With the success of the Solo Leveling anime series and the growing popularity of manwha, another Korean web novel and webtoon series is getting an animated adaptation.
Announced over the weekend of Anime Expo 2024, Tomb Raider King, a supernatural action novel and webtoon written by Sanji Jiksong (also known online as SAN.G), is being adapted into an anime series.
Sanji Jiksong made the announcement on social media, confirming the series will be released in 2026. Animation for the series will be done by Korea's Studen EEK.
A supernatural action novel/webtoon that is often compared to Solo Leveling, Sanji Jikson's Tomb Raider King follows the adventures of Jooheon-Seo, a tomb raider exploring mysterious tombs that have started to appear across the world. Each of these tombs contains a relic that grants its owner supernatural abilities. When Jooheon-Seo is betrayed by his employer, he finds himself on the cusp of death from one of the powerful relics; however, he suddenly reawakens 15 years in the past, before any of the tombs or relics start to appear. Driven by revenge and armed with the knowledge of the future, Jooheon sets off to become the Tomb Raider King.
Tomb Raider King originated a web novel by Sanji Jiksong, and was later adapted into a manhwa webtoon series by Yuns (REDICE STUDIO) featuring art by 3B2S.
It's published in physical book format by Biforst, while Tapas Media released it digitally from February 2021 to August 2023. Yen Press published the manga adaptation in English under its Ize Press imprint for North America.
With a 2026 release date, we've got quite some time until Tomb Raider King makes its anime series premiere. And it will probably be a while longer before we get any more substantial details about the series.
In the meantime, anime fans looking to get their supernatural action fix can and should check out Solo Leveling. Another manhwa, Solo Leveling is based on the South Korean web novel written by Chugong that was serialized in Kakao's digital comic platform KakaoPage beginning in 2016. The novel was adapted into a webtoon illustrated by Jang Sung-rak. The series is described:
They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that’s not the case for the world’s weakest hunter Sung Jinwoo. After being brutally slaughtered by monsters in a high-ranking dungeon, Jinwoo came back with the System, a program only he could see, that’s leveling him up in every way.
Now, he’s inspired to discover the secrets behind his powers and the dungeon that spawned them.
A-1 Pictures produced an anime series based on Solo Leveling which just wrapped up it first season earlier this year. A second season has already been announced with the first teaser trailer debuting this past weekend. The anime series is available to stream on Crunchyroll.