Robin's Random Rambles

Over the last year,  I've often seen clickbait listicles with headlines like " I've watched a hundred K-Dramas and these are the ten I recommend " They make me smile because I'd watched a hundred K-Dramas by 2014. So in honour of these  clickbait listicles, and to celebrate having just completed 350 K-Dramas, here's MY top 10% — for  K-drama cognoscenti, the  post title will make sense. These are all K-Dramas that really left an impression on me. I'm presenting them in the order in which I watched them (the year I watched in brackets) to show how my tastes and preferences have shifted over the last 13 or so years, with links to their mydramalist page and brief comments about each.   COFFEE PRINCE   (2013) — I don't care if you're an alien, if you haven't watched this yet, do! A foundational K-Drama romcom, so much a part of the fabric of K-Drama that watching it does seem obligatory. Also, it's GREAT.   QUEEN IN-HYUN'S MAN (2013)  — S...

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 ...

My Drama viewing got underway in real earnest in mid-winter , starting with   JULY    After School Doctor (2024) 10/10 This drama was a reminder of why I love J-Dramas. The premise was straightforward: A grumpy, blunt, tactless pediatrician gets reassigned from the hospital to fill in at an elementary school infirmary after a patient's parent complains about his handling of a case. The basic arc was predictable, but the nature of the journey was still remarkable. Especially in the first six episodes of the drama, the uncompromising, unsentimental and clear-eyed approach to serious health issues faced by the children was outstanding. From a first grader dealing with a congenital heart defect to a sixth grader having self-harm issues, this drama did not flinch. It did not talk down to the children, or about them, and the doctor's blunt honesty didn't change, even as he learned to broaden his perspective on what it took to look after children. The ...

A Second Chances Drama in 10 60-minute episodes    Writers: Chien Chi Feng, Sakamoto Yuji  Director: Lee Jae Hoon  Music editors: Cho Seung Woo, Mitsushima Hikari Secondary tropes include sisterhood, music, found family, and personal growth. EPISODES 1-2 The four leads were all in a band together in university. Dae Ji Won (Cho Seung Woo) was the pianist, Kiyohara Yui (Mitsushima Hikari) lead vocalist and writer, Lin Yi Tong (Ko Chia Yen) writer and backup vocalist, and Odagiri Shun (Sakaguchi Kentaro) vocalist and guitarist. In the best tradition of 70s groups like Fleetwood Mac and ABBA, a complicated roundabout of personal relationships saw the band disintegrate and personal ties dissolve for years. None of them kept in contact, going out of their way to put their past behind them. After the back story retrospectives, the drama picks up 15 years after university. Yui now works for a recording agency in the PR department's legal team and Yi Tong, a major SHI...

I never had any interest in watching the K-Drama version of Marry My Husband . I'm not the biggest fan of the lead actor Park Min Young, and through the course of the drama I read significantly mixed reviews about its progress. Most of them echoed a very common complaint about K-Dramas, that it lost its way in terms of plot toward the end. However when I heard that there was going to be a Japanese remake and that the remake would be a Japan/Korea co-production, I was fascinated. I was thrilled that the female lead role was to be played by an actor who had already impressed me in a couple of roles, and I was fascinated to see how the story would transfer to the shorter, tighter J-Drama format. It exceeded my expectations. At 10 episodes, with a runtime just a fraction under 10 hours, this series highlighted everything that I love about J-Dramas. Tight, taut storytelling with an absolute minimum of padding or fluff. However, it also benefited very much from the strengths of Kore...