Webtoons Ruled Netflix in June. An Original K-Rom-Com Cracked the World First

Lim Ji-yeon-led My Royal Nemesis reportedly hit No. 1 on Netflix's global non-English chart in its opening week. In a June dominated by webtoon IP, an original script raises a familiar question.

If you scrolled Netflix's non-English chart in June, a lot of the top K-dramas shared a backstory: they were webtoons first. Titles like *Head Over Heels* and *Agent Kim* came out of the webtoon-to-screen pipeline that now supplies much of Korea's streaming slate. (For readers outside the ecosystem: webtoons are Korea's vertically scrolling digital comics, and their fan-built stories have become a low-risk, pre-tested source of scripts for TV.) A month before that webtoon lineup queued up, one show with no source comic behind it climbed to No. 1 first.

*My Royal Nemesis* — the SBS Friday-Saturday drama known in Korean as 「멋진 신세계」, with Lim Ji-yeon in a dual role — reportedly reached No. 1 on Netflix's global non-English TV chart in its opening stretch. According to figures reported by Korea Times and allkpop, both citing Netflix's own Tudum tracking page, the show drew roughly 3.9 million views in its first week (May 4–10) and also landed at No. 2 on the overall TV ranking that includes English-language titles. One caveat worth keeping up front: these numbers come secondhand through outlets citing Tudum, not from a direct read of Tudum itself, so they're best treated as reported tallies rather than confirmed figures.

A Broadcast Drama at the Top of the Stream

*My Royal Nemesis* ran as a 14-episode series on SBS's Friday-Saturday slot from May 8 to June 20, 2026. It was directed by Han Tae-seob and written by Kang Hyun-joo, and produced by Studio S, Studio Dragon, and Gill Pictures. The premise is a romantic-comedy fantasy: the soul of Kang Dan-sim, a scheming villainess from the Joseon era, possesses the body of an unknown modern actress named Shin Se-ri, who then builds a love-hate tangle with a cold-blooded third-generation chaebol heir, Cha Se-gye. Lim Ji-yeon plays both Kang Dan-sim and Shin Se-ri; Heo Nam-jun and Jang Seung-jo appear opposite her.

According to Wikipedia, drawing on SBS and Tudum tallies, the show was the first drama from SBS's Friday-Saturday block to top Netflix's weekly global non-English TV chart. A network broadcast reaching the summit of a global streaming ranking is the kind of result Korea's production world tends to note.

The number of countries where it broke into the top 10 is reported differently depending on the outlet. Wikipedia and allkpop cite 44 countries; Korea Times, in a separate breakdown, mentions a top-10 finish across 84 countries and a No. 1 spot in 24. It's hard to say with certainty which figure is right, but with the show reportedly charting in Greece, Brazil, and Mexico, both accounts agree on one thing: the spread wasn't confined to any single language market.

Ordinary at Home, No. 1 Abroad

The interesting gap is between the domestic and the global numbers. In Korea's Nielsen tallies, Episode 1 peaked at around 5.4 percent and Episode 2 at about 6.9 percent. That's not blockbuster territory at home, yet the global streaming result ran ahead of it. The world's viewing data moved before the domestic buzz did.

This is exactly the spot where numbers get mixed together and inflated, so it's worth keeping some distance. Domestic ratings vary by how each outlet measures them — some reports cite a 7.8 percent average over the first two weeks — but a peak and an average are different kinds of figures. Pulling one out to declare the show “a hit at home and abroad” would be careless. What can be stated is narrower: domestic performance was solid but unremarkable, and the opening-week global ranking was No. 1.

The Opening Was Won. The Trajectory Is an Open Question

By its second week, the show reportedly slipped to No. 2 on the non-English chart. From there, the data goes dark. No source clearly maps the week-by-week ranking curve across the show's six-week run from May 8 to June 20. The trail runs only as far as the opening-week No. 1 and the second-week No. 2; everything after that — including how it finished during its finale week — can't be verified. It's easy to lump the show in as a “global hit,” but the shape may just as plausibly be a front-loaded burst.

Meanwhile, June's non-English chart had a different lead. According to a report from the Japanese-language edition of Korea.net, the title that held non-English No. 1 for two straight weeks in mid-June was *Head Over Heels*, adapted from the webtoon *Get Schooled* — roughly 21.1 million views, No. 1 in 46 countries. June's new-release lineup also carried other webtoon adaptations, including *Agent Kim*. It was a month when webtoon IP filled the top of the chart.

PRISM Insight — The Original's Opening, the IP's Staying Power

Most of June's top Netflix K-dramas were webtoon adaptations. *My Royal Nemesis*, with no source comic, got to global non-English No. 1 first, back in early May. That opening burst is a signal that a format alone — a possession twist, a dual role, a chaebol rom-com — can pry open the world market. But the fact that it ceded the ranking to a webtoon-driven hit after week two revives an old question: the original's opening, or the IP's staying power? Two shows aren't enough to settle it. The question is all that's left.

Two Readings, Pulling in Opposite Directions

There are two ways to read this result.

One sees the global portability of the K-rom-com format. With no source IP, the show hit global No. 1 in its opening week on nothing but proven K-rom-com grammar — possession, a dual role, a chaebol romance. Charting across 44 to 84 countries reads as evidence that the format itself is a product that travels past language and region. Period settings, reincarnation, and chaebol romance also sit comfortably alongside the tropes of Chinese-language web fiction, which this view treats as a low cultural barrier to entry. That said, week-by-week rankings or primary viewing data for Taiwan and the broader Chinese-speaking world haven't been confirmed, so this reading stays at the level of background inference within overall non-English consumption — not a documented claim.

The other sees a saturated webtoon-IP field and a burst that evaporated. The title that actually held non-English No. 1 for two straight weeks in June was the webtoon-based *Head Over Heels*. *My Royal Nemesis* has murky ranking-defense data after its opening spike, and it reportedly didn't make the cumulative top five for the first half of 2026 compiled by the Japanese outlet DANMEE. Japan's market, which tallies around cumulative views and sustained buzz, structurally scores front-loaded, spike-shaped titles lower. Hence the counterargument: originals can win the opening, but staying power goes to webtoon IP and word-of-mouth hits.

Neither reading has enough data for a verdict. The finale-week ranking is missing from every source. The one confirmed fact is the opening-week No. 1; staying power stays an open question.

What's Left Is a Single Case

What *My Royal Nemesis* leaves behind isn't a conclusion — it's a case. In a stretch where webtoon IP has become the safe grammar of Korean drama exports, it showed that a script with no source comic can still seize the opening of the world market. How long that momentum lasted, the data doesn't say. But that an original screenplay alone can reach global non-English No. 1 in its opening week — that one thing, this past May made clear.