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| Best Shows Like Merry Berry Love. |
If Merry Berry Love worked for you because of its gentle romance, rural Japanese setting, cross-cultural relationship and healing storyline, there are plenty of shows that can fill the gap next. The 2026 South Korean-Japanese series combines strawberry fields, second chances, unlikely friendships and two romances without needing to turn every episode into an emotional traffic accident.
From cosy countryside romances to healing slice-of-life dramas and cross-cultural love stories, these 23 shows like Merry Berry Love offer plenty of reasons to keep watching.
Shows Like Merry Berry Love
1. When the Weather Is Fine (2020)
When the Weather Is Fine follows a woman who leaves Seoul and returns to a quiet countryside town, where she reconnects with an old acquaintance running a bookshop. Its slow pace, snowy rural atmosphere and emotionally wounded characters make it an especially good match for Merry Berry Love. Both stories understand that sometimes the best way to repair a broken life is to stop running and finally sit still for five minutes.
2. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021)
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha moves its romance from the city to a seaside Korean village, where a dentist begins a new life and meets a famously capable local man. Like Merry Berry Love, it puts ordinary community life at the centre of the romance. The village becomes almost as important as the love story, with neighbours, small businesses and personal problems creating the warmth around the main couple.
3. Summer Strike (2022)
Summer Strike is practically a love letter to walking away from an exhausting life. A burned-out woman leaves Seoul and heads to a small seaside town, where she begins rebuilding her daily routine. The connection with Merry Berry Love is obvious: both stories feature characters escaping difficult chapters and discovering that a quieter environment can offer something the fast-paced city never could.
4. Once Upon a Small Town (2022)
Once Upon a Small Town is one of the closest recommendations for viewers who enjoyed the rural setting of Merry Berry Love. A city veterinarian temporarily moves to the countryside and becomes involved with a local police officer and the wider village community. Agriculture, animals, neighbours and romance all mix together, creating the kind of comforting chaos that makes rural life look suspiciously more attractive than it actually is.
5. Our Blues (2022)
Our Blues takes the healing-drama formula and expands it into an ensemble story set on Jeju Island. Its characters carry heartbreak, family problems, regrets and complicated relationships while continuing with everyday island life. Like Merry Berry Love, it treats its landscape as part of the emotional storytelling rather than simply putting pretty scenery behind the actors and calling it a day.
6. Welcome to Samdal-ri (2023)
Welcome to Samdal-ri centres on a photographer who returns to her hometown after her career collapses in Seoul. There she reconnects with her childhood friend and former love. The premise shares a major thread with Merry Berry Love: a professional setback forces someone to reconsider what actually matters. The result is a warm romantic story about returning home and finding an unexpected reason to stay.
7. The Package (2017)
The Package brings together a group of Korean travellers on a trip through France, with romance developing between two people carrying very different baggage. Its international setting and focus on people from different backgrounds make it a natural companion to Merry Berry Love. It is also proof that putting strangers in an unfamiliar place is a remarkably efficient way to create romantic complications.
8. Racket Boys (2021)
Racket Boys shifts the focus towards teenagers and sport, but its rural setting and strong community spirit make it surprisingly compatible with Merry Berry Love. The story follows a badminton team adjusting to life in the countryside, while friendships and family relationships develop around them. It has the same comforting interest in small communities where everyone knows everybody else's business.
9. Once Again (2020)
Once Again is a much longer family drama, but its interest in ordinary relationships, second chances and emotional recovery makes it worth considering. The series follows a family dealing with separation, romance, reconciliation and everyday frustrations. It lacks Merry Berry Love's Japanese island setting, but it shares the belief that healing often happens through ordinary people rather than grand dramatic gestures.
10. The Full-Time Wife Escapist (2016)
The Full-Time Wife Escapist offers a Japanese romantic comedy built around an unconventional arrangement between a woman struggling to find stable employment and a man who needs domestic help. Their practical agreement gradually develops into something more complicated. Like Merry Berry Love, it turns an unusual relationship between two very different people into a surprisingly sincere romance.
11. First Love (2022)
First Love is a Japanese romantic drama about two people whose lives move in different directions after falling in love when they are young. Years later, their paths cross again. The series is more melancholy than Merry Berry Love, but the themes of lost opportunities, emotional recovery and finding your way back to someone make the comparison easy.
12. From Me to You: Kimi ni Todoke (2023)
From Me to You: Kimi ni Todoke follows a shy high-school girl whose life changes after she begins developing a relationship with a popular classmate. Its setting and characters are much younger than those in Merry Berry Love, yet both rely on gentle romance, emotional sincerity and gradual character development rather than endless relationship fireworks.
13. Turn to Me Mukai-kun (2023)
Turn to Me Mukai-kun explores modern relationships through a man who suddenly starts questioning his romantic life after being single for years. It is more urban and comedic than Merry Berry Love, but both series are interested in people reassessing what they want after life fails to follow the plan. Sometimes romance is less about finding the perfect person and more about finally understanding yourself.
14. My Liberation Notes (2022)
My Liberation Notes is considerably quieter and more introspective, following three siblings struggling with repetitive lives and emotional exhaustion. Their desire to escape the routines surrounding them connects strongly with Merry Berry Love's healing themes. The romance is understated, the characters are flawed and nobody magically fixes their problems overnight, which is probably healthier than most television relationships.
15. Summer Strike (2022)
Summer Strike deserves an extra mention because its combination of rural escape, healing and slow-burn romance is particularly close to Merry Berry Love. A woman deliberately steps away from her previous lifestyle and settles in a small coastal town. The series understands the appeal of doing less, thinking less and eventually discovering that a quiet life can still contain plenty of complications.
16. Love Is Phantom (2021)
Love Is Phantom is a Japanese romantic drama about a hotel employee whose relationship with a mysterious man develops after an unexpected encounter. Its Japanese setting and emphasis on an unconventional romance make it an appealing option for viewers who enjoyed the cross-cultural flavour of Merry Berry Love, although the tone leans more heavily into romantic drama.
17. The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023)
The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is not primarily a romance, and that is precisely why it works as a recommendation. Set in Kyoto, it follows two teenage friends whose lives take different paths within the world of maiko. Food, friendship, tradition and everyday routines drive the story. Like Merry Berry Love, it finds drama in ordinary life instead of manufacturing a crisis every ten minutes.
18. Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories (2016)
Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories takes the healing side of Merry Berry Love and places it inside a tiny late-night restaurant. Each episode introduces people dealing with relationships, loneliness, work and personal regrets. The stories are intimate and warm, with food acting as the excuse for strangers to open up. There are no strawberry fields, but emotionally, the menu is remarkably similar.
19. A Piece of Your Mind (2020)
A Piece of Your Mind follows people dealing with grief, loneliness and complicated emotions while gradually finding comfort in one another. Its romance develops patiently rather than through constant dramatic twists. That makes it a good choice after Merry Berry Love if the part you enjoyed most was the healing romance rather than the agricultural setting.
20. Meet Yourself (2023)
Meet Yourself is one of the strongest choices for viewers drawn to Merry Berry Love's countryside atmosphere. After a personal tragedy, a woman leaves city life behind and moves to a rural village in Yunnan, where she slowly reconnects with herself and forms a relationship with a local man. Its focus on community, nature, healing and starting again feels remarkably compatible with Merry Berry Love's core ideas.
21. When I Fly Towards You (2023)
When I Fly Towards You offers a much younger romance, following a cheerful schoolgirl who becomes close to a reserved classmate and their wider group of friends. It lacks Merry Berry Love's adult struggles and rural farming storyline, but its gentle humour, emotional warmth and gradual relationships make it an easy watch for anyone seeking something similarly comforting.
22. Warm and Cozy (2015)
Warm and Cozy is set on Jeju Island and follows a woman who moves there after a major disappointment, eventually becoming involved with a restaurant owner. The island environment, romantic comedy elements and theme of rebuilding a life make it particularly relevant to Merry Berry Love. Swap strawberry fields for seafood and you are already halfway there.
23. The Story of Park's Marriage Contract (2023)
The Story of Park's Marriage Contract is a more fantastical recommendation, following a woman transported from the Joseon era into modern Korea, where she enters a contract marriage with a man who resembles someone from her past. The cross-cultural element is replaced by a cross-era one, but the appeal is similar: two people from completely different worlds are thrown together and slowly develop genuine affection.
Merry Berry Love works because it does not treat romance as the only thing capable of repairing a person's life. Its countryside setting, international pairing, gentle humour and second-chance themes give the story a cosy identity, so the best alternatives are not necessarily identical romances. Shows such as Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Meet Yourself, Once Upon a Small Town and Summer Strike come closest to that combination of landscape, community and emotional recovery, while First Love and The Full-Time Wife Escapist lean more towards relationship-driven storytelling.
For me, Meet Yourself is probably the strongest overall follow-up, while Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is the safer choice if you want more comedy and a lively community around the romance. If the strawberry fields and quiet island atmosphere were your favourite part, Once Upon a Small Town and Summer Strike deserve priority.
And if you simply want another story where two people who absolutely did not plan to fall in love somehow end up doing exactly that, well, television has apparently decided none of us are allowed to escape that plot. Which of these 23 shows like Merry Berry Love would you watch next, and is there another similar drama you think belongs on the list?