K pop Group ILLIT’s Webtoon Summer Moon Goes Global
Summer Moon: The Quprids, the original webtoon from K pop girl group ILLIT, is heading well beyond Korea. The series is rolling out across six regions, including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and France.
According to HYBE, localized versions arrived on WEBTOON’s global platforms in stages. It went live on October 20 in the United States, Taiwan, and Thailand, followed by Japan and Indonesia on October 21, with France set to join later in November.
The story is a coming of age school fantasy about five everyday high school girls named Yeoreum, Miso, Ahyeong, Gayoon, and Unha. Just before their school’s big summer festival, they unexpectedly become magical girls. It opens as a light teen romance and slowly deepens as the girls learn that true magic comes from embracing who they really are.
The webtoon has already done well at home. Since its Korean debut on August 4 it climbed to number two in the female category and number three overall on Naver WEBTOON’s Top 30 Rising Series chart, and it reached number four and number five on the new series ranking. An official English version is now available to read.
As for the group behind it, ILLIT is a five member act that formed through the survival show R U Next? in 2023 and released their debut album SUPER REAL ME in March 2024.
My take: Idol groups branching into webtoons can feel like a gimmick, but a warm magical girl story with a real message is an easy one to root for. I am curious to see how the series grows.
