Glossary
Manhwa Terms, Explained
New to manhwa, or just hit a word you didn't know? Here's what the genre's most-Googled terms actually mean — in plain English, each with titles to start reading.
- ManhwaKorean comics — usually full-colour, read top-to-bottom as webtoons.Read more →
- ManhuaChinese comics — often full-colour, frequently built on cultivation/xianxia worlds.Read more →
- WebtoonThe vertical-scroll, full-colour digital comic format that manhwa popularised.Read more →
- Regression / ReturnerThe hero dies or fails, then wakes up in the past to do it all over — armed with everything they learned.Read more →
- Cultivation (Xianxia)Heroes grow stronger by refining their inner energy to climb ever-higher realms of power.Read more →
- Murim / Murim Martial ArtsThe Korean martial-arts underworld of warring clans, sects, and unstoppable masters.Read more →
- System / Leveling (LitRPG)A game-like interface — stats, levels, quests, skill windows — bolted onto the real world.Read more →
- VillainessA woman wakes up as the doomed villainess of a novel or otome game — and schemes to escape her bad ending.Read more →
- ReincarnationDying in one life and being reborn into another body, world, or time.Read more →
- IsekaiAn ordinary person is transported from their world into a fantasy one.Read more →
- Dungeons / GatesMonster-filled dungeons (or 'gates') that awakened hunters raid for loot and power.Read more →
- RevengeA wronged protagonist methodically dismantles the people who destroyed them.Read more →