Naver Webtoon Lands 60th Anniversary ‘Star Trek’ Partner Deal With the U.S… Kicks Off a ‘Gen Z’ Push

Naver Webtoon has officially joined forces as a global campaign partner for the legendary Hollywood sci-fi franchise ‘Star Trek,’ proving its influence in the North American market once again.

Through its English service, Naver Webtoon began rolling out original webtoons based on the ‘Star Trek’ universe—‘Stargazers’ and ‘Recollection’—to audiences around the world sequentially starting on Nov. 17, based on local U.S. time. The project is part of ‘Space for Everybody,’ Star Trek’s 60th-anniversary global campaign.

Since the first TV series aired in 1966, Star Trek has continuously expanded its intellectual property (IP) into novels, games, and animation. This is the first time, in the franchise’s 60-year history, that Star Trek has adopted the webtoon format. ‘Stargazers,’ released this time, sensitively depicts the romance of young people navigating a chaotic post-war era, set against the deep-space nine galactic space station. ‘Recollection,’ which began serializing alongside it, is a mystery thriller in which characters awaken aboard a Federation starship with every memory of the past erased as they track down the truth.

In the content industry, Star Trek’s move is being analyzed as a strategic choice aimed at “a generational shift in fandom.” After decades of building an enormous universe, the sheer scale of the world itself can become a barrier to entry for younger audiences, and the aging of existing fandom has emerged as a long-term challenge. Against this backdrop, global franchises are turning their attention to Naver Webtoon in order to expand touchpoints with younger users who are comfortable in mobile environments.

In fact, looking at North American user data for Naver Webtoon’s global platform ‘WEBTOON,’ a remarkable 75% of all users are concentrated in the Gen-Z (born 1997–2006) cohort. In other words, webtoons are the mobile channel that can reach unfamiliar 20-somethings most effectively for Star Trek.

Amy Jarashow, Global Publishing Head at Paramount, a global media company that holds the Star Trek IP, expressed strong expectations for this collaboration. Jarashow said that even now, 60 years after its debut, Star Trek still has fresh frontiers in the way it tells stories, adding that the company will deliver readers a differentiated sense of immersion through a new platform: webtoon. She further emphasized that this project will be an exciting evolution for the franchise and the most powerful way to connect both existing core fans and new reader segments.

As Naver Webtoon has a track record of successful collaborations with major global entertainment companies such as Marvel, DC Comics, Comico, and Hive in the past, it is expected that the Star Trek project will further strengthen its platform dominance in the North American market.