The webtoon format is perfect for thrillers. The vertical scroll controls the pace — the artist decides exactly when you see the next clue, the next twist, the next reveal. You can't skim ahead the way you can flip through a printed page. You're trapped in the story's rhythm, and a good thriller artist will hold a blank stretch of screen for three or four swipes just to make your heart pound before the panel you're dreading finally drops into view.
I started reading thrillers the way a lot of Korean people my age did — on the subway, on my phone, telling myself I'd stop after one more chapter and then looking up to realise I'd missed my stop. That's the trap of the genre. The cliffhangers are engineered, the colour palettes go cold and blue right when something's about to go wrong, and the comment section is screaming. I've read a lot of them over the years, the brilliant and the trashy alike, and I have opinions about which ones actually earn their twists versus which ones just keep yanking the rug out from under you for shock value.
This is my honest shortlist — the thriller and mystery webtoons I'd actually hand to a friend, with a note on where to read each one and exactly who it's for. A fair warning up front: this genre gets dark, and I've flagged the heavy ones clearly. If you're squeamish, start near the bottom of the list, not the top.
This list focuses on thriller (tension and danger) and mystery (puzzles and investigation). If you want pure scares, check our separate best horror webtoons guide. Some titles overlap — the genres blur — and content warnings are noted where relevant.
What makes a webtoon thriller work
A prose thriller hides its twists in paragraphs; a film thriller hides them in editing. A webtoon thriller hides them in the scroll itself, and that changes the whole craft. The best Korean thriller artists treat the long vertical canvas like a roll of film they get to unspool one frame at a time. Empty space becomes dread. A sudden full-bleed panel after a run of tiny ones lands like a jump scare. You're not reading at your own pace — you're reading at theirs, and that loss of control is exactly the point.
The other thing worth knowing is that Korean mystery webtoons often braid genres together. A crime story turns out to have a supernatural engine; a survival thriller is secretly about grief; a psychological drama hides a procedural underneath. I used to find that frustrating, like the story couldn't commit. Now I think it's the medium's strength — without a studio or a network telling them to stay in one lane, webtoon creators follow the story wherever the tension leads. Keep that in mind as you read. Several of the titles below would be filed under three different genres in a bookshop.
The best thriller & mystery webtoons
One of the most talked-about and controversial webtoons ever made — a deeply disturbing psychological thriller about obsession, captivity, and trauma. Not an easy read, and absolutely not for everyone, but undeniably one of the most influential thriller webtoons in the medium's history. The art and tension are extraordinary.
A mystery webtoon set in the BTS Universe, following a group of young men bound together by a tragedy — and a mysterious time loop that lets one of them try to save the others. Emotional, melancholy, and genuinely intriguing as a mystery, even if you're not a BTS fan. The time-loop structure keeps you guessing.
An ordinary high school student discovers magical dice that can change reality — your appearance, your abilities, even your life — but using them drags you into a dangerous competitive game with deadly stakes. A long-running mystery-thriller with an addictive game structure and escalating tension. One of LINE Webtoon's most popular long-form series.
A grieving teenager and the residents of his apartment building must survive as a mysterious plague turns people into monsters. As much a survival thriller as a horror story — the tension of who can be trusted and how to stay alive drives every chapter. Adapted into a hit Netflix series.
A short, devastating survival story about a young boy and an even younger child trying to make their way across a war-torn landscape. Quiet, tense, and emotionally overwhelming — a different kind of thriller, where the suspense comes from the simple, brutal question of whether they'll survive. Beautifully drawn in stark monochrome.
A timid, half-blind high schooler harbours a horrifying secret: his charming, respected father is a serial killer, and the boy has been forced to help lure victims for years. When a new girl gets close to him, he has to decide whether to keep protecting himself or finally stop his father. From the same creators as Sweet Home, and arguably even tighter — the dread builds chapter by chapter and the panel work is masterful.
A man wakes on a fishing boat with no memory of who he is, surrounded by strangers who all claim to know him — and people start dying. A tight, twisty amnesia mystery that keeps reshuffling what you think is real. It's short, dense, and built to be reread once you know the ending.
Otherworldly beings appear to ordinary people, announce the exact moment of their death, and a religious movement rises to make sense of the terror. Less a who-done-it than a why-is-this-happening, it's a chilling examination of how fear curdles into fanaticism. From the director of Train to Busan, and later a Netflix series.
A girl who's been bullied her whole life gets tangled up with a moody vampire and the secrets of his family — and the mystery of her own past slowly comes apart. It's the gentlest pick on this list, more supernatural mystery-romance than hard thriller, with a warmth the darker titles don't have. Proof the genre isn't all serial killers and dread.
On paper it's a boxing story; in practice it's an unnerving character study of a hollow, almost frightening prodigy and the broken people who orbit him. The art is some of the most striking in the medium — stark, painterly, full of negative space — and the tension comes from never quite understanding what's going on behind the lead's blank stare. More a psychological slow-burn than an action series.
A struggling teenager meets a mysterious magician living in an abandoned amusement park who asks her a single question: "Do you believe in magic?" The mystery of who he really is — and whether the magic is real — drives a melancholy, beautifully drawn story about growing up and giving up. Adapted into a Netflix series. The suspense is quieter, but the questions linger.
How to choose by mood
Can't decide where to dive in? Here's the cheat sheet I'd give you in person, sorted by the kind of night you're having.
- Want a tense puzzle-box that rewards rereading? → Pigpen.
- Want a slow-burn dread with a moral knot at the centre? → Bastard.
- Want a mystery with big ideas under the suspense? → Hellbound.
- Want something emotional and easier to start with? → Save Me or Annarasumanara.
- Want a survival thriller that never lets up? → Sweet Home or The Horizon.
- Want the mystery without the bleakness? → Bloody Sweet.
- Want jaw-dropping art and pure atmosphere? → The Boxer.
- Brave enough for the genre's most infamous title? → Killing Stalking — read the warnings first.
Tips for reading thriller webtoons
- Always check the content rating — Thriller webtoons range from teen-friendly to extremely mature. LINE Webtoon and Lezhin both label maturity levels clearly.
- Completed series are best for bingeing — Thrillers are agony to read week-by-week. Pick completed series so you can follow the suspense without waiting.
- Don't read the comments first — Webtoon comment sections are notorious for spoilers, especially on twist-heavy thriller chapters.
- Read in dark mode at night — It genuinely heightens the atmosphere. But maybe not right before bed.
Where to read these
Most of the titles here live on the big international apps, and the good news is that a lot of thriller and mystery webtoons are free with an ads-or-wait model. LINE WEBTOON (the global version of Korea's Naver Webtoon) is where you'll find the largest share of this list, fully translated into English, including Sweet Home, Bastard, DICE and The Boxer. Naver Webtoon itself carries titles like Hellbound and Annarasumanara, though English availability shifts over time. For the darker, more mature end of the spectrum, Lezhin Comics is the home of Killing Stalking and similar adults-only series, usually behind a coin paywall.
Beyond those, it's worth knowing the wider landscape: Tapas and Tappytoon both license a steady stream of Korean thrillers and mysteries into English, and KakaoPage is a giant in Korea whose catalogue increasingly reaches international readers through partner apps. Availability and pricing genuinely vary by country and change month to month, so if a title isn't where I said it is, search the name inside your app of choice — it's usually findable somewhere, and I've avoided linking specific store pages because those links rot fast.
Frequently asked questions
Are these thriller webtoons free to read? Many are. LINE WEBTOON and Naver run a "free-with-ads or wait-for-the-next-episode" model for most series, with an option to pay to skip ahead. The darker, mature titles on Lezhin usually cost coins per chapter. Pricing and availability change by region, so check inside the app.
I get scared easily. Which one is the safest to start with? Bloody Sweet or Annarasumanara. Both lean into mystery and feeling rather than gore or dread, so you get the page-turning pull without the nightmares. Save them for the start and work up to Bastard or Hellbound once you've got your nerve.
Do I need to read these in order or finish them all? No — every title here is a standalone story, so pick whichever premise grabs you. I'd just steer you toward the ones marked "Completed" if you hate cliffhangers, since ongoing series can leave you waiting weeks for a thriller to resolve a twist.
Check our guides to best horror webtoons and best completed webtoons to binge.