17 K-Dramas With Romances So Good, They'll Ruin You For All Other Love Stories

Settle in for hours of tropey goodness.

So many K-dramas are great for romance fans.

They typically run for single seasons of 16 episodes (sometimes slightly more or less), and often have a heavy focus on a central love story. If that's your idea of comfort viewing, here are some absolute must-watches...

1. Romance Is a Bonus Book

tvN / Via nurabiaylmaz.tumblr.com

This is like Younger, but better. Dan-i took time off from her successful career to raise a child, and now she's divorced and struggling to get hired again. She lies about her qualifications (saying she has fewer than she does) in order to get a support job at the publishing company where her best friend, Eun-ho, works. She also winds up living with him, so there's a lot of forced-proximity goodness as their relationship grows and changes.

2. Crash Landing on You

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This drama is both quite silly and absolutely devastating. Se-ri is a rich South Korean heiress and businessperson who finds herself in North Korea after a paragliding accident (there's the silly). North Korean military captain Jeong-hyeok tries to help her get home, and the two begin to fall in love (there's the devastating). The chemistry is so incredible, and no wonder — the two leads, Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin, ended up dating in real life.

3. What's Wrong With Secretary Kim?

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Mi-so is the long-suffering secretary for rich businessperson Young-joon, who falls apart when she resigns. He devises all kinds of schemes to make her stay in his life, including trying to date her. The premise is kind of messy, but the actual drama is quite layered and sweet. It also features some of the hottest kissing scenes in K-drama history.

4. Hotel del Luna

tvN / Via dazzlingkai.tumblr.com

With echoes of Beauty and the Beast, Hotel del Luna is about Man-wol, an immortal cursed with running a hotel for the dead who forces a young man, Chan-sung, to work there to fulfill a deal she struck with his father 20 years earlier. This series is gorgeous, quirky, and moving — with a very touching romance, too.

5. Suspicious Partner

SBS

This crime drama sees Bong-hee, a trainee prosecutor, become a suspect in a murder case. For help she turns to Ji-wook, a prosecutor turned attorney with whom she has a fraught past. Between the murder mystery and the romance, it's tension-filled on multiple levels.

6. My ID Is Gangnam Beauty

JTBC / Via kdramaseoul.tumblr.com

This drama is about a college student named Mi-rae who, after being bullied for her looks all her life, gets drastic plastic surgery — and finds she's still harassed about her appearance, only now because of the surgery. The series explores misogyny, bullying, and restrictive beauty standards — but it also has a lovely, light romance as Mi-rae's brooding classmate Kyung-seok starts to open up to her and gets her to open up in turn.

7. Love in the Moonlight

KBS2

Set during the 19th-century Joseon dynasty, Love in the Moonlight focuses on the crown prince, Lee Yeong, as he navigates court intrigue and finds himself mysteriously drawn to his new eunuch — who is actually a girl named Ra-on in disguise. Although Lee Yeong was a real prince, the show takes a lot of liberties with history, including giving his character a much happier ending, which is nice.

8. It's Okay to Not Be Okay

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Gang-tae is a caretaker in a psychiatric ward who meets children's author Moon-young and gets tangled up in her lonely but dramatic life. Basically, everyone in this drama is a bit of a mess, but it's a healing story of found family and the way love — for yourself, and others — can save you.

9. Fight for My Way

KBS2 / Via fightformyway.tumblr.com

The secondary couple in this drama is quite painful to watch, but the main romance is so wonderful, it makes it worth it. Dong-man and Ae-ra have been best friends for a long time, and each of them is struggling to achieve their dreams. As they try to support each other through their triumphs and hurts, they begin to see each other in a whole new light.

10. My Holo Love

Netflix / Via dazzlingkai.tumblr.com

So-yeon is a woman with face blindness disorder whose life changes when she begins using glasses that contain an AI named Holo. Holo is modeled (in looks, if not personality) after his developer, Nan-do, whose cold personality masks troubles of his own. What follows is a truly bizarre love triangle that is surprisingly emotional.

11. Healer

KBS2

Healer (a code name) is a "night courier" — basically, he does illegal stuff for money (except kill people). He goes undercover as a reporter and gets close to journalist Young-shin. As the two of them try to uncover the truth about a series of murders and a seemingly related incident in the past, their connection deepens. Full of secret-identity shenanigans, multiple mysteries, and lots of action to keep you bingeing.

12. Legend of the Blue Sea

SBS

A con artist, Heo Joon-jae, encounters a mermaid, Shim Cheong, and begrudgingly takes care of her as she struggles to adjust to life on land. It's quite funny and whimsical but, as with many K-dramas, also comes with a solid helping of angst.

13. She Was Pretty

MBC

Two childhood friends reunite after years apart, but their fortunes and appearances have changed so drastically that one doesn't recognize the other. They end up working together at a magazine, and Hye-jin does everything she can to keep her identity a secret for Sung-joon. Is it ridiculous? Yes. But it's also cute, and the second lead will win you over even if the main romance doesn't.

14. Because This Is My First Life

tvN

If you love the marriage-of-convenience trope, this drama is for you! To both save on mortgage/rent and get their families off their backs, IT worker Se-hee and writer Ji-ho agree to a fake marriage in order to live together as roommates. Both main characters are deeply weird, and their budding romance is awkward but incredibly endearing.

15. Extraordinary You

MBC / Via nurabiaylmaz.tumblr.com

This quirky series sees main character Dan-oh realize she's actually a comic book character — and worse than that, she's not even a main character; she's a secondary character doomed to a tragic end in service of the main storyline. Determined to change her fate, she enlists the help of a mystery student at her school whom she names Ha-ru. A gentle parody of iconic K-drama (and the manga it's based on) Boys Over Flowers, Extraordinary You is full of meta humor as well as genuine emotion.

16. Oh My Ghost

tvN / Via koreandragon.tumblr.com

This series features another strange love triangle, this time involving a chef, Sun-woo; his shy apprentice, Bong-sun; and the horny ghost inhabiting her body, Soon-ae. While the romance is a lot of fun, the relationship between Bong-sun and Soon-ae is one of the stronger aspects of the series — both hilarious and touching. Plus, there's a bonus murder mystery as they try to figure out how Soon-ae died and why she is stuck as a ghost.

17. Her Private Life

tvN / Via dazzlingkai.tumblr.com

Sung Deok-mi is a museum curator who moonlights at a fan site for K-pop idol Sian in her spare time. When rumors spread that Deok-mi is dating Sian and his fans start attacking her, Deok-mi's new boss, artist Ryan Gold, offers to pretend to date her. It's thick with tropes and absurd situations, but the chemistry is hot, and the romance is actually really mature and respectful.

What are your favorite K-dramas? Let us know in the comments.

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BuzzFeed / Kathy Hoang