Naver WEBTOON will launch side stories for The Remarried Empress tonight, October 29, at 10:00 p.m. KST on its Daily Plus service. The same episodes go out on the platform’s global services. The company announced the release on October 28.
That means the webtoon that ended in January is publishing again, and it returns less than a week before the live-action series premieres on Disney+ on November 4. The timing does not look accidental.
What the new episodes cover
The side stories pick up after the main story closes. Navier and Heinrey get newlywed material following the birth of their twins, and some chapters are built around supporting characters the main series never gave much room to.
The bigger swing is a batch of alternate-universe stories. Naver lists two examples: a return to the day Emperor Sovieshu announced his divorce, and a version of events where Rashta becomes Navier’s maid instead of her rival. Those are reimaginings rather than continuations, which is a different thing from what most webtoon side stories do.
Fair warning if you have not finished the series: those episodes assume you know how the twins and the remarriage turn out.
Alphatart wrote the original story. Heree adapted it as a webtoon and SUMPUL draws it. The setup is simple and nasty in a good way. Navier is Empress of the Eastern Empire, her husband Sovieshu wants a divorce so he can install his mistress, and she agrees on her own terms and starts working toward marrying the emperor of a neighboring kingdom.
The scale of the thing
The webtoon passed 2.97 billion global views and has been translated into 10 languages. Its readership is spread widely, with Japan standing out as one of its strongest markets, which is part of why a Japanese anime adaptation never looked like a strange idea.
The main series ran seven years before ending in January. Naver said in February that side stories would arrive in the fall, and the October date closes that loop.
Where to read it
The English version is on WEBTOON. Ize Press handles the printed release. Daily Plus is a paid tier, so the side stories start there before the wider platform run.
Adaptations in both directions
The Disney+ live-action series premieres November 4. An anime from TROYCA is also in production for 2027, with Tetsuya Yanagisawa directing and Akiko Inoue on series composition. We covered that announcement in October.
Getting a live-action show and an anime of the same webtoon within a couple of years is not common, and it says plenty about how Korean webtoon properties are being bought right now. The live-action arrives first and will set expectations. If it lands well, the anime starts with an audience that already knows the names.
Why the side stories matter more than they look
Side stories are usually a victory lap. Here they do a second job: they keep the property active while a streaming premiere and a 2027 anime are both in the pipeline. A reader who finished the main series in January and drifted away has a reason to come back this week, and a reader who arrives through the Disney+ show will find the original still running.
Naver has been building Daily Plus around that pattern, using established hits to pull readers into the paid tier rather than launching new titles there first.
There is a spoiler problem worth naming. Alternate-universe chapters only work for people who finished the story, so this batch is aimed at the existing fandom, not at newcomers. Anyone starting fresh should read the main series first.
The ending was argued about for months after it wrapped, and alternate takes on Sovieshu’s divorce announcement answer that conversation directly. Whether the fandom wanted those what-ifs is an open question, but Naver clearly thinks the appetite is there.
For our earlier coverage of the adaptation, see the TROYCA anime announcement. For the wider webtoon-to-anime push, there is our report on the Crunchyroll, HAYATE and LINE Digital Frontier partnership.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Naver WEBTOON’s press release.
Featured image: The Remarried Empress webtoon art, via Naver WEBTOON / Anime News Network.
