Nice to Not Meet You (2025) official poster
📺 K-Drama Guide · Romance · Comedy

Nice to Not Meet You

얄미운 사랑 · 2025
✅ Completed · 16 eps
🎬 Prime Video · TVING
⭐ 7.4 / 10 MDL
📅 15+
⚡ Updated · Apr 23, 2026

📋 Drama Overview

Everything you need to know before you hit play.

Nice to Not Meet You (2025) official poster
Completed
💗 Rom-Com Pick
Nice to Not Meet You
얄미운 사랑 (Yalmiun Sarang) · 2025 · South Korea
WriterJung Yeo Rang
DirectorKim Ga Ram
Episodes16 eps · ~70 min each
⏱️ Binge Time18h 40m
AiredNov 3 – Dec 30, 2025
GenreRomance · Comedy · Melodrama
Content Rating15+ (Teens 15 or older)

Prime Video
TVING
Enemies to Lovers
Entertainment Industry
Journalist
Anonymous Romance
Second Chances

Im Hyeon Jun (Lee Jung-jae) is South Korea’s most beloved detective on screen — four hit seasons of the same righteous cop role, millions of fans, and a soul that’s quietly suffocating under the weight of a typecast he can’t escape. He wants to do melodrama. He wants to cry on camera for once. What he gets instead is Wi Jeong Sin (Lim Ji-yeon): an award-winning political journalist who covered the wrong corruption story and got banished to the entertainment desk as punishment. She is furious. He is immediately fascinating to her in all the wrong ways.

What neither of them knows — not yet — is that they’ve been talking to each other for months. Hyeon Jun, online as “Melomaster,” and Jeong Sin, online as “Soulishere,” have been each other’s anonymous confidants: the one person they told the truth to. When the fiction of their online relationship collides with the hostility of their real one, the result is the kind of romantic comedy that earns its payoff because neither of them can pretend they don’t already know each other’s heart.

Episode Progress
16 / 16 ✅ Completed

⚡ Quick Verdict

One box. Everything you need to decide.

⭐ Worth it?YES — if you want a clever twist on enemies-to-lovers
⏱️ CommitmentVery High — ~19 hours total
💛 VibeWarm · Witty · Secretly Tender
📺 Skip if…You need the leads together by episode 8

⭐ 7.4 / 10
· MDL Score · 2,449 ratings

▶ Official Trailer

🎭 Cast & Characters

Twelve performances — from the typecast star to the journalist who sees right through him.

Lee Jung-jae as Im Hyeon Jun in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Lee Jung-jae
Im Hyeon Jun

Lead

Lim Ji-yeon as Wi Jeong Sin in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Lim Ji-yeon
Wi Jeong Sin

Lead

Kim Ji-hoon as Ju Jae Hyeong in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Kim Ji-hoon
Ju Jae Hyeong

Supporting

Seo Ji-hye as Yoon Hwa Yeong in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Seo Ji-hye
Yoon Hwa Yeong

Supporting

Oh Yeon-seo as Kwon Se Na in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Oh Yeon-seo
Kwon Se Na

Supporting

Choi Gwi-hwa as Hwang Ji Sun in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Choi Gwi-hwa
Hwang Ji Sun

Supporting

Kim Hyun-jin as Im Seon U in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Kim Hyun-jin
Im Seon U

Supporting

Na Young-hee as Song Ae Sook in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Na Young-hee
Song Ae Sook

Supporting

Jin Ho-eun as Wi Hong Sin in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Jin Ho-eun
Wi Hong Sin

Supporting

Jeon Seong-woo as Park Byung Gi in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Jeon Seong-woo
Park Byung Gi

Supporting

Jeon Soo-kyeong as Oh Mi Ran in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Jeon Soo-kyeong
Oh Mi Ran

Supporting

Kim Jae-chul as Lee Dae Ho in Nice to Not Meet You (2025)
Kim Jae-chul
Lee Dae Ho

Antagonist

🍿 Where to Watch

Stream Nice to Not Meet You on these platforms.

📺 Episode Guide

All 16 episodes — spoiler-light recaps to help you follow along or decide where to jump back in.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 1 — The Setup
EP 01
The Setup
Nov 3, 2025 · tvN
Im Hyeon Jun has lived quietly for years until a student film unexpectedly pulls him back into the spotlight. Seven years into his detective franchise, he is nationally loved and creatively trapped. Undercover reporter Wi Jeong Sin enters his orbit with an agenda — and the first collision between them sets the tone for everything that follows.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 2 — War Declared
EP 02
War Declared
Nov 3, 2025 · tvN
After a heated red carpet confrontation, Jeong Sin is reassigned to the entertainment desk and wastes no time exposing one of Hyeon Jun’s secrets. Furious at the breach, he has her removed from a press event — and Jeong Sin vows this is only the beginning.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 3 — Unwanted Complications
EP 03
Unwanted Complications
Nov 10, 2025 · tvN
Hyeon Jun begins to spiral from the public fallout just as his mother Ae Sook shows up unannounced and makes everything worse. Hwa Yeong spots Hyeon Jun at the hospital with Jeong Sin — and uses what she sees to dangle an enticing deal in front of Jeong Sin’s career ambitions.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 4 — Collateral Damage
EP 04
Collateral Damage
Nov 10, 2025 · tvN
Jeong Sin’s investigation into an adult film story inadvertently connects Ae Sook — whom she’d spotted near Hyeon Jun — to the piece. When the article goes live, it detonates consequences that ripple through everyone’s lives, forcing both leads to reckon with the real costs of their professional war.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 5 — The Jealousy Problem
EP 05
The Jealousy Problem
Nov 17, 2025 · tvN
Hyeon Jun heads to a stadium hoping — though he would never admit it — that Jeong Sin will show up. She does. But when she greets Jae Hyeong with obvious warmth, Hyeon Jun is blindsided by a feeling he cannot name, let alone explain.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 6 — Forced Together
EP 06
Forced Together
Nov 17, 2025 · tvN
During a rice cooker product shoot, Jeong Sin impulsively admits on camera that she is a fan of Hyeon Jun — visibly moving him. A hospital story breaks shortly after and forces the two into an uneasy collaboration, the electric kind where both parties are trying very hard to pretend there is nothing electric about it.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 7 — Why She Did It
EP 07
Why She Did It
Nov 24, 2025 · tvN
Jeong Sin faces a defamation lawsuit after publishing the Yoon Jung Ho scandal story. Hyeon Jun pressures her to issue a public apology — but as the truth about Yoon gradually surfaces, Jeong Sin’s real motive for pursuing the story becomes clear, and Hyeon Jun’s certainty about her starts to crack.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 8 — The Crossroads
EP 08
The Crossroads
Nov 24, 2025 · tvN
Jeong Sin confronts Hyeon Jun about his connection to Yoon Jung Ho — only to be blindsided by a plan she never saw coming. Meanwhile, Jae Hyeong asks her on a date, putting her at a romantic crossroads she isn’t sure she wants to face.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 9 — The Reveal
EP 09
The Reveal
Dec 1, 2025 · tvN
The episode the entire series has been building toward. Jeong Sin finally arranges to meet “Melomaster” — her anonymous online confidant — and discovers that Byeong Gi has been impersonating Hyeon Jun. At the same time, Hyeon Jun learns that “Soulishere,” the person he has been confiding in for months, is Jeong Sin. Everything they thought they knew about the other person rearranges itself.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 10 — Aftermath
EP 10
Aftermath
Dec 1, 2025 · tvN
The shockwave from the reveal doesn’t pass quickly. Both Hyeon Jun and Jeong Sin are forced to sit with what they now know — that they chose each other in the dark, before they had any reason to. The emotional processing of that reality drives this quieter, more tender episode.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 11 — Closing In
EP 11
Closing In
Dec 8, 2025 · tvN
Tensions escalate as outside forces — the media, their careers, and the people around them — start closing in on the leads’ tentative new dynamic. The line between rivalry and something more continues to blur, and the show begins threading its secondary plot threads toward convergence.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 12 — The Confession
EP 12
The Confession
Dec 8, 2025 · tvN
Hyeon Jun finally tells Jeong Sin everything — his feelings, his intentions, the full truth of their anonymous correspondence. The confession leaves her overwhelmed and uncertain. But she takes the brave first step: she asks to meet. Something real between them becomes possible for the first time.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 13 — Enter Se Na
EP 13
Enter Se Na
Dec 15, 2025 · tvN
New complications arrive in the form of Kwon Se Na, Hyeon Jun’s globe-trotting superstar ex, who re-enters his life at exactly the wrong moment. Jeong Sin navigates the unwanted scrutiny of being linked to one of South Korea’s biggest stars while trying to protect something fragile that hasn’t quite become what she hopes it will.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 14 — Career Crossroads
EP 14
Career Crossroads
Dec 15, 2025 · tvN
Hyeon Jun pursues his dream of landing a melodrama role in earnest, while Jeong Sin wrestles with whether returning to political journalism is a reclamation or an escape. External forces — Jae Hyeong, Se Na, and the looming Lee Dae Ho situation — press in from all sides.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 15 — Convergence
EP 15
Convergence
Dec 29, 2025 · tvN
All subplots accelerate toward resolution. Seon U’s acting ambitions, Hong Sin’s friendship dynamics, and the full scope of Lee Dae Ho’s corrupt dealings start converging — clearing the path for the finale to focus on what actually matters. Both leads face their final professional and personal tests.

Nice to Not Meet You Episode 16 — Known All Along
EP 16
Known All Along
Dec 30, 2025 · tvN
The finale. Hyeon Jun lands his melodrama role and steps out of the typecast that has defined him for years. Jeong Sin chooses to stay in entertainment journalism — not because she was pushed there, but because it turns out to be where she belongs. Justice arrives for Lee Dae Ho. And the two people who knew each other’s hearts before they knew each other’s faces finally close the distance between them for good.

🏁 Ending Explained

Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.

⚠️
Spoiler Warning — This section covers the full finale of Nice to Not Meet You. Stop here if you haven’t finished the series.

The Two Things That Change Everything. Episode 15 clears the decks — Lee Dae Ho’s corruption is fully exposed, the legal machinery around Jae Hyeong’s family finally starts moving, and Hyeon Jun gets the call he has been waiting years for: a melodrama casting offer, the role he always wanted. Jeong Sin, meanwhile, sits with a question she has been avoiding — not whether to return to politics, but whether she left that desk out of courage or out of defeat. The finale enters with both leads at their clearest, which is exactly when dramas like this earn the right to let them choose each other properly.

Nice to Not Meet You (2025) Episode 15 — Convergence

What Jeong Sin Actually Decides. The choice the show has been threading since episode one — does Jeong Sin return to political journalism or stay in entertainment — resolves not as a capitulation but as a reclamation. She stays at the entertainment desk because she came to understand something true about herself there: she is a better journalist when the subjects are people rather than systems, and the stories she has broken since the demotion matter just as much. The show is careful to frame this as growth, not settling — the difference between a woman who was sent to the desk as punishment and one who chooses to remain because it is actually her.

What Hyeon Jun Gets Free From. The melodrama role is the show’s way of closing the loop on Hyeon Jun’s four-season identity trap. He doesn’t just land the part — he goes through a read-through scene in the finale where the audience sees exactly what he’s capable of outside the detective archetype. The creative relief on Lee Jung-jae’s face in that moment functions both as character resolution and as a quiet meta-commentary on what it means for an actor of his stature to take a rom-com at all: not a step down, not a departure, but an expansion.

Nice to Not Meet You (2025) Episode 1 — The Setup

Why the Anonymous Thread Was the Point All Along. The finale’s most resonant note is the quietest one: the confirmation that Hyeon Jun and Jeong Sin, who met online as strangers and chose each other there with no advantage of fame or status or rivalry to lean on, chose right. Their real-life relationship began as antagonism because neither of them knew they were already in love. The show circles back to that irony without underlining it too heavily — they were nice to each other, and honest with each other, before they ever had to be. That’s the reason it holds.

✍️ KDramaWorlds Editor’s Take

Our honest read on why this drama is worth your time — and who it’s for.

💗 Warm Enemies-to-Lovers🎬 Entertainment Industry Insider💌 Anonymous Romance😄 Sharp Comedy✨ Slow Burn Payoff

The first question Nice to Not Meet You has to answer is whether Lee Jung-jae doing romantic comedy works — and the answer is yes, immediately, and surprisingly fully. He is so thoroughly associated with intensity (most recently, obviously, Squid Game) that watching him play a man who is secretly, helplessly falling for someone while pretending to be annoyed by her is a genuine recalibration. He plays the comedy with a lightness that suggests he was waiting for permission to do this. Lim Ji-yeon meets him at every beat: her Wi Jeong Sin is quick, funny, and carries the kind of professional grievance that comes across as completely earned rather than just plot machinery. The two of them together are better than the script needs them to be, which is the best thing you can say about a rom-com lead pairing.

Nice to Not Meet You (2025) — cinematic still

The anonymous online confidant mechanic — two people who are rivals in real life and each other’s emotional safe harbour online — is the smartest structural choice the show makes. It gives the drama a second story running underneath the surface one, and the Episode 9 reveal lands because the show has been patient enough to earn it. Where Nice to Not Meet You is less disciplined is in its secondary plot: the Lee Dae Ho corruption thread and Jae Hyeong’s family backstory eat screen time that the show would have used better on the main romance. If you have watched Doctor Slump or King the Land, you will recognise this pattern — tvN warm rom-coms that are at their best when the secondary drama stays light and at their worst when it insists on being meaningful.

Director Kim Ga Ram, who also made Good Partner, brings the same tonal confidence here — she knows when to let scenes breathe and when to cut before a moment tips into sentimentality. The entertainment industry backdrop gives the show more texture than the average office rom-com: there are jokes about typecast actors, real observations about how journalism and celebrity coexist, and the satisfaction of watching a show that actually understands the industry it is set in. If the ending is warm rather than spectacular, that feels intentional — this is a drama about two people who wanted less chaos in their lives, and the finale gives them exactly that. It earns its happy ending by not asking for too much.

👍👍👍 BEST FOR 👍👍👍
💌 Fans of anonymous / pen-pal romance premises
🎬 Anyone curious to see Lee Jung-jae outside of intense roles
😄 Viewers who want a rom-com with actual wit, not just cute moments

⚖️ Final Verdict
What works
Lee Jung-jae’s against-type charm — effortless and genuinely funny
The anonymous online romance mechanic is clever and earns its Episode 9 payoff
Lim Ji-yeon holds the comedy and the emotion in equal measure
Entertainment industry backdrop adds real texture and self-awareness

What to know first
Secondary corruption plot drags in the back half — it’s a real pacing cost
Romance payoff takes a long time — patience required past episode 10
Se Na’s re-entry in episode 13 feels like an obligation, not a story need
16 episodes at 70 min each — that’s nearly 19 hours, which is a real commitment for a comedy

7.4 / 10Watch it for Lee Jung-jae doing something new — and stay for the reveal that earns the whole slow burn.

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