Cover These popular webtoon K-dramas did not always finish the way their source material did (Photo: VIU)
These popular webtoon K-dramas did not always finish the way their source material did (Photo: VIU)
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Think you know how these webtoon K-dramas end? From ‘Love Alarm’ to ‘Mask Girl’, these adaptations took their source material in dramatically different directions
Whenever you watch an adaptation, whether a few webtoon K-dramas or a novel-turned series, you always end up asking, “Did they change anything?”
It’s an especially tempting question when the drama has been adapted from a webtoon that readers already know inside out. The characters may look right. The premise may be familiar. Even the big romantic moments might land exactly where readers expect them to. And then, somewhere in the final stretch, the adaptation takes a turn.
Sometimes the change is practical: the webtoon was still being published when filming began, so the drama has to invent its own conclusion. Sometimes the writers want a cleaner television ending. And sometimes the adaptation simply decides that the source material’s ending isn't the ending it wants. Sometimes, a different plot works better for the broader, live-action-preferring audience.
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The results, however, can be surprisingly consequential. A love triangle gets a different winner. A character who survives on the page dies onscreen. A relationship that ends in the webtoon gets another chance on television. And in a few cases, the K-drama and its source material essentially become two different versions of the same story.
Here are webtoon K-dramas whose endings diverged most dramatically from their original counterparts. Spoilers ahead!
‘Love Alarm’ (2019-2021)
Above The Netflix adaptation answered the question the webtoon developed in a very different way
Love Alarm is almost tailor-made for an adaptation-ending comparison.
Headlined by Kim So-hyun as Kim Jo-jo, Song Kang as Hwang Sun-oh and Jung Ga-ram as Lee Hye-yeong, the premise is built around romantic uncertainty: a popular app alerts users whenever someone within 10 metres has romantic feelings for them.
When the drama entered production for Season 2, Cheon Kye-young’s original webtoon had been placed on an indefinite hiatus due to the author’s health issues. That forced the screenwriters to forge their own path to the finish line. While both the page and screen ultimately place Jo-jo with Hye-yeong, the mechanics of getting there diverged sharply. The drama invented its own resolution for the Love Alarm 2.0 algorithm, granted Sun-oh a distinct redemptive arc with Yuk-jo and framed Jo-jo’s final choice around emotional self-reliance rather than the webtoon’s unresolved romantic ambiguities.
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‘Sweet Home’ (2020-2024)
Above The apocalypse didn’t end quite the same way on the page
The Netflix adaptation of Sweet Home, starring Song Kang as Cha Hyun-su, Lee Jin-wook as Pyeon Sang-wook and Lee Si-young as Seo Yi-kyung, eventually diverged so substantially from Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan’s webtoon that comparing the two finales feels almost like comparing parallel universes.
The series follows the webtoon’s central premise of monsters and human transformation, but its later seasons introduce major changes to the characters and storyline. One of the biggest differences concerns Ji-su: in the webtoon, she remains alive and becomes part of the post-apocalyptic aftermath, while the drama kills her much earlier. Eun-hyeok and Eun-yoo’s trajectories also diverge.
Even the final image of the world is different. The webtoon ends with Hyun-su emerging from a cocoon and discovering Ji-su’s phone, while its epilogue shows survivors living in a snow-covered world. The television series takes its own route toward its conclusion.
In other words, Sweet Home didn’t simply give the webtoon a television ending. It eventually built its own mythology.
‘Yumi’s Cells’ (2021-2022)
Above The television version gave Yumi a different route to her happily ever after—and took considerably longer to get there
Yumi’s Cells, with Kim Go-eun as Kim Yumi, Ahn Bo-hyun as Goo Woong and Jinyoung as Yoo Babi, faced a daunting challenge in adapting Donggeon Lee’s 512-chapter epic webtoon.
On the page, Yumi navigates lengthy relationships with Woong and Babi before finally meeting, dating and marrying her true end-game partner, Shin Soon-rok. The television drama altered the emotional trajectory significantly. In Season 2, the production softened Babi’s character flaws, giving him a far more sympathetic farewell than his webtoon counterpart.
More crucially, the live-action series chose to close its run at the end of Season 2 with Yumi single, confident and devoted entirely to her blossoming career as a writer. Rather than executing the webtoon’s lengthy third romance arc on screen, the drama merely offered a fleeting, faceless glimpse of Soon-rok at an office party, leaving Yumi’s ultimate romantic resolution open to viewer imagination.
‘Nevertheless’ (2021)
Above On the page, Na-bi walks away. On television, she turns around
Some romances are built to make you root for the couple. Nevertheless was built to make you question why you’re rooting for them at all.
The 2021 K-drama, with Han So-hee as Yoo Na-bi and Song Kang as Park Jae-eon, follows the same basic romantic push and pull as the webtoon by Jung Seo. Jae-eon is charming, elusive and spectacularly bad at making Na-bi feel secure, while Na-bi knows better and keeps getting drawn back in anyway.
But the two versions ultimately have different ideas about what that relationship deserves.
In the webtoon, Na-bi eventually steps away from Jae-eon and moves toward a different relationship, leaving the two of them with a considerably more uncertain future. The drama, meanwhile, brings Na-bi and Jae-eon back together, giving their relationship another chance and a considerably more conventional romantic payoff.
It is a relatively small alteration with a significant effect on the story. The webtoon is more interested in the possibility that recognising a destructive pattern means leaving it behind. Meanwhile, the TV drama is more willing to entertain the possibility that people can change—and that chemistry might be worth one more try. For a story that spent so much time warning viewers about Jae-eon, television ultimately couldn’t resist letting him make his case.
‘Mask Girl’ (2023)
Above Netflix didn’t just rearrange Kim Mo-mi’s story. It changed her final fate
Kim Mo-mi’s face changes three times in Mask Girl. Her ending changes too.
The Netflix series, adapted from Mae-mi and Hee-se’s webtoon, divides Mo-mi’s life across Lee Han-byeol, Nana and Go Hyun-jung, using each performer to mark a different stage in her transformation from insecure office worker to masked cam-girl, fugitive and prisoner.
The adaptation makes plenty of narrative compressions along the way, but the climax completely alters the protagonist's survival. In the webtoon, Mo-mi survives the final confrontation with Kim Kyung-ja (Yeom Hye-ran) and escapes into an uncertain, solitary future. Netflix chose a tragic, redemptive endpoint: Mo-mi shields her estranged daughter Mi-mo from Kyung-ja’s gunshot, sacrificing her own life before the police arrive. The change transforms an abrasive, morally grey survival story into an emotional tragedy about maternal redemption.
‘True Beauty’ (2020-2021)
Above The K-drama reached its finale while the webtoon was still writing Lim Ju-gyeong’s story
In some cases, the biggest difference between a webtoon and its K-drama adaptation is simply the calendar.
When True Beauty arrived on television in 2020, the original webtoon was still being published. That left the drama, starring Moon Ga-young as Lim Ju-gyeong, Cha Eun-woo as Lee Su-ho and Hwang In-youp as Han Seo-jun, a Game of Thrones problem. The drama had to construct its own stopping point.
Its Ju-gyeong and Su-ho eventually reunite, giving the series a tidy romantic conclusion. The webtoon continued for considerably longer, allowing its characters’ relationships and adult lives to develop beyond the point where the K-drama had already rolled its credits.
The differences extend beyond the finale, particularly in how the drama handles Seo-jun and several of the supporting characters. But the most important distinction is structural: the television audience was given an ending; webtoon readers were given more story.
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‘Cheese in the Trap’ (2016)
Above One of the most infamous webtoon adaptations also had one of the messiest relationships with its source material
The trouble with adapting a story before it has finished is that eventually you have to decide how it ends.
That was the position Cheese in the Trap found itself in. The 2016 drama was produced while Soonkki’s enormously popular webtoon was still ongoing.
The television version, which cast Kim Go-eun as Hong Seol, Park Hae-jin as Yoo Jung and Seo Kang-joon as Baek In-ho, consequently developed its own conclusion, similar to True Beauty. Hong Seol and Yoo Jung’s relationship is left on an intentionally open note, while the completed webtoon eventually provides readers with a more definitive resolution.
But the ending was only one part of the adaptation controversy.
As the series progressed, viewers complained that the drama was increasingly shifting its attention toward Baek In-ho, while Park Hae-jin’s prominence in the story became a point of contention. The production team also had to contend with the unusual problem of adapting a source whose creator was still actively developing the characters and plot.
The TV version feels almost like a document of an adaptation in progress: you can see the source material underneath it, but you can also see television beginning to pull it in another direction.
‘The Uncanny Counter’ (2020-2023)
Above Not every different ending requires a different final scene. Sometimes the biggest changes happen on the way there
Webtoon K-dramas don’t have to change the winner, kill off the hero or invent an entirely new finale to alter its source material substantially.
The Uncanny Counter is a good example.
Across its two seasons, the television adaptation, led by Jo Byeong-gyu as So Mun and Kim Se-jeong as Do Ha-na, made substantial changes to the story from the original webtoon by Jang Yi. The differences become particularly apparent in the second season, which introduces a different emotional trajectory for Ma Ju-seok, played by Jin Sun-kyu.
The webtoon and drama don’t resolve his conflict in the same way. The television version places greater emphasis on So Mun’s ability to reach Ju-seok and bring him back from the influence consuming him, while other characters and circumstances surrounding the confrontation are reshaped.
That makes the adaptation comparison less about asking “Who survives?” and more about asking “Who gets to save whom?”
And that can be just as consequential. Change the person who delivers the emotional rescue, the circumstances of the final confrontation or the reason a character chooses redemption, and the ending may technically arrive at a familiar place—but mean something quite different when it gets there.
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Sasha Lim Uy Mariposa is a lifestyle journalist who is known for her food writing. Based in Manila and currently a marketing content specialist, she still dabbles in entertainment, beauty and dining coverage. She was the former managing editor of Esquire Philippines and was the food editor at SPOT.ph. She also edited several best-selling books about food.
She now writes for the different Tatler Asia markets as a contributing writer for T-Labs.
