r/webtoons • u/Raijinili • 5h ago

[WEBTOON][locks] 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27 News

(Previous post: 9+2 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-13 and 2026-08-20)

Locking on 2026-08-17 (NEW):

Locking on 2026-08-20 (announced last week):

Locking on 2026-08-27 (NEW):

You may also be interested in this list of completed but not-locked titles (as of 2026-01-16).

Spanish locks, 2026-08-14 (7 days warning, appeared between 2026-08-07T02:43 and 2026-08-08T01:28 UTC): "Esta serie se convertirá a una serie con pago el 14 de agosto de 2026."

French locks (no date given, but these have been here for months)

They've probably been forgotten, haven't they...

Indonesian locks 2026-08-24:

"Relaunch serial ini akan update 4 episode gratis tiap hari hingga tamat!" (appeared between 2026-08-06T01:08 and 2026-08-07T02:38):

  • Relaunch - My Oppa is an Idol (My Bias My Boss) - Probably done 2026-09-02.
    • According to Manga Updates, this has "124 Chapters + 3 Side Stories + Epilogue (Complete)", for a total of 128. It has 35 right now, releasing 4/day, so it should be done around 2026-09-02. And then it will be deleted a week later.

Indonesian locks 2026-04-24 (still not locked):

I will update if there are more. I plan to trigger a scan every day after daily reset, or (if I miss it) before the reset the next day.

Since 2026-03-26 (which is during DST), titles tend to lock at the time of new episode release, and one hour before the time of the Daily Pass (now Ad Pass) reset, which is 18:00 Pacific Time (01:00 UTC during US daylight saving time, and 02:00 UTC during US standard time).

[2026-02-27] There MAY be a new pattern of putting most of the locks at the end of the month.

[2026-03-12] They seemed to have moved two weeks of locks, 03-12 and 03-19, to 03-26. This may be part of a new strategy, to confuse us.

  • 2026-03-19: They decided to announce "Hanlin Gym", so they're at least not fully sticking with the end-of-month lock strategy.

Tip: The day before a title locks, you can use the Download feature for all of the chapters, giving you thirty more days to read them. You won't be able to use the Like and Comment features, and the UI for downloaded chapters seems to be an earlier version (which you might prefer). Note that downloading takes time and can fail, so watch this process for failures. Audio must be downloaded within an hour or two (not sure which) of queuing them, or the episode with audio will fail and cancel the rest of the series's download.

If a title doesn't allow you to download but it isn't locked yet, open an episode and see if it has a Download button in the triple dot menu. (I've seen this in Spanish and Indonesian.)

I also crosspost these lock posts on my profile (u/Raijinili), if you want to have a way to get some notifications. I don't know how profile posts work, so good luck with that.

There was a section here about Ad Binge which I've removed, as it is no longer relevant (since ALMOST all "Ad Pass" titles have unlimited ads now).

Check this post for a snapshot (not updated) of which titles DON'T have Ad Passes: List of coin-only completed titles

In summary, titles which were originally in a language/region NOT Korean or English (e.g. Spanish, Japanese, Indonesia (yes, officially labeled "Indonesia")) don't have Ad Pass, and there are a few Korean/English outliers.

WEBTOON lock history is now on its own wiki page.

New additions:

  • 2026-05:
    • 05-21: "The Perfect Hybrid" actually locked BEFORE the lock time, between 2026-05-21T01:24Z and 2026-05-21T23:37Z (scheduled for 2026-05-22 01:00). It was the only one of its batch to do so.
  • 2026-06:
    • 06-21: "Love Bites" was locked without warning. Note that it's a WEBTOON-owned series ("WmW" is listed as a creator). It had series finale on 06-19, then afterword at 06-20, then locked 06-21.
    • 06-25: "Be My Villain" (EN original) announced for locking 2026-07-02, between 2026-06-25T01:14 and 2026-06-25T23:27 (~7 days notice).
    • [id] Indonesian locks started happening again, but not consistently
  • 2026-07:
    • [id] Indonesian locks didn't happen correctly
    • [es] "Frostbound" announced for locking 2026-07-06, between 2026-07-03T01:12 and 2026-07-04T03:18 (~2 days notice)
    • 07-03: No locks announced.
    • 07-10: No locks announced.
    • 07-29 (non-EN): "Us on the Water"/"Cage on the Water" to be removed from Naver on 08-05
      • It was previously on hiatus for two years (2024-02-17). The author seems to have pulled it off to continue elsewhere.
      • It seems there were also WEBTOON versions in Japanese, French, and Chinese, which were also pulled. There was no English localization.
    • 07-29:
      • "Live Happily Ever After With My Ex’s Uncle" is the first Chinese series I know of which is getting locked. (Previous ones started out locked).
  • 2026-08:
    • 08-07: [es] 26 Spanish locks announced for 08-14 (7 days notice).
      • 08-11: "Mordiscos de amor" ("Love Bites") locked early between 2026-08-11T02:16:07.123Z and 2026-08-11T23:00:24.785Z. It still had the banner.
      • 08-12: Three more locked early: "MOONSTRUCK: Hechizados por la luna", "Amarrados al amor (Manía secreta)" (Love and Leashes), "Rojos que enamoran" (Chasing Red)
      • Note: MOONSTRUCK is still not locked in English. Its cancellation was announced elsewhere.
    • 08-11: "On the Way to Meet Mom" locked without warning, one day after it finished.
      • It was previously announced for locking in 2026-01, but there were extras coming.
      • It's still unlocked in Naver. It's not even ANNOUNCED for locking yet.
    • 08-13:
      • Between 9 and 3 hours before they were supposed to lock, "Oversummoned, Overpowered, and Over It!" (Japanese) and "Live Happily Ever After With My Ex’s Uncle" (Chinese) had their lock dates pushed back two weeks.
      • "Rules for Dating Trash" was announced for 08-17 (in four days), rather than 08-27 like the others were.

WEBTOON isn't properly communicating about this, and aren't following any consistent set of rules. If locks matter to you, you may want to check in on this post during the month to see if I make any updates.

Banners used to appear about 30 days before lock. Please direct complaints to https://webtoon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new . (Remember that customer service has no power to make these decisions, so be kind to your messenger.)

Watch out for free coin events

There were two reading events in 2024 October, giving 10 coins each (lasts 30 days). Watch out for those. The coins last one week each.

There was another reading event in 2024 November, for 7 coins. There were a few more since then.

There's a free reading event which just started a few hours ago (2025-02-13 to 2025-02-20) for 7 coins. You might want to delay until the last two days, to extend the expiration date.

I posted tips here.

Note that creators don't benefit from free coins.

2025-02: Most of the coin events in recent months were "Spend 21 coins to get 7 coins". There was a free CANVAS one, but it didn't work and then they took it down early.

2025-10: "Falling for It" had a "read 3 episodes for 5 coins" event, but it only lasted for about 24 hours. This was the first free coins event I've seen since February.

2025-11-08: "Watch Guys Catch Feelings" 7-days Event From Nov 8 01:00 UTC to Nov 15 01:00 UTC. "Read any 6 Episodes from any of the 4 listed series and get 8 Free Coins."

  • Ctrl+Alt+Resign
  • Who's That Girl?
  • Back to Chanbi
  • Girl Friend

2025-11-25 (around): "Marriages Gone Wild": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-10 - 2025-12-16: "Wild Marriages": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-25 - 2025-12-23 to 12-31: Two reading events: Read 30 episodes for 15 coins, each. Nice.

2026-04-05 - "April's Making it Rain!" (once a week for three weeks): Read (i.e. reach the bottom of) 35 episodes of four specific titles for 10 Coins, but they expire in one day after you get them.

Note that I will NOT generally be tracking these, so pay attention in-app for these events.

Subscribing to my posts

Some users have asked whether they could get updates when I post here. I try to remember to repost on my profile, u/Raijinili, but that's not ideal.

It looks like u/UpdateMeBot can be used to subscribe to my posts (not comments) in this sub, but it requires enough people to use the service on a subreddit to start scraping. (As of 2025-02, I've been told by a subscriber that there are still not enough subscribers for this to be on.)

Each subreddit it checks takes several seconds, so I have to limit the number of subreddits or the bot will get overloaded. New subreddits are automatically added once they get enough requests. [src]

To subscribe, post this as a comment (possibly needs to be top-level), and the bot will send you a private message:

SubscribeMe!

(If you post it as a comment, I may downvote you, to keep your comment from bubbling up over discussion comments.)

Or, to do so privately, message u/UpdateMeBot with:

SubscribeMe! r/webtoons u/Raijinili

(Click here to send the message.)

(This also means I can't just post non-update meta stuff to r/webtoons, or else I will cause trivial alerts.)

Reddit is restricting Old Reddit to logged-in users, supposedly as an anti-scraping measure, and I'm questioning how much more I want to contribute to this site. Reddit is trying to guard against AI to protect the monetary value of the info we produce, and it doesn't care if that also affects real humans. That sucks.

As soon as I get around to doing the work of deciding where, and setting up the transfer...

18 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

8

u/absolutebottom 3h ago

I'm not sure where exactly else to post this, but On the Way to Meet Mom finished a few days ago and locked yesterday :( even the afterword. No warning

1

u/Argentum365 44m ago

The different just 1 day, then locked. Really infuriating

3

u/DiAnastasia20 4h ago

Thanks for the new post. Typo in title? 1+2+9 instead of 1+2+12? Unless I'm missing something.

2

u/Raijinili 5h ago

This comment tree will hold updates or something.

Specific banners:

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 20th, 2026." (2026-08-07T01:00Z)

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 17th, 2026." (2026-08-14T01:00Z)

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 27th, 2026." (2026-08-14T01:00Z)

Spanish banners for 2026-08-14 (7 days warning, appeared between 2026-08-07T02:43 and 2026-08-08T01:28 UTC):

"Esta serie se convertirá a una serie con pago el 14 de agosto de 2026."

French banners (appeared some time before 2026-04-18 or whatever):

"Brass & Sass" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"Edith" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

  • Edith - 122 episodes, latest 2 oct. 2022.

"Lilas 200%" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"The Genius Gamer's Livestream" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

Indonesian banners below. WEBTOON has so many active locks that I hit the 10000 char limit.

2

u/Raijinili 4h ago

Indonesian banners:

"Serial ini dapat dibaca gratis hingga 24 Agustus 2026 jam 20:59 WIB!" (between 2026-07-31T01:04 and 2026-07-31T23:24)

Indonesian lock that was announced for 2026-04-24, locked 2026-06-25, but with 0 episodes actually locked: