September's Korean drama race is heating up fast, with summer premieres still racking up buzz even as a wave of new titles crashes into the mix. South Korean data firm GOODDATA Corporation's FUNdex tracker updated its latest "TV+OTT Drama BuzzWorthiness" chart on September 8, measuring news coverage, social media, video and forum activity from August 31 to September 6. Four Hands, Two Sonatas held onto first place with a 24.01 percent share, New Recruit Season 4: Sabotage came in a close second at 19.05 percent, and Mousetrap took third with 14.48 percent. Here is how the rest of the September buzz chart shook out, from number 10 down to number 1.
Number 10: Kim Hye Soo And Cho Yeo Jeong In The Affair Was Just The Beginning, 2.54 Percent
Kim Hye Soo and Cho Yeo Jeong headline this black comedy that spirals out from a marriage crisis. Kim plays Park Kyung Hee, an interior designer and entrepreneur who built her brand on a picture-perfect family image, while Cho plays her neighbor Ahn Soo Jung, a dermatologist tangled up in a divorce and custody fight. A shared secret pulls the two households together, and the affair at the center of the story quickly becomes the least of anyone's problems as things spiral further into absurdity. Viewers say the show's habit of topping itself episode after episode is its biggest hook, with several admitting they went in with zero interest in the premise and came out hooked from episode one, calling it one of the more distinctive dark comedies of the year.
Number 9: Kim Hye Jun And Kang Hoon In My Bias, My Boss, 3.50 Percent
My Bias, My Boss, starring Kim Hye Jun, Kang Hoon and Cha Woo Min, wrapped its 12-episode run on September 8. Kim plays Nam Da Reum, a fan who has followed the same idol for 12 years and takes a job at a fashion startup just to get closer to him, only to find herself spending far more time with Kang Hoon's character, company CEO Kang Ha Gi. What starts as a fangirl's dream turns into an office love triangle between idol, fan and boss. Reactions to the finale split down the middle, with some viewers calling it "exactly the kind of cliché I love" and others giving it a flat "meh" for how it handled the fan-meets-idol setup, though the chemistry between the two leads kept plenty of viewers watching to the end.
Number 8: Ahn Bo Hyun And Jung Eun Chae In Flex X Cop 2, 4.01 Percent
Ahn Bo Hyun returns as third-generation chaebol heir turned detective Jin Yi Soo, now formally trained at the police academy and back on the major crimes team, still treating his fortune and connections as investigative tools. Season two's biggest shakeup is the arrival of Jung Eun Chae as Joo Hye Ra, once Jin's academy instructor and now the unit's new team leader, flipping their old teacher-student dynamic into a boss-subordinate pairing. Swapping out part of the cast gave some season-one fans pause, but attention has shifted back to the cases themselves, with viewers noting the show has toned down Jin's over-the-top personality while keeping the "solve crimes with money" premise intact, and several said they simply enjoy this as a crime action series.
Number 7: Ha Seok Jin And An Hee Yeon In Love Comes, 5.03 Percent
Love Comes follows the weekend-drama playbook, starring Ha Seok Jin as Italian restaurant owner and chef Kim Moo Jin and An Hee Yeon as side-dish shop clerk Han Gyu Rin, former lovers who split under real-world pressure and reunite eight years later. The story widens from their rekindled romance into both families, weaving in old grudges, parental baggage and everyday struggles. Longtime drama fans joke that the show is "full of old tropes, but the tropes are used right," with the tone reminding some of long-running family dramas from the 2010s. Even viewers who admit the plot gets far-fetched say they cannot stop watching, with family secrets and misunderstandings pulling them further in.
Number 6: Hyun Bin And Jung Woo Sung In Made In Korea 2, 5.07 Percent
Made In Korea 2 climbed to sixth place on trailers, posters and season-one momentum alone before its September 9 premiere on Disney+. Picking up nine years after season one, Hyun Bin's Baek Ki Tae has risen to a more powerful perch, prosecutor Jang Geon Yeong, played by Jung Woo Sung, is gearing up to strike back, and Woo Do Hwan's Baek Ki Hyun enters the power struggle as a third player. Pre-premiere buzz has centered almost entirely on Hyun Bin and Jung Woo Sung resuming their season-one rivalry, with fans saying they are "so excited" and "loved the first season," and some going back to rewatch season one ahead of the new episodes.
Number 5: Seo Kang Joon And Ahn Eun Jin In A Love Other Than Yours, 5.20 Percent
A Love Other Than Yours, set to premiere September 12, jumped to fifth on the buzz chart before airing a single episode. Seo Kang Joon plays office worker Nam Goong Ho and Ahn Eun Jin plays film director Lee Mi Do, a couple ten years into a relationship where passion has given way to familiarity, obligation and routine trust. Just as they reach the fork between marriage and breakup, each meets someone new who reignites feelings they thought were settled. Anticipation for the pairing is high, but so is anxiety about the story: one fan said the "realistic romance" label already has them "bracing for an unhappy ending," while another called it "great casting, terrifying premise."
Number 4: Gong Hyo Jin And Jung Joon Won In A Bona Fide Killer, 6.75 Percent
A Bona Fide Killer pushes the working-mom archetype to an extreme. Gong Hyo Jin plays Ryu Bo Na, who looks like an ordinary mother back at work after parental leave but is secretly a legendary assassin for a covert organization that targets people who have escaped the law. Jung Joon Won plays her journalist husband, who has no idea about her double life yet keeps inching closer to the truth, setting family life and assassin missions on a collision course. Viewers who found the early episodes slow say things pick up fast, with one calling episode six's performance among the standout acting they have seen in Korean drama in nearly a decade, and others praising the way the show gives weight to a marriage built on mutual protection.
Number 3: Ryu Jun Yeol And Sul Kyung Gu In Mousetrap, 14.48 Percent
Netflix's Mousetrap, with all 10 episodes released at once, stars Ryu Jun Yeol as reclusive novelist Ji Moon Jae, who discovers his identity has been completely stolen, down to someone who looks exactly like him, and Sul Kyung Gu as a ruthless loan shark nicknamed "Old Man" who is chasing Ji for a debt before being forced to team up with him to find the truth. The show draws on a Korean folktale about a rat that eats a person's nail clippings and takes on their identity, turning that old fear of a double into a modern identity-theft thriller. Ryu playing both nearly identical characters is the most talked-about element, with viewers saying they kept guessing which one was really the rat, and some praised how distinctly different the two performances felt. The reception is not universal, with other viewers criticizing pacing and plot holes over the 10-episode run.
Number 2: Kim Min Seok And Lee Won Jung In New Recruit Season 4 Sabotage, 19.05 Percent
Military comedy franchise New Recruit returns for a fourth season. Kim Min Seok's Park Min Seok, once introduced as a "military brat" new recruit, has now risen to senior private, only for his unit to be shaken up by Lee Won Jung's mysterious new recruit Kim Hyun Wook and Lee Hyun Kyun's incoming battalion commander Byun Hyuk Jin. As the season unfolds, old tensions between Park and Kim from their own basic training days surface, layering in more character conflict on top of the barracks comedy. Korean viewers comparing the seasons say the first had a distinct "military repression plus comedy" flavor while season four leans into fuller storylines built around familiar "that's just how the military is" situations, calling both versions solid in their own way. The September 8 episode also pushed the show's national ratings to 4.4 percent, a franchise high.
Number 1: Song Kang And Lee Jun Young In Four Hands, Two Sonatas, 24.01 Percent
The week's top spot went to Song Kang and Lee Jun Young's Four Hands, Two Sonatas, now in its second straight week at number one. Set at an arts high school built around musical prodigies, Song plays Kang Bi Oh, a young pianist who has spent years pushing himself toward perfection under crushing pressure that his talent conceals. Lee plays Choi Jung Yo, who stepped away from formal music training after a childhood family upheaval but never fully let go of the piano. When the two teenagers, shaped by completely different backgrounds, personalities and playing styles, reunite, their rivalry turns into mutual growth, with friendship and music at the story's center. Four episodes in, reactions have run hot, with some viewers giving it a perfect score and praising the classical music choices, cinematography and the way the show captures teenage friendship, while others call the two leads' chemistry "top tier" and their scenes together "silly and endearing." Some discussion has also touched on whether the show carries romantic undertones between the leads, but many viewers say the first four episodes already exceeded their expectations.
YPEditor's note: The rankings in this article are drawn from the "TV-OTT Drama BuzzWorthiness" chart published by South Korea's GOODDATA Corporation through its FUNdex service, based on the weekly period the company officially reports. FUNdex tracks currently airing or available TV and OTT titles by analyzing news coverage, blogs, social media, forums, video platforms and other online activity, along with related audience reactions, to gauge each title's overall online buzz, expressed as a percentage share. These rankings reflect online discussion volume and visibility, not television ratings, viewership figures, award voting or audience approval scores.