Dramas tell us stories about all kinds of things--love stories, sure, but also broader stories about life. Here are personal favorites of mine that chart large swathes of the human experience, and always fill me with glee...and might just be perfect to get others into the genre.
Answer Me 1997 was revolutionary when it came out, an unpredictable story about six thirty-something high school friends at a reunion, reminiscing about their youth in a series of flashbacks. Not only was the identity of the romantic lead an object of extended guess work (there were four guys initially to pick from in a genre where it's usually very clear who the main love interest is) with little hints and details scattered throughout, the whole thing was a memorial to youth, first love, and nostalgia. It remains one of my all time favorites for its bittersweet tone and honest look at growing up, not to mention its lovely characters, spunky fangirl heroine, and realistic world-building.
The creators have gone on to do another two series in the same vein, set in slightly different times--Answer Me 1994, which I skipped when I realized the writers were deliberately trolling the audience, egging on the shipping wars (which got seriously vicious), and Answer Me 1988, where they perfected their formula. Focused on one alley in Seoul during the late eighties, the show explored the relationships between these neighbors and inside their families. While the husband-guessing game was still very evident, it took back seat to more organic stories about growing up and family, the many types of love there are, and how time can change so much and yet so little--all set to a backdrop of denim on denim fashion and blue eyeshadow. Love isn't a strong enough word for this show.
Shut Up: Flower Boy Band is a coming of age story set around the hijinks of a band of six outcasts--they're bandmates and best friends and 'bad boys', who lack traditional support structures outside of each other. Transferred to a ritzy new high school, they swiftly make enemies with the school's top dogs (conveniently also a band), just by virtue of being different, and commit to a battle of the bands. The largest plot development, that drives the whole momentum of the story, is a spoiler, but propels the boys into a story about growing up and finding themselves that is both utterly heart-warming and heart-breaking.
Age of Youth and its sequel, Age of Youth 2, are about five college girls sharing an apartment, and inadvertently their lives. They're all fiercely different individuals with their own secrets who struggle to coexist peacefully sometimes, but come together when it really matters. Their stories intertwine gracefully, acknowledging the importance of romance, but also that in the end, it's your best friends who are really going to catch when you fall.
Sunkyunkwan Scandal is a bit different from the rest of these in that it's a sageuk--set in a Korean time period called 'Joseon'--but which also means it gets to play with familiar tropes in new ways. In a time when girls aren't allowed access to a public education or a career, one girl has to disguise herself as her sickly little brother to provide for her impoverished family. She winds up forced, still disguised, into using her considerable brains as a student at the most prestigious university in Joseon, where she befriends three other students--one a sternly upright scholar, one a happy-go-lucky playboy, and one an angry youth with a secret identity. Together, the quartet challenges the fierce political stances and gender norms of the day that say their friendships (and romance!) can't be.
Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo is another college drama, with a different spin. Set on the campus of a sports university, the main character is weightlifter Kim Bok Joo, who doesn't care that she and her friends don't meet traditional standards of feminine beauty, instead being passionate about her chosen career path. That is...until she develops a serious crush on a gentlemanlike doctor running a local weight loss clinic. As she struggles to juggle her dreams and her new crush without disappointing anyone, she doesn't realize the doctor's little brother and a fellow student might be the one who really suits her best. Between the escapades and antics of growing up and falling in love are real stories about the pressures of being an athlete and facing adulthood. It's one of the sunniest, sweetest dramas I've ever watched, and it carries a great lesson about growing up and out into the people we're meant to be with the help of those who care about us.
But life after or outside of college can be terrifying, and Misaeng acknowledges that. The hero is a shy, quiet youth, a baduk (the closest western equivalent I could compare it to would be chess) player who's never managed to go pro and ends up working as a temp at a big company. The unfamiliar rules and rituals of the business world have him at their mercy, but little by little he starts to find his place, aided by his good-hearted everyman boss and talented fellow newbies.
Coffee Prince is the warmest-hearted story. When a chaebol heir (an heir to a rich company) accepts his grandmother's challenge to turn a struggling coffee shop around, he decides to give it draw by hiring only handsome young men. Unbeknownst to him, one of his new employees is actually a girl, whose androgynous looks confuse people, and who needs the money too badly to come clean...even when she and her new boss start to fall in love. Amidst all the confusion is a genuine love story about affection based on friendship, that doesn't care whether 'you're a man or an alien.'
Healer is different from these in that's not a coming-of-age, slice-of-life story, which clearly is what I favor. Instead, it's about a mysterious (and badass) courier boy, who has few ethical limits and no emotional ties to the world. But when he's given a strange assignment to protect an apparently ordinary reporter, he starts to care about more than just himself for the first time in a long time. We the viewers are treated to not only a wonderful Superman/Lois Lane/Clark Kent love story, but also the gradual unraveling of a conspiracy that goes back twenty years and explains just how three young people and the generation that preceded them became who they are today.
It's Okay, It's Love is a lovable oddball, just like it's cast of characters, with its darker moments reflective of theirs. Set in a household full of people dealing with mental illness who have come together for support, it ponders the cruelty of a world which often labels the mentally ill as 'weirdos,' instead of realizing they're just people who need help and treatment, like anyone who's been wounded. The beating heart of the story is the intense, sexy romance between the snarky psychologist with her own issues and the smooth playboy-cum-author-cum-landlord who moves in.
We've covered high school and college and the twenties and thirties...but does life stop after we stop being young? No, of course not. Dear My Friends is about life at the end of the spectrum, old age in all its grueling glory, with its tragedies, but its triumphs too. And the greatest triumph is the friendships that last the span of a whole lifetime. Six women have bonds that transcend time and the heartbreak of life, and help them through all the new challenges that now face them, from dementia and incontinence to unhappy marriages and troubled children.
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