Four episodes, one night. That is how TVING opens Make Me Tingle on Thursday, October 15, for a rom-com whose two leads last shared a drama as brother and sister.
The Make Me Tingle K-drama — 내가 떨릴 수 있게 in Korean — is a TVING Original romantic comedy starring Nam Ji-hyun and Kim Jae-young, who played siblings in 100 Days My Prince in 2018 and now play the couple. Ilgan Sports reports that episodes 1 to 4 are released together on October 15, and Soompi says it will be available to watch on Viki.
The official pitch, paraphrased: a woman who holds out for love meets a man who does fine without it, in what the drama bills as a chaotic growth rom-com. She is a marketer. He runs a sex-toy startup. His company becomes her client.
Siblings in 2018, a blind date in 2026
Ten Asia led with the same angle on October 8 — siblings then, romantic leads now — and for me that is the hook, more than the startup. Rewriting a screen relationship some viewers already know is harder than building one from nothing, and the drama gives it the most awkward start available: a blind date arranged by the heroine's grandparents.
Nam Ji-hyun's Gong Yeon-su is a marketer raised as the eldest daughter of a traditional head family, and conservative about dating. Soompi describes her as "a woman who believes in love but has never truly figured out what it means for her." I read that as someone who hasn't worked out what she wants, which is a better engine for a rom-com than a prude for the jokes to land on.
Kim Jae-young's Dokgo Dal is the CEO of a sex-toy startup, per Ilgan Sports' character preview, and has, in Soompi's words, "no prejudice toward love and relationships." After the blind date, the two meet again at work, she as the marketer and he as the client. In the trailer, as Ilgan Sports describes it, Dal refuses to hand his product's promotion to a marketer who is prejudiced against it, and later asks her outright whether she was attracted to him. The main poster's tagline, 떨리는 건 마음일까 몸일까, asks whether what trembles is the heart or the body. That is as far as the marketing pushes the premise, and I think it is the right volume.
The production team, quoted by Ilgan Sports after the script reading, said the leads' opposite values split the room over which of them was right, and asked viewers to follow how each re-examines what they took for granted. That is the growth in growth rom-com: both of them have to move, not only her.
Born in 1995, Nam started as a child actor — Ten Asia singles out her young Princess Deokman in Queen Seondeok — and her credits include Suspicious Partner, Good Partner and To My Beloved Thief. Two of those put "partner" in the title, and Make Me Tingle is structurally a third partner story: two people stuck working the same account.
Who plays whom in the Make Me Tingle K-drama
The cast map. Every named character in the announcements so far is defined by where they stand next to Yeon-su: at work, at home or in the love story.
| Actor | Character | Where they stand |
|---|---|---|
| Nam Ji-hyun | Gong Yeon-su | The lead: a marketer, eldest daughter of a traditional family |
| Kim Jae-young | Dokgo Dal | Blind date, then client; CEO of a sex-toy startup |
| Kang Tae-joo | Yoon Ji-oh | Dal's vice CEO; falls for her and becomes Dal's rival |
| Park So-jin | Jin Se-ra | Her boss, CEO of SR Planning, and her college senior |
| Jeong In-ji | Gong Mi-young | Her divorced aunt, once pressured into marriage |
| Woo Mi-hwa | Seo Baek-hee | Her mother, widowed 12 years ago, who raised her alone |
Two things in that map do the work. The rival sits inside Dal's own company. Soompi calls Ji-oh "Friendly, warm, and playful," which reads to me like the easy choice set against the difficult one, and a triangle inside the client's company means the work plot and the love plot can never be kept apart. And the three women around Yeon-su — a boss who is more open-minded about dating, an aunt whose marriage ended in divorce, a mother who raised her alone while caring for her in-laws — are three different answers to the question she hasn't answered for herself. If the writing gives them real scenes, the premise stops being the whole show.
Our drama page pitches Make Me Tingle as Business Proposal meets Sex Education. The premise supplies the second half. The cast map — a boss, a rival inside the client's company, a family with opinions — has to supply the first.
Where to watch on October 15, and what is still unconfirmed
Korea gets Make Me Tingle on TVING, as a TVING Original; outside Korea, Soompi points to Viki. None of the announcements I've read gives a release hour, so I'm not converting a time nobody has published — check the Viki title page where you live on the day. Our guide to watching K-dramas legally sets out what each service carries, and the K-drama schedule tracks the week's other releases.
The day-one math. TMDB lists the season at 10 episodes, so four on premiere day is 40% of the drama out at once — close to half the story before the first weekend, with six episodes still to come. What I can't tell you is how those six arrive. None of the announcements I've read gives the release pattern after the first four, so treat any weekly date you see elsewhere as unconfirmed until TVING or Viki posts it.
Mina's Take
Four at once is the right call, and not only for binge-watchers. A rom-com built around a sex-toy startup lives or dies on tone, and one episode is too little to judge it by: the premise would land as a punchline before the characters land as people. Four gives Yeon-su room to be more than the conservative one and Dal room to be more than the unembarrassed one. The harder job is the reunion. Nam and Kim have to replace a sibling dynamic from 2018 with chemistry, and no logline can do that for them. My call: by October 31, TVING or Viki will announce a No. 1 ranking for Make Me Tingle on at least one of its charts. If neither does, I got this one wrong.
What to watch next
- October 15: episodes 1 to 4 on TVING, and the Viki title page in your region for availability and time.
- Episodes 5 to 10: no release pattern in the announcements so far; watch TVING's and Viki's own listings.
- October 31: the deadline on Mina's No. 1 ranking call.
