Dramas like
Romance Is a Bonus Book

The purest comfort romance on the site, and the numbers agree. A gallery curator running a secret fan site, a new boss who finds out and decides to protect it, and a couple who get together early and stay together. The rewatch scores average close to nine out of ten, higher than anything else here. Difference: the workplace is decoration rather than a subject, where publishing genuinely matters to this one.

Slow start Episode 3, once the boss knows and the show stops protecting the secret.

The same room, the same temperature. An actress placed as a secretary in a law firm and a lawyer with no idea how to be around her, made almost entirely of Lee Dong Wook being stiff and Yoo In Na being warm at him. Same absence of any real obstacle. Difference: it has even less plot, and the per-episode ratings sag through the second half because sixteen hours is too long for the joke.

Hooks early Episode 1. The premise is set up and paid off inside the hour.

Same director, incomparably higher stakes. Lee Jeong Hyo shooting the most watched Korean drama outside Korea, and the actual draw is the same one here: a supporting cast of neighbours who are warmer and funnier than the premise. Difference: there is a border, a hit squad and a real separation in it, so the low-stakes guarantee is gone.

Hooks early Episode 2, the moment the village women turn up at his door. The soldiers and the neighbours are the show.

The older-woman romance done as an art film. Long silences, coffee cups and a camera that will not cut away, and the first nine episodes are as good as adult romance gets. Same interest in a woman being underestimated at work. Difference: it turns genuinely painful, the workplace becomes hostile, and the back half is a much harder watch than anything here.

Hooks early Episode 1. The two of them are already loaded before either one admits it.

The modern version, built on mutual competence. A headhunter and a single-father chief executive who work well together before they like each other, and twelve episodes that never manufacture a crisis. Same warmth and the same competence at the centre of it. Difference: it is faster and glossier, and the career jeopardy is corporate rather than creative.

Hooks early Episode 2, when the headhunting CEO and her secretary start actually working together rather than sparring about it.

Same friends-first shape, much less money. Four people in their late twenties who are not winning at anything, with a friends-to-lovers pair who have twenty years of history and a show that is good at the part after they get together. Difference: it is broader and louder, and it is about wanting a career rather than restarting one.

Hooks early Episode 1. The friendship is fully established in the first twenty minutes.