Ah, February, the month of love… and romance stories! If you’ve been reading romance novels for a while, you might be itching to try something new. Fortunately, there’s a ton of incredible romance manhwa (Korean comics) full of the tropes and story types you already love, told through beautiful art, that you can start reading on your phone for free! Let’s look at some of those comics now, so you can begin… Scrolling for Love.
If you love a marriage of convenience…
Maybe Meant to Be
Story by: honeyskein
Art by: damcho
32-year-old freelancer Jia Han’s stuck living at home while work fails to come in, and her parents can’t stop nagging her about getting married. Her childhood friend Mincheol’s career is more on track, but his parents won’t let up either… so Jia proposes they just marry each other! What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe Meant to Be is a sweet and funny take on this eternal trope with earnest, silly leads and a fun surrounding cast. Fans of Katherine Center and romantic comedies that balance the com with the rom will love this manhwa.
Maybe Meant to Be is currently available to read on WEBTOON.
If you love spicy sapphic love triangles with a fantasy twist…
Moonlight Garden (18+)
Story by: Kang Unnie
Art by: MissPM
Moonlight Garden is a story about a world in which some women are born with flower seeds. As they grow, their hair changes color to match the flower, they start to smell like the flower, and eventually they “bloom”: a time when they experience intense lust and pain that can only be relieved by another woman.
Protagonist Dohwa is working on a potion that can reverse the effects of the bloom, as most flowers only have a few dozen blooms in them before they die in their mid-twenties. However, the new mistress of the Garden where all the flowers reside and her enigmatic bodyguard have very different plans for Dohwa.
The courtly intrigues and inventive worldbuilding make this a very suspenseful story, and Dohwa is a delightful protagonist to follow. If you have a specific romance novel that’s a close comp to Moonlight Garden, please leave it in the comments so I can read it.
Moonlight Garden is currently available to read on Lezhin and Tapas.
If you love collegiate first love rom coms…
Romance 101
Art and story by: Namsoo
Bareum is the most type A person to ever type A, so when she decides to get the attention of her best friend’s hot coworker, she jumps right in and joins the programming club he’s in— despite knowing nothing about programming!
Group projects and study dates, field trips and late-night drinks, full planners and stressful internships all make appearances in Romance 101. Namsoo is willing to bend their clean and simple art style to create some of the funniest visuals I’ve ever seen. If you like Ali Hazelwood’s women in STEM but are okay with a milder rivalry instead of a pure enemies to lovers situation, Romance 101 is the webcomic for you.
Romance 101 is currently available to read on WEBTOON.
If you love seeing handsome celebrities swoon over regular girls…
One-of-A-Kind Romance
Art and Story by Dooboo
Yu-il just wants to find a stable job that pays well enough to support her idol group fangirling hobby, having abandoned her real passion, writing, years ago. But when a coincidence leads to superstar actor Mu-i shooting a drama at her rooftop apartment, the two of them end up colliding in ways no one expected.
The grounded depictions of the heightened premise made this story easy to keep reading, and Yu-il and Mu-i really work well together as two strangers who become friends and then enter a relationship. Fans of Beth O’Leary and Mhairi McFarlane’s romance novels would enjoy the character writing in this story.
One-of-a-Kind Romance is currently available to read on WEBTOON.
If you love stories of people falling in love but don’t read “romance novels”…
Daily JoJo
Art and story by Donggeon Lee
Background and colors by Maker
If you’re looking for something quirky and offbeat with a lot of heart, look no further than Daily JoJo, a rare Webtoon comic formatted in square panels that swipe horizontally instead of vertically. Donggeon Lee’s first comic for Webtoon, Yumi’s Cells, was made into a K-Drama (currently available on several platforms including Prime and Apple TV). But where Yumi’s Cells was a slice of life comedy, Daily JoJo focuses more on the romantic lives of the core cast (all of whom have names containing the syllable Jo.)
The first arc is about opposites Eunjo Lee and Wan Jo being forced to work together and then starting a relationship, and subsequent arcs focus more on other characters around them. Lee uses creative visual techniques to show exactly how every focus character thinks, making this comic engaging and exciting. If you liked The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, you’ll probably have fun with this one.
Daily JoJo is currently available to read on WEBTOON.
If you love romantasy more than anything else…
Under the Oak Tree
Writer: namu, Seomal
Artist: P
Original Story: Suji Kim
Localization: Manta Comics
Lady Maximilian is forced into a marriage with the brutish and handsome Sir Riftan. If you’ve read A Court of Thorns and Roses, you probably know exactly where this is going already. The webtoon adaptation of Korean webnovel Under the Oak Tree is beautifully drawn, and if you want to see your favorite tropes in a different format, look no further than this Manta manhwa!
We also have reviews of both the vertical scroll comic and the illustrated novel if you want more information on this particular tale. Romantic fantasy is a popular subgenre of manhwa, so if romantasy is your preferred flavor of romance, there’s plenty of similar comics out there for you to explore under the fantasy tabs on these portals.
Under the Oak Tree is currently available to read on Manta Comics.
If these little recommendations piqued your interest, check out our other vertical scroll comic reviews here!
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