King Grey was a powerful king whose appearance struck fear in his enemies’ hearts. But being at the top of the world is lonely, and while his unparalleled strength made him virtually untouchable, King Grey found that he didn’t know what his purpose in life was. Until he woke up and found himself reborn into a baby named Arthur Leywin and a world of magic and monsters. While Arthur adjusts himself to his new life, identity, family and friends, he must also find out who had killed him and why he was given this second chance in life. This is the beginning of The Beginning After the End.
At first glance, The Beginning After the End seems like any other reincarnation/isekai story. But The Beginning After the End kicks it up a notch by having all of the great elements of an isekai story but seemingly seems to solve some of the issues that riddle fantasy stories like having a fleshed-out power systems. The Beginning After the End has been lauded by fans for a complex and well-written protagonist, fantastic world building and a writing style that will keep readers on tenterhooks.
But how did a relatively unknown story become one of the most popular web novels on Tapas? Well, all great stories must start at the beginning:
The Beginning of The Beginning After the End
After years of school to major in psychology so he could work in HR, to working in finance, the only solace Brandon Lee found was in the dusty corners of Barnes and Noble where endless possibilities, a new world, a new adventure awaited within the pages of fantasy novels. But when he started working, he didn’t like his corporate job so he escaped again… But this time in a world that he had created: the world of The Beginning After the End.
Adopting the pen name TurtleMe, Lee didn’t start on Tapas first. Initially, he was publishing the chapters for free on Royalroad (which has since been taken down) and was collecting the chapters on Amazon for the ebook publication, but eventually transitioned to Tapas when an editor reached out to him. The Beginning After the End launched its serialization on Tapas in January 2017. He also began posting his chapters in advance on Patreon.
The creator has cited a few inspirations for the story, including Mushoku Tensei, Coiling Dragon, Tower of God and Eragon, which many readers have noted in seeing similarities in The Beginning After the End in the beginning before it eventually evolved into its own story. As the story was meant to be an outlet for TurtleMe, he “naturally leaned into familiar aspects that I already knew I loved.”
So why TurtleMe? Was there any hidden meaning behind that name? According to TurtleMe himself, it was the username of reading sites he’s had since high school. “Honestly, I didn’t expect to get popular or anything so I just used that same name when I first made my account on Royalroad… so I don’t forget my username when logging in.” He jokingly ended with, “Now… I think it might be a tad late to change that name, so here we are OTL.”
TurtleMe had largely been interacting with his readers and fans through Tapas and social media platforms and has been keeping it on the down low. That is, until 2022, when TurtleMe revealed his face for the first time at Anime NYC in November 2022.
On December 16, 2020, TurtleMe’s wife Grace posted an announcement on his Patreon, informing his readers and fans that he had a heart attack and was in critical condition. A few days later, TurtleMe posted a message on his Instagram, thanking fans for their well wishes and explaining that doctors were trying to figure out what exactly caused the sudden cardiac arrest. The creator posted updates fairly frequently on his account to let his readers know where he was health-wise. Fortunately, TurtleMe recovered his strength and was back to writing The Beginning After the End after a few months.
The Beginning After the End is still ongoing as a novel and is currently at 485 chapters. As of this article’s writing, it has 25.8 million views and is probably the most popular novel on the platform.
The Beginning After the End Webcomic
The Beginning After the End novel’s enormous popularity led to a webcomic adaptation in July 2018 with TurtleMe writing and Fuyuki23 as the artist. Fuyuki’s brilliant artwork depicting the Arthur’s physical and emotional change from boy to young man has brought in both fans of the novel and new fans. The webcomic has garnered 36.8 million views as of this article’s writing. Yen Press is publishing the print version, with the first volume having been released in August 2022.
The artist for The Beginning After the End revealed on their Instagram account their decision to leave the project on June 22, 2023, citing a change in the payment structure. Kisai Entertainment, the studio backing Fuyuki, stated that Tapas had been unstable for some time and canceled three of their works and alleged that, due to the recent staff cuts, the platform was trying to minimize spending on the art front as well. Kisai Entertainment also asserted that Tapas/Kakao gave no room for Fuyuki and his team to negotiate. Ultimately, Fuyuki left as he believed the pay was no longer fair to him.
TurtleMe addressed Fuyuki’s departure in a Twitter post the day after, thanking Fuyuki for their “tremendous effort [in] bring[ing] my words to life.” The author asserted that he would always be a fan of Fuyuki despite not working together as a creative team anymore.
“I want to assure readers that my dedication to bringing you the best possible version of The Beginning After the End remains unwavering,” TurtleMe wrote.
Fuyuki’s departure pushed the release of Season 6 of the webcomic from its projected window of 2023 to May 11, 2024 with Rise Entertainment‘s Eginhardt credited as the artist. However, Tapas then announced that Rise Entertainment would no longer be working on the webcomic due to “differences in the comic creation ecosystems.” This made it difficult to “stay in sync with our internal schedule,” resulting in a 3 month hiatus for The Beginning After the End as they pivoted to find a new studio. As promised, The Beginning After the End returned on October 19, 2024 with MGK-story as the artist.
TBATE Finally Gets an Anime
The Beginning After the End has all of the makings of an anime: a charismatic main character, an adorable sidekick, hilarious banter and a mystery brewing as to who assassinated Arthur and why. The story had fans banging on TurtleMe’s doors, asking him when an anime would be made. It took six years, seven if you count starting from the web novel, but it’s finally happened.
During New York Comic Con 2024, TurtleMe revealed that an anime adaptation of The Beginning After the End was happening, much to everyone’s delight. The anime began on April 2nd, 2025. Season 1 will consist of 24 episodes.
Studio A-Cat (I’ve Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills and The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army Was a Human) animates the series with Keitaro Motonaga directing. Motonaga previously directed a few Digimon Adventure tri. movies, three seasons of Date A Live. Takamitsu Kōno will oversee the script writing. Masami Sueoka will design the characters with Keiji Inai composing the music. TurtleMe will still be involved in the creation of the anime as the story supervisor. He will also be the executive producer alongside Tapas’ Mike Zhu, Kevin Nicklaus, and TurtleMe LLC’s Gabrielle Luu, who has been with TurtleMe since the very beginning.
The Beginning After the End did see a slight title change for the anime as it opted to follow the Japanese translation of the webcomic, Saikyō no Ō-sama, Nidome no Jinsei wa Nani wo Suru? which roughly translates to Strongest King, What Will You Do in Your Second Life?
With the anime adaptation, The Beginning After the End shows no signs of slowing down. And with this announcement marking a milestone in webcomic history as the first anime adaptation of an American web novel and webcomic, The Beginning After the End has cracked open the doors to a world of new possibilities.
