I discovered the world of Kdrama by accident.
To get away from reality I started reading the Manhwa version of Goong (princess )and really liked it, one day I was googling it to see if I could read it online and came across something called a 'drama' version. Intrigued I started watching it and fell in love; it had just the right flavour to make me forget the growing pile of coursework I had to hand in :).
It was only after rewatching Goong about three times that I realised there was other such wonders full of beautiful people hehe and so I moved onto Boys over Flowers folllowed by My girl and then Delightful girl etc. Until laughing, sobbing and shouting in fustration at my computer screen became a regular part of my life.

You're Beautiful! Stayed up [on a school night] till three or four in the morning for a week to cram in as much as I could. I also remember barely doing any homework.. >.< Some good memories right there.

~whitewolf207 (@) gmail (dot) com

Coffee Prince got me hooked! Its been a year and I'm sooo happy I found out about Korean Dramas! :)

Kim Sun Ah has always been my crack, and caught my attention in Kim Sam Soon. But my second and true wave of K Drama addiction didn't start until City Hall in 2009.

Playful Kiss was my first brush with k-drama addiction. Not very long ago, and not the best, but it was sooo cracky. I remember I started waking up extra early on Thursdays and Fridays to watch the subbed eps on viki before going to school :)

Definitely the original Hana Dan but kdrama-wise, Goong was the first one I saw and You're Beautiful was when I knew I was officially hooked!

Since I have always worked evenings I'm not much of a TV watcher. About 5-6 years ago I was home and bored so I was flipping through the channels and found the now defunct AZN. I didn't even know I had that channel. They were airing Jumong. I didn't know what it was, but it caught my interest and an addiction was born.( can an addiction be born?) Any way I've never looked back! :)

I fell in love with boys over flowers watched the whole series in two days and it has been sheer drama addiction since.... Its Team JI HOO all the way! Not that Lee Min Ho isn't dreamy! OH man!

My first ever drama was Boys over Flowers. It is such a lovely drama. I just finished watching it a second time and it made me feel every emotion i felt the first time, even though i knew what was going to happen. Since then, i've been hooked with K-dramas. I've watched plenty, but Boys Over Flowers will always be my first and favorite (although secret garden is a close second).

Four years of me reading Dramabeans, the other kdrama addiction other than the dramas themselves. LOL

Happy Birthday!

my first love drama should be be full house. i watched it like twenty times but it never gets old. I love every ridiculous bickering yong jae and ji eun have, and the soundtrack. everything is just WOWed me and got me into a fan of k-drama like chun yang, my girl, coffee prince and another bunch of dramas..
I do research for another k-drama, and so much love for you guys that -i dont know but- i always read your recap or opinion of a drama before i decided to watch it,lol.
Love k-drama and love your blog so much! Happy 5th Anniversary...

I was sucked into the drama world probably later than all of you others on this site -- my first k-drama (well, excluding Full House, that I watched with my parents on TV a long long time ago) was Dream High!
I wasn't interested in korean dramas until I saw DH last year and then it started me watching others of course :) It didn't have the best acting, but there was something that pulled me back to watch the next ep every week - i loved the milky couple, the Hyemi-Samdong-Jinguk love triangle, the hilarious teacher couple, Jin man, Hyemi's adorable little sis...
And I loved how the acting got better each episode. My faves were ep 5 and 10. The OST is one of my favourite drama OST's too (all the idol singers must have helped ;D )

I even rewatched it this winter break, hehe. couldn't resist.

Boys Over Flowers. I was in Korea and really didn't think Korean dramas were my thing, but my friend kept bugging me about watching them. One day she made me watch an episode of BOF with her and since then I haven't looked back. Watched the whole series in 2 days and then had to go out and buy the dvd. ㅋㅋㅋ

Iljimae! Because Lee Junki is BEAUTIFUL.

The first drama I fell in love with was You're Beautiful. I'm note even close to being a drama veteran yet, but I do love my Korean Dramas. It was funny and kind of embarrassing how I got into You're Beautiful... well..it was basically because I liked this guy and he was Korean and my friends were really into Korean dramas so I said, "why not?" and decided to watch the drama ranked number one on mysoju.com. It happened to be You're Beautiful and I was immediately sucked into the drama, making excuses to my family on why I couldn't leave my room when it was time for lunch and dinner. My ulterior motive was to try and learn some Korean culture by watching the drama so that I could get to know my crush better and maybe even have something to talk about. Long story short, we became good friends, and then entered in a blissful relationship before he dumped me this past Christmas for unknown reason and I am still bewildered by it..yet all in all, my love for Korean Dramas are still there at the end of the day. You're Beautiful built a bridge to new characters and drama, and I am forever grateful. (And I came to love Jang Geun Suk as well..) ^_____^y

You're Beautiful. I heard about it from my Korean friend and decided to give it a go. I fell in love immediately, which consequently converted me the Drama worshiper I am today.
(email: [email protected])

Definitely My Sassy Girl... fell into the 4th dimension...
Never looked back!

i've been a long time k-drama lover - starting way back in the early 90's with eyes of dawn (여명의 눈동자) and jealousy (질투). i bet very few know of these dramas..and oh how old that makes me feel!!

congrats to everyone at dramabeans on 5 amazing years!! you've added to my love of k-dramas and i hope to share in that love with you for years to come!!

The first drama I completely fell for has to be definitely City Hunter. I have been watching dramas from when Lovers in Paris came out and I have been hooked on to mostly all dramas now. However, the story-line that completely pulled me head over heels was City Hunter. Lee Min Ho is my celebrity crush and I have been seeing almost every drama he was in... except for Personal Taste....But him and Park Min Young is a match made in heaven ~swoon~ However, no more raving about THEM~ Time for my favorite time- raving about CITY HUNTER~~~~
Hehe,... okok now the first episodes were just like oh they meet, the say hi, get mad, blow up, ...hehe do whatever they want poof! But seriously the storyline between yun seong and his dad was amazing!! That got me so hooked on I was like OMGG. I'm actually watching this right now as I am writing. This must be like the 500th time watching this. Heh.
But up till the 11-12 episode I was like glued to my computer. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. is the only thing I can say. At first I thought for sure that they were going to kill Park Min Young off the screen. But then YAY!! She lived. But it would have made more better storylines if she did get pushed off. Hah. But hehe their story lines got better and better but i felt that the last episode seemed so rushed. And in those last episodes, Nana hardly came out which was disappointing because :P no more chemistry with Lee MinHo. Poo~
But seriously this was the one drama I could never get tired of. My true love. I'm not even doing my work because I'm watching so much. LMAO~

My first drama ever was goong. Wow. I can't believe that back then, the only drama available was goong. I must have watched it over 15 times, and I managed to memorize the whole script around the 11th time or so. :) this brings back old memories~

WELL.... I spent around 2 hours last night browsing to find out the FIRST ever drama that I watched with mum about 25 to 30 years ago.. (so go figure my age).. I didn't the title.. and couldn't remember the exact year when i watched it.. so a bit dificult to find..

Finally I found it.. thanks to the magic of internet and Leslie Cheung lovers all over the world..
..It was ..drum rolled please.... GONE WITH THE WIND (1980)... HK TV drama with the late Leslie Cheung..

That drama always stucks in my head... since Leslie Cheung was probably my first TV crush.. The drama is equivalent with Flames of ambition.. full of angsts.. painful betrayals.. tragic fates..boxes and boxes of tissues to blow our nose... sleepless night... and broken hearted on my part..

I couldn't speak cantonese or mandarin.. so i was relying on the english subtitiles, my broken english (since i was primary school at that time) and my mum for translation...

Cut the story short...It was indeed my FIRST DRAMA EVER.. that keep me hook until now...

My Girl was the k-drama that got me hooked. Ever since then, I've been obsessed with kdramas, actors, actresses and anything korean! :)

My first drama was Full House, but I wasn't the biggest fan. What made me addicted was Iris, and now just finishing Miss Ripley, I love and hate heartbreaking dramas at the same time...

I lost my kdrama virginity to What Happened in Bali back in 2004. Ha Ji Won and Jo In Sung shared amazing chemistry. I didn't get the hype over So Ji Sub but Jo In Sung was hella hot. Not only did I fall in love with the characters and storyline, but I also loved the OST! I even went out of my way to find the piano sheets for the theme song "The Bali Story" and learnt that off by heart within a week.

I've followed kdrama religiously since then, and it didn't take me very long to realise that the characters and storylines followed the same formula. So although What Happened in Bali isn't the best drama out(and not my all-time favourite), I still hold it in high regards because it was my first love.

Wow, first of all, happy 5th birthday Dramabeans! More birthdays to come please!
Now, what was my first drama love eh? It got to be You're Beautiful, the thing that started it all. Sucked me into KDramaWorld, and eventually into KPop, and there's no way out. It got me by its hilarity, fun songs, ‘course the eye candies, and the whole premise of the drama itself.
I’ve already watched lot of KDramas before that actually, you know those sucky melodramas? Yep, what a way to get me started huh? But it’s really YB that got me into the boat and made me stay there, and I still don’t know where this craziness will lead me to. Haha.
Congrats again to you javabeans, girlfriday, and every KDrama addicts that are keeping the KDrama fandom alive. ^^

Congratulations!

Can you say Nodame Cantabile is a drama? Because this was my first drama ever!

Starting there I crossed the sea to kdramas, and saw Sassy Girl Choon Hyang, but this one didn't get me hooked (Something about finding Uhm Taewong a bit too creepy).

What got me addict was The Vineyard Man. I just fell for Oh Man Suk, and can't explain why.

Drama first love was Meteor Garden..this got me into the dark side. Had a lull when all my favorite eye candy went to the army..waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Then stumbled back into the main stream after a year or a year and a half out via You're Beautiful. My love story with this drama has not run its course yet. I would still whip out my dvds of YB whenever I feel down and out. The story and all its characters will always make you smile and endear themselves to you again and again...

Living in Central Virginia, about 10 years ago, we started getting a new channel:AZNtv. My daughter who was in middle school was getting into JPop and she heard that KDramas were good. So we watched Attic Cat together and then Prince's First Love. My husband thought we were crazy and kept referring to Cha Tae Hyun as Scoobie Doo for some reason (but he too was getting sucked in). What finally got me completely hooked was My Name is Kim Sam Soon- to me that drama was a whole new level of sophistication and humor. I kept lending my dvd out to friends who had never heard of Kdramas to get them hooked also. After that we started getting recommendations from my daughter's Korean school friends and starting finding dramas on Soompi, D-addicts, and other websites then we discovered Javabeans. I literally check this blog every day-even when traveling. As a result of my Kdrama addiction, I have learned a lot of Korean and my daughter ended up taking Korean in college. I am an ESL elementary teacher and I love to shock the Korean parents with my knowledge of KDramas-I was in Tokyo over Christmas and I was astonished at all the Kdrama stores and all the Japanese women in the ajumma category who were swarming all over the merchandise. Not sure what I am going to do with my little photo notebook of Hyun Bin..but I had to buy something to commemorate MNIKSS-the first drama to bring me to the dark side!!

My Drama First Love must be Endless Love/Autumn Tale. It was the first Kdrama that made me cry and jump out of my seat when I saw the ending. It was also the drama that made me look for more crying handsome guys.

However, Sweet 18, Full house, and Delightful Girl Choon Hyang made me LOVE Kdrama to the next level because of their romantic comedy genre. And they must be my First Truest Love.

Btw, Big Congratulations javabeans!! Happy Birthday to dramabeans!

A big thanks to You're Beautiful, too, because it brought me to this website. :)

My first drama love that brought me over to the dark side was Romantic Princess and from there I found my way to Temptation of an Angel and needless to say, i'm hooked till this day.

It was "Beautiful Days" for me. CJW's weepy puppy dog eyes did me in.....of course, LBH was icing on the cake!

Once upon a time in year 2001 AD, there was a quite lovely to look at mother cum wife who struggled to find little things in life that could make it less tiring and delayed tiny lines of wrinkles for as long as possible. Everyday she took her kids to school and had to pass a glum and surly looking neighbor who always watered her plants at the exact time she drove by. Day by day they nodded to each other until the lovely to look at mother cum wife started to notice something. The neighbor was evolving...no, not the kind Darwin made up, it was subtle yet visible..bloom replaced gloom, plum replaced glum, smiley replaced surly...should I go on with the story? The lovely to look at mother cum wife held back her curiosity, but could not stop her heart from feeling jealousy and it started to show in her lovely to look at feature. The slightly drooping of the arched lips, the steely look everytime they nodded..and the tiniest wrinkles.... The once glum neighbor noticed them too. One day instead of watering the plants she waited outside her gate and just stopped the car. She handed her several VCDs and smilingly asked her to watch it right away after she came back from her kids school. It was titled 'All About Eve'... Needless to say they became soulmates and still calling, texting, skyping each other fondly several times a day over drama heroes, heroines, gutwrenching plots, heartbreaking separations, eventhough they live in different continent now. Judging by our teleconference a moment ago, the lovely to look at mother cum wife is looking lovelier, and the once glum neighbor (me) are smiling now because she can finally watch Color of Woman episode 8 with English subs.

I've watched dramas prior to this one, but My Girl got my heart. It was my freshman year of high school when it came out (2005) so I was struggling with adjusting while trying to find a job. I remember the only thing I looked forward to was the new episodes of My Girl. The drama had a cute feel to it that tugged at my heart more than the dramas I had watched earlier. It made me cry, laugh, and antsy all the time. I recall downloading the soundtrack onto my mp3 player and listening to the songs over and over again. I especially liked it because of the happy ending. I usually get torn over abrupt, sad, and/or ambiguous endings. I can honestly say this drama changed my life.

Happy anniversary! You guys are so spectacular!
My first drama love was Boys Over Flowers...retrospectively (and having watched LOTS of dramas since) I can admit it's not the best, but it was the first Korean Drama I'd ever seen (or even heard of) and it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It turned me into a complete emotional wreck. Two years later and I've been hooked ever since!

the first kdrama i've watched was autumn in fairytale/ endless live 1 (haha that was the title given by the network where it was telecast) well since then I've been a fan of kdramas :) I just love their cinematography, music, storyline and all :) but the kdrama that really got me was FULL HOUSE :) the story was really great that you could watch it over and over again never get tired of it super cute :)

HAPPY 5th, DRAMABEANS! May the DB family continue to thrive!

My first kdramas were Tagalog subbed and aired on local channels. The very first Kdrama I watched was It Happened in Bali. Although it was a very well made series (and made me a Ha Ji Won fan for life), it left me feeling disturbed and kept me off kdramas for a while. I remember Save the Last Dance for Me and Green Rose. I liked both well enough but did not get me addicted. I still watched a lot more HBO and TV dramas churned out by the Americans. But then Lovers in Paris came along and I really loved that drama.

Like some of the bloggers here, I used to wonder what the hullabaloo was about Meteor Garden, but I got curious about the F4 thing and got my answer when I watched BOF. I agree it was kind of silly at times but addicting nonetheless.

Then I discovered all those kdramas out there on the internet. That started my kdrama marathoning habit. And, as they say, life was never the same again. Now I cannot abide watching watching the dubbed versions which give out just one episode a week in small daily doses.

Lately, I have also started following currently airing series, impatiently waiting for the Engish subbed versions to be put online.

Looking back, I can say my addiction was gradual but what got me really hooked was Coffee Prince and City Hall.
And what cemented that addiction was when I discovered Dramabeans.

Truly, DB lives up to its slogan. It has sustained and fed my kdrama obsession.

Kamsa hamnida, Dramabeans. I cannot sing you praises high enough. *hugs**kisses**flowers**balloons**confetti**fireworks**

The first kdrama to completely takeover my brain and heart was
Goong. It was my third kdrama and even now the OST takes me right back.

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Boys Over Flowers showed up on my netflix and I was hooked, even bawling at one point. But what sealed the deal was Coffee Prince!

Happy 5th Dramabeans! The drama that took be to the dark side was Hana Kimi. Like potato chips, once I had a taste I couldn't stop! This is was the original Hana Kimi of course, Ikuta Toma rocked my socks as Nakatsu.

I'm sorry i love you!! (MiSa) It's not my first kdrama, and i watched it in 2008 not 2004, but the plot was just so sad and touching- i cried buckets watching that drama. I've been hooked ever since! (:

It was a dark and stormy night, a pimply teenager huddled under the covers of a bed. As lightning crashed outside she made the choice that would change her life forever! She pressed the play button on her very first drama YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL. She was hooked, the men, the singing, the comedy, the men... did i mention men..? oh yeah...

My first... was probably hana yori dango - the japanese version...
After which i proceeded to watch boys over flowers, the korean version... primarily because the boys were way sexier....
But overall, the one drama that gives me hope for all future dramas, has got to be the first shop of coffee prince... that drama totally completed me~~
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The drama that began my addiction for kdramas was Boys Before Flowers. I'm a bigggg anime/manga freak, and before I discovered dramas, I had read Boys Before Flowers. It was and is, by far, one of my favorite mangas. Anyway, I heard that there was a J-drama and K-drama made of it, so went to watch the K-drama... and I CRIED, MY MOM CRIED, AND MY SISTER CRIED. We all fell in love with the amaaaazing Lee Min Ho and Gu Hye Sun. From then on, I have loved K-dramas always, and have never failed to leave the dark side. Love the work you guys do, and supporting Dramabeans always!

Coffee Prince. That beach scene broke my heart. I love you, Choi Han-Gyul!

I know it sounds weird but the drama that hooked me on Kdrama forever was Be Strong Geum Soon. We have a large Korean population here and there are many Kdrama DVDs in the local library. I was fascinated by the culture and grew love the characters especially Geum Soon (Han Hye Jin) and Jae Hee (Kang Ji Hwan) I really loved the dance he did for her outside the shop. The story line was complex enough to keep me interested through the 163 episodes. I watched them in my car as I waited for my daughter to take her Japanese language classes. It made the time fly, and soon I was actually looking forward to waiting by myself in the car for hours each week because it meant I could join the cast as they acted out their lives in this drama. It also had a great ending which, since then, I have learned is no sure thing. I now check the DB site for other Kdramas online and watch very little else. I'm a goner!

Happy bday, DramaBeans!

My kdrama experience was also my first obsessive marathon. I watched the first episode of Boys Before Flowers, and though I didn't love it initially I found Lee MinHo attractive and wanted to see where they took the cliff hanger ending to un epsiode 2. Same with episode 2. By the time I got to episode 3, I began a 20 episode marathon in a day (luckily it was winter break or id have blown some finals!)

Because of that first k-drama, i moved to Korea for a year to teach English and am heading back for year 2 in the spring.

Ahh, those were the days when I first converted to the dark side. I think I have been watching dramas since I was a baby as I am from a typical korean family; dramas are in my blood. Anyway, answering the question, the first drama that was simply amazing to me were the classics Stairway to Heaven and Winter Sonata. I cannot pick between the two because they were absolutely stunning. They both had amazing actors, too. Yes, those two dramas were the beginning of korean dramas (in my opinion). All of the craziness of blindness/cancer, love triangles, and heart-tugging moments pulled me in to the dramas. And I'm glad it did.