7 K-drama ghosts who broke our hearts, from ‘Spooky in Love’ to ‘Hi Bye, Mama!’

In SBS’s fantasy legal drama Phantom Lawyer, available for streaming on Netflix and Viu, Shin Yi-rang (Yoo Yeon-seok) is a down-on-his-luck lawyer whose career has been overshadowed by his late father’s reputation as a corrupt prosecutor. Forced to open his own practice, he takes over a former shaman’s space. Business comes quickly—but with a catch: all his clients are ghosts. His unusual caseload frequently puts him at odds with Han Na-hyun (Esom) and Yang Do-gyeong (Kim Kyung-nam), lawyers at the powerful Taebaek Law Firm—the same one that turned him away.

As Yi-rang takes on clients including Kim Su-a, a teenage idol trainee believed to have died by suicide, and Han So-hyun (Hwang Bo-reum-byeol), Na-hyun’s older sister, he is pulled deeper into the mysteries surrounding their deaths—and, most painfully, his father’s. When Shin Ki-joong (Choi Won-young) returns as one of Yi-rang’s ghostly clients, father and son expose the truth behind the scandal that ruined their lives. But what makes him Phantom Lawyer’s most heartbreaking K-drama ghost is that beyond clearing his name, Ki-joong is given the chance to reconcile with Yi-rang, and be remembered for the man he always was.

See more: Top Cha Woo-min K-dramas to add to your watchlist, from ‘Weak Hero Class 1’ to ‘My Bias, My Boss’

Few K-drama ghosts have broken hearts quite like Hi Bye, Mama!’s Cha Yu-ri (Kim Tae-hee). Having passed away shortly after giving birth, Yu-ri never gets the chance to raise her daughter, Cho Seo-woo (Seo Woo-jin). So instead, she has spent the past five years watching over her little girl as a ghost. But Yu-ri’s lingering presence comes at a cost: because she has not moved on as she should have, Seo-woo has become vulnerable to other spirits.

When the deities grant Yu-ri a chance to return to life, she is given 49 days to prove that she belongs in the life she left behind—beside her daughter and her husband, Cho Gang-hwa (Lee Kyu-hyung). If she succeeds, she can remain human; if not, she must say goodbye to her family for good. But with Gang-hwa and Seo-woo finally rebuilding their lives alongside Oh Min-jung (Go Bo-gyeol), Yu-ri must face a harder question: what does her return mean for the people she left behind?

At the heart of Hi Bye, Mama! is a mother’s love—stronger than death or grief, and the sacrifices a mother will make for her child. It's a story that serves as a reminder that the hardest goodbye is often the one made out of love.

Goblin (also known as Guardian: The Lonely and Great God), the massive tvN K-drama hit, is an epic love story between the immortal goblin, Kim Shin (Gong Yoo), and his human bride, Ji Eun-tak (Kim Go-eun). Their fate is entwined with that of the Grim Reaper (Lee Dong-wook), whose karma is to usher newly departed spirits to the afterlife as penance for his tragic past.

The K-drama is filled with iconic scenes that have stayed with viewers even now—from Ji Eun-tak’s first “I love you” and Kim Shin disintegrating into ashes on a rooftop to their tearful reunion kiss and wedding. But perhaps the most heartbreaking scene comes when Ji Eun-tak, after a fatal car accident, arrives at the Grim Reaper’s tea house, a way station where souls drink tea that erases their memories before crossing into the afterlife. Heartbroken for his friends Shin and Eun-tak, the Grim Reaper gives them a chance to say their goodbyes.

The scene is gut-wrenching, anchored by an emotional exchange between Shin and Eun-tak that says as much in what’s left unspoken as in what’s said. Ji Eun-tak may not have spent a considerable amount of time as a ghost in the K-drama, yet her goodbye carries the full weight of a lifetime she and Kim Shin never got to finish.

In tvN’s Chicago Typewriter, a mysterious antique typewriter connects bestselling writer Han Se-joo (Yoo Ah-in) with Yoo Jin-oh (Go Kyung-pyo), a ghost who claims to be his ghostwriter. At first, Jin-oh seems like an eccentric spirit with a talent for writing, helping Se-joo overcome his writer’s block in exchange for a favour. But as Se-joo and his anti-fan-turned-friend Jeon Seol (Im Soo-jung) uncover the typewriter’s secrets, they realise Jin-oh is tied to them through a shared past in 1930s Korea.

In his previous life, Jin-oh is Shin Yool, a bar owner in Gyeongseong who is secretly a freedom fighter. He betrays his best friend, Seo Hwi-young (also played by Yoo Ah-in), to save Ryu Soo-hyun (also played by Im Soo-jung) from torture, but their cell’s code demands death for betrayal, forcing Soo-hyun to execute the man who sacrificed his loyalty to save her. Decades later, Yool returns as a ghost, bound to the living by one unresolved promise: Hwi-young’s novel from the 1930s. When Se-joo, with Jin-oh’s help, finally completes it, Jin-oh is given the chance at redemption and to make sure his story will not be forgotten.

Hotel Del Luna, tvN’s supernatural K-drama, tells the story of Jang Man-wol (IU), an immortal cursed to run a hotel for ghosts and spirits as karmic punishment. In dire need of a human to manage the hotel’s finances and mountains of paperwork, Man-wol calls in a promise made years ago by the father of Koo Chan-sung (Yeo Jin-goo), pressing a reluctant Chan-sung into the job. Together with the hotel’s ghostly staff, the two help restless spirits finally find peace.

Although there are several ghosts in Hotel Del Luna, the one that stands out is Ko Chung-myung (Lee Do-hyun), a figure from Man-wol’s own painful history and the hotel’s first (undocumented) guest. Having sworn to watch over Man-wol, Chung-myung keeps his promise for more than a thousand years, spending most of the K-drama by her side in the form of a firefly. His tiny, fleeting presence quietly speaks to his devotion to the woman he loved, and to the heartbreak that kept him tethered to her for centuries.

Disney+’s Light Shop, the hit K-drama adaptation of Kang Full’s popular webtoon, follows the interconnected stories of people caught in a liminal space between the world of the living and the dead after a catastrophic bus accident. Trapped in a seemingly endless loop, the survivors must eventually choose whether to wake from their comas and return to their lives or move on to the afterlife. The only place offering refuge is a mysterious light shop, whose keeper holds the key to determining their fate.

Among the K-drama ghosts in the series are mother and daughter Jung Yoo-hee (Lee Jung-eun) and Joo Hyun-joo (Shin Eun-soo). Yoo-hee has already died, while Hyun-joo remains in a coma, leaving her mother with one final task: to convince her daughter to leave her behind and choose life. Their eventual separation is crushing, particularly because Hyun-joo would rather stay in limbo than leave her mother behind, while Yoo-hee is desperate for her daughter to live.

If that wasn’t enough to bring audiences to tears, the K-drama delivers its final blow: it’s revealed that the mysterious keeper of the Light Shop, Jung Won-young (Ju Ji-hoon), is Yoo-hee’s father. As a child, when she lay comatose after the accident that killed him, Won-young chose to become the light shop keeper in exchange for the light bulb that would guide her back to life. For all its supernatural mystery, Light Shop offers heartfelt and deeply human stories about love and sacrifice.

Whether they return to seek justice, protect the people they love or finally make peace with the past, these iconic spirits prove that the most heartbreaking K-drama ghost stories are rarely about death itself. From classic tearjerkers like Hi Bye, Mama! and Goblin to recent 2026 releases like Spooky in Love and Phantom Lawyer, these supernatural series leave an indelible mark on audiences. Ultimately, they are about everything—and everyone—these K-drama ghosts are not ready to leave behind.

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