Bloodhounds (์ฌ๋ฅ๊ฐ๋ค), written and drawn by Jeong Chan, started on Naver Webtoon in May 2019 as a Friday series and ended its main story in December 2020 at 85 episodes. Naver lists it as 93 episodes complete including side stories, and it is rated 18+, so reading it requires age verification. Geon-woo, a young former boxer, gets tangled up with the loan shark Kim Myeong-gil over a debt and ends up working as a โbloodhound,โ a debt collector, under the legendary moneylender known as Mr. Choi. When his mother dies at Myeong-gilโs hands, the story turns into revenge. Noir is the name for crime stories set in a dark, violent city, and this one uses that grammar to show how illegal lending ruins people who live closer than you think. The webtoon is currently available in seven languages worldwide.
Season one of the Netflix series was released on June 9, 2023, in eight episodes. Kim Joo-hwan, director of Midnight Runners, wrote and directed, with Woo Do-hwan as Kim Gun-woo, Lee Sang-yi as Hong Woo-jin, Heo Jun-ho as Choi Tae-ho, and Park Sung-woong as Kim Myeong-gil. Studio N, the Naver Webtoon subsidiary, produced it with Seed Film and Seven O Six. After release it reached number one on Netflixโs non-English TV chart and entered the top ten in 83 countries, and Lee Sang-yi won the Excellence Award for an actor at the 2023 Korea Drama Awards for the role.
Netflix confirmed season two and announced its cast on January 16, 2025, and the seven-episode season was released on April 3, 2026. Having taken down the loan sharks, Gun-woo and Woo-jin now face a global underground boxing league. Woo Do-hwan and Lee Sang-yi returned, and Jung Ji-hoon, better known as Rain, took on the first villain role of his acting career as Baek-jeong, the man running the league. Kim Joo-hwan again wrote and directed, with Studio N producing. According to a report dated April 16, 2026, the season reached 7.4 million views within two weeks of release, topping the non-English TV chart and ranking first in fourteen countries including Korea, Argentina, Morocco, and Indonesia. Over the same period the webtoonโs global views rose about 22-fold: 38 times in Korea, 123 times in traditional Chinese, 20 times in English, and 12 times in Thai. A new side story was also posted on Naver Webtoon to coincide with the season.
As of August 2026 there has been no announcement of a third season. In an interview on April 8, 2026, Lee Sang-yi made no secret of his hopes for one while saying he was waiting for word from the production team. The webtoon is available from episode one on Naver Webtoon and Naver Series, with an English edition on WEBTOON. Season one of the drama covers the loan-shark story from the webtoon, while season twoโs underground boxing league is new ground the drama opened on its own, so the two can be enjoyed separately. (As of August 21, 2026)
