Inwan Youn

* Appearance
* Icon

**Producer**

* My Nights Shine Brighter Than Your Days
* Neolithic Girl

**Others**

* Reawakened Man
* Housekeeper

**Producer**

* ENT

**Others**

* Deja Vu
* 문화 컨텐츠의 이해
* JUNGLE JUICE!

Inwan Youn is the founder of **YLAB** and Superstring; authoring many Superstring webtoons: **Island**, **Blade of the Phantom Master**, **Distant Sky**, and so much more. He often works with Kyungil Yang and Sunhee Kim.

## Biography Summary

Nothing is really known about Inwan's personal life. He had graduated at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies with a bachelor of Japanese and Cultural Contents. In addition to graduating at Keio University Graduate School with a master's of Media Design.

In 2008, he was an invited professor of Information Studies & Global Strategy Theory. In a Graduate School of Tokyo University, Japan. Then in 2011 ~ 2015, he was an adjunct professor of the Department of Japanese Language in Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

From the end of 2012 to 2015, he had a legal conflict with story writer Jinseok Jeon over defamation. falsely described his career on various portal sites and his own homepage, claiming that Inwan's representative works such as "Island" and "Blade of the Phantom Master" were his own work that Inwan stole. Inwan sued Jinseok for "spreading false information." On March 26, 2015, Jeon Jin-seok accused him of 'spreading malicious false information about a fellow cartoonist. A fine of 5 million won was demanded by the prosecution for defamation of character. In the end, Inwan was founded innocent.

## Career Background

Originally, he was an aspiring manga artist, but changed his career path to becoming a manga story writer. He often works with Kyungil Yang and created the original Island and Blade of the Phantom Master; becoming famous as a story writer. However, it has its faults: Blade of the Phantom Master has an ending in which it left a vague future at the request of the editorial department. With Island, although it was completed, it was criticized for remaining unfinished for a long time, and it was criticized that the ending was also insufficient to be considered perfect.

However, the short film *"Déjà vu"* was well received, with CLAMP praising it. The love story and the short spin-offs are also fresh. The way several writers proceed with one story seems to have been thought of from this point on.

YLAB was founded in 2010 by Inwan. In 2015, YLab announced Super String , which integrates the webtoons of various artists into one worldview . In other words, the creator and general manager of this series. In the early days of the worldview, many webtoon readers ridiculed and criticized it, but looking at the webtoon universes pouring out after the announcement of Super String Universe, the overall evaluation is that they have pioneering planning capabilities.

At the Superstring Showcase held on October 25, 2017, he mentioned this and explained that he continued to be interested in it and then developed it into a big project.

After the establishment of YLab, he became a PD and is discovering new artists and planning various works. So if you look at Y-Lab's works, you will be able to see his name. Webtoon or cartoon-related advertising, translation, export, secondary business, etc. are diverse. From December 2020, he left YLab and is in charge of LINE Manga 's CCO . According to his own Facebook page, he is living in Japan altogether.

In August 2022, as he returned to South Korea, he returned to YLab again. He remains as an advisor for LINE manga. After his return, he takes the role of Head of Creative R&D Center.

## Superstring Work

### Island

Island was originally a manga finished in 1997. In 2016, Island, was digitally remastered and serialized. Originally published books were scanned, lines were changed to match the modern times, and scroll production was applied. Since 2017, Island Part 2 has been serialized; new illustrations and story were developed in color to match the webtoon. It is unknown how did Inwan developed this webtoon in terms of his thought process or ideas.

### Blade of the Phantom Master

#### Original

In the original manhwa, Inwan had written info to the side for Japanese readers to know about how most of the characters and names are inspired by mostly Korean history (although supposedly there were some incorrections).

The Jurchen tribe ambush was inspired by "*Richo angyoki"* a manga from Natsuki Sumeragi.

There were many behind the scenes info that Inwan drawn for the readers. The first was when he and Kyungil Yang went to Shinjuku, Japan for the first time and live inside a hotel for Korean mangaka for free. They were excited and explored a bit but got bored as they went to the same place and couldn't go anywhere as they didn't know Japanese. One day, they went to meet a Japanese editor with Li-san, a translator, whom is an international student from Korea. As she was away, Kyungil decide to use phrases from Japanese porn to communicate which he didn't knew what they meant.

#### Webtoon

In 2017, it was remastered and began to be serialized. Although there are likes and dislikes, he rewrote some of the plot details in order to link his past works to Super Strings near the end of the final arc.

When it was planned to be serialized again, Inwan was nervous as he doesn't know if current readers would enjoy it. He also revealed that he felt emotional during the scene of Munsu's death.

He then talks about the process of turning it into a webtoon. It was revealed it took a year to manually remove the Japanese sound effects and reading from the paper manuscript, which was an analog work. Then it took more than two years to develop and work on the colors. Many other had joined in reading it (presumbably to see if it fits for a webtoon orientation), editing, and retouching lines.

He also states he wants to show this work to fresh faces more properly as a Korean manhwa. He also thought it was a good opporunity to think of creating the ending with pages that were deleted at the time. However, through much deliberation, instead of increasing the length, it was decided to restore only the content that had been deleted by the Japanese Editorial Department at the time.

Next, he explains that the since the content and flow what he had already written was very important, he thought that maintaining the existing tone and manner was the correct way to serve old and new readers. He personally like that because they had to convince people in a short page, they returned the characters that had died to their original state (The Final Arc). However, he revealed that Munsu's death was decided from the very beginning of the series.

In his last statement, he express his gratitude to readers who allowed him to return to Korea and finish the work as a Korean manhwa. He reavaled that the work which was known widely in Japan, has reached to Korea a higher stance as middle and high school students loved the work. Although more than 10 years has passed since the final publication of the original, he was able to confirm that people do love the work. He the thank the readers once again as it was valuable experience.

### Burning Hell

It is unknown how did Inwan developed this webtoon in terms of his thought process or ideas.

### Westwood Vibrato

Westwood Vibrato was previously published by Sogakkan. From February 18, 2011, he completed Westwood Vibrato, which was now serialized on Naver Webtoon. It is unknown how did Inwan developed this webtoon in terms of his thought process or ideas.

### Distant Sky

In 2014, he published his first original webtoon, Distant Sky, with illustrator Sunhee Kim. It was a disaster genre that was hard to find in webtoons at the time, and the directing in the form of a smart toon maximized the effect, creating a thrill that made you fall apart. The long and frequent hiatus received criticism from many readers, but as the Super String Project progressed, the response gradually stabilized and the series was finally completed with season 5.

Although the ending was criticized for the plot twist (?) but was still praised for being a masterpiece, but there were also many fans who denied the work itself because it had frequent hiatus.

During its development, Inwan takes one concept day, one or two days of continuous work. After Sunhee finished drawing, Inwan then has to convert the images which on averages takes nine days. He then explains about the reason for the long hiatus. He works on one episode which usually takes ten days. Then he needs a lot of time for the manuscript and build up to it; spending a month. This repeats for each season. He also responds to the criticism early one which he only believes it was his responsibility; grateful for the interest.

Next was the reason as to why he had not communicated with his audience was that he was writing a novel in Japan and worked with Urasawa Naoki who wrote *"Monster*." Who only communicated with his work.

With the main characters' design, he was inspired by Gian 84's Fashion King who was working in the same agency as him. Then he also explains that it is not needed to read other Superstring to understand Distant Sky with questionable plots as a McGuffin. Inwan received a special lecture about wormhole theories from Seungjun Hyun, a professor from the Natural History Museum invited by Ylabs.

Next, he found the hardest thing in creating the webtoon was the mystery and horror genre where he has to be faithful to show characteristics and message of the genre in combination of depicting the fear of the unknown. Finally, the last scene where Haneul completes his mission was the first scene Inwan thought of since the first episode.

### Reawakened Man

When Yongtaek Chae starts storyboarding the webtoon, Inwan found and introduced Jaehan Kim as his illustrator. Although Jaehan decline the offer to illustrate Reawakened Man, Inwan managed to convince him seven times in accepting. After the webtoon was completely finished, he pushed Yongtaek to create another series for Ylab which was Get Schooled to replace Reawakened Man.

### Neolithic Girl

Was the executive producer of Neolihtic Girl.

### Housekeeper

During a drink with Yongtaek Chae, he mentions about creating the webtoon but was unsure. Inwan then later found him an illustrator for the webtoon, Yuhyun.

### Super String: Marco Polo's Travel to Multiverse

#### Pre-Serial Info

On June 8, 2022, it was revealed that He will be the author and collaborating with Boichi, the illustrator of Dr. Stone, in being his illustrator for the webtoon. On September 6, 2022, Inwan released the first still cut on his Facebook. In the still cut, a hand that looks like a handshake is visible, but there is no other information. On November 22, 2022, he released the second still cut on his Facebook page. In the still cut, the characters is Wolhyang which was suspected to be the person on the cover. On January 2, 2023, he released the third still cut on his Facebook page. In the still cut, there is a scene that looks like a monster's arm. On March 25, 2023, he posted the 4th two still cuts on his Facebook page and wrote Coming soon. On April 8, 2023, Yoon In-wan released the 5th still cut on Facebook.

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## Trivia

* He holds the most works done for Super String as an author. With six works currently (not including other involvements).
* As of July 2023 he is the shareholder of YLAB, with stake of 17.81%.
* Before going to Japan for the first time, he had live at Korea for 25+ years.
* According to the original BoTM, he has blood type O and is a fan of S.E.S. a South Korean girl group. He loves all members but Shoo was his favorite currently.
* He hates kimchi and other spicy foods but eats it to not dissapoint the saying "Koreans love kimchi."
* Inwan greatly enjoys video games of soccer/football and the real sport. He watched the 2002 Fifa World Cup hosted by Japan & Korea.
* Before BoTM was published, he didn't understand Japanese. He has lessons from a teacher. He would read fan letters from Japan which may take 2 hours to understand. He enjoys it.
* He had caught up watching "Friends" and is a fan of Kyuoko Fukada
* Hobbies at the time was jogging during morning and going to the sports gym. Thanks to this, he recovered from insommina.

## Gallery

Initial SketchesOriginal BoTM HighlightsOriginal BoTM Image PictureOriginal BoTM Image Picture 2Full Gallery Page
## References

1. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84
2. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84
3. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch.19.1
4. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84
5. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84 - Bio Section
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%A0%84%EC%A7%84%EC%84%9D
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84 - Detail Section
8. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%9C%A4%EC%9D%B8%EC%99%84 - SuperString Section
9. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 3
10. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 2
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Blade of the Phantom Master, Ep. 274
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Distant Sky, Season 5, Final Episode
13. ↑ Reawakened Man, Season 1, Epilogue
14. ↑ Neolithic Girl, Ep. 1
15. ↑ Housekeeper, Season 1, Special Chapter 1
16. ↑ https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/014/0004848199?sid=103
17. ↑ https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%8A%88%ED%8D%BC%EC%8A%A4%ED%8A%B8%EB%A7%81%20-%EC%9D%B4%EC%84%B8%EA%B3%84%20%EA%B2%AC%EB%AC%B8%EB%A1%9D-/%EC%97%B0%EC%9E%AC%20%EC%A0%84%20%EC%A0%95%EB%B3%B4
18. ↑ https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20230713000352
19. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 16.7
20. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 3
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 5
22. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 12.6
23. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 6
24. ↑ Shin Angyo Onshi, Ch. 7.5