‘Get Schooled’ Webtoon Canceled In North America Over Racist Content

Naver Webtoon announced the discontinuation of the webtoon “Get Schooled” on its North American platform Saturday.

This comes after the 125th episode of the series faced criticism from international readers for allegedly portraying racial discrimination. According to Anime Senpai, in the problematic episode, Lee Muk-hyun, a bully characterized as a Korean-Ethiopian taunted Daniel Hyun, a new teacher of mixed Korean-American heritage.

When Lee Muk-hyun taunted the new teacher with the derogatory term “yellow m*nkey,” Daniel retorted, saying, “F***ing n****!”

The 125th episode, which was recently released as a paid preview in South Korea, has since been deleted, while the webtoon went on a hiatus, per Chosun Biz.

“The racist content has been removed. The series has been canceled and will not be returning in the U.S.,” the Webtoon Official account responded to an Instagram comment asking about “Get Schooled.”

Meanwhile, in South Korea, officials reportedly stated that the webtoon has been suspended indefinitely from their platform while they conduct an internal review.

“It should never have been published, and we deeply apologize to anyone who has encountered it. Racism or racist content has no place on Webtoon,” the officials added.

Addressing the concerns with the latest episode of their webtoon, the creators of “Get Schooled,” writer Chae Yong-taek and artist Han Ga-ram, issued an apology in an official English statement.

The creators sincerely apologized and explained that the episode aimed to depict the current societal challenges in South Korea and bring the issue of discrimination to light. However, they admitted that they failed to recognize how certain expressions they used were racist.

“We crafted this episode hoping readers would pause and reflect on such societal challenges. However, in focusing on South Korea’s multicultural family issues, we overlooked the larger, universal facets and scope of discrimination. We failed to recognize how certain expressions are racist, even if employed for dramatic impact, causing enormous pain to our readers and the wider Webtoon community,” they wrote in the statement.

“This ignorance and limited perspective led us to use racist and harmful expressions carelessly, and we deeply apologize for causing hurt. The racist language and imagery in that episode have been edited and removed, and the series is going on hiatus in the U.S., but we know we have caused real pain to many people,” they continued.

“We’ll be spending time to learn more about past and present racial discrimination and the history of racist representations. We can and will do better,” they promised their readers.

“Get Schooled,” also known as “True Education,” began publishing in October 2020 on Naver Webtoon. It tells the story of Na Hwa-jin, an employee of the Ministry of Education who has a unique approach to education and discipline. He is known for dealing with school bullies.