Kang doo surprised me by really being the softest marshmallow of a ML. I loved how much he respected and loved the women around him.

I really want to see Hwang In-hyub as the lead in a rom com.

Reminders of You're Beautiful just make me smile. It is a drama that seems to have left me with some left over affection for the actors in it. Not that I follow them but when I see them I remember the warmth of watching this one. Maybe because I watched in the earlier phase of my drama watching and I found such a happy show.

Ahh Junho was such tsundere perfection in Just Between Lovers 😍. And while I like the first 3 too, their hair is doing them no favours 😑.

Some of my favourite tsundere leads, though I'm probably playing with a loose definition of the term -
- Kim Ji-hoon in Wish Upon a Star
- Hyun Bin in Secret Garden
- Ryu Jun-yeol in Reply 1988
- Eric Mun in Another Miss Oh

When will we get a post on tsundere FLs?? Just asking :)!

"This drama made me a lifelong Junho fan" -- yes! Me too.

My nomination is Lee Min Ho, not for "Flowers," but rather for "Legend of the Blue Sea." He was just about as prickly as he could be in that one, while melty as a smore on the inside. I liked the juxtapose position of him and a love interest that was so naïve that she didn't understand most of his prickliness, but was able to melt him little by little until he was putty in her hands.

I don't really know if this character fits tsundere or not, and it's not from romance drama, but Han Taejoo from Life on Mars is quite cold to Go Ahsung's character (forget her name, sorry). In fact Han Taejoo is quite cold and stoic to everyone and we only get his smiles in later eps

oh what a delicious topic to talk and even more beautiful list... love these "5 Dramas" chat threads....

Hwang In-hyub... was a treat in True Beauty.... can we get him as male lead already... oh yes he is coming in HER... waiting for it desperately.

Tae Kyung... made me forever fan of JGS.. i still remember how I binged all his shows till that time when i watched You're beautiful.... JGS is still one of my fav oppas...

I'll add few of mine
1. SHR ML... can we consider it too ??? Wang So was no less than a marshmallow in front of IU.
(I am sure.. I'll bring SHR in every 5 drama category in future to come... this show has so much impact on my psyche that i cant forget abt it even for a mint)

2. Dali - Moo Hak... i can never forget Moo Hak who is softie inside but just fakes his grand persona outside when he is just a puppy in front of Dali.

almost paradise 🎶🎵

My favorite tsunderes are Baek Kyung (Lee Jae-wook) in Extraordinary You and Kwon Ryoc (Lee Jun-young) in Imitation.

I haven’t seen all of these but I loved Tae-kyung. He needed a hug.

I know it's been done a thousand times but I just love this character type! I definitely agree with Just Between Lovers, did no one else heart melt when Kang-doo went out to get medicine during their office work drinks? So cute!

Even I became a fan of junho after JBL. He played such a different character than the one from chief Kim.
As for my favourite tsundere, it will definitely be seo in guk from hello monster/I remember you. God he was rude, so rude initially but his cohabitation with jang nara and his protective older brother side with park bogum was such a delight to watch.

In this list, I won't advice to watch Boys Before Flowers, it wasn't really a good drama... But it's true that character is the epitom of tsundere, so other versions could be a good watch.

I don't have a lot of memories of Falling Innocence. But the casting was great.

You're Beautiful was really a nice drama about idols with great music. Jang Geun-seok was really good in this role and I loved the doll too!

I liked Just Between Lovers but I lost interest with the illness plot. It was too much. I don't really remember the ML as a tsundere.

I totally had a second male lead syndrom with True Beauty.

Tsundere characters depend a lot of the actors who act them. It was kinda a constant in old dramas, it's why second lead syndrom existed, they always were nicer...

My favourite ones? I don't really know...
Eric Mun in Discovery of Love
Yoo Ah-In in Sungkyunkwan Scandal (he was the second lead but in my head he was the first lead :p)
So Ji-Sub in Master's Sun
Jo Jung-Suk in Jealousy Incarnate

For me, it's Kim Jun Wan (Jung Kyung Ho's character) from Hospital Playlist. Scary and sarcastic on the outside, mushy marshmallow on the inside.

Kang-doo is definitely a different breed of tsundere lead, that I usually didn't categorize him as such. He is kind and caring and respectful, and not just towards the female lead, which was quite a rarity for a lead that appeared brash and rough.

Junho's Kangdo in JBL really set the bar high for tsundere MLs. I also liked Hwang Inyeob's Seojun because of the squabbling sibling energy he had with Jookyun. And also because he was a bit of a dummy, so funny 🤣
This said, I'm not very much into the tsundere archetype. Growing up in a fairly patriarchal society gave me enough jerks to study (suffer?) closely - I don't need them on my screen, thanks but no thanks

A very interesting list... I found every single one of them as pretty undateable in real life. There would be no way, I'd ever NOT get hurt by one of these goofs repeatedly, NOT get frustrated with their immaturity and pettiness and NOT get put off by their jerkiness. Why do women have to be mature and patient and understanding, and men -- misunderstood geniuses that express themselves in all sorts of very problematic ways? That would probably be one of the thoughts I'd have while dating one of these men. And, oh for sure, I'd think twice to have them as fathers of my children, which makes them not a very good material for long-term relationship. But as romantic heroes in fictional word? Yes, give me more, sigh, I'm caving in to my baser desires.

I was wondering if Yeo Jin‑goo as Han Joo‑won in Beyond Evil can come here??
Except of JBL, I haven't heard or seen others (ok I've seen true beauty on webtoon)
wait, boys over flowers I've heard, I had no clue there was 'boy before flower' too (not a min ho fan uk)
jung kyung ho I recognized, so, is that drama really good?

Just Between Lovers did indeed make me a lifelong fan of Junho as an actor. I have him as my profile picture for a reason lol. Kang-doo, to me, is the perfect archetype of a male tsundere lead of the 2010s/2020s. Most of the other options are older classics for sure, but would border into emotional abuse if one would actually look at their behaviour critically. That’s not to say that one must dislike or immediately condemn them. The nostalgia factor exists for a reason, one way or another. And god knows I love some good trash myself. Hell, I’ll fully admit that Tae-kyung from You’re Beautiful was one of my first drama crushes, even if I would stay a mile away from his emo mess in real life.

And yes, absolutely to Hwang In-yeop as the perfect second lead. I’ve never been a person who gets SLS often (I just think that a heroine should be allowed to make her choice in a romantic partner and we should - in most cases - respect that), but Han Seo-jun got me. I wasn’t expecting much from True Beauty and I honestly didn’t by the end - except that Hwang In-yeop was awesome and I know who I would’ve chosen if I were Ju-kyung.

Some other choices for this category:

• Seo Hwi-young/Han Se-joo (Yoo Ah-in) in Chicago Typewriter
• Moon Jae-shin (Yoo Ah-in) in Sungkyunkwan Scandal
• Kim Jung-hwan (Ryu Jun-yeol) in Reply 1988
• Park Do-kyung (Eric Mun) in Oh Hae-young Again
• Nam Se-hee (Lee Min-ki) in Because This Life Is Our First
• Crown Prince Lee Shin (Joo Ji-hoon) in Goong (this is trash, but it’s MY trash)

Well, I did like the tsundere leads of other Boys Over Flowers versions, the japanese original Tsukasa as played by Matsumoto Jun is still one of my favorite leads.

Han Seo-joon is the only one of the above I like, his confidence was really attractive. My favorite tsundere is also second lead, Kim Bum in Tale of the Nine-Tailed. The evil baby brother with the family complex. I want to go 'aww' just thinking about him.

I completely agree with the suggestions already but here are few more:

Gogh's Starry Night
Something about 1%
Tale of the Nine Tailed
Touch your heart
Search WWW: Ji Seung Hyun played the husband,who is secretly in love with this wife but trying to divorce her role perfectly. It's almost a shame that we didn't get to explore his character more.
L in Shut up Flower Boy Band! It's criminal that his tiny arc with Ye- rim was barely 15 minutes.

Sometimes it feels like the characters in the kdramas are so extreme in that you find it impossible to like them..
In defense of Pasta, which I've talked about it before, what bugs me the most is that she gave up her dream to be shouted at in the kitchen and call him Chef! He recognised how talented she was and again due to his own ego, stunted her growth..

A recent cdrama "You are my hero" the ML was a tsundere character but never belittled the other person or stood in the way of their ambitions!

I’d like to add Lee Seungki”s role in Brillant Legacy/Shining Inheritance. It’s been so long ago, I forgot the details but it was one of my fave older dramas.

What a great list! Hehe thanks for these posts, they're fun :)

I admit I had to look up the definition of tsundere, because I always differentiated between the straight up jerkwad bad-boys who later melt, and the merely gruff men who are a bit standoffish at first but don't appear to have it out specifically for the heroine. Without further ado, my lists!

Hard-Core Tsunderes
1. Master's Sun - The ultimate tsundere. His signature "get lost" phrase rings in my ears to this very moment. I can't believe I loved this drama when I first watched it, I must have hated myself. He's so mean to her!! But it was sweet watching him fall for her, and Gong Hyo Jin did a WONDERFUL job acting the part of the desperate heroine.
2. I Remember You - Lol rewatching this I am continually surprised the heroine fell in love with Lee Hyeon (Seo In Guk), he was so mean to her! The bromance is to die for, though.
3. Tunnel - Kim Seon Jae to me is the definition of tsundere, because he wasn't even mean to our hero because he was secretly in love him them... he was just a regularly prickly guy.
4. My Love From Another Star - Heh. Watching Kim Soo Hyun pick on Jeon Ji Hyun was one of the highlights of this show. Watching him fall so hard for her later on was such sweet, sweet justice. :)
5. Scholar who walks the Night - Kim Seung Yeol was disenchanted with the world, which makes me hesitate to put him in this list... but he was also rather pointedly mean to our herione at the beginning, which makes me feel like he deserves a place on our list. Beautifully acted by Lee Jun Gi.

Fluffy Tsunderes (categorized as people I can more easily tell are just wary and burnt out, who don't trust easily and seem a bit gruff)
1. Just Between Lovers - Lee Kang Du was such a marshmellow. Even when he was being gruff, he just kind of screamed "don't take it too hard, I'm just hurting". I too became a die-hard Jun Ho fan after this drama.
2. Chocolate - Lee Kang had SUCH a good reason to be a bit cold to our heroine at the beginning. I don't know if I can even really call him tsundere for that--he's just got some good commons sense lol.
3. Marriage Contract - Han Ji Hoon (played by Lee Seo Joon) is a bit of a tossup for me. On the one hand you can definitely see he's a product of his environment... on the other had he was a bit out to get our main girl for a while. Either way, a WONDERFUL gruff marshmellow. Even after he melts for our heroine, he's still a bit brusque.
4. Stranger (Forest of Secrets) - I put Hwang Shi Mok here because he doesn't show his emotions well at ALL, but I believe he still deeply feels stuff. However, he's probably not really a tsundere since he's got that whole brain/emotional disconnection thing going on.
5. Prison Playbook - At this point, I'm just listing male leads who I thought did a phenomenal job. Everyone go watch Prison Playbook, Kim Je Hyuk and Lee Joon Ho were a great pair with phenomenal acting by...

It's 2022 and I can't believe I see Falling for Innocence being mentioned. It was definitely a drama that turned my sentiment on Jung Kyungho upside down (pardon me my teenage self couldn't make peace with a boyfriend of my favorite girlgroup ever) and ended up pretty much watching most of Jung Kyungho's dramas after that.

This is random but please don’t hate or get angry at me for asking this but I’m genuinely curious, why the love for Baek Kyung's character in Extraordinary You?
I definitely say he’s tsundere but I was not rooting for him. Am I not seeing something?

For me the majority of tsunders are just brats that need character development as fast as possible. I don't think I there was one moment of JBL were I was rolling my eyes because of Kang Doo. For me he was always a warm and nice dude even if the way he expressed it wasn't convencional. Like he lived a really hard life that's way he didn't go around giving free hugs, but if you see him with his friends, with his halmoni, you know he's a sweetheart. And in general, he actually wasn't rude or acted like he was superior, he didn't treat our FL like crap or anything.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of tsunders but I really like their character development. I always have the patience to wait and see how they become a better person even if I hate them for the first 6 episodes, so I was fine with the guys from BOF and FFI.

I'm not a fan of second leads either, so when the second lead is a tsunder I just really don't care about the dude (FBND, Start Up). In the case of True Beauty I thought the tsunder was the lead? I only watched like 2 or 3 episodes of the show but I thought the second dude was better. I don't remember much so maybe I'm wrong.

Sometimes I just can't stand the dude and I can't wait for the character development, and that happened with You're Beautiful and Secret Garden. The experience with YAB was worse because the only character I actually liked was Jeremy tbh (yeah, FL, ML and SL didn't do it for me).

And a few times I get the second lead syndrome, wich means that I have to drop the show LOL. I remember I didn't drop Rich Man, Poor Woman and I was having SLS so bad and I (well, everyone) hated the ML and the writer was like "no, you can't hate my ML so let's make the SL a bad man, let's send him to jail even if it doesn't make sense and the show is about to end" 🙄

Tsunders I like:
King2Hearts
Mad For Each Other
Zombie Detective
Master's Sun
Jugglers
My Princess

I didn't got SLS with Jung Pal in Reply 88 but I loved him, he's probably my favorite tsunder ever (even if it was more like he was trying to be a tsunder lol). His scenes with Taek and his mom are the best.