What Do the New 'Merry Berry Love' Stills Show?
Three weeks before a Korean-Japanese romantic comedy lands on Disney+, its lead actor is standing in a strawberry field. That is the image the production wanted circulating first.
The new 'Merry Berry Love' stills, released on September 14, 2026 , show Ji Chang Wook as Lee Yu Bin (이유빈) in two deliberately opposed modes: a sharply tailored Korean professional and a softened man on a Japanese farm. The release lands roughly three weeks ahead of the series' October 7, 2026 premiere .
Quick Answer: On September 14, 2026, the 'Merry Berry Love' production released Ji Chang Wook's first character stills — Lee Yu Bin as a top Korean space planner in tailored office wear, then smiling in a strawberry field. Korean outlets framed the contrast as '일잘러' (work machine) to '딸기남' (strawberry man) ahead of the October 7 premiere.
In the first set, Yu Bin is a first-rate Korean 'space planner' (공간 기획자 — a spatial and interior designer), in a crisp shirt, studying architectural plans with visible concentration; Korean coverage read the styling as shorthand for the character's industry-leading perfectionism . The second set moves him to a strawberry field, where a gentle smile replaces the corporate rigidity.
That before-and-after is the entire marketing hook. Korean outlets described the release as tracing the arc from '일잘러' — a work machine — to '딸기남,' or strawberry man . The series is a Korea–Japan co-production from CJ ENM and Nippon TV, streaming worldwide on Disney+ .
From 'Work Machine' to 'Strawberry Man': The Character Arc in the Stills
The two-mode stills function as a compressed character summary: they show where Lee Yu Bin starts and where the series intends to take him. In the first set, Ji Chang Wook plays the part of a top-tier Korean space planner (공간 기획자, a spatial and interior designer) in a crisp, sharply tailored shirt, bent over architectural plans with visible concentration. Korean coverage read that posture as shorthand for an industry-leading perfectionism — competence as identity . The second set drops the same face into a strawberry field, where the rigidity is gone and the expression softens into a gentle smile. Korean outlets described the field setting as deliberately romantic rather than merely rural, which is why the release was framed as an arc from 일잘러 to 딸기남 .
What the pairing does not show is the mechanism. The stills withhold the incident that collapses Yu Bin's career and sends him to Charo Island, and they withhold Mio Imada's Karin Shirahama entirely — she appears in the trailer and poster, not in this particular drop. The images sell a transformation and leave the cause for the premiere.
Ji's own comments, distributed alongside the stills, point at the same before-and-after. He said the character struck him as well-suited yet approachable in a familiar way, and that Yu Bin's passion for his work parallels his own — a reading that makes the corporate half of the stills less a costume than a starting point.
"I was excited throughout the read. It is a bright, cheerful and charming piece, and there was constant laughter on set. Please watch closely how Yu Bin finds love after meeting Karin, and how he grows," — Ji Chang Wook, on Merry Berry Love (source: Newspim, 2026-09).
That last line is the useful one for anyone deciding whether to schedule the show. Ji is describing a growth arc keyed to a romance, not a redemption drama about a fallen professional — consistent with how Disney+ Japan frames the material from Karin's side, as a farmer's routine interrupted by a down-on-his-luck city arrival. It is also Ji's first Japanese series and his return to romantic comedy roughly three years after Welcome to Samdal-ri , which is part of why a two-image character drop drew the coverage it did three weeks out from the October 7 premiere.
The Premise: From Rock Bottom in Seoul to Charo Island
Merry Berry Love follows Lee Yu Bin, a first-rate Korean space planner who hits rock bottom after an incident and travels to Charo, a small but beautiful fictional Japanese island, where he meets strawberry farmer Karin Shirahama . Nippon TV's official story page adds the detail that carries the plot: Karin is preparing for a variety-certification challenge that is three years in the making . Two people at opposite ends of a career — one who lost everything overnight, one mid-way through a long, unglamorous project — share a field.
The setup is described from both sides depending on which distributor is talking. Nippon TV's page leads with Yu Bin's fall and his arrival on the island. Disney's logline starts with Karin: an idyllic Japanese island, a hardworking farmer pouring her heart into cultivating the best strawberries she can, and then a down-on-his-luck city boy turning up, with an uncomfortable first encounter extended by an unexpected misunderstanding . Trade coverage describes the same character as a highly successful spatial designer who loses everything and retreats to Charo . The three accounts do not contradict each other; they simply choose different entry points into the same first episode.
What the framing tells you about the show's structure:
- The misunderstanding is the engine. Disney's wording — a first meeting made worse and then prolonged by a mix-up — points to a rom-com built on forced proximity rather than a slow-burn meet-cute.
- Karin has her own deadline. The three-year certification challenge gives her an objective independent of the romance, which is the clearest signal in the official material that the farm work is plot, not set dressing .
- Charo is invented. The island is fictional, so the series is not tied to a real municipality's geography or calendar.
The promotional language matches that reading. The official trailer, released through Disney+'s Korean YouTube channel as '메리 베리 러브｜공식 예고편｜디즈니+,' places Yu Bin and Karin together in a strawberry field under the tagline '무슨 사랑을 오늘도 심었나요' — 'What kind of love did you plant today?' . Planting as a metaphor for a relationship that has to be tended over a season is about as direct a statement of intent as a two-minute trailer can make, and it lines up with a premise where both leads are waiting on something to grow.
Who's Behind Merry Berry Love: Cast, Directors and a First-of-Its-Kind Deal
'Merry Berry Love' pairs Ji Chang Wook as Lee Yu Bin with Japanese actress Mio Imada as strawberry farmer Karin Shirahama, under a Korean-Japanese creative team assembled by CJ ENM, Nippon Television and Disney+ . Ji arrives off The Worst of Evil, The Manipulated and Revolver; Imada is known internationally for Tokyo Revengers, Trillion Game: The Movie and the NHK series Anpan . The billing is genuinely dual-lead rather than a Korean star fronting a Japanese production.
Nippon TV's official cast and staff page settles the supporting line-up, which had circulated in fragments across fan-maintained entries before the network published it :
- Nam Yoon Su as Park Gu Nam
- Rinka Kumada as Mizuno Mari
- Jung Seung Won and Lee Hyo In on the Korean side
- Kim Tae Hoon, Satoi Kenta and Danda Yasunori rounding out the ensemble
Behind the camera, the Korean directing team is Kim Soo Jung (Semantic Error) and Noh Young Seop (My Lovely Liar), with the script by Lee Jae Yoon (Divorce Insurance) and Korean executive producer Lee Sang Hwa credited . Those are three credits from the streaming-native, character-comedy end of Korean drama rather than the network-melodrama end, which is consistent with the tone the stills and trailer have been selling. On the Japanese side, chief producer Shinji Enari leads, with studio-centre personnel Kenji Ikeda, Soshi Nose, Shinichiro Kubo and Reon Iwami .
The structural point is the deal itself. 'Merry Berry Love' is the first jointly produced series between CJ ENM — the studio behind Crash Landing on You and Queen of Tears — and Nippon Television. Nippon TV announced the partnership on November 13, 2025, describing it as its first-ever co-production tie-up with CJ ENM, a cross-cultural romantic comedy built for both Nippon TV broadcast and global Disney+ streaming, under the wider strategic collaboration between Nippon Television Holdings and The Walt Disney Company Japan . Disney+ Japan followed a week later, on November 20, 2025, positioning it as a Disney+ Star title and naming Ji and Imada as co-leads . The project had surfaced slightly earlier at Disney+'s Hong Kong originals showcase that same month .
That three-way structure explains the shape of the production: Korean writing and directing, a Japanese broadcaster's production infrastructure, and a global streamer carrying it outside Japan. Japan–Korea television co-productions remain uncommon — Netflix's Romantics Anonymous is the notable recent exception — so how this one performs is being watched as a test of whether the model scales .
Where and When to Watch Merry Berry Love
Merry Berry Love premieres worldwide on Disney+ on October 7, 2026, and airs the same day on Nippon TV in Japan, with new episodes arriving weekly thereafter . Nippon TV's official programme page lists Episode 1 as "2026.10.7 ON AIR," carried across the network's 28-station terrestrial system plus TOS, with streaming on Disney+ and real-time and catch-up viewing on TVer inside Japan . Yonhap, citing Disney+, separately reported the same October 7 streaming date and the weekly Nippon TV broadcast pattern .source
The Japanese broadcast slot has been cited in trade coverage as Wednesdays at 22:00 JST, which matches the weekly Wednesday cadence implied by the October 7 start . For viewers outside Japan, Disney+ is the only listed route; Nippon TV and TVer access is domestic.source
| Where | Platform / network | Start | Cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worldwide | Disney+ | October 7, 2026 | Weekly episodes |
| Japan (broadcast) | Nippon TV, 28-station terrestrial network + TOS | October 7, 2026 | Weekly, cited as Wed 22:00 JST |
| Japan (streaming) | TVer | October 7, 2026 | Real-time simulcast + catch-up |
For Ji Chang Wook's audience, the date carries two firsts at once. This is billed as his first Japanese series, and it marks his return to romantic comedy roughly three years after Welcome to Samdal-ri — a gap filled instead by darker work including The Worst of Evil, The Manipulated and Revolver . Fans following him from those titles are getting a tonal reset rather than a continuation, which is part of what the character stills were built to signal.
One practical note for international viewers: because the series runs simultaneously on a Japanese terrestrial network and a global streamer, episode-by-episode spoilers tend to surface on Japanese social platforms in the JST evening, several hours ahead of some regions' Disney+ clocks. No episode count, per-episode synopsis, or regional release-time breakdown beyond the October 7 date has been published by Nippon TV or Disney+ as of mid-September 2026.source
What's Already Happened — and What's Still Unconfirmed
The September 14, 2026 character stills are the most recent beat in a promotional campaign that has been running for roughly ten months, and a clear line separates what has been officially announced from what has only been reported secondhand. Nippon TV announced the CJ ENM partnership on November 13, 2025 , Disney+ Japan named Ji Chang Wook and Mio Imada as co-leads on November 20, 2025 , and the project had already surfaced at Disney+'s Hong Kong originals showcase earlier that November .
In early September 2026 the campaign accelerated: a main poster and the official trailer arrived, the latter posted to Disney+'s Korean YouTube channel as '메리 베리 러브｜공식 예고편｜디즈니+' under the tagline "What kind of love did you plant today?" , followed by a press conference on September 2, 2026 at the Nittele Tower in Shiodome, Tokyo .
Several widely circulated details do not carry the same weight. Filming reportedly ran from September 2025 to March 2026 — on Nokonoshima Island in Fukuoka Prefecture through January 2026, then Seoul's Hongdae area in March 2026 — but that timeline comes from a user-maintained encyclopedia entry and appears on neither Nippon TV's official story page nor its cast and staff page. Treat it as background, not confirmed production fact.
What remains genuinely unknown, as of September 16, 2026: no episode count, no per-episode synopsis, no viewership target, and no budget figure has been published by CJ ENM, Nippon TV, or Disney. The practical takeaway is narrow and firm — October 7, 2026 on Disney+ worldwide and Nippon TV in Japan, weekly thereafter . Everything past that date is still marketing, not confirmed detail.
Last updated: 2026-09-16. Verified against Nippon TV official pages, the Disney+ Japan announcement, and same-day Korean wire coverage.
Frequently asked questions
When does 'Merry Berry Love' premiere?
'Merry Berry Love' premieres on October 7, 2026, streaming worldwide on Disney+ and broadcasting the same day on Nippon TV in Japan, with new episodes released weekly thereafter . Nippon TV's official site lists Episode 1 as "2026.10.7 ON AIR," carried across the network's 28-station terrestrial system plus TOS, and Yonhap reported the same Disney+ date citing the platform . The Japanese slot has been cited as Wednesdays at 22:00 JST.
Where can I watch 'Merry Berry Love' outside Japan?
Outside Japan, the series streams exclusively on Disney+ as a Disney+ Star title, available globally from the October 7, 2026 premiere with weekly episode drops . Viewers inside Japan have additional options: the Nippon TV terrestrial broadcast, plus real-time and catch-up viewing on TVer . No separate regional broadcast partner has been announced outside these channels.
Who stars in 'Merry Berry Love'?
Ji Chang Wook (The Worst of Evil, The Manipulated, Revolver) leads as Korean space planner Lee Yu Bin, opposite Japanese actress Mio Imada (Tokyo Revengers, Trillion Game: The Movie, Anpan) as strawberry farmer Karin Shirahama . Nippon TV's official cast and staff page confirms Nam Yoon Su as Park Gu Nam and Rinka Kumada as Mizuno Mari in support, alongside Jung Seung Won, Lee Hyo In, Kim Tae Hoon, Satoi Kenta and Danda Yasunori .
What is 'Merry Berry Love' about?
Lee Yu Bin, a first-rate Korean space planner (공간 기획자, a spatial and interior designer), falls to rock bottom after an incident and travels to Charo, a small fictional Japanese island. There he meets Karin Shirahama, a strawberry farmer preparing for a variety-certification challenge three years in the making . Disney's logline frames the same material from Karin's side — a hardworking farmer whose uncomfortable first encounter with the arriving city boy is extended by an unexpected misunderstanding .
Is 'Merry Berry Love' Ji Chang Wook's first Japanese drama?
Yes. 'Merry Berry Love' is billed as Ji Chang Wook's first Japanese series, and it also marks his return to romantic comedy roughly three years after Welcome to Samdal-ri . The project carries a second first: Nippon TV announced on November 13, 2025 that this is its first co-produced series with CJ ENM, made under the strategic collaboration between Nippon Television Holdings and The Walt Disney Company Japan .
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This article was written using information collected and analyzed by NAMANE's in-house K-pop research AI engine. We use AI technology to bring you faster, broader coverage, and in the process some details may occasionally differ from the latest facts. For important information such as dates, venues, and prices, please double-check with official sources.
