Japanese-Korean romances surge to leverage audiences and funds

Dramas depicting intercultural romances between Japanese and Korean characters are all the rage right now, amid efforts to draw in a broader audience and leverage larger production budgets, according to industry officials, Friday.

In Japan, hit romance fantasy series "Eye Love You" lit up the schedules in the early part of the year. The drama depicted the love story of Yoon Tae-oh (Chae Jong-hyeop), a Korean graduate student in Japan, and Yuri (Fumi Nikaido), a CEO with the ability to read minds through eye contact.

The 10-part series, riding high on rave reviews on its charming characters and the humorous moments arising from the cultural differences between Tae-oh and Yuri, stayed in Netflix Japan's top 10 series list for five consecutive weeks and held onto a spot in Netflix Korea's top 10 list for series for four weeks.

Coupang Play's new original series "What Comes After Love," featuring another intercultural romance between Japanese and Korean characters, is slated to hit small screens on Sept. 27.

"What Comes After Love," based on the popular novel of the same name co-written by Korean writer Gong Ji-young and Japanese writer Tsuji Hitonari, narrates the story of Choi Hong (Lee Se-young) and Aoki Jungo (Kentaro Sakaguchi), former lovers who reunite by chance five years after they parted.

The series marks the Korean TV debut of popular Japanese actor Sakaguchi , known for his leading roles in multiple Japanese hits, including romance film "The Last 10 Years" (2022).

Korean actor Han Hyo-joo has teamed up with popular Japanese actor Oguri Shun, in the Japanese Netflix rom-com series "Romantic Anonymous," to depict the love story between a genius chocolatier Han-na (played by Han) and Fujiwara (played by Oguri), the head of a popular chocolate shop.

The series, helmed by star Japanese director Sho Tsukikawa, known for directing hit Japanese romance film "Let Me Eat Your Pancreas" (2017), reportedly began filming in first quarter of 2024, and is set to be released on Netflix in 2025.

According to industry officials, the production of series primarily featuring Korean and Japanese actors reflects the efforts by both countries to reach and engage a larger audience beyond their saturated local markets.

"By collaborating on a global scale, content producers from Japan and Korea each seek to leverage each other's strengths," an official from a Korean production company said.

"Japanese production companies desire to leverage the growing global presence of K-content and Hallyu wave, by featuring Korean actors in their content," he said, adding, "Meanwhile, securing production investment from Japan enables a larger scale of production for Korean producers, as domestic production budgets are limited."

Sakaguchi, the male lead of "What Comes After Love" said via a group interview held Friday that while collaborations between Japanese and Korean actors are currently limited to the romance genre, he thought they should expand into other genres in the future.

"Right now, the focus is primarily on love stories, which everyone could relate to, but I believe we shouldn’t limit ourselves to this genre alone. Starting with this trend (of Japanese-Korean collab on romance series), I expect to see more variety in genres and collaborations in the future," said Sakaguchi.