new titles debuting in April.