What Comes After Love

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Moving between spring in Japan five years ago and winter in present-day Korea, What Comes After Love is a melodrama about the love between Choi Hong and Jungo Aoki and the feelings left behind in its wake, a six-episode Coupang Play series based on the novel of the same name co-written by Gong Ji-young and Hitonari Tsuji.

Coupang Play released episodes 1 and 2 at 8 p.m. on September 27, 2024, then new episodes at 8 p.m. every Friday, with the final episode on October 25. Coupang Play listed its rating as suitable for ages 12 and up. In Japan, Prime Video streamed it exclusively, releasing episodes 1–3 on October 11, episode 4 on October 18 and episodes 5–6 on October 25, and the Japanese Prime Video page rates it 13+. The source is the 2005 novel of the same title, in which Korean author Gong Ji-young wrote from the point of view of the heroine, Hong, and Japanese author Hitonari Tsuji, known for Between Calm and Passion, wrote from the point of view of the hero, Jungo. The premise of Hong and Jungo being connected through a collection of Yun Dong-ju's poetry comes from the novel.

The series was directed by Moon Hyun-sung, who made the film As One (2012) and the Netflix film Seoul Vibe, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Jung Hae-sim. It was produced by Silver Lining Studio and CONTENTS SEVEN. Moon said that after finishing his first film, he was looking for his next project with his crew when a writer introduced him to the novel, and that he began preparing in earnest in 2015. For the first five years it was developed as a film, but the COVID-19 pandemic led him to turn it into a series, and explaining the situation to the authors and then restructuring the story took extra time, so it was nine years before it was released. He said that seeing Christmas in August as a high school student was what led him to filmmaking, and that melodrama had been the genre he admired since he was young. Filming began in Korea, and Hong and Jungo's first meeting was shot in Ueno, Tokyo, in April 2024. Kentaro Sakaguchi explained that they mainly filmed the past in Japan and the present in Korea.

Lee Se-young plays Choi Hong, and Kentaro Sakaguchi plays Jungo Aoki. Five years earlier, Hong, who has come from Korea to Japan for language study, and Jungo, a university student who dreams of becoming a novelist, meet for the first time in Japan, and five years later they run into each other again by chance in Korea. At the launch press conference, Lee said she focused above all on the changes in Hong's emotions, while Sakaguchi said that because the series focuses on the two characters' feelings rather than showing a great deal visually, he felt he had to play it with great delicacy. Hong Jong-hyun plays Min-jun, and Anne Nakamura plays Kanna.

It marks the first time Kentaro Sakaguchi has appeared in a drama made in Korea. At a press conference in Japan, he said he had initially worried that the experience he had built up might not carry over because of the language barrier, but that he came to realize that with the script as a guidepost, differences in culture and language hardly mattered. Describing the casting process, Moon said the production team had unanimously agreed on the principle that the lead role should go to Kentaro Sakaguchi. Lee said she regretted not having many chances to become close offscreen, but that the two often joked around using the bits of Japanese and Korean they each knew. Coupang Play announced that total viewing in the final week was up 783% from the first week. In August 2025, Sakaguchi won Best Lead Actor (Male) for the series at the Global OTT Awards of the International Streaming Festival.

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Drama Lineup editors · Fact-checked against: marieclairekorea.com, press.moviewalker.jp, nocutnews.co.kr, news.tf.co.kr, kisf.kr, news.coupang.com, amazon.co.jp · 2026-10-18