Kakao Japan Corp. behind Japan’s dominant and highest-grossing manga app Piccoma, will set up a subsidiary in Korea, home turf of its parent Kakao Corp. to discover more original Korean comics and novels to publish in Japan.

Kakao Japan, operator of paid content platform Piccoma, on Monday opened the web site of its subsidiary Studio1pic in Korea, and announced it will communicate with content creators wishing to join hands with Piccoma.

Studio1pic was launched in February as original contents producing studio for Kakao Japan which also set up Sherpa Studio in joint venture with Daewon Media in Japan.

Studio1pic is led by Kim Hyun-joo, former chief editor of once popular weekly comics magazine IQ Jump. It will produce contents for global market and serialize popular contents from Piccoma.

Studio1pic plans to create competitive webtoon contents by integrating Korean production knowhow and Japan’s outstanding intellectual property. The Korean subsidiary plans to accelerate webtoon boom in the global stage based on Piccoma’s market influence and massive data.

Businesses that wish to forge ties with Piccoma in webtoon content sector such as creators and IP developers can visit Studio1pic website.

Kim Jae-yong, chief executive of Kakao Japan, said that the company, through Studio1pic and Sherpa Studio, plans to nurture outstanding creators and contents from Korea and Japan and introduce them to the global market.

By Oh Dae-seok and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]