25 in 2025 Part One: January — June
2025 has been a very good year for me in East Asian drama viewing. I've completed at least 93, and the average score has ended up just over 8.1/10. So I'm taking a journey through the year's viewing, highlighting twenty-five dramas that were highlights of my 2025 viewing year. Around 40% of the Dramas I watched in 2025 were released in 2025, and that ratio is reflected here, with eleven of the twenty-five being from 2025. The year of release is in brackets after the title, along with the score I gave the Drama in my personal database..
JANUARY
Good Partner (2024) 9.5/10
This was the second drama I watched in 2025 and it got the year off to a promising start. I scored it 9.5/10 because the story of female friendship and personal growth was a joy to watch. The two lead actors had real chemistry together - first as mentor and pupil, as colleagues, and finally, in a move that really impressed me, as strictly professional adversaries. I couldn't give it a 10 because like so many K-Dramas it lost its nerve and wasted time on an unconvincing, unappealing and unnecessary romantic arc. But overall it was a refreshingly positive female-focused drama. Whether lightning can strike twice with a cast change in season 2 remains to be seen.
MARCH
I'm Married But (2025) 10.5/10
A real romance, not just a romcom. I scored this 10.5/10 because like all my "10+" Dramas, it really made me FEEL. I laughed, I raged, I swooned.
The idea of a "sequel" to the fairy-tale ending, shown in the original Mandarin poster and the Google Translated version above, was very well executed. It was a very painful watch for the first 5 episodes, especially Liu Yi Hao's slob character and his craven capitulation to his domineering Mum. I hated them both!
Then the character growth kicked in. Having watched hundreds of K-Dramas it was a bizarre and unsettling novelty to see characters USE THEIR WORDS and actually explain how they felt and how that affected their actions. Misunderstandings are resolved, differences explained and accepted, lots of growth all round.
The two leads SMASHED IT. I have long esteemed Ko Chia Yen as an actor but this Drama raised my opinion of Liu Yi Hao too. They were given great material and delivered it superbly. Also, extra points for something VERY seldom seen: About 40% of the way through the Drama I thought, "hey this plot is the same as (a hit US pop song from the very late 70s)". I'm not naming it here because it literally IS the core of the plot, but it was really fun to see that song brought to life in this way.
Tree with Deep Roots (2011) 9.5/10
This one was AMAZING! An entire sageuk whose foundational core story was the development of a writing system. It still staggers me that a whole historical drama could be built around the history of the development of Hangul. I am not a fan of historical dramas, but watching a drama where the king responsible for the invention of Hangul discusses things like the impact of physiology on phonology and morphology left a lasting impression. All of the cast shone, ESPECIALLY the three shown in the poster. Han Seok Gyu was great as Sejong the Great, Jang Hyuk was his usual Jang Hyuk-y awesomeness, his central position the above image entirely valid in my opinion.The real surprise for me was Lee Sung Kyung: Way back then, she could ACT!
My only major complaint about the drama was that it complied with the inviolable rule which states that sageuks must kill off major characters. The characters killed off in this one were fictional inventions, so their end could have been fictional as well. "Some say a man ain't happy truly til a man truly dies" is apparently the mantra by which sageuk writers (ironically?) live. That fixation with fatality prevented this getting a 10. Once again though, this is a drama whose outstanding strong points outweigh this one significant niggle.
APRIL
When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025) 12/10
I wrote about this drama here, so I will just briefly address the most common complaint I read about tangerines. Many have felt that it was crudely emotionally manipulative, and that they did not enjoy it for that reason. It definitely was not subtle, but I stand by my conviction that any emotional manipulation came from a place of sincerity, that the writers felt what they were trying to make the viewers feel.
JUNE
Love to Hate You (2023) 9.9/10
Love to Hate You was an outstanding example of the genre that for a long time seemed to be dead or dying in K-Dramas — the pure romcom. There were no serial killers, no dark, malicious arc at all. Instead, this drama did something quite revolutionary. It was a pure romcom with a powerful, positive message about gender roles and hypocrisy in Korean society. It shared that message by the medium of a female lead who lived the message. Throughout the drama the point was made that Yeo Mi Ran's behaviour was in no way different from that which is not merely tolerated but almost expected of men in Korea, but vilified and socially criminalised for women.
The casting of Kim Ok Bin in that lead role was inspired. I have followed her career since being involved in the fan subbing for her 2014 drama Yoona's Street, and one thing that annoyed me about that drama was that despite being (at the time) a 4th Dan in hapkido, not only did her character never get to show that, she also needed rescuing by the male lead. In this drama, Mi Ran explicitly condemns that trope, and free-diver/boat-driver/martial artist Kim Ok Bin gets plenty of opportunities to demonstrate her own action junkie skills.
A female lead who was literally empowered to take care of herself and stand up for others was refreshing, but just as refreshing was the fact that this romcom was genuinely funny. I laughed so much throughout this drama. The romance was well handled too. For once there was a romantic K-Drama with a thirty-something female lead who was not a giggling virginal child, and that fact was central to much of the story. It was refreshingly realistic, and I also loved the way the drama showed different sets of exes coming to terms with their past and moving beyond it. Using their words – mature, adult, thoughtful behaviour, almost unheard of in K-Drama romcoms.
Three of the other actors have also been favourites of mine for some time. Kim Sung Ryung: My first Noona crush when I started watching K-Dramas back in 2013. It was great to see her given a role here that was a celebration of women in her situation and stage of life. Go Won Hee, another actor I've always found aesthetically appealing, but this drama was perhaps her most satisfying sidekick/dongsaeng role yet, she got to deliver laughs and love. Brava! Finally Choi Yoon So. She caught my eye the very first time I ever saw her and then disappeared from Dramas of the genres I watch. Her introduction in this Drama as the apparently telepathic interpreter for the mute director was very entertaining, and her character avoided all of the usual stereotypical pitfalls of that particular kind of role
I was very close to scoring this drama 10/10, until the public proposals. I absolutely HATE public proposals, they're crude emotional blackmail. The final episode of this Drama contains TWO. I was actually prepared to let the first one slide because it made sense in context. The second however was stereotypical, clichéd and just plain awful. Even in a drama this good there can be no excuse for that kind of blatant manipulation.
For that unforgivable lapse, I scored this drama WAY down: From 10/10 to 9.9/10. Putting it inside the top 5% of the 340 K-dramas I have finished as of the time of writing.
Having just contemned public proposals, I now make one of my own: If you made it this far, I propose that you might find something of interest in some or all of the subsequent chapters of this gripping saga. Links below.
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PART 2
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PART 3
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PART 4
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PART 5
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