The Lagged Development of the Korean Manhwa Industry from 1910 to the Present: The Formation of Negative Perceptions

In comparison to Korea’s other cultural industries, manhwa 만화 has shown a lagged development. As a result, the Korean government has recently shown interest in this industry and begun to support it. However, the fundamental reasons for the lagged development of manhwa should be carefully scrutinized in order to make promotion policies and support more effective and thus to achieve further development and ad- vancement of the manhwa industry. This article seeks to address this issue and argues that the core problem is derived from a negative view toward manhwa as it has been considered to be harmful to Korean society and, hence, not acknowledged as a part of culture. Therefore, this paper takes a historical approach to track down how this nega- tive view formed and why it has prevailed in Korea. To this end, political and economic changes related to the manhwa industry are analyzed with a focus on production and consumption. The paper reveals that it was not only coercive public policies but also a lack of production capacity that induced a distorted view toward manhwa and caused the development of the industry to lag. Where business strategies have been adopted in an improved business environment, this has helped to enhance production to achieve better outcomes and change the view of consumers toward manhwa, resulting in an increase in consumption.