Korean polling platform Good Data provides weekly buzz rankings based on search words and this past week was worth a visit since there were three new dramas premiering and four total dramas released in the last two weeks. Topping the most talked about (buzz) rankings on the drama side are Encounter (Boyfriend) first followed by Sky Castle, Memories of Alhambra, An Empress’s Dignity, and Clean With Passion For Now rounding out the top 5. On the actor/actress side, the top two spots were for the noona-dongsaeng couple of Encounter, with Park Bo Gum in first followed by Song Hye Kyo in second. Coming in third is Hyun Bin for Memories of Alhambra, fourth was Kim Yoo Jung as the cleaning cutie pie, and fifth spot goes to Park Shin Hye also for Memories. The surprises for me is how much buzz both Encounter and especially Park Bo Gum is trending, and it’s probably because of how it really exceeded expectations. I am enjoying both Encounter and Memories at the same interest level but the former just blew me away by how much better than I expected it to be (maybe my expectation was too low, I dunno) whereas Memories is as good as I hope for and totally cool to watch. December will certainly be a fun month with lots of buzzy dramas to watch!
- Encounter
- Sky Castle
- Memories of Alhambra
- An Empress’s Dignity
- Clean With Passion For Now
- Hymn of Death
- Where Stars Land
- Fate and Furies
- Children of Nobody
- Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter
- Park Bo Gum
- Song Hye Kyo
- Hyun Bin
- Kim Yoo Jung
- Park Shin Hye
- Yoon Kyun Sang
- Lee Jong Seok
- Lee Min Jung
- Shin Hye Sun
- Jang Nara
Encounter is definitely my favourite drama in recent years. It has been sooooooo long since I felt this attached to a drama. While I’m not surprised with Song Hye Kyo’s superb and Park Bo Gum’s very good acting, the scriptwriter and director are both doing a much better job than I thought.
Encounter boyfriend I love the drama so much her in Philippines
It also seems that “Encounter” is the most talked about drama on your site, Ms Koala, given the number of posts and comments. It’s fun to see so many posts and comments on the drama.
Love the flow of the story and how PBG and SHK’s differences complimented each other and makes it interesting, enjoyable and heartwarming.
PD and crew did a great job with everything. Main leads visuals are daebal but production made everything pleasing. Colours used are beautiful. Can’t wait for EP3
To my surprise Encounter is really good! Better than MOA.
Sky Castle is great too.
I would rank Encouinter no.1 and Sky Castle a close second at first tier.
Cleaning With Passion, MOA, Fate & Furies at another tier.
Encounter is the Best Drama Ever❤? I really enjoyed watched this Drama becoz of SHK, the Best Actress and Goddess of All…Am her Big fan from Philippines
The first behind the scenes clip is out (this drama is under promoted, other dramas have released many BTS clips).
https://tv.naver.com/v/4687470?openType=nmp
Yup but drama still got so much love. Can’t wait for EP3 tomorrow.
Trying so hard to not ship PBG with SHK, eventho they looks so cute in that BTS
Felt that TVN just understimate PBG and SHK’s popularity because they put encounter as their wed-thursday drama. The best one, always in weekend.
There’s no pre-premiered in CGV, and this one is underpromotion. Even PBG’cf more active promoted this drama than tvn lol
mostly fans of both are promoting it, and media attention for the clicks, not the production coz they are always behind, even the 1st teaser they need to put out a statement a day before 1st teaser was out coz fans were flooding them with comments, asking them to release something
True. I also expected them to have a pre-premier in CGV like what they have done for other recent major dramas.
Hi…as I understand..weekend dramas have more episodes while wed-thur dramas are shorter (usually 16 episodes) even on public broadcast…and shk almost always prefer shorter number of episodes per drama..thus we almost always watched her dramas on a wed/Thurs slot like TWTWB and DOTS.
I’m talking about TVN. Reply 1988, Goblin, Hwayugi, Mr Sunshine, all of it was TVN weekend’s drama. and yeah goblin just 16 eps.
I like Boyfriend but I don’t understand the buzz yet. The story is nothing new, the acting is good but they didn’t have any great scenes to act yet. The characters are still in the awkward phase. My favourite thing was the Cuba scenery. It was beautiful.
Sky Castle is the typical drama about awful parents but the casting is great and it’s dark and fun.
An Empress’s Dignity is so ridiculous, it makes it funny to watch. But I wonder if Koreans watch it seriously…
Clean with Passion is so funny. I love the comedy part. I like the webtoon vibe and KJY is so beautiful.
I’m happy for Children of Nobody. The story is very intriguing and the casting is good.
MoA is innovative for now and it’s fun to watch.
u can never predict the gen.public bf was prejudge coz of the writer and the age gap,before the drama premier people are xpecting it to flop even with 2 popular actors,even after epi 1 rating came out, knets are xpecting epi2 rating to go down,
It is true that TVN has not done a lot of promotion for the drama. I waited so long for the first teaser to come out and it is only now that they released this short BTS clip. But it is so cute.
Just watched the BTS footage of Encounter. Love how SHK and PBG looked so comfortable with each other. 🙂
For how long they kept talking about it, clean with passion has meh ratings.
Encounter has exceeded my expectations, to think I’m already a SHK fan for a long time. Disappointed with the amount of promotion it got from the network but am glad it still broke records for the ratings. Only goes to show how much star power these 2 have despite being on a Wednesday-Thursday timeslot. Can you imagine if this was broadcasted on the weekend then?
I hope they are able to sustain the public’s interest. SHK drama is normally not just loved locally but internationally as well hence I wish her and the team all the luck. Can’t wait for ep3! Aja Aja, fighting!
I understand why they placed those dramas on weekend slot as they are big budget production so its safe to place it on weekend. Also i noticed that Mr Sunshine which is Netflix productiion drama while MotA was picked up by Netflix got so much promo but maybe because netflix also did their part.
Am one of those nagging tvn for teaser/s and still cuts since they only released 1 set still cuts and 1 teaser closer to airing date but maybe BF are still working on it. As fans we did our part and we have to continue to do our best to help promote this drama.
At least am happy with the production doing a grear job with cinematography, the pace, the colours and everything else that made this drama beautiful and pleasing.
Most of SHK dramas are placed on Wed/Thurs so even if i wanted a weekend slot i can’t complain. It’s a big deal to have that rating on a wednesday slot so we should all be happy.
To those who says Encounter isin’t that good, well what is good for you may not be good for others since we all have different taste and preferences. I and many others loved this drama so i guess a lot of koreans had the same taste and preference like us thats why this drama is popular.
I agree with the last part. What is good for us doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for someone else and vice versa. It all boils to one’s preference. As long as we don’t think our taste is superior than the others’..everything should be okay.
I guess TVN is also surprised at how well-received the drama is. They arranged it for this time slot and didn’t do much promotion perhaps because they didn’t have high expectation for it, like many audience, including Ms Koala. The main reason for the low expectation was probably from the scriptwriter and that was understandable given her drama writing record. So glad the she made us surprised with the first two episodes.
im glad viewers finally accept them to act together without thinking about their age gap and relationship of SJK or whatever. at the end of the day they’re professional actor so it’s delivered to viewers that they’re KJH & CSH character,not bogum/shk. it’s true the main plot is nothing new but what each scene of their interaction made me feel engaged and wanna root for them.
About promoting, yes TVN didn’t do much because it’s not their production like hwayugi / MOA that made by studio dragon. BF production is BonFactory (Secretary Kim) and mostly the Weekend timeslot is their main. (Mr.sunshine / Reply series / MOA / Goblin). PBG fans made tons of subway and public promotion, with their own money which cost A LOT from what i know. but with the good response, TVN rerun boyfriend frequently last week that even rerun got 3% rating lol higher than some primetimes drama.
Thanks for the information. Does it mean TVN own studio dragon?
cjem own studio dragon, tvn ocn,mnet
Wow even the rerun got 3% I wonder about eps 3. Cant wait for tomorrow!
Yes AGB rating for boyfriend Rerun got 3.7% & 4.8% in seoul on Sunday (2/12)
Not surprised. Read a twitter piost about reruns but its from Naver and it says they had tseveral reruns as its really popular
So glad to see Alhambra in third place and hopefully it’ll maintain a good drama. I love everything about it and the whole cast production so thank you writer’s and director for bringing my ahjussi back to drama land. Looking forward to the next week episodes.
Lol Alabama fans finally shut their mouth because Encounter is a winning masterpiece with such talented and capable actors.
You are wrong. There is no need for MOA fans to comment on an Encounter article. There is no need to compare two dramas at different time slots and of different genre. The biggest reason why an MOA article gathered so many comments is because those Encounter fans were arguing there, it is very obvious why one article has over 100+ comments and here this article is only at 31 🙂 Stop provoking, your insecurity is showing.
not all who comments on the moa articles are encounter fans, u will see an obsess sega shipper der,coz of hb and a commenter who keeps saying conflicting things, and ramdomly saying nonsense
I think is sega shipper
You can’t even spell the title right and you’re here lol being proud, what a douchebag. Rating is nothing if it’s just base on fanbase. Astounding performance and good drama is what people will recognize for a long times.
Finally watched MOA and okay I was apprehensive going in at first but HB is so good looking it’s hard not to like him so the opening scene was enough to pique my interest and I’ve now committed myself to another weekend drama to follow! Well MOA ain’t the Matrix but it’s innovative; fresh and different to what is currently on and I have to admit I’m getting use to the genre and am keen to see more. My pet peeve is the use of a Chanyeol in the first 5 mins and then gone! Whattt??? That’s such a cruel tease for Exol fans. Then PSH character was written as some minuscule pushover yet she runs a hostel and is responsible for her younger siblings and grandmother but quivers when she’s being yelled at by HB. I like the storyline so far so good and I’m inclined to think that PSH is involved in the development of the game because the first scene showed her as a ‘jack of all trades’ because she does everything so that might be a clue as to her character development. Also MOA – According to Moorish poets the name Alhambra is described ‘as a pearl set amongst emeralds’ (Wikipedia source) and PSH is the pearl so I’m excited moreso about her journey in all of this. This is my only gripe is if the writer ends up diminishing PSH character to a wallflower that will so kill my interest in this drama. I like the antagonist Mr Cha and Park Hae Soo and that thank goodness Netflix picked it up. Here’s to episode 3 and 4 keep up the good work!
Encounter is totally flop . It’s rating good just because of the cast