Gimbap and Onigiri

About this title

A TV Tokyo drama about the romance between a Korean graduate student who comes to Japan to study animation and a part-timer at a neighborhood Japanese restaurant, released worldwide on Netflix at the same time as its terrestrial broadcast.

Gimbap and Onigiri (キンパとおにぎり〜恋するふたりは似ていてちがう〜) aired in 10 episodes from January 12 to March 16, 2026, in TV Tokyo’s Drama Premiere 23 slot. Its regular time slot was Mondays at 11:06 p.m., and it was also broadcast on TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TV Setouchi, TV Hokkaido and TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting. Each episode was made available on Netflix at the same time as its terrestrial broadcast, as a worldwide exclusive among subscription streaming services. The first part of the original title means “gimbap and onigiri.” TV Tokyo described the series as a romance between two people of different nationalities, much like these two dishes, which look alike and use similar ingredients but taste different. Netflix Korea rates it 12+.

Taiga Hase, played by Eiji Akaso, suffered a setback in track and field in college and now spends his days working part-time at Tanomi, a Japanese restaurant. Rin Park, played by Kang Hye-won, is a graduate student who has come from Korea to study animation. Forced to move out of her dormitory and struggling to find a place to live, Rin meets Taiga at Tanomi, and their bond begins with the onigiri he serves her. The series marked Kang Hye-won’s first appearance in a Japanese terrestrial drama, and she handled a large amount of dialogue in Japanese.

Moon Ji-hoo plays Kang Jun-ho, who stays by Rin’s side and supports her; Mai Fukagawa plays Masumi Miyauchi, Taiga’s girlfriend from his school days; and Mitsuru Fukikoshi plays Shigeo Taguchi, the owner of Tanomi. Rin Kataoka plays Noa Somejima, a regular at Tanomi, and Shodai Fukuyama plays her boyfriend, Akinori Oba, while Seo Hye-won plays a friend who cheers Rin on from Korea and Bang Eun-hee plays Rin’s mother. According to Fukikoshi, Tanomi is a fictional restaurant: a closed soba shop on a shopping street in Oji was rented and refitted for the drama.

The series has an original screenplay and is not based on an existing work. Yukiko Sode and Yoshitatsu Yamada were credited with series composition; the scripts were written by Lee Nawon, Yoshitatsu Yamada, Chisato Yokoo and Miyuki Hatanaka; it was directed by Hirokawa Hayashida, Miyuki Hatanaka and Ryota Koyama; and it was produced by TV Tokyo and BABEL LABEL. BABEL LABEL producer Kimitaka Goka said that nearly two years had passed since the project began, and that because the work brought together people of different languages and backgrounds, it was a process of constant trial and error. The music is by Korean singer-songwriter Jeon Jin Hee. The theme song is aespa’s “In Halo,” the group’s first theme song for a Japanese drama, which was first unveiled in the broadcast of episode 1. The insert song is NCT WISH’s “Same Sky,” and the ending song is Masanori Otoda’s “shiawase no iro” (幸せの色). On January 7, five days before the premiere, a production press conference attended by Akaso and Kang Hye-won was held in Seoul. There, Kang said that starting two months before she left for Japan, she prepared, and that she was given audio files recording the Japanese pronunciation, which she listened to every morning as soon as she woke up.

Drama Lineup editors · Fact-checked against: news.tf.co.kr, tv-tokyo.co.jp, netflix.com · 2026-10-24