I totally agree, I think found-families are one of the very best parts of kdramas, and I love your connection between on-screen communities and the one we have here!

You've inspired me to think about where I could be cultivating spaces for relationships like this in my community groups. Thank you!

Thanks @ncrozier for this wonderful reminder of one of my favourite genres too. I loved the book club in I’ll come to you when the weather is fine too because it was made up of people across the age range. The Package and Twelve nights were great examples of time limited connections. I think the cell crew in Prison Playbook, the basement crew in Chief Kim, and Hospital playlist represent great work based friendships and Reply 1988 sets the standard for locality based friendships in the different generations.

Divorce Attorney Shin is the latest addition to this group.

Wow! Found family. That truly is one thing kdrama does not fail to highlight whenever it is at the core of the drama. I vividly remember I'll Find You On a Beautiful Day's book club, even a young kid was a part of the arrangement and the boy knows his onions.

My fav found family will come from Start Up - Han Ji-pyeong and Halmoni. There's this confidence that you feel knowing that those who are part of a found family will always rise to the occasion when the need arises, as you mentioned of JBL, and these two in Start Up did just that. If I decide to check up on Halmoni and Ji-pyeong today{if this were possible :) }, I am confident they're in a good place.

I watched Would You Like A Cup of Coffee and I simply loved it, but I wasn't expecting your found family to come from the angle you mentioned. It was nice to read on what your found family in WYLACOF.

They teach me what is possible in real life and make me want to create these same kinds of spaces in my spheres of influence.
This line - very true. And I've stopped counting, instead I've began taking mental notes and solemnly wish I remember them as my close spheres take form.

Thank you @ncrozier!

I love found-families too! Kdramas and Korean society insist so much on the blood relationships even they're the worst.

But the found-families are lovely and touching.

In A Piece of Your Mind, I loved how they will reunite in the kitchen of Eun-Joo's Boarding House's to drink/eat and talk.

In Missing the Other Side, from the season 1 to the second one, they really became a family living together and helping ghosts. Th ML acted the role of a dad too!

All the dramas you've mentioned are among my favourite ones, and I think it's partially related to the "found family" theme. I want to add one more: Be Melodramatic, where the three female leads are much more than friends.

Nice write-up @ncrozier! I agree - found families in k-dramas are so heartwarming and we can learn so much for our own interpersonal relationships from them.

Can think of so many of my favourite dramas being wonderful examples of this -
- Dal-po's found family in Pinocchio
- The ever-growing breakfast crew in While You Were Sleeping
- The North Korean soldier ducklings and ahjummas in Crash Landing on You

I like found family stories but I couldn't think of any that I watched except The Uncanny Counter. The relationships in that drama are really heartwarming to me and there were even moments when I wonder if things were improvised because it just seemed so realistic of close friends and families.

I've seen Vincenzo but I hadn't even considered them haha. I guess they do qualify and I think they referred to themselves as the geuma plaza/cassano family too.

This is a great piece @ncrozier! You capture the beauty of found family so well and your examples are very much on point. I love the Geumga Plaza found family in Vincenzo - for their earnestness, their loyalty, and the hilarious fact that the thing that unites them most is their talent for crime. When they do their slo-mo walk out of the plaza in their new black "team uniform", I defy anyone not to be grinning like an idiot. Found families are the best!

Most recently in Call It Love, the character Sung Joon found family is the Shim family. There is a great scene where he is having lunch with his parents and Hye-Seong (who was pretending to be his girlfriend). The scene is not ovely long and there isn't a lot of dialogue but wow, you clearly get the vibe about his poor relationship with his parents because of their behavoiur, their expectations, especially the father and how lacking the relationship is. The Shim siblings are the world to him.
Another great example would be My Ajusshi, Ji-an has the support of Dong-hoon and his family. When the grandmother passes, it was truly beautiful as the whole community came behind her for the funeral and most of them she didnt even know but they were there to support her in her time of grief.

@ncrozier: Thanks for this lovely rumination. If you have the time and the inclination to comment more, I for one would love to read them. I’m pretty sure I am not the only one.
I love the concept of the found family and find it moving even when it is done badly. When well-written characters are richly realised by wonderful actors, it becomes an intensely emotional experience. Like you, I found the relationships between these wounded yet resilient souls in ‘Just Between Lovers’ deeply affecting and memorable. It was my first exposure to Junho’s acting and I just found his scenes with my favourite KDrama loan shark with a heart of gold funny and amusing as well as at times, sobering and gut-wrenchingly devastating.

I also loved the book club scenes in ‘I’ll Find You on a Beautiful Day’. So so much. For a bookworm, they had an allure beyond words (ironically).

Most KDramas sell dreams as entertainment as they don’t depict life even in a remotely plausible way but I love the possibility of experiencing transcendent moments such as those you described. This is enough for me to keep on exploring.

My good wishes and hopes go with you.

Aww, such a beautiful post @ncrozier
I totally agree with you.
Instead of shows perpetuating toxic family dynamics and promoting the "blood is thicker than water" slogan, I love shows were strangers come together and learn from each other.
That kind of warmth is irreplaceable.

Shows like Prison Playbook, Birthcare Center, IOTNBOkay, Terius, DDSSLLS, Shopping KL, FFMWay, Racket Boys, or even Misaeng have those moments were you see such strong bond between the characters that it feels like they really are family.
It's nice to see people help each other grow and just care, you know? It's like a hug. It's healing.

Definitely one of the most beautiful things of Kdramaland. Totally agree.

Thank you so much for bringing up the found family topic. It is something that we love but might forget along the way. Yes, sometimes a found family can give us much comfort that we don't find somewhere else. I hope I can find one as well.

Found family is one of my favorite sub-genres in Dramaland. Even more if it goes together with some "fish out of the water" character.

Prison Playbook.
Live Up to your name.
The best hit.
Shopping King Louis.
Start-up.
Hometown Cha Cha Cha.
It's ok to not be ok.
C-drama Meet Yourself.
Crash Landing on you.
Hwayugi.
King of Baking.
Just Between Lovers.
30 but 17.
Pinocchio.
Misaeng?

Age of Youth and Hospital Playlist maybe too, but they are more about pure friendship than families.

So beautifully written!! This brings to mind many of the shows I love, and why I love them.

My mom's rewatching 'Fiery Priest' as I write. The family that formed around our hotheaded priest is a perfect example of how a single person can influence the people around them to change for the better, but that forming a family is really a result of both individual choice and collective effort. As Father Kim said, "I can't wake those who are pretending to sleep... but on their own, they begin to open their eyes."

One of my favourite examples of this is Bulgasal. Not only is the found family touching and very funny, but it turns out to be basically the entire point of the show, and a hard learned lesson for our hero.

What an inspiring article! So many of the BEST formulas incorporate the Found Family element. And yes, fellow Beanies are an incredible group.

Say less!

The GeumGa Plaza crew in Vincenzo, The Ducklings in CLOY, the Breakfast Crew in WYWS, the roommates in Be Melodramatic, the basement crew in Chief Kim (I love how they pick fights too 😂), Choi Woong's friend in Our Beloved Summer, the ladies in Romance is a Bonus Book, the brothers in My Ahjushi... It's endless.

My favorite found family this past year was Never Give Up! On Netflix now, it flew under the radar as ENA’s first drama, but goodness if it doesn’t have all the things you mention. And the “family” chicken dinner at the former loan shark’s house is both comedy gold and super endearing as well.