10 Biggest Changes Netflix’s Sweet Home Made to The Webtoon

Throughout both seasons, Sweet Home, a K-drama on Netflix, significantly altered the webtoon. The three-year run of the Sweet Home webtoon, written by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, began in 2017. There are three seasons of the Netflix adaption, and it has been established that there won’t be a fourth. While the second season is an original story that continues into season 3, when the narrative comes to an end, the first season adheres to the webtoon’s plot.

Because of their length, webtoons, like books, can have a lot of backstory and lore. Some of the best webtoon-based K-dramas strike a balance between the original plot and the necessary alterations. Although Carnby and Hwang don’t have many complaints about the Netflix adaptation (via Korea JoongAng Daily), those familiar with the Sweet Home webtoon won’t have problems spotting some major differences. However, while some fans weren’t happy with all the changes, many helped turn a long-running webtoon into a concise, coherent three-season show.

Summary

• Netflix’s K-drama Sweet Home-made changes to the webtoon, cutting down on backstories and humor, with season 2 being mainly an original story.
• The addition of a main character, Seo Yi-kyung, helped push new plots in the Netflix adaptation.
• The fates of main characters, including Sang-wook and Yu-ri, were changed in the K-drama compared to the webtoon.

Netflix Cut Down on The Backstories in Sweet Home

Backstories In the Webtoon Explained Certain Monsters

One significant distinction between the webtoon and the Sweet Home series is that, logically, Netflix did not incorporate nearly all of Kim Carnby’s story. This was particularly true with regard to the pasts of a large number of the creatures. The webtoon’s extended duration allowed it to reveal the reasons behind some monsters’ turns by going into their backstories.

The Starving Monster was among the most well-known creatures whose tales were omitted. The woman’s strict diet and aspiration to become a celebrity were revealed to be the cause of her transformation into a monster in the Sweet Home webtoon. In Netflix’s Sweet Home, the woman wasn’t given enough screen time to properly introduce her character before she turned. Although the Starving Monster wasn’t a big part of Sweet Home’s plot, her backstory gave hints about what caused the monsters to appear.

Sweet Home Has Some Humor in The Webtoon

The Show Didn’t Have as Many Light-hearted Moments

When Netflix turned the Sweet Home webtoon into a program, they made more than just story changes. To further suit the new medium, a considerable alteration was made to the overall tone. There are several humorous moments in Sweet Home even if the plot is somewhat gruesome. Due to their frequently entertaining and humorous chats, Cha Hyun-su and Lee Eun-hyuk offer a lot of laughter. The humor from the webtoon was not heavily included into the Netflix K-drama.

The characters’ extreme seriousness—especially that of Lee Eun-hyuk—added suspense but also detracted from the story’s human element.

While it worked well in the webtoon, bringing in some humorous moments would have helped to counterbalance the gore and add some humor to the show. The characters, especially Lee Eun-hyuk, were all incredibly serious, which added suspense but took away some of the humanity from the story. Whether this change was good or bad is ultimately subjective, but given that Sweet Home on Netflix has been incredibly popular even among those who have no knowledge of the webtoon, the show’s versions of the characters clearly work, even without the light-heartedness of their webtoon counterparts.

Netflix’s Sweet Home Added a Main Character

Seo Yi-kyung Was Not in The Webtoon

Although the majority of Netflix’s modifications to the Sweet Home webtoon concerned eliminating or altering certain plot points, some were also added. Most remarkably, a major character in the Netflix series was developed especially for their retelling of the story. Seo Yi-kyung appears in Carnby and Hwang’s webtoon but is absent from the Korean drama Sweet Home, where she is one of the primary protagonists.

Yi-kyung, an original character for the show, is a former firefighter who aids in the monster fight with her martial arts skills. Yi-kyung is a key character in the Netflix version. She finds out about the government’s role in the monster plague before anyone else does. As Netflix also added new plots to Sweet Home, like the government having a hand in the epidemic, it makes sense that they would have an original character to help push these plots along.

Lee Eun-yu’s Characterization

She Doesn’t Have Feelings for Hyun-su In the Sweet Home Webtoon

While several of the characters from the webtoon Sweet Home were modified for the Netflix version, Lee Eun-yu underwent a significant makeover. Lee Eun-yu, Lee Eun-hyuk’s younger sister, resides in Green Home alongside him. She plays a former ballerina in the Sweet Home show, but her career terminated due to a foot injury. Eun-yu is described as being somewhat reticent, which makes her distant and aloof from other people. She is not as icy in the webtoon.

Lee Eun-yu’s personality was not the only thing that was drastically changed. For the character, Netflix also developed a separate storyline that isn’t shared by her on-page counterpart. Despite it being an integral part of her narrative in Netflix’s Sweet Home, there is no romance between Eun-yu and Cha Hyun-su in the webtoon. The two are merely friends, as Hyun-su’s romance lies elsewhere in the Sweet Home webtoon.

Cha Hyun-su & Lee Eun-hyuk’s Friendship Is Downplayed

In the Sweet Home Webtoon, The Two Share Similar Interests

The Netflix adaptation of Sweet Home considerably minimized the roles of two of the show’s primary characters. Furthermore, the bond between them, which forms the basis of their personas in Kim Carnby’s retelling of the tale, was essentially missing. Lee Eun-hyuk and Cha Hyun-su are the characters in issue.

When Cha Hyun-su and Lee Eun-hyuk first meet in the Sweet Home webtoon, they instantly click over their shared love of the anime series Maria from the Sky. They find out that because of the apocalypse, none of them was able to attend the anime film adaptation’s premiere. Since they didn’t have Maria from the Sky to laugh about and form bonds with in the first season of the Korean drama, Hyun-su and Eun-hyuk were both somewhat distant from one another. They couldn’t bond in the second season either, as Song Kang’s Hyun-su was barely in Sweet Home season 2 and Eun-hyuk was thought to be dead.

Maria From the Sky was made up by Carnby and Hwang for the Sweet Home webtoon. The characters of Maria and the knight correlate to Ji-su and Hyun-su, reflecting the two’s relationship in the webtoon.

The Character of Pyeon Sang-wook Was Very Different in Netflix’s Sweet Home

Sang-Wook Was Not a Tough Guy in The Webtoon

Not just Cha Hyun-su and Lee Eun-hyuk are shown drastically differently in the two versions of Sweet Home; there are other characters as well. Another is Peyon Sang-wook, who underwent a significant transformation as the streamer brought Kim Carnby’s narrative to life. Pyeon Sang-wook is a mysterious character in Netflix’s K-drama Sweet Home, whose menacing demeanor leads everyone to believe he’s a gangster.

In the webcomic, Sang-wook initially comes across as frightening, but it doesn’t take long for him to show his tender side. Sang-wook, a former investigator in Carnby and Hwang’s Sweet Home, is still driven by a desire to do good deeds for those around him. Sang-wook’s past and demeanor were significantly different from Park Yu-ri’s in the webtoon, despite the Korean drama maintaining indications of romance between the two characters.

Netflix Changed the Fates of Several Sweet Home Main Characters

Sang-wook And Yu-ri Don’t Die in The Webtoon

Many events from the webtoon were left out of the three seasons of the Sweet Home television series. In certain cases, like with monster backstories, this only meant omitting certain passages from the story; however, in other cases, it also involved rewriting the destinies of multiple characters in order to condense their tales. Probably the most notable examples of this are Sang-wook and Yu-ri. When Sang-wook and Yu-ri attempt to walk outside in Netflix’s Sweet Home to acquire inhalers to stop Yu-ri’s asthma attack, Jung Ui-Myong kills them.

Because he believes they are going to notify the military, Ui-Myong shoots them. Later, after Hyun-su destroys the body, he was previously inhabiting, Ui-Myong takes possession of Sang-wook’s body. In reality, Yu-ri and Sang-wook make it through the events of the Sweet Home webcomic. They are able to act on their mutual feelings and establish a romantic relationship during the webtoon.

Cha Hyun-su and Yoon Ji-su’s Relationship Is Almost Non-existent

In The Sweet Home Webtoon, The Two Have Mutual Feelings For Each Other

It’s possible that Netflix reduced the most romantic elements of the Sweet Home webtoon for their adaptation. Similar to how Sang-wook and Yu-ri passed away too soon for their Sweet Home romance arc to develop, Cha Hyun-su and Yoon Ji-su’s webtoon romance subplot was likewise mostly missing.

In the K-drama Sweet Home, the romance between Cha Hyun-su and Yoon Ji-su is minimized. The two never develop romantic feelings for one another and don’t connect as much as they do in the webtoon. Rather, Yoon Ji-su’s romance is with Jung Jae-heon, while Hyun-su’s is with Lee Eun-yu. However, Hyun-su and Ji-su have a love interest in one another in the Sweet Home webtoon. This becomes pivotal when Hyun-su’s inner monster starts to take over, and he’s unable to fight against it.

Cha Hyun-su Doesn’t Have a Motive for Staying Human

Ji-su Is His Reason in The Sweet Home webtoon

Not just Yu-ri and Sang-wook from Sweet Home, but other characters also lost their lives, which meant that a significant portion of the webtoon was never shown. Cha Hyun-su is turned into a monster in both of the Sweet Home adaptations. But in the webcomic, Yoon Ji-su serves as his anchor, allowing him to maintain his humanity.

Yoon Ji-su’s song is what breaks through Cha Hyun-su’s inner beast and restores his feelings in the Sweet Home webtoon. What binds Hyun-su to his humanity is the intensity of their emotions. Since Hyun-su and Ji-su’s love wasn’t depicted in the K-drama, Hyun-su doesn’t have a reason to continue being human. The song is such a pivotal moment in the webtoon and Ji-su’s tragic death in season 2 crushed hopes for a happy ending that matches that of the webtoon.

The Military Had No Part of Sweet Home’s Plot in The Webtoon

The Cause of The Monster Epidemic Is a Mystery

Adding the military as a story device was one of the main modifications made by Netflix in their adaptation of Sweet Home. This is arguably the most significant departure from the original storyline by Netflix, as it abandoned Kim Carnby’s choice to maintain the epidemic’s mystery in favour of an explicable basis for all of Sweet Home’s oddities.

For the most part of the Sweet Home webtoon, the reason for the monster outbreak remains a mystery. The revelation that monsters are simply expressions of human desires that ensnare people in a “paradise of desires” where their bodies are controlled comes from Hyun-su’s inner monster. In the Korean drama, the military is responsible for this revelation and actively tries to hide the cause. By revealing the cause of the monetarization, the Sweet Home K-drama removes the suspense that the webtoon hinged on.