Tving has greenlit “취사병 전설이 되다” (“Cooking Sergeant Becomes a Legend”) as an original series targeting a first-half 2026 release, adapting a web novel and webtoon property that follows an impoverished young man named Kang Seong-jae who develops mysterious culinary abilities after being drafted into Korea’s mandatory military service — a premise blending Korea’s near-universal shared experience of conscription with an unusual food-focused fantasy hook.
The project’s development path — originating as a web novel, expanding into a webtoon adaptation, and now moving into a Tving original drama series — exemplifies the increasingly common triple-format adaptation pipeline that Korean IP holders use to maximize a single story concept’s commercial reach, with each earlier format functioning as both revenue generation and audience-validation for the next, more capital-intensive adaptation stage.
The military-comedy genre carries particular cultural resonance in Korea specifically because mandatory military service is a shared experience for the vast majority of Korean men, giving “Cooking Sergeant’s” setting an instant relatability that purely fantastical or historical settings can lack — a genre Korean entertainment has returned to repeatedly across film and television precisely because of this broad, built-in audience familiarity with the setting’s basic rhythms and frustrations.
The story’s culinary fantasy element — Kang Seong-jae’s supernatural cooking ability — adds a genre hook distinguishing the project from more straightforward military-comedy predecessors, positioning it within a broader trend of Korean content blending conventional military-service settings with fantastical or supernatural elements to differentiate otherwise familiar premises.
Tving has not disclosed a confirmed release date beyond the first-half 2026 target, but the project’s triple-adaptation pedigree and culturally resonant premise have made it one of the more closely watched original series in Tving’s 2026 development slate.
Source: Tving original series development coverage, “취사병 전설이 되다” web novel/webtoon adaptation, 2026.
