Hunting for manhwa raw sites? This guide maps out where Korean manhwa, Chinese manhua and Japanese manga raws officially live, from Naver and KakaoPage to Ridibooks, Lezhin and Kuaikan, and shows you how to read any of them in your own language, so you never lose track of a series again after you catch up.
What's a raw site?
Official raw sites are the original platforms where creators post first, before any translation releases. Chinese and Japanese sources work the same way. You probably landed here for one reason: you caught up. You blew through every translated chapter, hit the "no more chapters" wall, and now you're stuck on a cliffhanger. Maybe the translation group went quiet months ago. Some readers just drop the series because they couldn't find where to keep reading.
Finding the raws can be hard - especially if you don't speak the original language. Unofficial and illegal sites go down all the time - suddenly everyone is chasing mirrors that lack the latest chapter. If you've ever googled "raw manhwa websites", you know the drill.
In this guide, we will share how to access legal and official sites which publish manhwa, manga and webtoons so you can always be the first to read and never lose track.
Table of contents
- Where are the Korean manhwa raw sites?
- Where do you find Chinese manhua raws?
- What about Japanese manga raws?
- How do you read these raws in your language?
- Which manhwa raw sites should you use?
Where are the Korean manhwa raw sites?
This is what most people mean by manhwa raw sites. Korean manhwa debut on a handful of big platforms. When readers in the BL manhwa community ask where the official raws are, these are the names that come up.
Naver Webtoon / Naver Series
Naver is the giant. Most Korean webtoons debut on comic.naver.com. It has free daily series, plus Naver Series for completed and premium titles. As an overseas reader, you can browse the Korean site in any browser. The free chapters need no special account. Copy the chapter URL, drop it into OpenToon, and read it in your language. Naver works with the importer out of the box.
KakaoPage / Kakao Webtoon
Kakao is Naver's biggest rival. A ton of hit action, romance, and isekai manhwa land on KakaoPage or Kakao Webtoon first. Series usually run on a wait-or-pay model, so the newest chapters cost a little to read early. Overseas access is a bit fiddly, and you'll want a Kakao account. Still, the reading works fine. This is where much of the "why is the English so far behind" gap comes from. Import the chapter URL, translate, done.
Ridibooks
Ridi (ridibooks.com) is a Korean ebook and comic store. It's the go-to for a lot of BL and drama manhwa. You buy the chapter or volume, and it's yours to keep. Ridibooks is usually one of the first names the community drops for official Korean raws, alongside Bomtoon, Lezhin KR, and KakaoPage.
Lezhin
Lezhin (lezhin.com) publishes mature and BL manhwa. It runs an English storefront and a Korean one. The catch: the Korean side almost always has more chapters, and it gets them earlier. Buy the raw on Lezhin KR, translate it, and read ahead of the English release.
Bomtoon
Bomtoon is another Korean platform, heavy on BL and romance. It's one of the spots readers point each other to for official raws. Same flow as the rest. Find your chapter, run it through the translator, keep reading. Bomtoon is supported in the importer too.
Where do you find Chinese manhua raws?
Manhua gets the least English scanlation love of the three formats. Chinese series can run for hundreds of chapters. The fan translation trails way behind, or never shows up at all. So if you read manhua, going to the raws isn't a nice-to-have. It's basically the only way to keep up. One detail from the trenches: Chinese translations often leak before the Japanese raws do, which is why speed-scan culture is so chaotic.
Kuaikan Manhua
Kuaikan (kuaikanmanhua.com) is the biggest manhua platform. It's packed with exclusives, on web and app, with free chapters plus paid. It's supported directly in the OpenToon importer, so a Kuaikan chapter URL translates cleanly.
Bilibili Comics
Bilibili Comics is the manhua and manga arm of Bilibili. Its international app already offers some titles in English. As usual, the Chinese catalog is bigger and faster. It's a solid source when the official release lags.
Tencent (ac.qq.com)
Tencent's ac.qq.com is another massive manhua library. A lot of big titles start here. There are some account and region hoops. Still, the catalog is deep, and it's as close to the source as you can get.
What about Japanese manga raws?
Japanese raws are their own world. They live across official digital stores, magazine apps, and creator posts. For most series, the official digital edition is the cleanest raw source. And Pixiv is huge for indie and doujin work that never gets a formal release. You can translate an artist's page directly, instead of squinting at art you can't read.
How do you read these raws in your language?
So you found the raw. It's in Korean. Now what? You've got three real options.
- Learn the language. Some readers do get good enough at Korean to muddle through. But that's a multi-year project, not a Tuesday-night fix.
- The Google-Translate-camera dance. Point your phone at the screen, squint, repeat for every panel. It's slow, and it mangles the tone.
- Translate the chapter in place with a comic-tuned app. This is the one that keeps up with your reading.
OpenToon is option 3. Lots of apps now advertise AI translation, but OpenToon is the only one that puts this whole stack in a mobile app.
- Paste the chapter URL. The built-in importer pulls chapters from almost any site.
- It handles the whole vertical strip. Manhwa scroll top to bottom in one long strip, not as left-right manga pages. Paste a chapter URL and OpenToon scans and translates the entire strip, then hands it back in a proper top-to-bottom scroll reader. Many translator apps are built for page-format manga and can't pull a vertical manhwa from a URL, so they leave you screenshotting one screen at a time.
- It reads the text off the page for you. GPU-accelerated OCR picks out the words in every bubble fast and accurately, even messy fonts and the vertical lettering Korean and Chinese lean on. You don't retype anything.
- It translates in context, not word by word. The translation is comic-tuned AI, LLM-based, in the same family as ChatGPT or Claude. It reads the whole speech bubble as one thought instead of one word at a time. That beats clunky MTL, so names, tone, and jokes land closer.
- It redraws a clean page. Inpainting wipes the original text off the panel and fills in the art underneath, so the translated words sit on a clean page instead of being crammed over the old lettering.
- Tap any speech bubble to see the original. Handy when you want to check a name or a term.
- It's on your device. Nothing gets hosted or re-uploaded to a server. It's a translation layer on top of a chapter you already have access to, not a copy of it.
- Unlimited translations. One subscription, no per-chapter fees and no counting credits. Read and translate as many chapters as you want, which is the whole point when you're catching up on hundreds of chapters at once.
- 50+ target languages. Read in Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Indonesian, French, whatever you actually read in. This isn't an English-only tool. That matters if the scanlation scene skips your language.
- iOS and Android. Easily download it on your phone.
It's built by the team behind OpenNovel, one of the most popular novel translators around.
Still not convinced? See our breakdown of the best manga translator app.
FAQ
What are the best manhwa raw sites? The main official manhwa raw sites are Naver Webtoon, KakaoPage, Kakao Webtoon, Ridibooks, Lezhin and Bomtoon. These are where Korean manhwa debut before any translation, and you can read them in your own language by importing the chapter URL into OpenToon.
Are manhwa raw sites legal? Official raw sites like Naver, Kakao and Ridibooks are legal, since you browse or buy chapters directly from the publisher. Unofficial mirror sites are a legal grey area and tend to disappear often, which is why this guide sticks to official sources.
How do I read manhwa raws in English? Copy the chapter URL from an official raw site and paste it into a comic translator. OpenToon runs OCR, context-aware AI translation and inpainting across the whole chapter, then hands it back in English or 50+ other languages.
To summarize
Here's the quick version, grouped by language.
- Naver Webtoon / Series (Korean). Biggest webtoon catalog, free dailies. Browse the KR site and import the chapter URL.
- KakaoPage / Kakao Webtoon (Korean). Big action and isekai hits, early chapters. Kakao account, wait-or-pay.
- Ridibooks (Korean). BL and drama, buy-to-own. Ridi account, buy per chapter or volume.
- Lezhin (Korean). Mature and BL, with EN and KR stores. The KR side has more chapters, earlier.
- Bomtoon (Korean). BL and romance. Account, buy chapters.
- Kuaikan Manhua (Chinese). Biggest manhua library. Web or app, free plus paid.
- Bilibili Comics (Chinese). Manhua and manga, English app available.
- Tencent, ac.qq.com (Chinese). Deep manhua catalog. Account, some region hoops.
- Pixiv (Japanese). Indie and doujin, artist pages. Free account, import the artist URL.
Here's the full list. If your series lives somewhere niche, check there first.