The drama tells the story of an ordinary office worker disguising herself and going on a blind date with her attractive boss in the place of her friend to end this unwanted marriage blind date after her request. “Business Proposal” is originally based on a web novel of the same name by HaeHwa and it was published into a webtoon (story by HaeHwa and Perilla, drawing by Narak) later. You can check the web novel here and the webtoon here in Korean and here in English. Although the webtoon and K-Drama are not exactly the same, none of the differences drastically change the story. However, you might find some of the differences interesting. So, here is a randomly ordered list of 5 differences between the “Business Proposal” web drama and the webtoon. Warning: This article contains spoilers for episodes 1-3 of the webtoon and episodes 1-4 of the K-Drama for “Business Proposal”.
1. The order of events
Within the first page of the webtoon, we already know that Shin HaRi has to go on a date with Kang TaeMu on her friend Jin YoungSeo’s behalf. The webtoon also immediately divulges the fact that he calls her back and wants to marry her to get his family off his back. Whereas in the K-Drama we got to know more about the characters first and the storyline leading up to the proposal took a couple of episodes. We find out most of the details from the first couple of episodes in the drama, in the form of flashbacks in the webtoon.
2. The motivation for the relationship
In the webtoon, Shin HaRi considers the relationship a possible end to her single life implying that she sees it as more than a way to get out of her financial situation. Whereas in the drama she approaches the relationship purely to settle some of her financial problems and has only started thinking of him fondly in the most recent episodes.
3. One of the excuses she used to get out of the marriage
In the webtoon, one of the things she tells Kang TaeMu to stop him from wanting to marry her is that she no longer likes men but only likes women. She is even in disbelief at herself because she had gone on about being a man-killer on their date. In the drama, she never uses this excuse.
4. The context behind MinWoo’s surprise and the actual surprise
In the webtoon, MinWoo had asked HaRi whether women still accepted rings when getting proposed to, which raised her expectations and made her think that he was going to surprise her with a ring when they met up. However, in the drama, YoungSeo had discovered a women’s necklace in MinWoo’s belongings by accident and that was what caused the speculation that he was going to gift it to HaRi on her birthday. Additionally, in the webtoon, the surprise that HaRi ends up getting when she meets up with MinWoo is an introduction to his new girlfriend HyeJi and she turns out to be wearing the ring. They even go for dinner together. Whereas, in the webtoon, the necklace turns out to be a gift from one of MinWoo’s regular customers to his girlfriend on their private anniversary dinner at MinWoo’s restaurant. We also only get to meet his new girlfriend in episode 3 after HaRi spots them together by chance. His girlfriend’s name is also YooRa and they used to date previously.
5. The reason Shin HaRi needs money in the first place
While it is true that she has debt from loans in both the drama and the webtoon. The reason why she initially needs more money is different. In the webtoon, her family’s chicken business has gone under due to the bird flu and the interest rate on her initial loan has gone up a large amount. Whereas in the drama, she got into an altercation with the owner of the seafood restaurant across the street from her family’s business and ends up owing him 800,000 won for his hospital fees. These are only a few of the differences that we’ve spotted. Have you spotted any other differences between the drama and the webtoon for “Business Proposal”? What do you think of the differences? Let us know in the comments below! If you would like to read about more K-Dramas that are different from their webtoons, check out this article.
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