Dragon Raja

Dragon Raja (Korean:드래곤 라자; abbreviated as 드라) is the first series of fantasy novels written by Lee Yeongdo, one of the most famous fantasy novelists in South Korea. The books chronicle the adventures of a 17-year-old boy Hoochie Nedval, his mentor Karl Heltant and his friend Sanson Percival, all of whom are from the poor town of Fief Heltant in the Kingdom of Bysus. The main story arc, told in the first-person by Hoochie, concerns the three's quest to rescue their people from the black dragon Amurtaht by finding money to pay the ransom; then to find and protect a lost dragon raja girl, who would serve as the bridge between people and dragons and stop a crimson dragon that terrorized the continent 20 years ago.

Lee showcased his first chapters of Dragon Raja on 3 October 1997 on a serial forum of an online service provider, Hitel. For the duration of 6 months after the initial debut he updated approximately 12,000 pages of wongoji (a Korean form of Genkō yōshi), a material length equivalent to that of 1715 letter pages, and the story gained explosive popularity on the forum. Golden Bough, an imprint of Minumsa Publishing Group purchased the publishing rights, and Dragon Raja was published upon its completion in 12 paperback volumes.

Prior to 1998 the fantasy genre in Korea, specifically its medievalist form, was considered unsubstantial and unaccounted for by many, especially the press and the literary world. But Dragon Raja was an immediate success, and became the best-selling fantasy title in Korea that grew to be a million seller. As of 2011, Dragon Raja has sold close to 2 million copies in 4 languages.

The success of Dragon Raja prompted two big phenomenon in the Korean publishing industry. First, fantasy literature "gained the attention of publishers and writers as the new goldmine" and opened the new era for Korean fantasy market. Speculative fiction also gained more support in the literary world, and more writers of "serious literature" began using fantasy and science fiction elements in their works. Secondly, the amount of online serials getting published increased exponentially, in mostly "genre literature" (Korean: 장르문학, genre munak), which is a Korean umbrella term for genre of novels including romance, fantasy, wuxia, science fiction and mystery. Once published, it also took relatively less time for such online fiction, or Internet literature (Korean: 인터넷문학, Internet munak), to be adapted into other media, and also in more varied forms. In the case of Dragon Raja was adapted into games, radio drama, and textbook texts.