Answer Me 1994. Never had SLS before this. Right till the penultimate episode I kept rooting for Chilbongie to somehow get the girl, just so I could avoid seeing his heart break. Oh it hurt so so bad. I got depressed for a days...it was soothing to read javabeans' and so many others comments expressing the same, in articles such as top 10 SLS...but the same article spoilt the ending of Answer Me 1988 for me. I started 1988 immediately, hoping the forget the traumatic 1994, but gah, even though I knew the endgame, Jung Pal tore my heart again. His retracted confession, not a whiff of him or his brother in the 2015 scenes, the abandoned neighborhood...😢
Then Yoo Yeon-seok goes and breaks my heart again in Mr Sunshine. God this guy, ugh. His every micro-expression spoke volumes, his intensity, his hopeless hope 💔
To very small extent, Han Ji-pyeong in Start Up.

I realised SLS for me isn't so much about a character getting the girl, I just don't want to see a person I like getting his heart broken, sniff.

Scarlet Ryeo, this drama f@#ked me up. I still can't think about it without pain.

I cry easily, so I normally shed a tear or two in every other drama I am watching, but mostly because I empathize with the character. But I quickly get over it and my heart did not break for them. The only dramas that I ugly cried because they really did wreck my heart are : Move to Heaven and Light in Your Eyes. For the SLS type of heartbreak - I still have not recovered from the trauma of Reply 1988.

Secret Garden. Seems strange but true - maybe it was the music that did it.

City Hunter and King2Hearts get special mention here and if you've watched them you know why. But the one drama that scarred me for life was 49 Days. Ugh. I didn't know I could ugly cry like that.

Late to the party here, but better late than never, I guess. Selecting the dramas for this was harder than I thought, because I’ve seen a lot, and a lot has broken my heart. I’ll give a couple of choices instead of one. My brain would explode otherwise.

Reply 1994: Yoo Yeon-seok as Chilbong was my first true introduction to second lead syndrome and oh man, what an introduction that was. I got my heart broken so thoroughly by that that almost nothing could compare until…

Reply 1988: That freaking restaurant confession scene!!! Why did Ryu Jun-yeol have to be so damn good in it? I don’t normally get SLS watching dramas, but I was just rooting for him so hard. I don’t normally get SLS watching dramas, and while I used to think it’s because I don’t care for the notion that a man is entitled to a woman’s affections simply because he loved her for longer, or secretly, or whatever other excuse dramas like to use - now I think I’ve just exhausted my emotions on this series and am incapable of conjuring it up for other shows to save myself the pain.

However, that’s not the main reason this show wrecked me. The main reason is that last shot of the neighbourhood at the end, empty and abandoned. It’s a deeply personal reason, but it wrecks my heart all the same. For many decades, my whole family (multiple generations under one roof) used to live in a neighbourhood similar to that, close-knit and extremely involved in each other’s lives. I used to sometimes envy the richer, more cosmopolitan nuclear families living in the city-proper in swanky apartments. They seemed so much cooler to my younger self. Yet, as the years went by, we all had to eventually move out and go our ways. That old neighbourhood we lived in is now unrecognizable due to new developments and gentrification. My family is now split across five continents, not one giant roof. I now live in an apartment, in the city-proper. It’s neither as swanky nor as cool as I once thought. You never really know what you had until it’s gone. So yeah, that last shot of that neighbourhood in Reply 1988 absolutely wrecked me. I don’t think I can ever watch it without almost sobbing, both for myself and the characters in the drama.

My very personal tangent on Reply 1988 went on for too long. I do have other dramas that wrecked me that aren’t from the Reply series. This won’t be too long (I hope!). These obviously aren’t all the dramas that wrecked me, just some that immediately comes to mind.

Move to Heaven: Would be unfair to not put in the drama I ugly-cried over every other episode. The episode explaining the tragedy of what happened between the two brothers is a particular standout. Lee Je-hoon deserves awards for the scene when he find the shoes.

Chicago Typewriter: Currently rewatching this, but even typing this out makes me emotional so idk how I’m gonna survive the show. The last two episodes showing the end of the 1930s storyline still remains one of the finest episodes in kdrama history and the very pinnacle of tragic excellence. I can’t even explain it. Those who’ve watched will know, but if you haven’t, please do yourself a favour and watch it. Just make sure to have some tissues nearby. However, episode 9 also has an incredible scene in the present timeline that always makes me tear up. I’m not Korean, but I also come from a country with a very recent history of colonization. To show such a lovely tribute to the memories of so many who fought for the freedoms we currently have…ugh this show!!

Queen for 7 Day: The playbook for historical tragedies. So well-executed, so heartbreaking. We all knew it was coming, it’s in the very title, but that somehow made it even more of a gut-punch.

My Country: The New Age: THE PAIN THIS SHOW INFLICTED ON ME. I’m never getting over that one death scene. I demand the writer pay for my therapy.

Red Sleeve Cuff: I don’t think it quite pulled-off the tragic elements with the same finesse as the previous two sageuks, but this a very worthy edition to this list. After all, it’s still living in my mind, rent-free.

The Princess’s Man: An all-time sageuk great that wrecked me multiple times. However, I cannot, in good conscience, ever recommend anyone watch this. Just know that it’s tragic and really well done.

Prison Playbook: Han-yang deserved better. I deserve better than the heartbreak I get every time I think about this show because it inevitably leads to be thinking about Han-yang and how dirty he was done. I just want Lee Kyu-hyung to be happy and thriving in a show FOR ONCE.

Three k-dramas come to mind right away.

Possessed
Y'all. Y'all. I'm still not over it. Not only did I have to watch it through my fingers... I endured watching everyone I cared about being picked off one by one. This drama had no silver lining.

Heartless City
More like Heartbreak City. Another drama without survivors. Drama, how dare you make me like crimelords and then tear them away so cruelly!

The Devil
Ah, I see a trend here with my picks. They're the ones that end with me crying a thousand tears for characters I probably should have known couldn't make it to the end.

I must be a masochist as I enjoy the terrible pain of watching justice (or revenge) finally served at an ending as dark as the journey's beginning!

You want just one??
Hmmm, what can I share without having to pour out my darkest secrets on the internet?
I know! Thirty But Seventeen!
There will never be a more uplifting and consoling drama about grief. What it comes down to is that it exists in a parallel universe to ours with slightly different rules - in this world, people who are suffering WILL find each other. Three people, frozen in time and struggling with grief after a horrible accident, miraculously find each other and take refuge in the same house, healing their wounds in the process. The idea of a world where this is possible is, in itself, comforting, and the way it depicts the power of human connection just warms my soul. It didn't just wreck my heart, it patched it up again after.

One word: CHUNO. Eating hard-boiled eggs has never been the same. I have seen the drama multiple times and it wrecks my heart every single time. And yet I keep re-watching it...

I remember that the scene my heart hurt the most is when Ja-eun (UEE’s character) broke up with Joo Won’s character. I ugly cried for a longggg time. (If you have the patience to endure a 40 or so ep show, give Ojakgyo Brothers a try. It sent both these new actors at the time to their first Baksaeng award).

There have been so many but my very first one was Moon Embracing the Sun. The hell they went through especially the girl smh. When the king finally knows who she is and he falls to his knees crying. I was done. When he finds out his sister was the cause of all that misery cause she was in love and she wasn't even sorry! angry tears. I can't rewatch it it gets me too upset lol.

Queen for Seven Days!
Youth of May!
Stairway to Heaven!
Mother!

Scent of a Woman - I cry every time I rewatch this drama. For other kdramas it differs depending on my mood etc. but Scent of a Woman makes me cry every time.

I've been lucky to have watched great Korean, Japanese, and Chinese dramas. Still, nothing compares to My Mister, one of the few dramas that have touched me as it has. It is one of the best, if not the best, k-dramas ever made, be it in its writing, directing, or acting of the gifted Lee Sun Kyun and inspiring IU. It is the kind of drama that catches you unaware at its onset. And before you realize it, you're hooked to this drama that shatters you to the core, before slowly and methodically putting you back together again. And no matter how many times I've tried to rewatch it, I find myself in the same place when I did the very first time -- broken to pieces while being awe-struck at the same time. A masterpiece indeed.

THE SMILE HAS LEFT YOUR EYES is the one that hit me the hardest when I watched it. Even writing about it now I'm experiencing a pretty sharp pang! It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why this one hit me so hard; I've certainly watched better, sadder, and more brilliantly executed dramas. Maybe it's the SIG factor, I don't know. But the scenes where he rejects the FL because he thinks she's his sister and she's crying and begging outside his door and he wants so badly to go to her but doesn't . . . oh, that hurt so bad! The ending was almost a balm after those scenes. I mean, you know a drama is tragic and hurting you deeply when you're like "Well, at least they died together."

After that, it's definitely RED SLEEVE. I was totally naive, and even knowing the history I didn't think it would end the way it did. I also didn't expect the FL to view telling the King she loved him to be a betrayal to herself. That hurt. At least with SMILE I could go back and watch the couple's happy scenes and enjoy the chemistry and connection even knowing what would happen later. But I can't do that with RED SLEEVE. Any joy the couple experienced together is completely eclipsed by the overall tragedy of their power imbalance and the societal pressures they can't escape. Ouch.

I swore I wouldn't post comments after discovering my ghost was still floating around here at DB, but Scottie inspired me. It was MR. SUNSHINE for me. That show killed me four years ago, and left me in limbo as a ghost. Since then, I have been able to watch replays of some episodes, but it is painful.

There are many because one of the many magics of K-dramas is that they do not always to tie things neatly up in a bow... The latest is The One and Only dealing with death and dying and love...

After many years of drama watching, many have broken my heart. However the one that still gets me, just thinking about it is Gaksital. That scene where both JW and PKW's characters riding the bike in the field, both crying bc they are hiding a big secret from each other. That just 😭😭💔

For me, it's a tie between "Chicago Typewriter" and "My Mister." They were both so, so good that I know I will go back and rewatch them eventually . . . but my heart hasn't recovered yet

- Record of youth: all the scenes with a crying or suffering Park Bo Gum broke my heart;
- Something in the rain: the situation with her mum really frustrated me and I ached for her;
- Crash landing on you: episode 8 ending, Hyun Bin crying, I could feel his pain and was not able to watch his face without shedding a tear.

Stairway to Heaven
49 Days
Flower of Evil
Scarlet Heart
My Mister

Stairway to Heaven
49 Days
Flower of Evil
Scarlet Heart
My Mister
The Red Sleeve

Sigh... There are three dramas that wrecked me and I cannot rewatch them: Gu Family Book, Mother and Crash Landing on You.

Gu Family Book - Kang Chi's parents' story line was soooo heart wrenching. I was braying like a donkey in tears. It was bad 😂

Mother - sigh, this one, where to start? The dustbin scene, the court room scene, even the two characters happy moments on the run wrecked me. And of course the cherry on top: when her mother passed away 🥺🤧 (Let's stop here, memories)

Crash Landing on You - everytime the characters were hurt, when Ri Jeong Hyuk went to look for her at his father's house, and finally when Man Bok confessed and returned the wristwatch.

Alright, I'm off to coil into a ball and think, bye!