In-Depth · Production & Behind the Scenes · No spoilers
The Beginning After the End began as a web novel written in English, then became a comic before being adapted into an anime. Author TurtleMe, the publishing platform Tapas and Kakao Entertainment each played a different role in bringing the story to new readers.
Where did the story start?
The Beginning After the End (TBATE) is a web novel by TurtleMe, the pen name of author Brandon Lee, about a king who is reborn as a boy named Arthur Leywin in a world of magic. It was written in English and posted chapter by chapter on Tapas.
Tapas is Kakao Entertainment's platform in North America. Kakao's release calls TBATE one of Tapas Entertainment's original properties. In Yen Press's post introducing TurtleMe at Anime NYC 2022, he says he began publishing on Tapas in 2016. The same post describes TBATE as existing as a web novel, a webcomic and a printed graphic novel.
From words to pictures: who did what?
Next came the webtoon, a vertical comic made for phone reading. According to Kakao, the novel was turned into a comic through the company's "Novel-to-Comics" system. Yen Press's pages for volume 1 and volume 10 both credit Fuyuki23 as artist and issatsu as colorist.
Then, according to Kakao's April 3, 2025 release, the webtoon reached Korean readers through Kakao Page, in what the release calls a reverse export. The story therefore reached the American market before it was released in Korea.
For print, Yen Press publishes the comic in English, volume by volume: volume 1 on August 2, 2022, volume 10 on February 24, 2026, and its page lists up to volume 12. Kakao adds that the story has been translated into seven languages, including Korean, Japanese and French.
Where did the anime come from?
Kakao announced the anime at New York Comic Con 2024, in a release dated October 20, 2024, with TurtleMe and Crunchyroll representatives present. TurtleMe is executive producer, and the release says he helps keep the show faithful to the story's core themes and characters.
According to Kakao, Slow Curve produced the anime in collaboration with Studio A-Cat. Keitaro Motonaga directs, Takamitsu Kouno is series composer, Masami Sueoka designed the characters and Keiji Inai wrote the music. Per the release, the first episode came out on April 2, 2025 on Crunchyroll (streaming) and on Fuji TV's +Ultra block (Japanese television).
The April 3, 2025 release presents a plan of 24 episodes in two parts, with part one running 12 weekly episodes. When the next batch arrived in spring 2026, Crunchyroll used the name The Beginning After the End Season 2; its simulcast calendar lists episode 1 on April 2, 2026. So when you search, you will find "Season 2" rather than "part two".
How do the different versions reach their audiences?
Many parties took part in the adaptation: author TurtleMe, Kakao Entertainment's platform Tapas, publisher Yen Press and the anime team. Each version reaches a different audience. English-language readers in North America read on Tapas and later in Yen Press's print volumes. Korean readers read the webtoon on Kakao Page. Japanese viewers watch the anime on Fuji TV, and viewers in the regions Crunchyroll serves stream it online. Events also gave fans a chance to meet TurtleMe and hear about the adaptation: according to Kakao, more than 400 people attended his talk at Anime NYC 2022, and the anime was announced at a panel at New York Comic Con 2024.
For Kakao, the TBATE anime also sits inside a wider goal of taking Tapas stories into film and television. The 2024 release says the company plans to use this milestone as a springboard to explore more opportunities to adapt Tapas's original properties into films, TV series and other formats.
That is a stated goal, not a measured result. The releases give no audience numbers for any group. Kakao says the story has been translated into seven languages and earns about 500,000 US dollars in monthly revenue, but it refers only to "the series" and does not say which edition or platform that revenue comes from. So it is too early to say how well this approach has worked in any one market.
The other side: what do the releases tell us, and what do they leave out?
Most facts about this adaptation chain come from Kakao's own releases. The word "first" appears there in two forms. The October 2024 release says it is the first time a Korean author's web novel is adapted into anime for the North American market. The April 2025 release says TBATE is the first American web novel or comic to receive an anime series adaptation. The two are not the same claim, and no third party is cited for either.
In short
The releases describe process and people. They do not address animation quality, how closely the anime follows the story, or how much of the story the 24 episodes cover. What is clear is that TBATE did not take the usual route from publisher to adaptation: it began on a story platform, moved to comics and print, and only then became anime. How well that route has worked has not been published.
Where should a Vietnamese reader start?
To read, there is the novel and webtoon on Tapas, or Yen Press's English print volumes.
For the anime, Crunchyroll streams it in the regions listed in the release: North America, Central America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the CIS and the Indian subcontinent. Southeast Asia is not on that list, so this information is not enough to tell someone in Vietnam which service to sign up for in order to watch. The seven languages in the release are only given as examples (Korean, Japanese, French), which is not enough to tell whether a Vietnamese edition exists. The full profile is on OtaHub's profile page for The Beginning After the End.
Sources: Kakao Entertainment Newsroom: Anime Adaptation of The Beginning After the End at NYCC 2024 (Oct 20, 2024); Kakao Entertainment Newsroom: TBATE anime premieres on Crunchyroll, Fuji TV (Apr 3, 2025); Yen Press: TurtleMe Face Reveal at Anime NYC (Oct 27, 2022); Yen Press: Vol. 1, Vol. 10; Crunchyroll simulcast calendar, April 2, 2026
