Dramas like
Reply 1997

Same writer, same director, and the one the series is remembered for. Lee Woo Jung and Shin Won Ho again on a street, a year and a group of families, with the same joke rhythm and the same husband mystery. Difference: it is twenty episodes of a bereavement rather than sixteen of a party, the pace drops to 2, and the nostalgia is aimed at parents instead of teenagers.

Slow start Episode 3. The first two are scene-setting and the neighbourhood has not clicked yet.

The same pair, grown up and put in scrubs. Friendship as the actual subject, music used as memory, and jokes that come from people who have known each other too long to be polite. Difference: no era frame and no mystery, and the emotional weight is carried by patients rather than by a decade you remember.

Hooks early Episode 2, when the band and the friendship rhythm take over from the medical cases.

Shin Won Ho directing an ensemble locked in one place, which is his whole gift. Same trick of introducing a dozen faces as types and then making you defend each of them by episode six. Difference: the setting is a prison, the romance is barely there, and the comedy is built out of cruelty rather than nostalgia.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the cell mates are introduced properly.

The same 1990s, from the girl's side, with the IMF crisis doing the work that H.O.T does here. First love, a friend group, a period rendered with real care, and a narration frame looking back on all of it. Difference: it uses that frame to break your heart rather than to set up a reveal, and it never lets you off as lightly as this one does.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the two of them start meeting at night. Episode 1 is loud and abrasive on purpose, and it is the easiest place to quit.

1990s music as the reason to travel back at all. A band, a decade recreated with obvious affection, and a teenager working out that his parents were people before they were parents. Difference: it is a time-travel fantasy with much bigger emotional swings, so the comedy has to share the hour with a family tragedy.

Hooks early Episode 2, once he lands in 1995 and meets his father at eighteen.

First love written without a single villain. Same warmth toward young people being embarrassing in public, same refusal to punish anybody for it, comfort 5. Difference: no era, no ensemble of families, and the campus is generic where 1997 Busan is specific down to the cassette tapes.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the two leads start colliding on purpose.