Seo In-guk Dramas: First Love, Fantasy or a Dangerous Mystery?

Choose a Seo In-guk drama by mood: compare Reply 1997, Doom at Your Service, Cafe Minamdang and The Smile Has Left Your Eyes, with roles and a viewing route.

Seo In-guk — photograph (2021-06-01). Photo: Marie Claire Korea / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Original source. Scaled for display with no additional crop.

Start here: Reply 1997. Its friendship group lets Seo In-guk's Yoon Yoon-jae be funny, guarded and emotionally direct within a recognizable coming-of-age story. If school nostalgia does little for you, go straight to Doom at Your Service for fantasy romance or Cafe Minamdang for showy comic detective work.

Four routes, four different kinds of distance

Seo's characters do not all keep the same distance from other people. Yoon-jae struggles with familiar feelings; Myeol Mang stands outside ordinary human life; Nam Han-jun turns a public persona into a tool; Kim Moo-young is difficult even for the viewer to read. That makes tone a more useful starting point than treating every title as another version of the same romantic lead.

Series	Seo's role	Choose it when you want
Reply 1997	Yoon Yoon-jae, a member of a Busan friendship group	First love, family and 1990s nostalgia
Doom at Your Service	Myeol Mang, a supernatural being linked to destruction	Romance with existential stakes
Cafe Minamdang	Nam Han-jun, a former profiler posing as a shaman	A flamboyant comic investigation
The Smile Has Left Your Eyes	Kim Moo-young, a brewery worker with an unclear past	Uneasy attraction and mystery melodrama

Reply 1997: enter through friendship, not a plot reveal

tvN's official introduction places the story among six friends in a 1990s world shaped by H.O.T. and Sechs Kies fandom. Seo plays Yoon Yoon-jae opposite Jung Eun-ji's Sung Si-won. Their familiarity is a useful doorway: people who have known each other for years can still misunderstand what a relationship means.

Choose it for ordinary spaces filled with arguments, teasing and feelings that are easier to notice than to explain. You do not need encyclopedic idol knowledge to follow the friendships. Let the references establish the period and watch how the group behaves around them. Avoid searching for the answer to the adult romantic mystery before starting; the changing timeline is part of the show's structure.

Doom at Your Service: make room for impossible questions

Myeol Mang is associated with the disappearance and destruction of things. His path crosses Tak Dong-kyung, played by Park Bo-young, after her life is shaken by a serious diagnosis. tvN describes their relationship as a fantasy romance built around a life-risking contract.

This is the right branch if you enjoy watching an emotionally distant figure confront human attachments. The contract gives the romance a deadline and turns wishes into decisions with consequences. Choose it for longing and questions about what a finite life means. Its supernatural setting does not remove the weight of illness and possible loss; it lets the characters argue about those fears in a different form.

Cafe Minamdang: enjoy the performance inside the performance

Nam Han-jun is a former profiler who now presents himself as a shaman. KBS's casting announcement makes that fraudulent identity explicit. This is an important distinction from Doom: Han-jun's theatrical behavior is a human strategy rather than proof that he possesses supernatural powers.

Choose it for the pleasure of watching Seo sell a persona. Confidence, observation and the surrounding team drive the comedy as the investigation unfolds. The title's cafe is a base for activity, not a promise of an entirely peaceful coffee-shop romance. Its murder mystery puts darker material underneath the broad behavior, so expect deliberate changes of gear rather than one consistent cozy mood.

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes: save the hardest-to-read man for last

Kim Moo-young works at a craft brewery and keeps people uncertain about his thoughts and motives. tvN's character profile establishes his missing early memories and emotional detachment. His connection with Yoo Jin-kang draws romance into a mystery in which the past matters.

Pick this for an uneasy, serious melodrama. The appeal lies in judging small shifts of attention while remaining unsure what they mean. It asks for a different viewing mood from Minamdang's overt showmanship: here, the uncertainty around Seo's character is central. Start without an ending explanation, and leave it for another day if you mainly want reassuring romantic company.

Two quick questions and where to go next

Do I need to watch other Reply dramas first? No. Reply 1997 has its own central story and characters. It is a practical starting point for Seo's work without earlier series homework.

Which route should I continue after these? For more fantasy and contrasting romantic roles, use our Park Hyung-sik watchlist. If investigations are the main attraction, our Lee Je-hoon guide moves into Signal and Taxi Driver.

Explore more actors and viewing moods in our K-drama Watchlist Finder.

Role and premise sources checked on 28 October 2026. Streaming access can vary by country.