Winter Sonata to Be Released As Anime Series
By wchung | 19 Mar, 2026

Left: South Korean actor Bae Yong-joon, left, and actress Choi Ji-woo pose for Japanese media during a news conference to promote the animation version of their popular TV drama 'Winter Sonata' in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye); Above: South Korean actress Choi Ji-woo is shown at the news conference. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

Winter Sonata (aka Winter Love Story), a 2002 TV drama that helped launch the worldwide craze for Korean drama, is being reprised as an animated series using the voices of the original live-action stars.

Bae Yong-joon (Joon-sang) and Choi Ji-woo (Yu-jin) played young lovers separated in small-town Korea by a series of highly improbable misfortunes, then reunited a decade later in the United States in an even less plausible twist of fate. Bae and Choi were on hand Tuesday at a Tokyo press conference announcing the release of the animated version.

Winter Sonata was the sequel to the series Endless Love. It aired originally in Korea in March of 2002. Its international run began with the rebroadcast over Japan’s NHK in 2004. Its surprisingly high ratings made Bae a superstar among young Japanese women. Similar success followed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. By 2005 the series made its way to the Middle East, South America and even Africa, triggering a global demand for Korean TV dramas.

The animated series is a co-production of Korea’s Key East and Japan’s Total Production. The series is set for broadcast on two Japanese channels DATV and SKY Perffect beginning October 17 in 26 half-hour episodes.

9/29/2009, 3:24 AM, TOKYO