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Japan and South Korea are in a battle over popular culture. Japan has the Cool Japan Fund to invest in pop culture projects.[1] The fund, backed by the Government of Japan and some big banks, was well-financed, but the projects have not been very successful.[2]

They need some better VCs.

[1] https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/ [2] https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn20180713001/floundering-co...

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Who will win this battle? What are the ramifications?

There's no battle. Both Korea and Japan see the value in exporting cultural products, although I don't think the Korean government is focusing on webtoons as much as kpop.

Manga and webtoons are different and cater to different audiences.

In any case manga is much, much more popular and actually gets translations. I think this is due to the longer publishing schedules and how established manga is compared to webtoons.

Korean music is more popular in foreign countries than Japanese music, and their dramas may also be more popular, but manga, anime, light novels and Japanese games are so huge that there's no real competition going on here. I think many people overestimate the importance and popularity of Kpop.

I mean it seems hard to be very pop-culture when your country is pretty well known for the whole "go with the norms/traditions" stuff,

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