MyDramaList MDLv6.6
Home→ South Korea→ Korean Dramas, Movies & Variety shows.→

For real, why are K-Dramas so popular?

Dai

This is a serious question as I noticed how prominent korean media is over here even tho there are other countries like japan and china and so on. I originally thought most of the stuff here would be japanese lmao

Im not asking this because im annoyed (i wanna give k-dramas a try soon!), im just curious. 

Quote
kura2ninja

In short: Availability.

I think Kdramas only started to be very big, internationally, in the last decade,* and it has something to do with the rise of streaming. Or rather, LEGAL streaming.

To give you some perspective, in the 2000s, when I started watching Japanese and South Korean dramas, they're mostly on level-playing field, availability-wise. You either watched them on terrestrial TV (if they're available at all in your country/local channel)--or you watched them on the internet (or downloaded them from the internet), with the help of fanmade subtitles.

The streaming sites have always been there, maybe from the mid-2000s, and always been not legal, but then somewhere along the way, came Dramafever** and Viki. And I guess it all snowballed from there. Now there's a safe and legal way to stream Kdramas, people's internet connection is getting better--making it possible to stream stuff without buffering, and as people's awareness of South Korea's cultural prowess grows, so is the popularity of their dramas (and movies, and music), I guess.

You might notice that I mentioned Japan early on. Now I think Dramafever and Viki could only afford to buy the rights for Kdramas in the first place, back in late 2000s--because they're relatively cheap, compared to Japanese dramas. Plus the Japanese are not really interested in exporting their cultural commodities, especially when they didn't/couldn't really see a market for them.

*I mean, I know that there's the so-called Hallyu, in the early 2000s, but I think it's mostly a "regional" phenomena, mostly in East/Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

**Early on, Dramafever actually snatched some fansubs for the shows that they had on their catalogue. As far as I remember, they didn't even ask permission. My point is, Dramafever actually started off as a pirate site, not really different from KissXXXX and Dxxxcool and their ilk.

I'm sorry that this is so long and convoluted. Feel free to ask or correct me if you see something that is not quite clear or accurate.

edited Quote
ArniA

I've watched a lot of kdrama, actually I've watched only kdrama for the last 2 years or so. I've also watched some jdrama and recently started watching cdrama. But over 95% is kdrama.

My impression is that kdrama is of superior quality usually than jdrama, jdrama lags waybehind kdrama, when I watch jdrama and feel like it is more than a decade behind kdrama in things like production quality. Simply put I feel like kdrama has more talent, not only actors but all the production staff, and even the music production. 

I haven't watched much cdrama, but my first impression is that.... there exists a lot of cheaply made cdrama that is not very interesting, but there exists also many epic high quality cdramas. I can see this from the ratings of cdrama on MDL, usually way lower than kdrama, but there are some epic series that are very high in rating.


But I totally agree with access. I wish though it was promoted better in the western world since it has already become very available but not very visible still. Take Netflix as an example, if you register a netflix account in the western world, the first screen you see will be full of american tv shows or content from your country/region. Korean content is not visible at all. It's only after you willfully search for a kdrama series and start training the Netflix recommendation engine that Netflix starts promoting korean series for you.

I stumbled upon kdrama series on Netflix almost by chance.... I decided to give it a try even though it was in korean because I wanted to watch some zombie series (Kingdom). After that I was more willing to try another korean series (Crash landing on you), and after that I just feel in love with kdrama.

Quote
kardasx

Kdramas are more emotional and more for females. Jdramas are more realistic, but also not too serious (idk, how to express myself... even seriously looking crime drama like Zettai Reido is kinda funny, thanks to Ueto Aya). I also think that most of drama watchers worldwide are females, so that kdrama is more popular with them. Also I think that Japan is more known for anime and manga in the world than dramas. Many jdramas are also based on anime or manga and they are kinda overacted which is not for everyone.

I can't say much about cdramas, because I mostly saw only romcoms with Wan Peng or Fair Xing... maybe... they are more sweet. :)

I also agree with evrything that was wrote above.

Quote
kittyflumpin

I agree with kura2ninja, it's definitely availability.

When I first started watching Asian dramas, it seemed that J-dramas were the ones everyone talked about ("everyone" being a waaaay smaller fandom than it is now, back when you had to download everything you wanted to watch b/c streaming, legal or illegal, wasn't a thing). Actually it almost seemed like it was easier to find J-dramas, I think because there was some overlap between folks fansubbing anime (the only way to watch currently-airing anime because, again, streaming didn't exist) and fansubbing J-dramas. It seemed like K-dramas were almost harder to find subs for (if WITHS2 didn't pick up a drama, good luck finding subs!)

Streaming changed all that. Viewers nowadays are used to just being able to watch whatever they want on their TV with no effort-- which is great, don't get me wrong, but then they don't bother to seek anything that's not easily accessible (and there are a lot of great J-dramas that aren't available on Netflix & other legal streaming services, and probably will never be, because of how notoriously difficult and convoluted it is to license stuff from Japan).

Quote
Softsoft_girl
The unique and unexpected plotlines or storylines

https://mydramalist.com/21576-while-you-were-sleeping

The cinematography

https://mydramalist.com/18452-goblin

 Location

https://mydramalist.com/10904-descendants-of-the-sun

The fresh pairings

https://mydramalist.com/16589-w

Soundtracks (ost)

https://mydramalist.com/18894-strong-woman-do-bong-soon

The easy-to-marathon format.

https://mydramalist.com/34221-human-lessons

The beautiful and handsome cast members

https://mydramalist.com/19262-weightlifting-fairy-kim-bok-joo

fashionable outfits

https://mydramalist.com/49865-psycho-but-it-s-okay

The mind-enriching viewing experience

https://mydramalist.com/22403-chicago-typewriter

 The predictable-yet-still-delightful-and-exciting plotlines. 

https://mydramalist.com/32925-hotel-del-luna

The charming sense of humor

https://mydramalist.com/22472-fight-for-my-way

// Did u notice the rainbow ??

Quote
Hanah

This is a fun topic. While I agree that availability is a really important factor, marketability is important too. 

I was initially an manga/manhwa/web comics fan. I eventually wanted to see the anime adaptations of manga I really liked. If anime was not available (like with manhwas or Web comics), I would see the live adaptation. Sometimes, to prolong the experience, I would watch the live adaptation from different countries. 

What I came to notice about the Korean adaptations and K-dramas in general is that they seem to market to a more global audience. They invest more on production quality and hardware. Many titles are in English. The genres and plot lines are more  general. In short, Korean dramas are more "basic". I don't mean that in a bad way - you have to be well-known to even attain basic status. 

edited Quote
ArniA

Although I believe kdramas are more marketed/targeted towards global audiences, it doesn't mean it's an easy choice to start watching a korean drama.

For me there was a certain language threshold, which took a few dramas to overcome, and also a cultural shock.

The language was alien and the dialogs were fast, which meant it was very difficult to keep up with the subtitles, which often only appeared for milliseconds! So rewinding was what I did like 10 times per episode. Now I don't have to do that.

For the first kdramas I watched, like I'm Not A Robot or Strong Girl Do Bong Soon, I had to take a certain leap of faith and accept the ridiculousness of the series from the start.

Quote
kardasx
 ArniA:
The language was alien and the dialogs were fast,

To me, it sounded a bit like japanese, so I was confused first.Why do they say Konbanwa (good evening) and in subs it is written "thank you"? lol In reality they said "gomawo".  I think that I was lucky that my first kdrama was I'm not a robot, because its story hooked me from the start (when Kim Min Kyu went to that examination room... I thought: wow, what is it? I want to know more... And then that robots appeared, together with the cute humanoid robot and she did a reference to ET. I was captured with no way to escape. And then I watched other kdramas and got used to the language pretty fast. 

Chinese is closer to an alien language for me, even after many cdramas watched. :)

Quote
mjf314
 Softsoft_girl:

@emaureeng -- what the heck is wrong with u ????

This is my first time seeing such a awful member on MDL ...

I'm confused...  He tells you that you made a good post, so you tell him that he's an awful member?  Am I missing something?

Quote
John Smith

I think having dramas quality subbed in popular languages makes it easy to get into Korean dramas. I prefer watching Chinese dramas versus Korean dramas, but some Chinese dramas are not watchable (to me) due to unavailable or poor subtitles. It is hard to not find a Korean drama with good subtitles.

Quote
kardasx
 emaureeng:
I don't understand. I was saying your post was wonderful.

I think that the problem can be that some sentences can have more meanings and it depends on who reads it.  So it is probably language misunderstanding. 

I once also wrote something that I meant in a good way, but the other side misunderstood it and thought that I want to criticize something. From that time I try to use more clear words.

Quote

Recent Discussions

Hottest Discussions