The fantasy/adventure series The Beginning After The End (TBATE), which has racked up nearly 62 million views worldwide and generates more than $500,000/month as a webtoon on the Tapas platform, is being produced as an anime series set to launch on Crunchyroll in 2025, the creator announced at a panel at New York Co;mic Con Saturday to the delight of fans. In Asia, this development is not unusual when a webnovel becomes a hit webtoon, the typical next step is an anime. But that model is less common with English-first content produced in the North American market by an American creator, even one with as deep an affinity for the medium and the culture as TBATE author Brandon Lee, who writes under the name TurtleMe.

When TurtleMe—aka Brandon Lee—started writing The Beginning After the End as a fantasy novel, he was a frustrated finance worker looking to escape for a bit. Now, with volume 10 of the graphic novel publishing from Yen Press in February 2026 and over 60 million views of the webtoon counted, TurtleMe explains why he thinks TBATE has been such a huge hit and gives advice for other aspiring writers.

Kirkland author Brandon Lee started writing his ongoing web novel “The Beginning After the End” six months before moving to Seattle a decade ago. In the years since, “TBATE,” as it’s known among fans, got adapted into a web comic, graphic novels and most recently debuted its first season as a half-hour series on anime streaming service Crunchyroll. The last episode of the first season debuted in June; a 12-episode second season is slated to premiere in spring 2026.