For years, Korean dating apps have mostly matched Koreans with other Koreans. Weepy, a social discovery app run by Enrise, is betting that a growing appetite for cross-border romance — fueled largely by K-pop and K-dramas — can support an entirely new kind of matchmaking business.
On October 1, 2025, Weepy officially launched a “Korea-Japan Matching” feature, marking the one-year anniversary of its entry into the Japanese market, according to a report by Hankyung (한국경제). The feature is designed to go beyond conventional dating, connecting users across the two countries for friendship, language exchange and cultural exchange as well as romance. To smooth over the language barrier, Weepy built in real-time translation that automatically converts chat messages and profile text between Korean and Japanese.
The feature generated unusually strong early interest: more than 20,000 users pre-registered within a single week of its announcement, according to the company. Among Japanese users, more than 10,000 listed Korea-related interests — K-pop, K-dramas, Korean travel — on their profiles, and roughly 6,500 indicated they could speak Korean.
The appetite appears to run both directions. A “2030 Korea-Japan Dating and Meeting Perception” survey conducted by Weepy found that 85 percent of Korean men and 80 percent of Japanese women expressed active interest in meeting each other. Korean women and Japanese men showed more interest in exchange-oriented connections — 44.8 percent were interested in language exchange and 46.8 percent in cultural experiences — than in straightforward dating. Notably, 91.6 percent of Japanese women surveyed said they had a positive view of Korean culture, with K-pop, K-dramas and travel cited as the main drivers.
Weepy said it plans to build on the feature by letting users display their travel plans to Korea or Japan directly on their profiles, so they can arrange in-person meetups or language exchanges around planned trips, alongside interactive, taste-based features like Korea-Japan “ideal type” tournaments.
“Through this Korea-Japan matching feature, we hope Korean users get the chance to experience different cultures directly and expand their global network in daily life,” said Lee Ji-hye, product owner at Weepy. “We will continue to serve as a platform that helps a global generation form meaningful connections across borders.”
Source: Kim Dae-young, Hankyung (한국경제), October 1, 2025.
