I feel like the mission to choose only one becomes harder and harder since there are many epic slice of life dramas out there.
First place goes to Reply 1988
Runner Ups by a slight margin
Our Beloved Summer
She is pretty
Twenty Five Twenty One

Definitely Answer Me 1988

Gosh this is hard! It physically hurts to only choose one, so here's my top three (and the only three slice of life dramas I think that I've re-watched a few times in full) 🙈

1. Misaeng (I've already started to cheat bc I know this is more corporate slice of life) - hands down one of the BEST kdramas ever made. It'd take less time to name one thing they didn't do well (nothing) than to list everything they did do right.

2. Welcome to Waikiki - yes season 1 is better than season 2 comparatively BUT they're both great. Such a gem of a plot-line in both, absolutely hilarious and wholesome. I especially like the focus on the 'little things' in life, family and found family!

3. Age of Youth 1 & 2 - for all the reasons you said @solstices!! Such a wholesome and heartwarming story about sisterhood but also growing pains of being in your 20s and figuring out who you are and who you want to be (whoever said all the turbulence stops once you pass your teens was LYING)

Is My Ajusshi (Mister) a slice-of-life drama? I suppose it would be if you're a dirt-poor temp worker willing to do anything to survive. Or a depressed middle-aged office worker whose boss hates him.

Reply 1988 hands down. I just want to go back to when times were simpler, and I had no worries.

I think I've only watched one slice of life so this is easy: Reply 1997. The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the teacher's relationship with the female lead. Everything else was nice and oh how I loved the All For You song. Whenever I think about that show, it makes me wanna Seo In Uk's (is that his name? The lead actor) other projects but I just haven't figured what I should try next. I've been having difficulties with finishing shows but yeah, this is my choice haha.

Can I choose 3 please? :">

Reply 1988
My Liberation Notes
Misaeng

You know what?
That Kim So Hyun x Lee Jae Wook healing slice of life drama I came up with, because it would be catered specifically for everything I want out of one. 😂

Answer Me 1988 if have to choose only one.

Honourable Mentions (in no particular order):
I’ll Go To You When The Weather Is Nice
Yumi’s Cells S1
Age Of Youth S1&2
The Package
Coffee Prince
Our Beloved Summer
Work Later, Drink Now
Answer Me 1997 & 1994
Prison Playbook
Interest Of Love
Let’s Eat S1-S3
Lovestruck In The City
Ex-Girlfriend Club
Another Oh Hae-young
Discovery Of Romance
My First Time
Fight My Way
My Wife’s Having An Affair This Week
Girl’s Generation 1979
Because This Is My First Life

Work Slice of Life:
Misaeng
DP
Police Squad 38
Pinocchio
Producer

Sports Slice of Life:
Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo
Racket Boys

Comedic Slice of Life:
Welcome To Waikiki S1&2
Gaus Electronics

Can you guess slice of life is my favourite genre?

Reply 1988 all the way!!!

I feel I'm going out on a limb with this, but if I can only pick one, it's Ruler of Your Own World, even though on paper it's a melodrama, it has a very naturalistic feel.

A couple others that I think have believable normal friendships and relationship problems are Because This Is My First Life and Fight My Way.

Reply 1988 will always be a favorite of mine. It just tugged to my heartstrings and the family/friendship dramas were very memorable. I watched this partly because I liked Bogum in a previous drama (Hello Monster) and probably a movie too so wanted to see more of him in another project.

Misaeng, Our Beloved Summer, WFKBJ, Fight for My Way

Reply 1998 definitely!!!!

My Liberation Notes takes my you can only pick one.

And then, there's...
Because This Life Is My First for its wonderful take on family and whether or not on the choice to get married.
Go Back Couple for its road to reconciliation theme as result of burnout in the marriage.
And My Unfamiliar Family for its family dynamic.

It has to be Reply 1988 see above @unit for the reasons why😊 I came in for 5 and stayed for everything else.

Honourable mention; I am with @dramaddictally and want to add Yumi’s cells it was such a unique concept and was hysterically funny because it was so relatable.

As a self proclaimed fan of good slice of dramas, what an impossible task of chosing only one.

Dear My Friends
Live (the most slice of life police themed drama)
Age of Youth
Reply 1988
My Liberation Notes (this one is quite there though it’s rare to see handsome sane guy with no identity around you, but the personal struggle and conversations of 3 siblings are deeply relatable)

Nah, couldn’t chose one.

gosh only picking one???? this is tough! there's too many solid slice of life dramas out there!

if I were to pick one, it would be Our Beloved Summer. I dont know why it struck me hard despite never having been in a relationship in real life but I loved the way they portrayed Yeon-su & Ung's relationship along with the fact that I was able to strongly relate to the SML, esp when he said "It looks like im not the main character of this story" when I tell you the shock i felt rang through my bones :')

Several lines in the show was so poignant and the setting was gorgeous. Something about the vibes made it so soft & innocent
(just like summer AOISJOIAHF)

I’m so happy to see my most favorite slice of life dramas to be getting so much love in this post.

Reply 1988 and My Liberation Notes are simply a masterpiece.

Dear, My Friends
When the Camelia Blooms
Misaeng
Black Dog
My Mister
My Liberation Notes
Hospital Playlist
Be Melodramatic
Black Dog
Diary of a Prosecutor
Our Blues
Move To Heaven
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
Racket Boys
Prison Playbook
Our Beloved Summer
Because This is My First Life
When the Weather is Fine
It's Okay Not to Be Okay
My Unfamiliar Family
Live

This is my favorite genre, so it's difficult to pick just one among the ones I have watched.

I pick Prison Playbook because it was so good from start to end. I laughed a lot, but cried a lot too (and crying took me by surprise). So many endearing characters played by really good actors. "Found family" and deep friendship.

Honourable mentions:
Misaeng, Twenty-five twenty-one, Hospital Playlist (1 and 2), Yumi's cells (1 and 2), At a distance, spring is green, Age of Youth (I prefer Season 2), My unfamiliar family, Into the ring, Weightlifting Fairy, Girls Generation 1979, Eun Joo's room, and I don't know if FBNDoor, Hit the top and Weak Hero Class 1 count...
Mini dramas as To Jenny, The Happy Loner, or Understanding of dance are good examples of slice-of-life too.

Be Melodramatic was in my head the moment i saw the title. My Unfamiliar Family is a close second because though this drama was near perfection, it’s a bit on the heavy side - i prefer happier themed dramas.

I love my Reply series but never really thought of it as a slice of life..

I've long known that I'm not a slice-of-life drama fan. I find them either boring or frustrating, except when exactly as @mistyisles mentioned the characters truly grab me. But looking through the comments makes me wonder, because most of these shows I don't count as slice-of-life. So I will just sit this one out.

anything with adorable parents and home scenes.

I had just started Reply 1988 again for the fifth time yesterday ( and I dont mean rewatch snippets, I am going all in .. maybe slowly) so this is my top slice of life. I don't think there are other kdramas I had ever rewatch more than 2 times.

The top as in excellent slice of life but I dont want to rewatch because those are painful.
Misaeng

Reply 1988! I kinda liked Our Blues as well, if it qualifies

THE INTEREST OF LOVE

In my own personal categories, slice of life is a bit narrower of a genre than some others (and tbh, not at all my favorite genre). If a drama leans more toward healing (My Ajusshi) or romance (Our Beloved Summer) or black comedy (Prison Playbook), I'll put them in those categories before I'll call it "slice-of-life".

For that reason, it's absolutely Reply 1988 for me. I've only watched it for the first time quite recently, and I was really surprised how much I loved it. I'm not old enough to be really nostalgic for the 80s, not Korean enough not to have to look up the famous people mentioned, and much too private to want my neighbors crashing into my house constantly, but I was totally taken in by the world of this show anyway. The five friends are obviously the best, but I loved their parents too and was sometimes more moved by their struggles. Taek and his dad have one of the best relationships and I was always elated when it was their turn to take center stage. I didn't even mind the grown-up interludes after a while (at first it seemed like they were totally different people, but they sort of relaxed into it and so did I). I'm not sure if I'll go back to it for a while (pretty big time commitment!), but I really enjoyed the watch more than I was expecting to.

"Slice of life" is a genre of film and television that focuses on the daily lives of its characters. The main focus is their relationships with other characters and their environment, rather than any sort of overarching plot. Simple. Straight forward. Relationships over melo, dramatic twists or crime situations.

By that narrow spectrum, TO: JENNY would be my short series pick. It was solely about the characters dreams and emotions.

For a regular series (ironically cut short because of low ratings), BEST CHICKEN was about youthful characters making decisions at a critical point in their lives. WHEN THE CAMELLIA BLOOMS could have fit into this category but it had the murder mystery element.

I'll go with Ruler of Your Own World here - the characters felt so refreshingly real and messy and interesting, with lots of quirky, carefully observed details of the world around them.

Is Run On considered slice of life? It has less plot than most kdramas (like my husband found it boring), and by the end I enjoyed it just because I got to spend time with the characters. They felt like my friends.

I’m going way out and saying “Live.” The slice of life drama about a police precinct was done so well, it still haunts me. More than Reply 1988. I’m not a big slice of life genre fan, apparently. None of them have made it to my top 10 list. 😂

Answer Me 1988
Dear My Friends
My Unfamiliar Family

At 18

To pick one is so hard... I will go with When the Weather Is Fine. I liked the different characters, the country side, the Winter season and the book club!

Reply 1997 if I only can choose one but it's impossible not to mention Le Coup de Foudre.

Misaeng, My Liberation Notes, and My Ajusshi would be my list.

After reading this thread, I am both less sure what "slice of life" means and more sure that it's generally not my thing.

I’ve always considered Would You Like a Cup of Coffee? to be a slice-of-life drama… Am I wrong about that? If I’m correct, then I would suggest it as my favorite.

Not my one-pick, but gotta throw in an oldie in there - Fermentation Family. I think it's one of my earliest kdrama slice of life dramas. It starred Park Jin hee and Song Il Kook and was very heartwarming. And quiet. Sometimes, it was almost like watching some food documentary. The shots of the food were gorgeous

Learned about the various kinds of kimchi!

Maybe is because this is my favorite genre, but I really can't pick.

I mean we have masterpieces like My Ahjussi, Misaeng, Fight For My Way, Run On, You're My Spring, Yu Mi's Cells, Age of Youth, 25-21, Just Between Lovers (well, idk if it is slice of life or melo or both), My Liberation Notes, Live, Love Affairs in the Afternoon, etc, and you're telling me to pick? 🥺
Maybe my favorite slice of life drama per year (even tho I can't pick between 2521 and MLN for 2022), but in general? Impossible.

Usually slice of life dramas and movies put me to sleep, but I have to give major props to Let's Eat 1 for making this genre interesting and watchable. For an animated movie that also fits this genre and has one of my favorite movie endings of all time, please watch "Omohide Poro (Only Yesterday)". It's made by Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli, and perhaps more importantly, is based on a novel. I tend to trust dramas and movies based on novels and comics because the stories have more structural integrity and are less likely to off the rails and have a rushed ending. One of the things that sets novels apart from dramas is that the ending is as important to the creator and tends to be as well-crafted as the beginning is. And to echo an above comment, Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda is another especially well done slice of life animated movie.

There's a new slice-of-life drama in contention. 'One Day Off' currently 4 episodes released out of eight. Its the most eclectic piece of film making I've seen in a very long time. Its more an extended indi film than a K-drama. Sort'a like Wes Anderson meets Hong Sang-soo.

Our Blues.

Slice of Life dramas are probably my favourite genre, and there are so many outstanding shows that fall into this category -- and I'm sure everyone else will love them. But for me, there was something about Our Blues that just raised it head and shoulders above everything else. It may well be my favourite drama of all time. Fabulous ensemble acting. Fantastic range of omnibus stories. Brilliant setting -- not the Jeju of tourists, honeymooners and holiday makers, but the lives of working class Jeju islanders who were born and had grown up on the island. Some of them had been the beneficiaries of the Korean economic miracle -- others continued to struggle and eke out a living as best they could,

I can't recommend this show highly enough. If you've never watched it, give it a shot.

I think of “slice of life” as being the depiction of everyday people living ordinary lives. That would automatically exclude dramas with aspects of sci-fi or fantasy—unless the fantasy element is used as a creative means to depict an ordinary life (a great example being YUMI’S CELLS).

For me, the best slice-of-life dramas are the ones that convey a strong sense of a specific place, and perhaps a specific time period. With non-generic characters.

And I generally think of slice-of-life dramas as ensemble pieces. Though there might be a central character or couple, we would see them in the context of their day-to-day experience, which would typically involve friends, family, co-workers, etc.

I have not yet watched REPLY 1988 or any of the shows in the series (gasp!), but it sounds like the perfect definition of “slice-of-life.”

Of the shows I HAVE seen, I’d probably pick BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST LIFE as my overall favorite in this (or any) genre. MY LIBERATION NOTES as the runner up. Special mention goes to OUR BLUES, which I think does a spectacular job of conjuring a wide cross-section of a community in a very specific place.

As much as I adore MISAENG, once you have Geu-Rae chasing swindlers across rooftops in some exotic locale, it no longer qualifies as a slice-of-life drama in my book.

Two words: Be Melodramatic!

Like, if I had to bankroll a season of this drama, shut up and take my money!!!
I love the drama so freaking much. Like, how can a drama be so meta, sarcastic, irony and on the nose at the same time? Even with the PPL scenes 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Another drama that is on par with this is Age of Youth and please drama God's, let there be a Season 3 or at least a good fanfic! 😭😭😭