I Am Not a Robot

Everything you need to know before you hit play.

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I Am Not a Robot

로봇이 아니야 (Robosi Aniya) · 2017 · South Korea

WriterKim Sun-mi, Lee Seok-joon

DirectorJung Dae-yoon

Episodes32 eps · ~35 min each

Where to Watch✅ Netflix, Viki, Prime Video, Apple TV+, OnDemandKorea

⏱️

Binge Time18h 40m

AiredDec 6, 2017 – Jan 25, 2018

GenreRomantic Comedy · Sci-Fi · Drama

Content RatingTV-14

MBCNetflixVikiPrime VideoApple TV+OnDemandKorea

RobotHidden IdentityHealingChaebolLove Triangle

One box. Everything you need to decide.

The unlikely cast that turns a robot-disguise premise into something genuinely tender.

Yoo Seung-ho

Kim Min-kyu

Lead

Chae Soo-bin

Jo Ji-ah / Aji 3

Lead

Uhm Ki-joon

Hong Baek-gyun

Supporting

Park Se-wan

Pi

Supporting

Song Jae-ryong

Hoktal

Supporting

Ko Gun-han

Ssanip

Supporting

Seo Dong-won

Jo Jin-bae

Supporting

Lee Min-ji

Hwang Seon-hye

Supporting

Kang Ki-young

Hwang Yoo-cheol

Supporting

Hwang Seung-eon

Ye Ri-el

Supporting

Yoon So-mi

Hong Joo

Supporting

Lee Han-seo

Jo Dong-hyeon

Supporting

Spoiler-light recaps — enough to remember where you left off, nothing that ruins the ride.

EP 01

I Am Not a Robot

Dec 6, 2017

Kim Min-kyu hasn’t touched another person in years — his allergy turns any skin contact into a medical emergency, so he orders a custom humanoid companion instead of a human one. Professor Hong Baek-gyun’s underfunded robotics team promises delivery of Aji 3, built in the image of struggling inventor Jo Ji-ah. Before robot meets buyer, Ji-ah and Min-kyu collide in person over a defective product — two strangers already sizing each other up as adversaries.

EP 02

Episode 2

Dec 7, 2017

A spilled beer short-circuits Aji 3 hours before delivery, and Professor Hong has no backup plan except his ex-girlfriend. Ji-ah, still owed money and out of better options, agrees to walk into Min-kyu’s mansion pretending to be the machine she was designed to resemble. The eccentric house rules waiting for her — no unscripted words, no visible emotion — turn out to be the easy part.

EP 03

Episode 3

Dec 13, 2017

Ji-ah’s crash course in playing Aji 3 reveals just how isolated Min-kyu really is — a man who has scripted his own loneliness down to the letter. One slip almost gives her away, and she covers it the only way she can: by improvising a response no real robot would generate. Min-kyu notices. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s watching more closely than she’d like.

EP 04

Episode 4

Dec 14, 2017

When Min-kyu’s allergy flares into a full medical crisis, it’s Ji-ah — still in character as Aji 3 — who gets medication into him in time. He credits the robot with saving his life, and something in his guard drops that hasn’t dropped in years. For Ji-ah, watching him lower his defenses toward a lie is its own kind of complication.

EP 05

I Am Not a Robot

Dec 20, 2017

Min-kyu starts treating his robot less like an appliance and more like a confidante, assigning her ‘tests’ meant to map out human emotion. Every test is really just an excuse to spend more time with her, and Ji-ah knows it. Back at Santa Maria’s cramped lab, Professor Hong watches the arrangement stretch further past its expiration date than anyone planned for.

EP 06

I Am Not a Robot

Dec 21, 2017

A card castle becomes the episode’s quiet centerpiece — a childhood ritual Min-kyu abandoned long ago, rebuilt now with Aji 3’s patient help. It’s a small scene with a large implication: he can only be this vulnerable because he believes nothing he says can be judged or repeated. The safety is fake. The peace he feels from it isn’t.

EP 07

I Am Not a Robot

Dec 27, 2017

KM Financial’s boardroom politics intrude on the mansion’s bubble as Hwang Yoo-cheol and Hwang Do-won push harder for a takeover. Watching Min-kyu absorb that stress alone is what finally cracks Ji-ah’s composure — her sympathy stops reading like performance and starts reading like something real. The robot suit doesn’t come with a setting for genuine worry.

EP 08

I Am Not a Robot

Dec 28, 2017

Ji-ah’s brother Jin-bae starts asking questions she can’t answer honestly, closing in on the truth of where she disappears to every day. Inside the mansion, Min-kyu is fighting a stranger battle: reconciling real attraction with the fact that its object is supposed to be incapable of provoking his allergy at all. Neither problem has a clean solution.

EP 09

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 3, 2018

Min-kyu’s first love Ye Ri-el reenters his life with the kind of ease that only childhood familiarity allows, and suddenly a ‘normal’ relationship looks like an option again. It’s the contrast that stings — Ri-el gets to be human with him in ways Ji-ah, playing a machine, never can. For the first time, jealousy gives her feelings away more than any programming slip has.

EP 10

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 4, 2018

Professor Hong finally names what everyone’s been avoiding — Ji-ah is too emotionally tangled in this assignment, and it’s dangerous for all of them if the truth comes out now. He tries to pull back her hours with Min-kyu. Min-kyu’s dependence on ‘Aji 3’ has already outgrown anything a schedule change can fix.

EP 11

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 10, 2018

Small inconsistencies start adding up for Min-kyu, and he begins running his own tests on Aji 3 — not to understand her better, but to catch her out. Every question is a trap Ji-ah has to talk her way around in real time. This is the episode where the lie stops being sustainable and starts being a countdown.

EP 12

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 11, 2018

With the deadline closing in, Santa Maria’s engineers work around the clock to finish the real Aji 3 and swap her in before anyone notices. Ji-ah, meanwhile, keeps circling the idea of just telling Min-kyu the truth herself. She talks herself out of it every time — not out of cowardice, but because she isn’t sure his body can survive the shock.

EP 13

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 17, 2018

Min-kyu’s allergy symptoms measurably improve whenever Aji 3 is near, and he starts treating that data point like a diagnosis — she’s not just company, she’s the cure. It’s the best and worst thing that could happen to Ji-ah’s cover story. She’s healing him for real, using a lie, and there’s no version of the truth that doesn’t undo the progress.

EP 14

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 18, 2018

A social event Min-kyu can’t avoid puts his reliance on Aji 3 on full, public display — she reads the room for him, steers him through small talk, absorbs the moments he can’t. It works, visibly and warmly, in front of people who now have questions of their own. The more useful the lie becomes, the harder it gets to end.

EP 15

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 24, 2018

Min-kyu goes cold without warning, and Ji-ah has no way to ask why without breaking character. The real reason is one she can’t see from where she’s standing: he’s terrified of what it means that he has real feelings for something he still believes isn’t human. To him, distance feels responsible. To her, it just feels like losing him.

EP 16

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 25, 2018

Min-kyu lands on a solution only a man in deep denial could land on: reboot the robot, and the feelings should reset with her. Ji-ah hears the plan and hears rejection, full stop — there’s no version of ‘erase your memory of caring about me’ that doesn’t sound like goodbye. The reboot is symbolic, but the heartbreak underneath it is not.

EP 17

I Am Not a Robot

Jan 31, 2018

The actual Aji 3 finally comes online, and Professor Hong tries the swap he’s been building toward for weeks. Min-kyu can tell within minutes that something’s missing — not a malfunction, just an absence. Watching from a distance, Ji-ah understands for the first time that he was never in love with the concept of a robot. He was in love with her, disguise and all.

EP 18

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 1, 2018

Min-kyu’s body responds to Aji 3’s ‘absence’ the way it responds to any other threat — with a reaction severe enough to be a genuine medical emergency. It’s the clearest evidence yet that his allergy was never purely physical; it’s tied to loss and trust as much as to skin contact. Ji-ah watching from the sidelines finally has to reckon with how much danger her good intentions put him in.

EP 19

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 7, 2018

Ji-ah gets one last day inside the role, and she spends it trying to leave Min-kyu something more useful than a goodbye — small lessons about trusting people, about being worth loving without a robot’s help. Nothing she says out loud sounds like a farewell. Everything underneath it is.

EP 20

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 8, 2018

Grief makes Min-kyu observant in a way contentment never did — he starts noticing details that don’t add up about the robot he lost. The resemblance to a struggling inventor he once argued with over a broken product stops looking like coincidence. Piece by piece, without anyone confirming a thing, he starts building the truth himself.

EP 21

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 14, 2018

A chance run-in on a train forces Ji-ah back into character with zero preparation, and Min-kyu’s suspicion only sharpens from the encounter instead of fading. Outside the personal drama, Santa Maria’s illegal robotics project is running out of road — the Hwang family’s investigators are getting close enough to expose the whole operation. Two collapses are converging on the same timeline.

EP 22

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 15, 2018

The truth lands all at once, and Min-kyu’s body reacts before his mind can process it — the most violent allergic episode of the series, triggered by pure betrayal rather than touch. Every person he let close turns out to have been managing him. He retreats back into the isolation he’d only just started to leave, and this time it’s worse than before.

EP 23

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 21, 2018

Min-kyu cuts Professor Hong and the entire Santa Maria team out of his life in one furious, final conversation, done listening to any explanation. The physical symptoms haven’t caught up to how much he’s actually hurting. Ji-ah doesn’t fight the anger — she recognizes, better than anyone, exactly how much she earned it.

EP 24

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 22, 2018

Ji-ah tries, more than once, to get five minutes to explain herself, and Min-kyu isn’t ready to give her even one. The lie made sense from where she was standing when it started — desperate, broke, following her ex’s plan. From where he’s standing now, that context doesn’t soften anything.

EP 25

I Am Not a Robot

Feb 28, 2018

A health scare forces Min-kyu to stop running from how bad his condition has actually gotten, and the crisis pushes him back toward childhood memories he’s spent years avoiding. His allergy, he starts to realize, was never really about skin — it’s a body keeping score of every betrayal he never processed.

EP 26

I Am Not a Robot

Mar 1, 2018

Shut out directly, Ji-ah finds indirect ways to keep showing up for Min-kyu anyway — asking around, researching his trauma, doing the quiet work he’d never let her do to his face. None of it requires his permission or his forgiveness. It’s a strange kind of proof: love that keeps functioning even when it isn’t allowed in the room.

EP 27

I Am Not a Robot

Mar 7, 2018

Somewhere underneath the anger, Min-kyu starts admitting the obvious — none of this would hurt this much if he didn’t still care. The question shifts from whether Ji-ah betrayed him to whether he’s willing to risk his own body for a chance at getting this right. It’s not forgiveness yet. It’s the first crack that makes forgiveness possible.

EP 28

I Am Not a Robot

Mar 8, 2018

Legal consequences finally catch up to Santa Maria’s unauthorized robotics project, and Professor Hong takes the fall for the team without much hesitation. Watching that kind of loyalty in action recontextualizes the whole scheme for Min-kyu — reckless, illegal, and still built by people who mostly meant well.

EP 29

I Am Not a Robot

Mar 14, 2018

Min-kyu walks into the boardroom he spent years avoiding and dismantles the Hwang family’s takeover scheme in person, with receipts. It’s a version of him that couldn’t have existed at episode one — steady under pressure, willing to be seen. The allergy hasn’t disappeared, but it’s stopped running the show.

EP 30

I Am Not a Robot

Mar 15, 2018

Min-kyu goes public with the condition he’s spent his whole adult life hiding, turning years of private shame into a story other people might actually need to hear. It’s the loudest thing he’s ever done with the quietest voice. Ji-ah watches from the crowd, proud of a version of him she helped make possible.

EP 31

A New Beginning

Mar 21, 2018

Yoo-cheol finally learns what’s actually behind Min-kyu’s condition, and the knowledge changes his calculus heading into the board meeting that’s supposed to decide everything. Min-kyu, for his part, has stopped organizing his whole life around avoidance. He’s rebuilding relationships he’d written off, one handshake at a time, in the most literal sense the show has to offer.

EP 32

Final Episode

Mar 22, 2018

The allergy that defined every episode of this show simply lifts — Min-kyu can finally touch another person without his body treating it as an attack. He and Ji-ah make it official, this time with nothing left to hide from each other. Santa Maria gets to keep building robots, legally, and Yoo-cheol becomes a partner instead of an enemy. The ending doesn’t overcomplicate what it’s earned: a happy, ordinary life for a man who once thought that was impossible.

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

What actually happens By the finale, every dangling thread gets tied off cleanly: Min-kyu’s human allergy resolves for good, he and Ji-ah become an official couple with nothing left to hide, Professor Hong’s team keeps building robots under proper funding and oversight, and Yoo-cheol goes from rival to business partner. It’s a genre-first ending — earned less through plot mechanics than through the show finally letting its two leads be honest with each other in the same room.

The allergy was never just physical The mechanism behind the ‘cure’ is the whole point of the show, not an afterthought. Min-kyu’s allergy was never really an immune response — it was a body keeping a running tally of every person who let him down, starting long before Ji-ah ever put on a robot costume. Healing it required trust, not medicine, which is why a fake robot could accidentally start the process and only the real woman underneath could finish it.

Why the robot disguise had to fail The ‘reboot’ Min-kyu orders in episode sixteen is the show’s clearest tell that he already half-knows the truth — you don’t try to erase feelings for something you genuinely believe is just a machine. Ji-ah’s disguise was always going to collapse under its own logic: a robot convincing enough to fall in love with stops being a robot he can dismiss once the mask slips. The finale doesn’t undo that collapse. It just lets both of them finally say what the disguise was hiding.

Found family, the second time around Professor Hong’s redemption arc matters almost as much as the romance — a scientist who broke the law out of desperation gets to keep his life’s work specifically because he takes responsibility instead of running from it. Yoo-cheol’s shift from adversary to partner works the same way: forgiveness here isn’t about forgetting what someone did, it’s about choosing to build something with them anyway.

The KDW verdict I Am Not a Robot ends exactly the way its whimsical premise promised it would — sincerely, without irony, and without punishing its leads for how they got here. The show could have leaned harder into the sci-fi gimmick or the corporate thriller subplot; instead it keeps circling back to the same simple idea, that being truly seen is its own kind of cure. That’s a soft landing for a show built on a premise this strange.