Gwang-jinโs Itaewon Class (์ดํ์ ํด๋ผ์ฐ) began on Daum Webtoon, now Kakao Webtoon, on December 27, 2016 and finished in 2018. It ran on KakaoPage at the same time, and the print edition is eight volumes. The hero, Park Sae-ro-yi, is expelled from high school for standing up to a chaebol heirโs bullying, loses his father, and serves time in prison. After his release he opens a small pub called DanBam in Itaewon and goes head to head with Jangga, the food conglomerate tied to his fatherโs death, and its chairman Jang Dae-hee. When Jo Yi-seo, a genius manager with no capacity for empathy, joins the pub, the revenge story widens into a startup story. As of a March 2026 Kakao Entertainment announcement, cumulative views stand at 420 million.
What made the webtoon a household name was the 16-episode Friday-Saturday drama that aired on JTBC from January 31 to March 21, 2020. Gwang-jin wrote the script himself, and Kim Sung-yoon directed. Park Seo-joon played Sae-ro-yi, Kim Da-mi played Yi-seo, Yoo Jae-myung played Jang Dae-hee, and Kwon Nara played Oh Soo-ah. The finale drew a nationwide 16.548 percent in Nielsen Korea ratings, the fifth highest for any JTBC drama at the time. Simultaneous release on Netflix brought in viewers abroad, and the following year it won the Excellent Korean Drama award in the miniseries category at the 15th Seoul International Drama Awards.
What sets this title apart is that the source material itself keeps being remade in other countries. In Japan a localized webtoon, Roppongi Class, moved the setting to Roppongi and ran on Piccoma; the drama based on it aired as TV Asahiโs Thursday drama from July 7 to September 29, 2022, 13 episodes in all, with Ryoma Takeuchi in the lead. From June 9 to 30, 2025 the worldโs first stage musical opened at Tokyoโs Brillia Hall, with WEST.โs Nozomu Kotaki as Sae-ro-yi and music by the Korean-American composer Helen Park, before touring to Osaka and Aichi.
Two pieces of news overlapped in 2026. On March 21 the spin-off web novel Jangga launched on KakaoPage. It is Gwang-jinโs first web novel since his debut, set during the Korean War and following Jang Dae-heeโs youth as he survives starvation and builds Jangga. On July 31 the Taiwanese drama Fired Up! (ไพ๏ผ้ไพ่๏ผ) premiered on HBO Max. It is the second overseas remake after the Japanese one, a 12-episode series released weekly, starring the singer and actor Eric Chou. As of August 2026 there has been no announcement of a second season of the Korean drama or any new Korean adaptation.
The original is available from the first episode on Kakao Webtoon and KakaoPage, and in English on Tapas and in print from Yen Press. If you watched the drama first, start the webtoon from the beginning. The spin-off Jangga only pays off once you know the originalโs Jang Dae-hee. (As of August 21, 2026)
