[Beanie Recs] Mentor relationships without the romance
by DB Staff
Ahoy, Beanies! It’s time to gather your collective genius for a recommendation series that features you and your drama knowledge. Each week we’ll drop a drama conundrum and leave it up to you to provide a drama rec, and the appropriate rationale behind it, be it long or short. Respond below!
One thing I liked about Today’s Webtoon was the (mostly) platonic mentorship between Ma-eum and Ji-hyung. I’m not into dramas with teacher-student romances, so do you have any recs for dramas featuring a strong mentor and mentee relationship that doesn’t end with them falling in love?
Have a very particular drama itch that needs scratching? In need of a Beanie Rec? Email us at hello @ dramabeans.com and we’ll feature your topic in a future post.
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Tags: Beanie Recs, Drama recommendations
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1 latebloomer
September 21, 2022 at 5:11 AM
Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim 1 and 2. There's romance between the young doctor mentees, but not with their mentor.
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2 mmmmm
September 21, 2022 at 5:23 AM
I found the relationship between a mentor and a mentee in Be Melodramatic very refreshing.
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mmmmm
September 21, 2022 at 9:07 PM
They walked a fine line between a mentor-mentee relationship and a semi-romantic one. The reason I thought of this is because they remain very professional throughout the whole show regardless of how they felt or for one another. And I found that very refreshing.
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3 Unaspirated
September 21, 2022 at 5:28 AM
Obviously Jung Myung-seok to Woo Young-woo in Extraordinary Attorney. Best mentor ever. I still haven't forgiven the writer for making him ill.
But also:
Mr Sunshine has a great one. Once her grandfather gives up on Go Ae-shin staying out of the conflict, he enlists Jang Seung-goo to train her to be a sniper. He totally doesn't believe she's going to stick with it at first, but they gain each others' respect over time, and have some really beautiful (and heartbreaking) scenes together.
One that I really really loved (maybe my favorite?) was in the Crowned Clown (I know that some folks hate this drama with a fiery passion, but I am not one of them). The relationship between Haksan and Ha-seon was what made the show for me. It was initially combative, as Haksan strong-armed Ha-seon into doing this thing that he had no desire to do, but as Ha-seon proved again and again that he was up to the task, Haksan started to respect him more and more until they ended up with something closer to a friendship or a father-son relationship. Haksan is already such a fantastic, complex, and ambiguous character that it makes their relationship progression really powerful.
I also think Brian from Search WWW is a really great mentor. He pretty much can't retire because his employees keep finding him and asking him for advice and he is a comforting fatherly presence in the show.
And finally, no rec list would be complete (at least from me haha) without a Live Up to Your Name recommendation. ;) It's not a huge part, but Heo Im is a mentor to Dong Mak-gae who also wants to be a doctor to the point that she dresses as a man in Joseon so that she can assist him. Normally in a drama there would be jealousy when the FL showed up, but I liked this relationship because they never went there, and maintained their totally platonic interactions even though Heo Im totally knew the whole time that Mak-gae was a woman.
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💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
September 21, 2022 at 2:39 PM
So fascinating to read your breakdown of Haksan and the Clown actually. I have a VERY different take on that relationship, where it went, how it was developed, and where it should've gone imo, but interesting that this is what you primarily took out of it and that it was mainly positive for you.
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4 Kurama
September 21, 2022 at 5:44 AM
Healer : Yoo Ji-Tae was the mentor of Park Min-Young, they had a childhood connection but there wasn't any romance between them.
Hot Stove League : Even if Namkoong Min knows nothing in baseball, I think he was still a mentor to Park Eun-Bin and there wasn't any romance between them.
Tomorrow : Rowoon was only the mentee and whipping boy of Kim Hee-Sun.
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5 tabong
September 21, 2022 at 5:52 AM
My rec would be to avoid My Roomie Gumiho at all cost.
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6 Palaa
September 21, 2022 at 5:58 AM
Rookie historian Goo Haeryeong was the first thing that popped into my mind. How the deputy chief historian (Min if I remember right) guides her, reprimands her but still stands up for her when she makes a mistake, learns from her without being petty about it.
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7 Healer’s
September 21, 2022 at 7:23 AM
Yoo Ji Tae’s and Yoo Hwa Young’s characters in Mad Dog.
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8 knewbie
September 21, 2022 at 7:56 AM
It's a bit disturbing that romantic mentoring relationships seem to be the default kind in K-drama. Anyway, I must fly the flag for a great female mentor, Nobody Know's Cha Young-jin. Not only is she the steady, responsible adult in Eun-ho's life, she's also a good boss and senior to the two youngsters on her team.
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cozybooks
September 21, 2022 at 11:00 AM
YES. I will ABSOLUTELY second this. So well done.
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bong-soo
September 22, 2022 at 8:30 PM
Definitely!
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9 edevan
September 21, 2022 at 8:11 AM
Misaeng comes to mind. Of course, that is not a male-female pairing, but great mentor relationship, nonetheless.
My Mister might count, but only if you can stand one-sided semi-romantic interest.
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cozybooks
September 21, 2022 at 11:01 AM
Misaeng was also one of my first thoughts. I don't know if he really liked his mentee at first, but I definitely remember them towards the end of the drama.
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Unaspirated
September 21, 2022 at 12:46 PM
I thought about My Ajusshi too, and I think it works. I sort of think that Ji-an might not have really had a crush on Dong-hoon, he was just one of the first people to treat her like a human, and those feelings can be tough to sort out and identify. And he was so adamantly not interested that it never came to anything anyway, so I think it works for the prompt.
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Diana Hansen
September 21, 2022 at 2:39 PM
i thought of both of these also.
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10 Jance
September 21, 2022 at 9:08 AM
Racket boys! The coaches were great (in the end). ^^
Chief Kim and his boss in the accounting department?
Lots of parent/grandparent roles (e.g in Start-up)
School 2013? I don’t remember there being any romance.
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11 cozybooks
September 21, 2022 at 11:03 AM
I think one semi-overlooked Mentor-Mentee relationship is in Forest of Secrets... our stone faced prosecutor gave some great advice to not only the sleazy waffling bad guy prosecutor but also the newer female prosecutor. I don't remember their names ahaha
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12 Hanamana
September 21, 2022 at 11:16 AM
My name. I really liked ji woo and Choi mujin there.Their chemistry was something else.
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13 💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
September 21, 2022 at 2:37 PM
Does Special Labor Inspector Jo count? Lmao
Also Hot Stove League.
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Midnight
September 21, 2022 at 10:44 PM
Sure it does. He was their teacher, and later their mentor. Definitely counts.
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knewbie
September 22, 2022 at 12:57 AM
I loved the school flashbacks, especially as narrated by the Kim Kyung-nam character: "Every school has an insane teacher... ours was called Jo Jang-poong..."
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14 egads
September 21, 2022 at 3:27 PM
Would Lookout count? I mean, it was both a chase and mentorship for vigilante style justice.
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15 Ally
September 21, 2022 at 3:30 PM
Never give up. No obvious romance. Lovely show overall.
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Midnight
September 21, 2022 at 10:45 PM
This is one of the shows I sampled recently. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of it.
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Unaspirated
September 22, 2022 at 5:12 AM
Oh yay, I was planning on starting this today and now I'm even more excited!
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bong-soo
September 22, 2022 at 8:27 PM
NEVER GIVE UP (Netflix US), Yoon Doo-joon’s comeback (from the military) drama, has snuck up to be one of my favorite dramas of the year. Delightful.
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16 bong-soo
September 22, 2022 at 8:42 PM
I propose the wonderful NAVILLERA (2021) (Netflix US).
I am not sure it can be considered a pure mentor/mentee drama when it turned a teacher/student drama on its head with ‘youngster’ Chae-rok (Song Kang) forced to give ballet instruction to ‘senior’ Deok-chul (Park In-hwan). The ending of episode 8 was just stunning. One of my favorite dramas of 2021.
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mmmmm
September 23, 2022 at 10:04 AM
Yes. Stunning is almost an understatement.
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17 Ziziboice
August 10, 2023 at 3:02 AM
"Live" Lee kang soo and his mentor were brilliant from hate to love
Even FL and the woman police officer (Lee kang soo's mentor ex wife) were so good together but their relationship had just a little screen time.
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18 iuvander
September 3, 2023 at 4:56 AM
Argon (2017). Kim Baekjin as an anchor and reporter gave a great deal of trust to the newly joined team, Lee Yeonhwa. Though he was flawed, he showed her the good way and didn't let her repeat his mistakes.
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Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
September 3, 2023 at 12:23 PM
👋 Welcome to the comments section. Looking forward to seeing you in here.
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