5 K-Dramas that are so bad that they are just the best guilt watch: Oh My Venus to Cafe Minamdang

Let’s be honest, we all have that one K-drama we secretly love but would never recommend to anyone. Maybe it’s overly dramatic, painfully cheesy, or features the most frustrating male lead in K-drama history. And yet... you couldn’t stop watching.

So, in the spirit of guilty pleasures, here are 5 K-dramas you should never recommend to anyone (even if you secretly rewatch them when no one’s looking).

At its core, Oh My Venus follows Kang Joo-eun, a once-glamorous lawyer in her thirties who’s just been dumped after a 15-year relationship. Ouch. She crosses paths with Kim Young-ho, a swoon-worthy celebrity trainer with his own emotional scars, and decides it’s time to reclaim her health  and maybe her self-worth with his help.

Now, here’s where it gets messy: the series tries to juggle body positivity, romantic comedy, trauma healing, and fitness glow-ups... but ends up doing none of them especially well. The fat suit is questionable at best, cringey at worst, and the show’s idea of ‘health’ leans dangerously close to “thin = worthy.” You’ll roll your eyes at some of the tropes, sigh at the predictability, and groan at the cliché-rich flashbacks.

But admit it,  you still watched it for the warm banter, the cozy slow-burn romance, and So Ji-sub working out in tank tops while emotionally unavailable. We all did.

Verdict: It’s a hot cup of guilty pleasure that preaches fitness, flirts with body-shaming, and somehow still ends up on your comfort-watch list.

This one, starring Seo In-guk, spirals so wildly into zany chaos and head-scratching absurdities that you're never quite sure where the murder mystery ends and the fever dream begins. The plot twists? Unhinged. The logic? Nowhere to be found. And yet... some of us (ahem, guilty) still sat through it all — because, honestly, that ridiculously cute romance between In-guk and Oh Yeon-seo is impossible to resist. Nothing else really makes sense, but you'll still find yourself watching it late at night, under the covers, whispering “just one more episode.

 It’s been three years, and this show still has viewers divided. Was Song Kang really just a player? Did Han So-hee settle for less? What was the real deal? Honestly, it doesn’t matter — because you’ll still sit through all those episodes filled with longing gazes and silent stares, no matter how frustrated you get. But recommending it to others? That’s a harder sell. Not everyone has the patience for Song Kang’s emotional confusion.

With a title like that, do you expect us to say more? But it’s enormous amount of fun, and despite all the mixed reviews, people still slot it as one of their comfort-watches. Eh, why not. Nine-tailed foxes afraid of falling in love, sure why not. And a girl who keeps tripping and falling into his arms.

Sold.

We’re not judging you for watching this, or are we. Let’s be real — The Bride of Habaek had all the ingredients for a deliciously addictive fantasy K-drama: a water god, a feisty human woman, divine missions, and mystical stones. A spinoff of Bride of the Water God, it hit our screens 11 years after the original — and promised big divine energy. But somewhere between the godly glances and half-baked mythology, the plot got lost in its own glitter. It tried to juggle romance, fantasy, comedy, and drama — and ended up doing none of them particularly well. Pretty? Yes. Cohesive? Not so much.