About “When Life Gives You Tangerines” in a few words:

This show, “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” is a 2025 Korean romance / slice-of-life saga. It follows Ae-sun, a spirited and poetic girl from Jeju Island, and Gwan-sik, a steady, loyal guy who loves her across time. Their life spins through decades, with setbacks, dreams, family tensions, and the kind of love that’s tested but never fully breaks.

Meet the characters from When Life Gives You Tangerines

Oh Ae-sun

Oh Ae-sun is the kind of protagonist who looks ordinary but hums with this stubborn, small-town spark — you can practically see tangerine juice on her cuffs. She’s fiercely loyal and practical, but also elbow-deep in awkward, heartfelt moments; she handles crises with a sarcastic mutter and then an impulsive good deed (like leaving a sandwich or a terribly sincere note). There’s this lovely, messy mix of bravado and uncertainty about her — she’ll insist she’s “not dramatic” while dramatically rearranging someone’s life for their own good. Also she names stray cats, collects mismatched earrings, and claims to hate musicals even though she’ll belt one out at 2 a.m. when nobody’s listening.

Yang Gwan-sik

Yang Gwan-sik is the grumpy anchor of the story — the guy who grumbles a lot but ends up doing the heaviest emotional lifting, usually without fanfare. He has these stubborn, old-fashioned habits and a dry sense of humor that cracks just enough to let you see he’s soft underneath (don’t say soft to his face, he’ll deny it). He fixes things: radios, fences, misunderstandings, and sometimes people, with the same calm, relentless focus, which is both infuriating and comforting. One minute he’s a thunderhead of complaints, the next he’s ridiculously gentle with a stray seedling or a scared kid, and yes he keeps a tiny, secret notebook of things he pretends not to care about.