It has been announced that Akio Chinami's webtoon "The Fourth Husband," which is currently being serialized on the digital comic service LINE Manga, has been selected as the winner of the 2025 World Webtoon Awards, a manga award sponsored and administered by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency. This is the first time that a webtoon by a Japanese author has won the award.
"The Fourth Husband" is a work produced by LINE Manga WEBTOON STUDIO, the planning, production, and editing division that produces original webtoons and horizontally-scrolling manga for LINE Manga. It is Akio's first webtoon, which also includes "Goodbye to Love Me Tender," and began serialization in December 2024. It is a Japanese-style mystery romance about Fujibayashi Mio, a young lady who is rumored to "die young if she gets involved," and Tomishima Motoi, a wealthy landowner and merchant who, despite knowing this, marries her. LINE Manga is currently running a campaign where you can read the first five chapters of the work for free.
The 2025 WORLD WEBTOON AWARDS is a manga awards program that selects outstanding works from a global public submission list that have contributed to the development of the webtoon industry. Ahead of the awards ceremony to be held in Seoul, South Korea on October 22nd, the 10 works selected from the 26 nominees for the awards were announced. At the awards ceremony, the Grand Prize and Chairman's Award will be selected from the main awards, and the Reader's Popularity Award will be presented to the work that receives the most support in online reader voting. Online reader voting will close on October 21st.
