Favorite Friendship Kdramas with No Romance (mostly) - Spoiler free!

S1 E17 / It’s another roundup episode this week, this time about dramas with a strong theme of friendship and no (or extremely little) romance.  

✨ I dig into the friendship/found family combo that’s often present in workplace dramas and slice-of-life shows and a few mystery/crime dramas as well.

📝 Quick note: this is the last episode for season 1. I’ve loved connecting with you about Kdramas and will be back after a summer break with Season 2! 

👍 Spoiler Free episode. Enjoy! 

Dramas mentioned in this episode:

• Avengers Social Club
• My Mister
• Chief Kim/Good Manager
• Stranger
• Misaeng: Incomplete Life
• Divorce Attorney Shin

Watching/Planning to Watch:

• Unnatural  
• Is Love Sustainable
• Go Back Couple
• Second Shot at Love

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

This is the How I Met My K-Drama podcast, and it's all about K-drama origin stories and recommendations. I'm Sarah Rosette. Today I'm sharing some of my favorite K-dramas with a strong friendship theme. The first and update on the podcast. This is the last episode I have for season one. I've really enjoyed exploring all of these different K-drama aspects with you and talking about some of them in depth. Thanks for the shares, the ratings, the reviews. Thanks for messaging me. I've really enjoyed just getting to know some of you a little bit better and learning about what shows you enjoy. Will there be a season two? Yes. I'm not going to stop talking about K-dramas anytime soon. So, yes, definitely. I will be on summer break, but the podcast will continue later. If you want to chat with me about your K-drama origin story or your favorite dramas, I'd love to talk to you in season two. You can get in touch through the text link. There's a link in the show notes. If you use that, just be sure to include your email so I can reply back because otherwise I won't have an option to do that because all of the communication that way is masked. You can text me or you can find me on Instagram. I'm also on Twitter because I'm old school and have had that account for years and years. So I am over there. I don't do much over there though. But if you are on Twitter, I'm over there too. Not on Facebook at all, really. I have a profile, but I don't ever check anything over there. So if you want to find me, text me or find me on Instagram. All right. So before we get into this kind of roundup episode about friendship K dramas, I thought I'd talk about a couple of dramas I'm currently finished or watching. I've finished Unnatural, which is a J drama crime show, and it is excellent. I really enjoyed it. It's an ensemble cast, and so it's one of the few shows that reminds me of Extraordinary Attorney Woo. If you liked the aspect of how the people in the office came together and worked together and became a little found family, this has that same feel to it. Totally different. It's about a coroner's office. So these are medical mysteries. And I don't usually like medical shows, but this I didn't mind because they didn't really show anything graphic. I can handle it. So if I can handle it, anybody can handle it. I think it'll be fine. Even if you are not partial to that kind of thing, I don't think it will gross anybody out. But it had a really good found family. The mysteries were a little bit unusual. They were more forensic mysteries than classic Who Done It's. But I really enjoyed the change. It was a nice shift of pace. Oh, the only other thing I should add is that if you enjoyed Extraordinary Attorney Woo for the romance, that's not in, that's not really part of a natural. It's much more a mystery show with very little romance, maybe a hint or two there, but that's it. So if that was your main draw for extraordinary attorney woo, then maybe give a natural a miss. You probably won't like it. But if you like the found family, I think you'll enjoy it. The other J drama that I finished recently is called Is Love Sustainable? And it's great too. So I've really had good luck with my Japanese dramas that I'm trying lately. This one is about a woman who is in her 30s and her dad is widowed through a series of events. Her dad signs her up and him up together to go to the marriage dating service, but with marriage in mind. And so it's the story of what happens to each of them as they're going through this period of their life. It's very slice of life. But I really enjoyed it because the characters were interesting. The dad is an editor of a dictionary, and so he's always looking for new words. So I'm a word nerd. I love that. And she has left the rat race to open a yoga studio because she's trying to not, you know, she wants to change how she lives. So she has become a yoga instructor and she wants to open her own studio. So there's lots of themes about marriage, how we live our lives, our choices that we make. Can women have it all? And it's an interesting look at marriage, and there's a little thread of mystery in this. As you get near the end, you learn some things about the family that you didn't that weren't clear in the beginning that were, oh, this is I'm not sure what's going on here. But it's an interesting drama, and I really enjoyed it. It's got a lot of humor too. So I would recommend that one as well. I also finished Go Back Couple, which is a K drama. It's a second chance romance slash slice of life with a dash of time travel. I would say the time travel is more just a vehicle to explore this couple back in college. And so that one was very good too. I enjoyed that one. There were some, I had some quibbles with the storyline, but it had a great uh nostalgic feel. So if you enjoy nostalgia and you like second chance romance, I would definitely recommend that one. Let's see, I dropped divorce or divorce insurance. I'm looking forward to Second Shot at Love. I've watched the first couple of episodes of that, and I'm going to keep watching it. I'm not sure if it's for me or not, but I will keep with it and see what happens there. There were a couple of things about the first episode that I just didn't enjoy. Mostly I'm realizing I don't like K-dramas that begin with the female lead returning back. She's down and out, she returns back home. And it seems like everyone just assumes the worst that it was always her fault, whatever happened. And no one asks her what's wrong. This is a pattern that I'm seeing in several K-dramas like Another Miss O, Love Next Door. I don't know. It just seems like that's the default. And I understand it gives you dramatic tension. Beating up on the female lead with onions and yelling and hitting is just not what I enjoy. So I may like it better once we get through this stage into the real meat of the show. So that's my thoughts on that. And there's some other new ones that I'm trying. I will probably be posting about those on Instagram if I have time. All right, so on to friendship K-dramas. Now these have no romance in the main storyline. A few have romance subplots, but the drama's focus is on friendships, not romance. And this is just a sampling of this type of story. I may do a second episode later with more dramas because I know that there are people who either don't want to watch romance K-dramas, they're like, eh, I'm not really into that, or they want a palette cleanser of a different type of drama between shows with really heavy romance storylines. So if you're in either one of those camps, I hope this podcast will help you find some dramas that you like. All right, in no particular order. The first one I have down is one that I don't hear people talk about a lot. It's called Avengers Social Club. And this one is, I would call it a slice of life slash revenge question mark. Now I watch this on Apple TV. You have to have the CJ E-N-N channel to find it. But Apple does have some K-dramas that once you find them, there's a quite a few actually on there, but they're very hard to find. So you have to search for that channel. A short summary of this is a, I would say it's a light revenge drama. That's why I said revenge question mark, because it's not really about revenge. Revenge is the vehicle that they use to tell the story to bring the women together. But it's a light revenge drama, an updated First Wives Club. If you're familiar with that old movie, there's a group of women and they're each from different walks of life, and they come together to get revenge. But in the process of doing that, they really bond with each other and become really fast friends. The draw for me with this was the three women, and that they're so different, but they have such a tight friendship when you get to the end. So you've got a young married woman. She's the youngest, but she's the wealthiest of the group. She has no children of her own, but she's a stepmom to an older boy. He's in the last stages of high school, I would say. Then you have a middle-aged mom who is middle to upper income. She's married, she has one child, and she's in this really strange relationship with her husband. There's a lot of stress in their household. And then the third woman is middle-aged, probably I'd say lower middle income. She's a widowed and she has two older kids. She has a son in high school and then an older daughter who is working her first job. And the reason I gave the economic status is because they do make that part of the storyline that's very clear that, like the woman who's wealthy, she is wealthy and has everything the money could buy, but she's not happy. None of them are completely satisfied with the way their lives are going. I would say the tropes of this are revenge, light, lightly vindictive, let's say that. I would say it's darkly humorous. It does have some more serious aspects to it, especially with one of the storylines. Trigger warning for abuse, that is in there. And if that's a deal breaker for you, then avoid this one for sure. But it's handled in a way that it's not incredibly heavy. But overall, it does have a lot of humor, and the bond that the women have is just very encouraging. And each one of them grows in their personal life and their friendships grow at the same time. So I enjoyed it all and it did have some really funny moments. Was some of the revenge stuff absurd? Yes. Did I care? Not at all. That was Avengers Social Club. That was the first one. The second K-drama that has a friendship theme is My Mister. And this is a very popular one. I'm sure everybody's heard of this. It's corporate drama, slice of life, combo. It's on Netflix. Here's a short summary. My Mister is about people who are struggling with very difficult lives. There's a relationship between a young woman, Gian, and her older boss, who they work in this company and they become involved in this corporate power struggle/slash espionage thing that's going on. They're both pawns, basically. It takes them a while to figure out what's going on. And then once they figure out what's going on, they have a better grasp of what they can do to help themselves and to basically get out of it. In a way, the tone of this is very dark, very heavy, the beginning of it, especially. And it's about people who are caught up in this corporate machine. It reminded me a lot of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. If you've ever, I had to read that in school. And it's all about the meatpacking plants that people worked in, I think it was around the turn of the century in America, and how they would just basically run people through the ringer, wear them out, toss them aside because there's always fresh people coming in. And I've really felt that with this show. A lot of the scenes are of the two characters either going to or from work. I think it's to show the monotony of their life, of this routine that they're in. And they're just caught up in it. And they, it's very difficult to break out of the situations that they're in. But in this stuck in a rut type story, these two people become friends. And it's an unlikely friendship. She's a young single woman. She's got responsibilities that she's trying to help her older relative who's very sick, and he has personal issues like strains in his marriage, things are not going well. It's not who you would think would become friends, but they do develop a friendship. There's no romance, and there's a redemption arc in it for one character in particular that I'm thinking of. It's really about empathy, overcoming adversity, kindness. Kindness is a theme that comes up in it again and again. It really does emphasize that everyone has good in them and kindness, showing kindness to people can transform people and transform situations. It's melancholy, though. Just letting you know it's, I would say ultimately an end, it's very healing, and it does have a hopeful ending, I felt. And just as an aside, Gianna, I think, is the best example of a strategic character I've ever seen. She's so good at assessing what's going on and weighing her options and saying, okay, I'm in this situation, and what can I do to turn the tables on these people? Because everybody's trying to play or take advantage of her. I enjoyed watching that. A U plays this character, and she does a great job. The early episodes are pretty slow and bleak, though, just letting you know. Also, this one, a trigger warning for abuse, just FYI. But it's not something that's lingered on, but it is part of the story. There's a whole bunch of subplots about the man's brothers, the lead character Park Don Hoon's brothers. And to me, I wasn't as into their story. So I actually fast-forwarded through some of that, but it does provide some comic relief as well. That's my mister, I would say that one has a great unexpected friendship. So if you want a corporate setting and a surprising friendship, then I would recommend my mister. Okay, the third one is also corporate workplace drama. It's Chief Kim slash good manager, two-titled drama. I found this one on Vicky. It is an office drama about a former accountant for gangsters who becomes the chief of the accounting department at a legit company. And he goes from the countryside gangsters to Seoul, where he works for this big company. He goes through a transformation. This drama really highlights the camaraderie within this office. He goes to work in, I guess it's a type of accounting office. So there's two different offices within this big company, and they're going to rivalry. And he goes to work for one of them. The other office in this big company always seems to have one up on this office where our lead goes. But he really changes once he's there. When the story opens, he's very selfish. This is the story of his transformation because of the people he comes into contact with and the situations he encounters. The lead in this is Nam Gumin, which is wonderful. I really like him. He's very entertaining. This one is on the opposite end of the spectrum for tone. Good manager is humorous. If you want an office workplace drama, but don't want to go dark, I would recommend Chief Kim. This one, it has tropes, I would say would be office drama, hidden genius, because nobody thinks this character that Nam Goodman plays is everyone thinks they can play him, but he's much smarter than everyone else. In fact, he has this in common with the female lead in My Mr. Everybody underestimates him, and he's actually up for the challenge of proving them wrong. There's a big theme in this of bringing down the bad guy. The corporate baddies need to be brought to justice. Huge found family arc, bromance. There's a couple of different romances in this, actually. I would say the mood of Chief Kim is funny, touching, a little off-beat. He is definitely an off-beat character. And Band of Misfits. I that's another one of my favorite tropes. I really like the office dynamics in this story. I feel like some of the minor characters really didn't get enough time. And this is a long series. It's about 20 episodes or so. And I felt like they could have spent more time on the Mayer characters and we could have had them fleshed out a little bit more instead of a lot of the corporate shenanigans, which we got a lot of time with like this corporate intrigue espionage thing, which I wasn't as into it as I was the characters, but there is still plenty of character growth and changes in found family to keep me happy. There's some good romances, as I said. This is, I think, one of the early roles for I Jun Ho, and I love him. He's such an interesting actor. In this one, there's not really much romance, does have a crush on one of the women who works in the office. And there's just some excellent scenes between the two. There's a batting cage scene. The batting cage scenes are my favorite, actually, in this show. And I feel like we need more batting cage scenes in K-dramas. The female accountant, she's a perfect example of being very disciplined and very principled. She has her values and she never wavers, which is interesting to compare her to the Nyam Gumin character because Chief Kim is not like that at all, especially in the beginning when this starts out. But then coming into contact with her and the different people in the office, he does begin to change and transform. So that's an interesting pairing. And then the there's some other office workers that you'll recognize them if you've watched a lot of K-dramas. You'll be like, oh, I recognize that face. I won't spoil any of that. I'll let you be surprised. But I really enjoy this one. It's an interesting look at a corporate culture that is a little bit lighter than My Mister. And the found family is really strong in this one, too. So that was Chief Kim also called Good Manager. The next drama that has a strong friendship theme is Stranger. It's a crime drama, police, legal combo kind of investigation show. It's on Netflix. And for this one, we're going back to the darker side. This is definitely a darker feel and tone than Chief Kim. The short summary is it's a mystery centered around this guy who's a prosecutor, and he's super principled. And there's a whole backstory about why he has the personality he does, but he's very detached and reserved and unemotional. He begins to work with this female detective who is kind of, I wouldn't say bubbly, but she's definitely a more upbeat personality than he is, and she's more of a people person than he is. And they end up working together. They realize that both of the agencies they work for have agendas when it comes to solving this mystery. And so they form their own little team, and there's all kinds of stuff going on that they have to sort through to figure out what really happened with this death. So their relationship, I would say, is a buddy cop type storyline, but it has no romance. So this is more about friendship and them getting to know each other and solving the crime than about romance. So the tropes I'd say were mystery, police procedural, buddy cop, quirky detective, because he's definitely quirky. If you like the quirky detective trope, this would be one that you would probably enjoy. There's a theme, a trope of higher-up corruption that must be brought down. Definite themes about justice and fighting corruption, finding the truth. I would say this one in the mood is very tense and it's very intricate. It's like there's a lot going on. It's somber, it's very suspenseful. I really liked the relationship between the two leads. She was able to see his internal struggles sometimes that no one else could see. And she just treated him like a friend. And so that was something new to him because he was very isolated in the beginning. So I enjoyed their storyline. And this is about season one. I've been saving season two. I haven't watched it yet because I want to have something in my back pocket. I've heard it's also good, though. All right, the fifth show that has a really strong friendship theme to it is Miseiang Incomplete Life. And this is on Netflix. It's a workplace drama slash slice of life slash coming of age. There's a lot going on in this drama. The main character in this is a young man who goes into the corporate world. He doesn't have the elite degree or the elite college background, but he is a Go player and he's really good at Go. And it focuses on his growth and his relationships with his colleagues. I would say this does have a lot of coming of age elements to it. There's lots of found family. And then I think there's also enemies to friends dynamics going on within the colleague group because he's pretty ostracized in the beginning, and no one really wants to team up with him to do things. It's very cutthroat. Everyone's trying to get ahead and trying to get the full-time position. So it's very enemies in the beginning. But as it goes on, they become closer, and the group of friends become closer. And then he develops a really strong relationship with his boss. And it's more that's also a romance storyline, too, in there. The themes are growth and friendship and ambition versus contentment. I think that's a big theme in this. And then one of the Things is what do you do when your plans you had didn't work out? How do you shift and change? And is it okay to change your focus and change your goals? And I found the ending of this, I found the actual show a little bit at times a little bit of a slog. It was like, I wanted to see what happened, but it was just this main character you just felt for him that it was so difficult for him. And so for me, that was a little heavy. But there was enough humor in it and enough glimpses of the possibilities of friendships that he could have and the growth for the found family that I stuck around and I enjoyed it. I'm really glad I did. The ending I thought was great. I can't tell you much more than that, or I'll spoil it. But I did really enjoy the outcome. So it's like you're watching the journey of these characters as they figure out what they really want to do in life. That was me saying Incomplete Life, and that was on Netflix. The sixth drama that has a friendship focus is divorce attorney Shin. This is a workplace slice of life drama on Netflix, and it is about a divorce attorney and the dynamics in his office and his friends. So if you like the uh trope of the main character who's a woman and she has two girlfriends, so like the three friends trope, this is the gender flip of that. You've got the main guy who has become a divorce attorney, and then you've got his two friends. And so the story is really about these three. There's a storyline about why he became a divorce attorney, and then there's storylines about each of the guys and what's going on in their lives and how they help each other, support each other. And then the stories with uh cases that he takes on, those all have their own story as well. And so some of those flow throughout the whole series, and it's just a really nice, it has the warm mood to it, but you can just tell from the visuals of it that it's going to be warm and it has a subtle humor. The main character in this is also the actor played the main character in Stranger as well. And it took me a few minutes to figure that out when I started this. I was like, oh, this is the same person because the characters are so different, and it's just interesting to watch the actor play these two different roles. And that is Chow, I believe is how you say his name. He is in both Stranger and divorced attorney Shin, playing very different characters, and so I really enjoyed just that aspect of it. The female lead is Han He Sin. Oh, wait, Han Han He Jin, I believe is how you say her name. And she, there's no romance in this, but there is a friendship between these two. And so that's very satisfying too, because she's going through a very difficult time. And he helps her, and then they become friends. So this one is just a very sweet drama. It's got a lot of funny things that happen in it. It's a lot lighter, even though it has some very heavy topics that it takes on. The themes, I would say, are friendship, found family. The mood is just really warm. And the warmth, I think, a lot of it comes from the setting because his office has all this wood, it's golden wood, and it's got books everywhere, it's messy. But it's it feels like a place that you could just grab a book, cuddle into a couch, and stay there for a couple of hours, and you'd have a great time. Or I personally would. It's just got a different tone and a different look than like something like Mei Sang Me Sang, which is very has blue and gray tones for the almost all the scenes in the office are very muted and corporate looking. And this is not corporate at all. This is not a corporate uh drama. It is a workplace drama, but it's not corporate. So, anyway, so that is divorce attorney shin, and that's the last one of my recommendations. So these all focus on friendship, and the themes are quite strong themes and found family as well. So that's my first list of friendship dramas, and we can do a second episode of this. What friendship dramas do you like? I would love to know. Let me know, send me a text or message me on Instagram. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a few minutes to rate or review it wherever you listen to podcasts. That will help K Drama fans find the podcast. And I will see you next season. Thanks for listening.