Cover Looking for C-dramas like ‘Never-Ending Summer’? These shows capture different shades of first love, second chances, youthful nostalgia and the complicated business of growing up (Photo: IMDB)
Looking for C-dramas like ‘Never-Ending Summer’? These shows capture different shades of first love, second chances, youthful nostalgia and the complicated business of growing up (Photo: IMDB)
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These C-dramas like ‘Never-Ending Summer’ deliver the first loves, reunions, friendships and coming-of-age romances that make the 2026 hit so hard to quit
Never-Ending Summer is having a moment, which means a familiar problem is about to arrive: you finish a C-drama you genuinely like and immediately need another one with the same emotional aftertaste.
The 2026 romance has been picking up attention, thanks in part to its mix of youthful romance, friendship and the messy transition from adolescence into adulthood. But its appeal is hardly limited to the usual “will they, won't they?” mechanics. Never-Ending Summer is interested in what happens when people grow apart, change and eventually have to reckon with the versions of themselves they left behind.
So if you’re looking for C-dramas like Never-Ending Summer, we’ve gone beyond simply rounding up the biggest Chinese romances. These are dramas that share something with the show—first love, childhood friendships, second chances, reunions, growing pains or the particular ache of realising that time has changed everyone involved.
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1. ‘When I Fly Towards You’ (2023)
Above For when what you loved most was the uncomplicated magic of liking someone before life had a chance to make everything complicated
If Never-Ending Summer has you yearning for the particular ache of being young and convinced that the people around you will remain exactly where you left them, When I Fly Towards You is an almost dangerously effective follow-up.
Su Zaizai (Zhang Miaoyi) meets Zhang Lurang (Zhou Yiran) when they become classmates in high school. She is immediately interested; he is considerably less forthcoming. What follows is not a grand romantic battle but the slow accumulation of ordinary moments: school days, friendships, exams, family problems and the small rituals through which teenagers gradually become important to one another.
The drama manufactures little. The romance grows because these characters spend time together. Their friendship group becomes part of the emotional architecture, emphasising how the relationship matters because it exists within a larger life.
That makes it a particularly good follow-up to Never-Ending Summer. Both understand that youth romance isn’t just about the couple. It is about the entire world surrounding them—and the melancholy that arrives when you realise that world cannot last forever.
2. ‘Exclusive Fairytale’ (2023)
Above For the childhood-friends-to-lovers crowd who believes the best romances begin long before either person understands what's happening
Ling Chao (Jun) and Xiao Tu (Zhang Miaoyi ) have known each other since childhood, growing up next door and developing the sort of relationship where bickering is practically a love language.
The twist, of course, is that Ling Chao has already developed feelings for Xiao Tu while she remains largely oblivious to them.
Exclusive Fairytale is lighter and considerably more playful than Never-Ending Summer, but the connective tissue is obvious: the romance is built on history. These aren’t strangers meeting at precisely the right moment. They’re people who have accumulated years of memories before they ever have to confront the possibility that their relationship might change.
For viewers who like the idea that first love can begin almost invisibly, put this on top of your list of C-dramas like Never-Ending Summer.
3. ‘Lovely Us’ (2020)
Above For anyone who wants the romance, but also wants to remember that growing up happens to an entire friend group
Lovely Us begins in 2007 and follows five childhood friends growing up together in a small neighbourhood in China. Their lives slowly diverge as school, family circumstances and adulthood begin exerting pressure on the comfortable world they have built.
The romance is important, but it isn’t the only story, which is why it belongs on a list of C-dramas like Never-Ending Summer. The appeal of both dramas lies partly in the feeling of watching people change over time. Friendships that once seemed permanent become more complicated. Childhood certainty gives way to adult uncertainty. People leave, return and discover that growing up doesn’t necessarily mean leaving everything behind.
Lovely Us is warmer and more ensemble-driven, making it a particularly good choice if your favourite parts of Never-Ending Summer are the friendships and atmosphere.
4. ‘A River Runs Through It’ (2021)
Above For when you want the full coming-of-age package: school, friendship, first love and the inevitable realisation that growing up is messy
Lu Shiyi (Wang Ruichang), Xia Xiaoju (Hu Yixuan) and Cheng Lang (Chen Bohao) are part of a group of friends whose relationships develop through their high school and university years.
The drama is extra special because it lets its characters be young for a while. They make mistakes. They misread each other. They fall in and out of love. Their ambitions change. The characters aren’t simply waiting around for the romance to happen.
That gives A River Runs Through It the same kind of temporal quality that makes Never-Ending Summer appealing. The story isn’t just asking whether two people will end up together. It is asking who they will become before they get there.
5. ‘Our Secret’ (2021)
Above For a quieter school romance where proximity slowly turns into intimacy
Ding Xian (Xu Mengjie) and Zhou Siyue (Chen Zheyuan) begin as classmates whose relationship is defined by academic competition and mutual irritation. As they spend more time together, however, that friction gradually gives way to something more tender.
Our Secret captures the awkwardness of young attraction. Nobody needs to announce that they are falling in love. It happens through studying together, teasing one another, helping each other and slowly becoming the person the other looks for first.
For viewers who enjoyed the slow accumulation of feeling in Never-Ending Summer, this is an obvious next stop.
6. ‘Shining for One Thing’ (2022)
Above For when you want your first-love nostalgia with a little time travel and considerably more emotional damage
Lin Beixing (Zhang Jianing) is approaching 30 when her life seems to have gone spectacularly wrong. Then an old phone and text messages somehow send her back to her high-school years.
There, she encounters Zhang Wansen (Qu Chuxiao), a boy whose life is connected to a tragedy she didn’t fully understand the first time around.
The time-travel device gives Shining for One Thing a speculative hook, but its emotional core is surprisingly grounded. What would you do differently if you could return to the years when everything still seemed possible? Would you choose differently? Would you recognise the person you should have loved sooner?
7. ‘Lighter & Princess’ (2022)
Above For when youthful first love grows teeth—and the reunion years later is even more interesting
Zhu Yun (Zhang Jingyi) meets Li Xun (Chen Feiyu) at university, where his brilliance, arrogance and refusal to follow the rules make him both fascinating and infuriating.
Their relationship develops against the backdrop of university life and ambitious technology projects, but circumstances eventually separate them. When they meet again years later, neither is quite the person the other remembers.
This could tease Never-Ending Summer fans. The reunion isn’t simply an excuse to restart the romance. Time has changed both people. Whatever existed between them in their youth has to survive everything that happened afterwards.
It is a sharper, more turbulent version of the second-chance romance, but the emotional question is familiar: Can you fall in love with someone again when you already know who they used to be?
8. ‘You Are My Glory’ (2021)
Above For when you want the youthful crush to grow up into a relationship between two adults who actually know what they want
You Are My Glory is considerably more polished and adult than Never-Ending Summer, but it shares an important idea: sometimes the person you loved—or almost loved—when you were younger comes back into your life at exactly the wrong and right time.
Qiao Jingjing (Dilraba Dilmurat) reconnects with her former classmate Yu Tu (Yang Yang), an aerospace engineer whose career has taken him in a very different direction from hers as a successful actress. Their reunion begins through an unexpected shared interest in gaming and eventually develops into a relationship built around mutual respect.
9. ‘Meet Yourself’ (2023)
Above For when what you actually want after ‘Never-Ending Summer’ is a romance about figuring out who you are before figuring out who you want
Meet Yourself isn’t a youth romance, which may make you wonder why it should be recommended in a list of C-dramas like Never-Ending Summer.
After a devastating loss, Xu Hongdou (Liu Yifei) leaves Beijing and retreats to a small village in Yunnan. There she meets Xie Zhiyao (Li Xian), a former investment professional who has returned home and is working to help develop the local community.
The romance is slow, but the larger story is about rebuilding a life. It is less “first love” and more “what happens after life happens”, which may be exactly what you need after an emotionally nostalgic binge.
See more: Green flags only: 9 healthiest relationships in C-dramas we’d actually root for
10. ‘Will Love in Spring’ (2024)
Above For when you’re ready to leave school behind and watch a romance where adulthood, grief and personal baggage are part of the attraction
Chen Maidong (Li Xian) and Zhuang Jie (Zhou Yutong) reconnect years after knowing each other when they were younger. Both have changed, and neither arrives at the relationship as an uncomplicated romantic hero.
Zhuang Jie is an ambitious professional who has built a life away from her hometown. Chen Maidong has returned and is working as a mortician. Their reunion gradually becomes a story about the lives they built separately and the things they still haven’t quite resolved. The story is more mature and melancholy.
If Never-Ending Summer leaves you thinking about the distance between the people we were and the people we become, Will Love in Spring takes that question into adulthood. The romance isn’t about getting back to who they were. It’s about finding out whether who they’ve become can fit together.
Sasha Lim Uy Mariposa is a lifestyle journalist who is known for her food writing. Based in Manila and currently a marketing content specialist, she still dabbles in entertainment, beauty and dining coverage. She was the former managing editor of Esquire Philippines and was the food editor at SPOT.ph. She also edited several best-selling books about food.
She now writes for the different Tatler Asia markets as a contributing writer for T-Labs.
