NCT Webtoon-Rise Web Novel Is Released, SMxKakao’s First IP Collaboration [official]

Kakao Entertainment and SM Entertainment announced on Monday that they will release a webtoon and a web novel based on the world of NCT and the growth story of Rise.

The webtoon and web novel will be released on Kakao Webtoon and Kakao Page on August 18th and 19th, respectively. The webtoon will be drawn by popular webtoon artist Narae, and the web novel will be written by popular web novel writer Sung-yeon.

The webtoon and web novel will tell the stories of NCT and Rise in different worlds, such as a dystopian future, a fantasy world, and a modern world. The webtoon and web novel are expected to be a hot topic among NCT fans and general readers.

The webtoons and web novels feature the world of NCT, a global phenomenon, and the world of Rise, a new boy group that has been attracting attention since before its debut.

First, the NCT webtoon “NCT: Dream Contact” is an omnibus webtoon consisting of three episodes (total 5 episodes), including a prologue. Based on the NCT world view, where people can empathize with each other through dreams and become one through music, the story follows the main characters as they overcome their fears and move towards hope through dreams, the unconscious, and everyday life.

The production team also put in a lot of effort to make it easier and more familiar to understand the NCT world view. The webtoon was created by ZQ, who won the grand prize at the Japanese art planning exhibition “Appearance Gallery”, Segle, who created the webtoon “Love Club” and Kakao Webtoon “If a Swallow Flies Low”, and Kim Ho-ae, who started her work in 2017 by winning the Spring Literary Contest. The theme of the webtoon is expressed with a warm sensibility, and the existing NCT world view contents are also included in the backgrounds and objects that appear in the webtoon. The webtoon is scheduled to be simultaneously serviced in Korea, North America, and Japan from August 18th.

The web novel “Rise & Realize” by the rookie group Rise, which is about to debut, depicts the team’s growth story, “Real Time Odyssey”. The theme of the work is “a team that grows together and realizes their dreams”, which is also the identity and meaning of the Rise group name. It is a youth novel that unfolds the stories of the characters who overcome the growth pains that everyone faces, such as worries and deficiencies, with empathy. It was written by Kim Ho-ae. The author Kim Ho-ae carefully sketched the experiences, personalities, and characteristics of the Rise members to create the characters in the work. The web novel will be released in 8 episodes every Saturday for 3 weeks, starting on August 19th. In addition to the web novel, you can also meet special illustrations that depict the key scenes in the work. Famous illustrators Nakdi and Nogon participated to depict the members’ visuals in detail.
It is expected that fans will also respond well to “NCT: Dream Contact” and “Rise & Realize”. Kakao Entertainment has led the trend of the webtoon and web novel industry by introducing various popular story IPs based on K-pop groups such as “I’ll get sick if I don’t debut”. In particular, this collaboration is meaningful in that it is the first story IP collaboration between Kakao Entertainment, which is currently conducting global webtoon and web novel businesses, and SM Entertainment, which has led the global K-pop trend. Kakao Entertainment plans to continue to carry out various story IP businesses for the global market in the future