Blackpink's Lisa recently shared what her favorite K-drama from 2024 is, and it's one of the year's best friends-to-lover series, masterpiece Korean TV shows, it never gets boring.
One of the reasons the friends-to-lovers trope is so popular is how the characters engage with each other. Initially, they are shocked that the person they played with, got into trouble with, and grew up with is actually attractive. But when they get to that realization, the way their interactions change is heartwarming. So it isn't shocking that one of Lisa's favorite K-dramas focuses on this type of relationship.
Lisa's Most Recent K-Drama Favorite Is Love Next Door
Love Next Door Is A Friends-To-Lovers Korean Series
During her interview with 's Choi Seung-hyo and Bae Seok-ryu and their relationship is the biggest draw of the series. When Seok-ryu quits her job, ends her engagement, and moves back to Korea, her decision is met with outrage by her mother and her neighbors.

Love Next Door Just Delivered 1 Of The Best K-drama Confession Scenes (And It’s Not Seok-ryu & Seung-hyo’s)
Although Love Next Door focuses on the friends-to-lovers story of Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo, another K-drama couple stole the show with their confession.
After she starts her life anew in her old home, Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo begin hanging out again as she tries to find out what her next step is. Even though it seems like their relationship is the same as the way it was before Seok-ryu left for the U.S., something between the two old friends shifts. Seok-ryu initially tries to deny how he feels about his childhood friend, whom he claims not to see as a woman, but he comes to accept that he is falling for her.
Love Next Door Was One Of The Best K-Dramas Of 2024
Love Next Door Had An Engaging Storyline & A Great Cast
2024 was a huge year for K-dramas; several TV shows spanning different genres garnered critical and audience acclaim. While the record-breaking romantic K-drama Queen of Tears has been hailed as that year's best Korean series, Love Next Door is a powerful contender. The latter show is excellently written, the characters are relatable, and the storyline perfectly unfolds in an engaging and well-paced manner. Although it utilizes familiar tropes, it's the way that the cast brings the story to life that makes it stand out.
Love Next Door isn't just a story about friends who become lovers. Instead, it delves into themes of identity, particularly when it comes to Seok-ryu's search for her dream and her dynamic with her mother. The K-drama also shows the sweet relationship between the Suk sisters and how they've maintained their friendship through the countless trials life throws at them. While the love story in Love Next Door is its biggest highlight, the fact that it highlights other relationships and subplots is why it's one of 2024's best K-dramas.
Lisa Is Right, Love Next Door's Friends-To-Lovers Feels Real
Jung Haei-in & Jung So-min Are The Highlight Of Love Next Door
There isn't a shortage of friends-to-lovers K-dramas. Park Seo-joon and Kim Ji-won's Fight For My Way also has this storyline. However, there's something intriguing about Love Next Door, and that's that it feels real. Seok-ryu and Choi Seung-hyo's dynamic is hilarious. The way their relationship evolves from friends to romantic partners isn't rushed, but they slowly navigate their way into love. While Seung-hyo has had feelings for Seok-ryu since they were young, she didn't see it until later on in their adult life, and he didn't act upon them due to the fear that romance would ruin their relationship.
But perhaps the reason that the friends-to-romance in Love Next Door feels real is because of how incredible Jae Hae-in and Jung So-min are in the K-drama.
Love Next Door is a classic tale of people who've been in each other's lives since they were young and then fall for each other, but it's so refreshingly real. So many aspects of the romantic K-drama draw parallels to real-life relationships, particularly because of how Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu treat each other before forming a romantic bond. Even the way that Seung-hyo tries to protect their friendship is akin relatable. But perhaps the reason that the friends-to-romance in Love Next Door feels real is because of how incredible Jae Hae-in and Jung So-min are in the K-drama.
Source: Vanity Fair

Love Next Door
- Release Date
- August 17, 2024
Cast
- Jung Hae-inChoi Seung-hyo
- Jung So-minBae Seok-ryoo
A woman returns to Korea to restart her life and becomes involved with a childhood friend, sharing a complicated history.
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