Isekai romances are known for taking readers to fantasy realms beyond their imagination -- an opportunity to escape reality and get swept away to alternate worlds of wonder that makes the subgenre quite popular among romance webtoons.
While isekai series often star protagonists who are transported into one of their favorite novels, the genre can also feature multiple dimensions or additional worlds. Isekai romance demonstrates how surviving in an alternate reality may be tricky, but it can also lead to a romantic adventure like no other. Here are five popular isekai romance series you can read now on the Webtoon platform.
The First Night With the Duke
In The First Night With the Duke, Ripley is a college student who wakes up as an extra character in a novel. As a commoner in the story, she tries to lead a low-key life in a foreign world. While attending a party with the novel's heroine and main character, who are meant to fall in love and be together, Ripley ends up sleeping with the MC instead. Worried that she's ruined the novel's plot and may never wake up to her own world, she attempts to bring the heroine and protagonist together where they belong.
However, the novel's lead, a handsome yet selfish royal duke named Zeronis, takes a liking to Ripley after they share a night together. Despite Ripley's attempts to dodge him and set him up with the true heroine, he isn't willing to let her off that easily. A tsundere with a cold exterior and scary public reputation, Zeronis shocks Ripley with his unrelenting pursuit for her love. As the novel's original plot continues to go off the rails, Ripley and Zeronis must rewrite their own ending.
How to Survive a Romance Fantasy
How to Survive a Romance Fantasy sets itself apart from typical isekai romance webtoons by transporting not one, but several people into a fictional world. It stars three people who die in the real world and are reincarnated into a fantasy romance novel they were all reading before they died. As strangers who have no idea that others were sent into the novel from the real world, they all go into hiding to run away from the parts they're meant to play.
Yeonghui Kim, a high school senior who was hit by a truck, is reincarnated as the novel's protagonist and heroine -- but she goes undercover as a maid to avoid her original plot of becoming an empress. Ji-eun Park is a 27-year-old who dies of cancer while reading the novel, only to be reincarnated as the story's villainess who goes into hiding to run from her bad reputation. Meanwhile, Cheolsu Lee is a college student who dies in an earthquake and becomes the imperial prince and male lead, but he runs away so he doesn't have to fight the story's bloody war. While they're all on the run and disguising their true identities, How to Survive a Romance Fantasy brings them together to write a new story.
Freaking Romance
While many isekai romance webtoons revolve around novels, Freaking Romance plays with multiple dimensions. Zylith and Zelan come together when they both have the same apartment in two completely separate dimensions. The apartment contains a rift between their worlds, allowing them to see each other at random times before disappearing. Given this dynamic, they originally mistake each other for ghosts until they realize they can also see visitors and items in the apartment from their dimensions.
After the pair discover they can speak to one another across dimensions, they grow closer and accept that they share an apartment. As their relationship develops further, the rifts between dimensions begin to weaken. Zylith and Zelan find themselves caught between worlds as they run the risk of ending up in each other's dimension forever. Freaking Romance explores whether love can blossom and survive across multiple dimensions.
Happily Ever Afterwards
In Happily Ever Afterwards, Peony is reincarnated into her favorite novel as princess of the Kingdom of Garten after the original character dies due to poor health. Peony finds herself with the same condition, but she enjoys a lavish lifestyle with her loving family in the kingdom's palace. However, she recalls her love for the story's second male lead. The problem is, he's a tsundere with a bad reputation in the novel's fantasy world and Peony's royal family is against her sudden request to marry him.
Richt was the former prince of the Fairspren Empire who was exiled to the brutal and uninhabitable land of Stern after the novel's main plot ended. Despite Richt's poor reputation as a traitor, Peony is convinced he's misunderstood and knows how poorly he was treated due to previously reading the novel. She convinces her family to let her visit Stern and win over Richt's affection. However, Richt is emotionally unavailable and has no interest in getting to know her, while the cold weather of Stern makes her health worsen. Peony will have to overcome long odds if she wants to live Happily Ever Afterwards with the second male lead.
Surviving Romance
Surviving Romance is classified as a horror series while also mixing in elements of romance and isekai fantasy. At the start, Chaerin Eun is excited when she becomes the protagonist in the romance novel she was reading. She fully expects to meet the male lead, Jeha, and experience a happy ending together. However, she comes to a shocking and brutal realization: the novel's plot is very different from the original version she read.
Chaerin finds herself face-to-face with zombies as Surviving Romance suddenly turns from romance to horror. Often running from the zombies and threats that have appeared in the novel to oppose her, she must find a way to survive while accepting that Jeha is no longer the loving lead character she thought him to be. Chaerin needs the help of an unknown extra, but they appear as faceless shadows to her. She will have to overcome a living nightmare to change the alternate storyline and write a new happy ending.
