WEBTOON goes Fullmetal

So, Fullmetal Alchemist is on its way to WEBTOON this Wednesday (May 7th, 2025), but before it does, I wanted to weigh in with my two cents.

Fullmetal Alchemist was first published in 2001 in Japan before heading to VIZ for US distribution in 2005. And now, in 2025, the digital version which was previously published by Yen Press is heading to WEBTOONs in full color.

FMA has an anime adaptation, two feature length animated films, and a live-action adaptation. There's also audio dramas, light novels and a whole slew of video games that have come out in Japan (and a few in the US).

But this all begs the question…

Why is WEBTOON re-publishing a manga series that is 20 years old in the western market?

There are two obvious reasons that WEBTOON would publish a title, even an old title, like Fullmetal Alchemist.

The first is exceedingly simple. Good comics attract audiences, a portion of which WEBTOONs would obviously hope would be paying customers. Of course, WEBTOON has a large existing audience of young readers who may have never read FMA.

But, of course, FMA is still an older title. In fact, I read it in high school and college when I was growing up. So did many of my classmates and friends, all of whom are in our mid- to late-thirties. A key demographic of paying users for any webtoon platform including big green.

As much as it pains me to say it, FMA is a “classic” manga. And having it in color will certainly draw diehard manga readers who may be wary about dipping their feet into a new content medium. Readers who are employed and have disposable income and who have no doubt spent money on manga already.

While webtoons, as a medium, is having its time in the spotlight, manga has a long and storied history in western and international markets that WEBTOON just doesn't have.

FMA represents access to a large audience older manga audiences who are eager to consume content en masse.

Even for folks who might want to play it safe, signing Fullmetal Alchemist in color is a shrewd move.

Flags on the Play

So, will it work?

How well this attracts older manga readers will depend heavily on marketing campaigns. I’m expecting to see more ads on Facebook, Instagram, as well as physical ads. I highly doubt this contract was cheap and WEBTOON will need to invest further funds to clear the ROI on this one.

We’re less than two months out from Anime Expo in Los Angeles not to mention the full slate of summer conventions, each of which represents an opportunity to tap into the manga market.

But that’s just one part of the equation. Even if they’re able to successfully tap into the manga market, adoption will likely be slow and drawn out over the course of a month or two. They need the second half of the market to get on board: existing webtoon readers.

This audience doesn’t care if it used to be in black and white or that it’s been updated to high-def, they’ll be judging it purely based on how it compares to existing content on the platform. This is a huge stumbling block because FMA wasn’t native to scroll and the title is 25 years old. Yes, the story is good. But will younger audiences be able to connect to it the same way my friends did when we were in high school?

By my estimate, Fullmetal Alchemist needs to clear 2 million views in the first month to be worth the trouble. That doesn’t put it in the upper eschelon of webtoon titles launched on the platform, rather somewhere in the middle. But anything less than 1 million and we’re looking at a flop.

What is next?

WEBTOON is obviously looking to attract new audiences by bringing in IDW and manga titles from outside the webtoon industry. So far, the IDW titles haven’t performed great but Fullmetal Alchemist might be one of the few titles that stands a chance.

Especially in full color.

But this endeavor can’t have been cheap. Recoloring a 20 year old manga and then upscaling it for 720p would require plenty of artists, decent funding, and (more than likely) some level of AI to make this affordable.

Not to mention, the only way this works is if there are follow-up titles to this. IDW and Fullmetal Alchemist have to be the opening salvo in this campaign. And with the summer’s anime convention lineup, I would hope that they have more in store for all of us.