A Korean title loses half its readers in two months. Most of them come back at least once
92 asked what a Korean title leaves behind, and could not answer for new titles: the encyclopaedia article is created when the title arrives, so there is no before. This asks the question that needs no before — after the peak, how long until half of it is gone?
Of the 59 titles we hold, 26 have a peak thick enough to time and enough months after it to watch. Their median half-life is 2 months. 9 of them lost half their readers in a single month. Not one held above half for the whole window.
How long half of it lasts
Reads are per million reads of that Wikipedia, summed across Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia. We find each title's highest month and count forward to the first month below half that value. Window — 2020-08 through 2026-06, 71 months.
| Title | Peak | Peak reads | Half-life | Rose above half again |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queen of Tears | 2024-04 | 2550.5 | 1 month | no |
| Squid Game | 2021-10 | 2440 | 1 month | 1× — first after 39 months |
| All of Us Are Dead | 2022-02 | 1267.6 | 1 month | no |
| A Killer Paradox | 2024-02 | 539.6 | 1 month | no |
| Alchemy of Souls | 2023-01 | 508.4 | 1 month | no |
| Parasite (2019 film) | 2020-09 | 443.7 | 1 month | 3× — first after 5 months |
| Exhuma | 2024-05 | 279.8 | 1 month | 1× — first after 20 months |
| The Atypical Family | 2024-06 | 185.8 | 1 month | no |
| The Roundup (2022 film) | 2024-05 | 53.5 | 1 month | 1× — first after 2 months |
| Crash Landing on You | 2021-08 | 604.6 | 2 months | 1× — first after 32 months |
| Little Women (South Korean TV series) | 2022-09 | 470.7 | 2 months | no |
| Train to Busan | 2020-08 | 387 | 2 months | 3× — first after 4 months |
| Kingdom (South Korean TV series) | 2025-02 | 199.6 | 2 months | 1× — first after 16 months |
| The Handmaiden | 2022-09 | 172 | 2 months | 7× — first after 3 months |
| Marry My Husband | 2025-07 | 150.3 | 2 months | 1× — first after 4 months |
| Hospital Playlist | 2021-07 | 478.2 | 3 months | 1× — first after 45 months |
| Lovely Runner | 2024-06 | 379.3 | 3 months | 1× — first after 22 months |
| Reply 1988 | 2021-08 | 267 | 3 months | 4× — first after 5 months |
| Start-Up (South Korean TV series) | 2021-10 | 208.5 | 3 months | 2× — first after 4 months |
| My Name (TV series) | 2024-01 | 79 | 3 months | 4× — first after 9 months |
| Vincenzo (TV series) | 2021-06 | 771.7 | 4 months | no |
| Hotel del Luna | 2021-11 | 113.8 | 4 months | 6× — first after 5 months |
| Itaewon Class | 2022-10 | 181 | 5 months | 5× — first after 6 months |
| My Mister | 2021-06 | 68.6 | 5 months | 1× — first after 30 months |
| Goblin (TV series) | 2021-10 | 279 | 7 months | 4× — first after 8 months |
| Descendants of the Sun | 2025-04 | 202 | 7 months | 1× — first after 8 months |
We report the median rather than the mean because the slow tail pulls the mean up — it reads 2.6 months, which is longer than 15 of the 26 titles actually lasted.
The distribution is short and it is not close
| Half-life | Titles |
|---|---|
| 1 month | 9 |
| 2 months | 6 |
| 3 months | 5 |
| 4 months | 2 |
| 5 months | 2 |
| 7 months | 2 |
Monthly data puts a floor under this. A title that lost half its readers in ten days and one that took thirty both read as one month here, so the short end of this table is shorter than it looks, not longer.
A half-life is not an ending
19 of the 26 titles later rose back above half their peak — a median of 1 separate times each, the first arriving a median 8 months after the peak. Some of those are new seasons. Some are older films finding an audience again years later.
| Title | Half-life | Returns | First return | Months it came back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squid Game | 1 | 1 | 39 months after peak | 2025-01 |
| Parasite (2019 film) | 1 | 3 | 5 months after peak | 2021-02, 2023-12, 2026-05 |
| Exhuma | 1 | 1 | 20 months after peak | 2026-01 |
| The Roundup (2022 film) | 1 | 1 | 2 months after peak | 2024-07 |
| Crash Landing on You | 2 | 1 | 32 months after peak | 2024-04 |
| Train to Busan | 2 | 3 | 4 months after peak | 2020-12, 2021-09, 2022-01–2022-02 |
| Kingdom (South Korean TV series) | 2 | 1 | 16 months after peak | 2026-06 |
| The Handmaiden | 2 | 7 | 3 months after peak | 2022-12, 2024-02, 2025-01–2025-02, 2025-05, 2025-08, 2025-12, 2026-02 |
| Marry My Husband | 2 | 1 | 4 months after peak | 2025-11 |
| Hospital Playlist | 3 | 1 | 45 months after peak | 2025-04–2025-05 |
| Lovely Runner | 3 | 1 | 22 months after peak | 2026-04–2026-05 |
| Reply 1988 | 3 | 4 | 5 months after peak | 2022-01, 2024-03–2024-04, 2025-03, 2025-12–2026-01 |
| Start-Up (South Korean TV series) | 3 | 2 | 4 months after peak | 2022-02, 2022-04 |
| My Name (TV series) | 3 | 4 | 9 months after peak | 2024-10, 2025-01, 2025-07–2025-08, 2026-04 |
| Hotel del Luna | 4 | 6 | 5 months after peak | 2022-04–2022-07, 2023-01, 2023-03–2023-04, 2024-03–2024-05, 2025-03–2025-04, 2026-04 |
| Itaewon Class | 5 | 5 | 6 months after peak | 2023-04, 2023-07–2023-08, 2024-01, 2024-04–2024-05, 2025-06 |
| My Mister | 5 | 1 | 30 months after peak | 2023-12–2024-01 |
| Goblin (TV series) | 7 | 4 | 8 months after peak | 2022-06–2022-07, 2023-01–2023-02, 2024-01–2024-02, 2024-12–2025-01 |
| Descendants of the Sun | 7 | 1 | 8 months after peak | 2025-12–2026-06 |
The half-life counts the first fall, not the last. Read alongside the table above, the shape is not a wave that recedes but a wave that recurs — briefly, and more than once.
The 32 we could not time
| Why not | Titles | How many |
|---|---|---|
| not enough months in the four editions | Sweet Home (South Korean TV series), Hellbound, Moving (TV series), The8 Show, Business Proposal (TV series), Mr. Sunshine (TV series), Misaeng, Stranger (South Korean TV series), The Silent Sea, Doctor Slump, The Wailing (film) | 11 |
| only N months follow the peak, which is not long enough to say it has not fallen — that is unknown, not slow | The Glory (TV series), Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Twenty-Five Twenty-One, Reborn Rich, Move to Heaven, Juvenile Justice (TV series), Memories of Murder | 7 |
| the peak was only 20.3 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Physical: 100, Culinary Class Wars | 2 |
| the peak was only 29.9 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Mask Girl | 1 |
| the peak was only 37.6 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Oldboy (2003 film) | 1 |
| the peak was only 47.2 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | The King: Eternal Monarch | 1 |
| the peak was only 42.6 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Signal (South Korean TV series) | 1 |
| the peak was only 8.9 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Burning (2018 film) | 1 |
| the peak was only 36.8 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Minari (film) | 1 |
| the peak was only 10.1 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Broker (2022 film) | 1 |
| the peak was only N per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Prison Playbook | 1 |
| the peak was only 49.5 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | D.P. (TV series) | 1 |
| the peak was only 40.3 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Gyeongseong Creature | 1 |
| the peak was only 26.9 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | A Taxi Driver | 1 |
| the peak was only 18.4 per million, thin enough that halving is noise | Extreme Job | 1 |
⚠ The second row is the one to read carefully. A title whose peak was last month has not failed to fall — we simply have not watched it long enough. That is unknown, not slow, and putting it in the table above would drag the median upward for no reason.
What this page cannot tell you
A half-life is not an ending. Where a title rose back above half its peak later — usually a new season — we say so beside it. The number counts the first fall, not the last.
The titles were chosen as ones we expected to have had a wave, not the most-read Korean titles and not a random sample. A set chosen this way leans toward titles that travelled far enough to have a peak worth measuring.
A read is not a viewer. Someone opening an encyclopaedia article may have watched the show, may be deciding whether to, or may have seen the name and been curious.
Monthly resolution puts a floor under the answer. A title that lost half its readers in ten days and a title that took thirty both read as one month here.
Reads — Wikimedia Pageviews API, human traffic only, monthly.
Card set — free to share
Five cards, 1080×1350. Every figure on them is in the table on this page. Take them.
Fourteen seconds, with sound
A man and a woman read out the median half-life and how many of the titles came back above half at least once. Free to repost with the address on it.
What we wrote from this data
- A Korean title loses half its readers in two months. Most of them come back at least once
Twenty-six Korean titles could be timed from their peak across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. The median fell below half in two months, nine of them in a single month, and nineteen later rose above half again.
15 August 2026 · corrected
- You cannot ask what a Korean hit leaves behind. The article is born with the show
Of 59 Korean titles fetched across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, nine could be measured before and after their peak. Twenty-two were disqualified because their article did not exist before the title arrived.
15 August 2026 · corrected