On paper, it sounds like a joke. A chaebol heir is running out of time because the battery in his artificial heart is dying, and the only person who can recharge him is a woman who crackles with so much electricity that she can’t hold anyone’s hand. That’s the setup of Take Charge of My Heart (나를 충전해줘), Netflix’s newest Korean rom-com.
With a premise that cartoonish, it’s easy to assume Take Charge of My Heart is based on a webtoon. It isn’t. The show is adapted from a web novel: the Naver web novel Charge Me Up by Haebeon. That built-in readership probably explains why the drama commits to its wild logic with such confidence.
The Web Novel Behind Take Charge of My Heart
Netflix credits the Naver web novel Charge Me Up as the source. The Korean title is basically a plea, “please charge me,” and that one line holds the whole story. It’s about a dying man clinging to the one person who can keep him alive, and about a woman who has never been able to touch anyone finally meeting someone she can.
With so many K-dramas coming from webtoons right now, a show that jumps straight from a web novel to the screen is actually a bit unusual. That’s why you’ll see some English-language coverage call it a webtoon adaptation, but the correct answer is web novel. There’s no official English translation of the web novel yet.
From Charge Me Up to Netflix: What Changed?
Take Charge of My Heart is a 10-episode series, and all episodes dropped on Netflix at once on October 9, 2026. It’s directed by Park Soo-won, who made Work Later, Drink Now 2 and Birthcare Center. He has a knack for grounded, everyday comedy, which turns out to be a good fit for a story this offbeat.
The biggest change is length. Squeezing a long web novel into 10 episodes means the story moves fast, and in Korea the most common complaint was exactly that: the back half feels rushed. Whether the web novel ends the same way as the drama hasn’t been confirmed in public sources yet, so we’ll add that here once it is.
Take Charge of My Heart Cast and Characters
Kim Young-kwang plays Baek Ho-rang, the chaebol heir whose artificial heart is running out of power. He’s cool and reserved on the surface. Chae Soo-bin plays Na Bo-bae, a TV drama writer who was struck by lightning as a child and has had electricity running through her body ever since. She can’t even hold hands with her own family, which makes her a little odd and very lonely.
Around them are Ji Eun-ho (Cha Woo-min), a top star and Bo-bae’s number one fan; Choi Do-yoon (Jung Jae-kwang), a rival heir fighting Ho-rang for control of the company; and Han Seol-hee (Shin Do-hyun), a sharp strategist. Together they bring in the familiar K-rom-com ingredients: a love triangle and a corporate power struggle.
Take Charge of My Heart Plot Explained
It all starts with a contract. Ho-rang asks Bo-bae to keep him alive for three months by moving in with him so he can stay charged. Bo-bae has her own deadline: she needs to finish a romance script within three months to get her contract renewed. So she says yes.
The rules are simple. The closer they are, the faster he charges. Like it or not, the two of them have to stay close. And once it turns out that Ho-rang is the one person Bo-bae’s electricity doesn’t hurt, the contract slowly stops being just a contract. It’s the classic fake-relationship trope, rewired with batteries and electricity.
How Does Take Charge of My Heart End?
The final showdown happens at TS Group’s 30th anniversary celebration. Do-yoon spikes Ho-rang’s drink to push his fragile heart over the edge, then kidnaps Bo-bae. She escapes and races to the venue, where Ho-rang has collapsed on stage. With no time left, she pours every bit of her electricity into his chest in one massive emergency shock.
It saves Ho-rang, but it costs Bo-bae her power. Afterward, Ho-rang gets a stable new artificial heart and no longer depends on her, Do-yoon’s crimes come to light, and Ho-rang takes back control of the company.
And at the very end, the two of them hold hands. What first brought them together was need, the need to charge. Now there’s no reason to charge anymore, and they hold hands anyway. We think that’s the point the show was making all along. For a woman who has never been able to hold anyone’s hand, losing her power feels less like a loss and more like a gift.
What Viewers Are Saying About Take Charge of My Heart
Nearly every reaction comes back to the same thing: the chemistry between the two leads. Korean viewers wrote things like “their chemistry is simply the best,” “I got hooked and couldn’t stop,” and “Kim Young-kwang, please do more rom-coms.” International reviews agreed, praising how Kim Young-kwang’s restrained performance plays off Chae Soo-bin’s comic timing. English-speaking viewers have rated it an average of 8.7 out of 10.
The criticism comes from the same place, too. The concept is fresh, but the story structure is very familiar, and the ending feels rushed. One Korean review put it neatly: instead of a glass slipper, a contract; instead of a prince, a chaebol heir. For our money, one viewer summed the show up best: sometimes you want a cute drama you can just enjoy without thinking too hard, and this is exactly that.
Will There Be Take Charge of My Heart Season 2?
There are no announced plans, and we think it’s unlikely. Netflix has listed Take Charge of My Heart as a limited series from the start, and the ending wraps up every major thread: the heart, the power, and the company. There’s simply no conflict left to restart the story.
That said, the show reached the top 10 in 64 countries in its second week and climbed to No. 2 on Netflix’s global non-English TV chart, so another rom-com reunion for Kim Young-kwang and Chae Soo-bin feels like a more realistic hope than a second season. If you want to read the original, Charge Me Up is available in Korean on Naver Series. We’ll update this page if an official English translation is announced.