Tapas Is Shutting Down: Where to Read Your Webtoons Next

Kakao Entertainment is shutting down Tapas, with everything due to be consolidated onto KakaoPage by the end of 2026. Titles with an official English release move on (Solo Leveling continues on Tappytoon), but a large part of the Korean catalogue Tapas was translating has no other English home, and for those the answer is Madomi, a real-time manga translator by Pawaka Labs that reads the Korean in every speech bubble and overlays your language as you scroll. Last checked on 23 September 2026.

The news broke on 22 September 2026 and caught almost everyone off guard, creators included. Kakao announced the closure of its web novel platform Radish in July 2025, shut it down that December, and said at the time that it was consolidating its North American story business into Tapas. Nine months after Radish went dark, Tapas is the one getting closed.

Here’s what has actually been reported, what’s still unsettled, and where each part of the catalogue goes next.

What exactly is happening to Tapas?

Tapas is not being closed on its own. Korean outlets reported that Kakao Entertainment is shutting down both Tapas and Kakao Webtoon and consolidating roughly 16,000 story IPs onto KakaoPage, with the whole thing done by the end of 2026. Kakao said it would give publishers and rights holders advance notice covering the timeline, how existing titles are handled and how settlements work.

A few things worth knowing:

• There’s no specific Tapas end date yet. End of 2026 is the outside edge, and the service is still running as you read this.
• The detailed schedule is due on 29 September 2026, including guidance on which assets can transfer and how. That’s the date to watch.
• Kakao hadn’t published its own statement when the story broke. Coverage attributes the decision to growth stalling in the US market.
• The warning signs were there. Ink promotions were quietly stopped weeks ago and gift episodes disappeared from the app. Readers noticed on Reddit and Bluesky before any of this was reported.

Tapas launched in 2012 and had over 61,000 creators on it by the time Kakao bought it in 2021, for around $510 million, or roughly $950 million counting Radish alongside it. Losing it takes out a genuinely large slice of English-language webcomics infrastructure, not just a storefront.

What happens to my Ink and my unlocked episodes?

No refund policy has been published. The one concrete thing on the calendar is that guidance on which assets can transfer to KakaoPage, and how, is expected on 29 September 2026, so this is genuinely unsettled rather than quietly decided against you.

Which makes the advice simple: stop topping up Ink, and don’t panic-spend it either. Wait a week and read the guidance before you do anything with your balance.

What you should do now is write down the series you care about, because once the platform goes you’ll be searching by title on other services, and “that one romance fantasy with the duke” is not a search term. There’s no export button in the app, so don’t count on your shelf coming with you.

Where to read the big Tapas titles instead

Coverage splits into three groups, and only the first one is straightforward.

Titles with a separate official English release

Tappytoon is the obvious one. Solo Leveling runs there with its own official English translation, so the biggest property on Tapas survives the shutdown intact. Check Tappytoon first for anything Korean and licensed.

Verdict: if your series is on Tappytoon, read it there. If it isn’t, and most of the catalogue isn’t, Madomi is what gets you the Korean original in English.

Titles that might resurface on another English platform

WEBTOON and Manta both license Korean series into English, and some Tapas titles already run on one of them in parallel. Manta is subscription based, WEBTOON is mostly free with paid early access.

The catch is that neither of them is under any obligation to pick up the Tapas list. Licensing is title by title, publisher by publisher, and nothing in the reporting says a series without a buyer gets rehomed. Some will land somewhere. Many won’t.

Verdict: worth checking by title, but it isn’t a migration plan. For everything that doesn’t get picked up, Madomi is the only route that doesn’t depend on somebody buying the rights.

The Korean originals on KakaoPage

Here’s the part people miss. Kakao is closing the English window, not the titles. Solo Leveling, Overgeared, Villains Are Destined to Die and Tomb Raider King are Kakao properties, and they live on KakaoPage in Korean, which is where they were serialised in the first place and where everything is being consolidated anyway.

KakaoPage opens in a normal browser from anywhere. It runs on Wait For Free, so you read one episode now and the next unlocks after roughly 12 to 72 hours, which means a back catalogue is readable at no cost if you’re patient. Paying is the awkward half, since Korean platforms often want a Korean payment method or identity verification at checkout.

Verdict: the catalogue is right there and it’s readable from abroad. The only thing standing between you and it is that it’s in Korean, and Madomi removes that.

The catalogue that has no English home

This is the real cost of the shutdown, and it’s worth being blunt about it.

Korea serialises far more than anyone translates. Tapas was one of the few platforms licensing a meaningful volume of it into English, and its closing doesn’t move those series anywhere, it just removes the one English door they had. Add the series that never got licensed in the first place and you’re looking at most of what’s running on KakaoPage this week.

Waiting for another publisher to come along is a plan with no timeline attached. Reading the Korean original is a plan you can start this afternoon.

One honest caveat. A big part of Tapas was never Korean at all: it was independent English-language webcomics, written and drawn by people posting directly to the platform. Translation doesn’t help there, because there was nothing to translate. Those creators are the ones genuinely losing something with no replacement, and the only thing that helps is following them to wherever they land, whether that’s their own site, Patreon or WEBTOON Canvas. Go and find them before the app closes and the links go with it.

How to read Korean webtoons in English after Tapas closes

Madomi is a real-time manga translator by Pawaka Labs that works as a browser extension on Chrome and Firefox and as a native app on Android and iOS. Open any raw episode, activate Madomi, and it reads the Korean text inside every speech bubble using OCR built for comic lettering, then overlays the translation in your language as you scroll.

It’s rated 4.8 out of 5 from 385 Chrome Web Store ratings, with 20,000+ users, the highest-rated manga translator extension on the Chrome Web Store. You get free credits every month, one credit per translated image, and Madomi Premium removes the limit.

Your browser’s translate button won’t stand in for this, by the way. A webtoon episode is a long column of image files with the dialogue drawn into the artwork, so a page translator does the menus and leaves every bubble in Korean. That’s the wall people hit with Google Translate on manga too.

Vertical-scroll webtoons are the easiest format it handles: no page turns, no right-to-left reading order, and the art underneath stays untouched.

What you get	Tappytoon or WEBTOON	Wait for a new licence	Madomi on the Korean original
Covers the full Kakao catalogue	No	No	Yes
Available today	Yes	No	Yes
Reaches series with no English licence	No	No	Yes
Keeps pace with the Korean release	No	No	Yes
Works on phone and desktop	Yes	n/a	Yes

Verdict: for the handful of titles with an official English release, read the official release. For everything else on the Tapas list, Madomi on the Korean original is the only option that exists right now.

Quick start guide

1. Open Tapas while it’s still up and note down every series you want to keep following.
2. Stop buying Ink, and wait for the 29 September guidance before spending the balance you already have.
3. Search each title on Tappytoon, then WEBTOON, then Manta. If it’s there officially in English, you’re done.
4. For the rest, install Madomi on Chrome or Firefox, or get the Android or iOS app.
5. Find the series on KakaoPage, open an episode, turn Madomi on and scroll.

Our guide to the best manhwa raw sites covers KakaoPage, Ridibooks and Lezhin in more detail, and how to read Naver Webtoon in English walks through the same process on Naver, where the serialised episodes are free with no waiting at all. If you’re new to reading Korean comics untranslated, start with reading Korean manhwa without knowing a single word of Korean.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tapas shutting down? Yes. Korean media reported it on 22 September 2026. Kakao Webtoon is closing too, with everything consolidating onto KakaoPage by the end of 2026. The detailed schedule is due on 29 September 2026.

Where can I read my Tapas webtoons after it closes? Solo Leveling continues on Tappytoon. Some titles may surface on WEBTOON or Manta. For the large part of the catalogue with no English home, read the Korean original on KakaoPage with Madomi.

What happens to my Tapas Ink? No refund policy has been published. Guidance on which assets can transfer is expected on 29 September 2026, so stop buying Ink and wait for it before spending your balance.

Why is Kakao closing Tapas? No public reason has been given. Reporting points to stalled US growth, and it follows Radish closing at the end of 2025. Kakao Webtoon is being closed in the same move.

Will Solo Leveling still be available in English? Yes, on Tappytoon, which has its own official English comic.

Is there a Tapas alternative with the whole catalogue? Not in English. The closest to full coverage is KakaoPage in Korean with Madomi translating as you scroll.

Can I download my Tapas library before it closes? There’s no export feature in the app. Kakao is due to explain on 29 September 2026 what can transfer to KakaoPage, so wait for that, and note your titles down either way.

Don’t Wait to Find Out What Survives

Kakao explains itself on 29 September, and some of these series will get a new English publisher after that. Most of them won’t, and nobody is going to send you an email either way. The Korean episodes are already up, they’ve been up the whole time, and the only thing that ever kept them out of reach was the alphabet.

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