Doing an end-of-the-year ranking of the dramas I watched this year and the last purely on how much I enjoyed them. I am including 2023 because I only managed to finish two (!!!) dramas that year. I'm not including the ones I dropped, at least one of which was such pure garbage that it nearly ended my enjoyment of dramas as a whole.

1. Connection

Excellent drama, 100/10, no notes. Ji Sung is perfection and so is this entire show. I enjoyed it immensely.

2. Black Wedding

This one was an unexpected hit for me because I typically don't enjoy ex-Yu productions nearly so much. Great cinematography, excellent acting, horror right up my alley. I loved everything!

3. Beyond Evil

Flawless! Showstopping! Ranked no. 3 just because I have to have a ranking but it may as well have been no. 1 too. Excellent drama, 10/10, would absolutely recommend.

4. The Devil Judge

I adored Ji Sung as Kang Yohan but loathed Kim Gaon, so this drama cannot go higher. With that said, it bears repeating that Ji Sung is absolutely perfect.

5. The Story of Minglan

This one fell a bit short of expectations, but admittedly, the expectations were soaring sky-high and might have been impossible to meet. The fantastic parts of this drama were really mind-blowingly good, but I did also spend long stretches bored out of my mind and was left unsatisfied by many of the choices that were made when filming this. Unpopular opinion incoming: while I loved Minglan, I hated Gu Tingye. I gave him chance after chance and made countless excuses, but eventually gave up and by the end of the drama, I loathed him so much that my skin was crawling whenever he showed his face. In addition, I feel like Feng Shaofeng was grossly miscast here and was not at all impressed by his acting skills.

6. The Double

This is hardly a masterpiece but I was superbly entertained for the entire duration of the show. Princess Wanning was an unexpected favourite! They really lucked out with the casting here.

7. Judge Dee's Mystery

Overall, this drama is just not great, but it has Zhou Yiwei in the main role, who, as always, is perfection. I would 100% watch again just for him, but if it had been anyone else in the main role, I would have found it hard to sit through more than a few episodes.

8. Eternal Brotherhood

I enjoyed this drama just fine when I was watching it but I just did not find it particularly memorable. The main draw for me was the older cast which was killed off halfway through and then we were left with the younger generation which barely held my interest. Will still watch season 2 when it airs, though.

9. Lighter and Princess

Overall, I think this is probably a good drama, it just wasn't my cup of tea in any way, shape or form. I spent a good 80% of it bored out of my skull. With that said, I kept watching because I love Chen Feiyu, who, let's be honest, was the only reason I picked this up in the first place. Do I regret watching this? No. Would I have watched a single second of it if they had cast someone else as the ML? Not in a million years.