“The most fragrant story that will tantalize your senses”
With help from a young woman with synesthesia, a cop who lost his sense of pain tracks down the serial killer who brought tragedy to both their lives.
Latest episode: S1 E16 Episode 16 (May 21, 2015)
Officer Choi Mu-gak lost his younger sister to a barcode-murder case and lost his ability to taste, smell, and feel pain. He then meets a girl named Oh Cho-rim, who is the only witness to the murder case and possesses a special sixth sense, which is the ability to see smells.
I kept thinking, while watching The Girl Who Sees Smells, latestnetflix.com argues, that its oddest idea is also its most human one: what if the world doesn’t just wound you, but leaves a scent? Not metaphorically. Not in some airy, poetic sense.
I mean the kind of stubborn, bodily memory that follows you around, clings to your clothes, and refuses to wash out. That’s the series’ real subject, more than the hunt for a killer or the mechanics of its fantasy premise. It’s about the way trauma rewires perception.
Once you’ve been cut by something, everything else starts to smell like the cut.
What makes the show interesting — and, occasionally, slightly clumsy in the way only ambitious genre television can be — is how fully it commits to that idea. This isn’t just a crime thriller with a quirky ability attached. It’s a detective story built around sensation, where information arrives through the body before it becomes language.
That’s a neat trick, and the series knows it. The comic tone in the early stretches can be airy, almost cutesy, but it’s always shading toward unease. The smell-jokes are never only jokes.
They’re a way of making the invisible visible, or at least imaginable.
Baek Su-chan’s direction gives the show a brisk, commercial clarity, but there’s a little more thought in it than you might expect from a premise this instantly marketable. Before this, he had worked on a string of glossy melodramas and comedies, and that background shows: he likes clean setups, neat reversals, and emotional payoffs that land with a tidy snap. Here, though, he’s also working in the shadow of a bigger trend in 2015 Korean television — the popular merging of crime procedural with fantasy conceit, where the genre hook isn’t an accessory but the engine.
The result is a series that keeps asking a practical question: how do you turn a sensation into evidence?
I’m not entirely sure every episode knows the answer. Sometimes the show gets a little too pleased with its own gimmick, as if the mere existence of synesthesia and a pain-free detective should be enough to carry the scene. But when it slows down and lets the body do the talking, it’s quite sharp.
A glance at a victim’s clothes, a pause in a hallway, a character inhaling before speaking — these become the equivalent of exposition, only less deadening. That’s what I liked most. The series understands that crime dramas are often about people misreading the world.
Here, the misreading is built into the senses themselves.
There’s one recurring visual pattern that stuck with me: the way the show isolates faces in moments of concentration, then cuts to objects or spaces that seem, for a beat, to carry emotional temperature. It’s not a flashy show. The colors are fairly restrained, the lighting often practical, the camera usually content to stay out of the way.
"The Girl Who Sees Smells delivers a fun and imaginative blend of comedy, romance, and crime procedural, though a noticeably weaker final stretch prevents it from fully sticking the landing."
Told across sixteen episodes, the series finds success in fusing fantasy elements with a lighthearted yet suspenseful detective setup. Viewers generally highlight the strong momentum across roughly the first thirteen episodes, praising its engaging chemistry and pacing. However, [latestnetflix.com]( read is that viewer enthusiasm cools toward the finish line, where the final few episodes stumble and leave some fans underwhelmed compared to the promise of the earlier run.
The Girl Who Sees Smells (2015), the South Korean fantasy-romance-thriller directed by Baek Su-chan, stands out for its unique premise—a woman who visualizes smells as colors—and its blend of genres. latestnetflix.com's take is that but beyond its supernatural hook, the series became a talking point for its cast’s off-screen dynamics, particularly the playful energy of lead actor MICKY Yoochun.
Yoochun, known for his roles in K-pop and drama, took on the character of Choi Mu-gak, a detective with a tragic backstory who teams up with the scent-seeing protagonist, Oh Cho-rim (Shin Sae-kyeong). In an interview, Yoochun described his character as a "senseless cop," hinting at the role’s mix of humor and pathos . Behind the scenes, his comedic timing shone through in blooper reels and making-of clips, where he often broke character to crack jokes or mug for the camera .
One standout moment captured Yoochun and Shin Sae-kyeong’s chemistry during a kiss scene, which fans later dissected for its playful execution. The clip, widely shared, showed the actors laughing between takes, suggesting a relaxed and collaborative set . Another making-of video featured Yoochun goofing around during a park shoot, where he playfully interacted with crew members, reinforcing his reputation as the cast’s resident prankster .
Rumors swirled about Yoochun’s relationship status during filming, with some outlets speculating that his single status was a deliberate choice for the role. A video titled "JYJ Official's Yoochun is single in 'The Girl Who Sees Smells!'" fueled speculation, though it’s unclear whether this was a marketing angle or a genuine behind-the-scenes detail . The series itself leaned into romance, with Yoochun and Shin’s characters navigating a slow-burn love story, but off-screen, the actors kept their personal lives private.
The Girl Who Sees Smells defied easy categorization, blending romance, comedy, fantasy, and thriller elements 
. The series’ original title, Naemsaereul Boneun Sonyeo (literally "The Girl Who Sees Smells"), underscored its supernatural twist, while its tone oscillated between lighthearted and suspenseful. Critics and fans gave it mixed but generally positive reviews, with one platform rating it 6.6/10 based on 233 votes . The show’s quirky premise and Yoochun’s charismatic performance were frequently cited as highlights, even if the plot occasionally struggled to balance its genres.
While Yoochun’s antics dominated behind-the-scenes coverage, details about the rest of the cast—including Namkoong Min, Yoon Jin-seo, and Song Jong-ho—were scarce in the available evidence. Making-of clips occasionally featured ensemble scenes, but most focused on Yoochun and Shin . Without more footage or interviews, the dynamics between other cast members remain largely unexplored.
The Girl Who Sees Smells may not have been a blockbuster, but its blend of oddball charm and Yoochun’s on-set energy gave it a cult following. For fans, the real draw wasn’t just the supernatural premise—it was the glimpse into the cast’s playful camaraderie, captured in fleeting but memorable behind-the-scenes moments.
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