Yeonhee: The thing is, my neighbor... is EXO!
Gaeun: Your mother treated you so badly that you finally lost it.
23-year-old Ji Yeonhee suddenly finds that four members of the Korean Boy Band EXO have moved into the house next door. The boys came to the house on the request of Chanyeol, whose late grandfather owned the house and who is looking to find the duplicate copy of a necklace he broke, which was given to him by his grandfather, in order to put a stop to his recent string of misfortunes. Amidst quite a few extremely mortifying encounters, Yeonhee becomes the boys' maid, and she learns that one member of the world-famous group isn't as far apart from her as she believes.Gaeun: Your mother treated you so badly that you finally lost it.
EXO Next Door is a Web Original Korean Series presented by Naver TV Cast in 2015, starring Moon Gayoung and members of the Korean Boy Band EXO (playing fictionalized versions of themselves). Despite the drama being a Cringe Comedy, it became one of the most popular web series in Korea with 50 million views; leading to CJ E&M re-editing it into a film version, which was then sold to overseas buyers at the 68th Cannes Film Market.
This show contains examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: The fans who chase Sehun. In Real Life, such fans aren't so funny.
- Blessed with Suck: Millions upon millions of girls would kill to be in Yeonhee's shoes, but seeing as how her first few encounters with the group went extremely poorly, it's perfectly understandable that she balks at the idea of interacting with the boys in the early episodes.
- Bookcase Passage: Chanyeol accidentally rediscovers his grandfather's office by hanging his sweater on the coat rack switch.
- Bookends: The series ends with Yeonhee opening a box of rice cakes and being handed a water bottle by a certain someone.
- Boy Band: Downplayed. While the boys do various activities like practicing and photoshoots, the good majority of plot advancement occurs during their downtime at Chanyeol's house.
- Bromance: Sehun and Kwangsoo get a couple of these moments, especially in the last episode.
- Cannot Spit It Out: As bad as Yeonhee is at getting his message, Chanyeol could have avoided the entire situation by just telling her he was her childhood friend.
- Chekhov's Hobby: Kwangsoo's martial arts and tendency to engage in battle with any coat rack he lays eyes on are how Yeonhee and Chanyeol are freed from the secret room.
- Chekhov's News: Yeonhee reads the news about Suho's injury on her phone in the first episode.
- Childhood Friend Romance
- Comically Missing the Point: Kwangsoo finds out that their neighbors are EXO, and immediately tries preventing Yeonhee from going over to the next house because he also finds out that EXO has superpowers. Sehun expects that Kwangsoo was angry at him because he hid the fact that he was a celebrity, but Kwangsoo was actually mad because Sehun never mentioned anything about his superpowers. Said superpowers are completely non-existent and are only part of EXO's concept.
- Cool House: Somewhat informed by Baekhyun, Sehun, and D.O., but the house is definitely on the cool side.
- Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Sehun and Kwangsoo.
- Cringe Comedy: On the border between Played Straight and Played for Drama. Yeonhee's first few encounters with the group are on the verge of
Cringe Fuel, ranging from her doing a Spit Take in his face upon their first meeting, to her almost destroying his room full of instruments, in which she wasn't supposed to be in the first place, chasing a cockroach. - First Love: Chanyeol doesn't take kindly to Yeonhee referring to her high school crush Minhwan as her first love and reminds her that it was himself, not Minhwan.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Yeonhee doesn't remember Chanyeol until he spells it out for her directly in episode 13. She defends herself by claiming that she wouldn't have fathomed her childhood friend growing up to be Park Chanyeol.
- Friendship Trinket: An untwisted example: Chanyeol received the necklace from his grandfather and believed him to have the matching one, but his grandfather had actually given it to Yeonhee, telling her that if she held onto it, Chanyeol would someday come looking for it.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Chanyeol, toward Minhwan.
- D.O.'s constant bad timing in walking in on Chanyeol and Yeonhee often leaves him looking on with a sadness that gets mixed with more and more envy as time goes on.
- Both Chanyeol and D.O. toward Kai, to some extent, after Sehun mistakenly deduces that Yeonhee likes him. He seemingly plays this up during his first time around the house.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Being under so much stress turns Chanyeol into this to the point where he yells at Sehun and D.O. just for looking at him. Justified when he snaps at Yeonhee for not only being in his room when she was expressly informed not to, but having carelessly knocked over his instruments.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Parodied when Kwangsoo and Sehun are being chased by some of the latter's fangirls and Kwangsoo diverts their attention so Sehun can escape.
- Hint Dropping: Chanyeol to Yeonhee.
- Ho Yay: Baekhyun and Sehun decide to mess with Yeonhee (who was spying on them) by pretending to make out.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: D.O. considered not helping Chanyeol out by telling him Yeonhee was waiting for him, he decided to (albeit mostly because she probably would have frozen to death before leaving.)
- Impossibly Delicious Drink: Kwangsoo can make coffee from absolute scratch that is so good, it made a K-Pop idol immediately befriend him.
- I'm Your Biggest Fan: Averted. While Yeonhee and Gaeun are EXO fans, neither of them seems to be biased toward any one member in particular.
- It's All My Fault: The way Chanyeol feels about Suho and the water bottle incident.
- D.O. also feels this way when Suho calls after running away and D.O. didn't realize anything was wrong.
- Just Friends: It's clear that D.O. would have preferred things to end differently.
- Loony Fan: Subverted. In the beginning Yeonhee says she'll be "on [the boys] 24/7," but this is quickly shaken out of her when Chanyeol gives her an I-won't-let-invasions-of-privacy-off-lightly Death Glare.
- Mood Whiplash: Yeonhee goes from gushing over the members to mortified devastation upon remembering the Spit Take. It leaves her mind absurdly quickly and she's back to spying in less than five seconds.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Chanyeol's reaction when he realizes he knocked over a water bottle and Suho tripped on it, injuring his leg badly.
- Naughty Birdwatching: Yeonhee in episode 2.
- Gaeun as well, but she leaves before the Ho Yay starts.
- Gaeun as well, but she leaves before the
- Nightmare Fuel: An In-Universe example: Chanyeol giving Yeonhee a Death Glare over peeping causes her to have one.
- Oblivious to Hints: Yeonhee. And. How.
- Chanyeol also misses the meaning of his late grandfather's hint as to where the other necklace is. He gets the "red" part but doesn't connect it with Yeonhee.
- Odd Friendship: Sehun and Kwangsoo. Above the fact that the former is world-famous and the latter is a martial-arts-obsessed high schooler who behaves as if he's far older, is the fact that their friendship started when the latter made some really good hand-ground, hand-squeezed coffee for the former in a tent in his backyard.
- Parental Abandonment: Yeonhee's mother is a real-estate agent. Whenever Yeonhee tries to back-talk her, she reminds her how much money she could get for renting out her room.
- Plot Device: The necklaces.
- Product Placement: Considering that this show is done by LINE TV, and the nature of every other LINE-sponsored EXO show, it would be more surprising if the cast didn't communicate solely by LINE and character pillows weren't everywhere.
- Romantic Comedy
- Reverse Harem: While the Chanyeol-Yeonhee-D.O. love triangle is the main focus of the series, there is also her high school crush Minhwan, and she is teased with Kai. By the end it mellows out and heads toward Supporting Harem territory.
- Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: In episode 14, Chanyeol tells Min-hwan he's dating Yeonhee and proceeds to demand that he stop calling her.
- Those Two Guys: Sehun and Kwangsoo.
- What the Fu Are You Doing?: Hilariously played with by Kwangsoo, who is always using a coat rack like a wooden dummy to the point where he did so upon spotting one in Chanyeol's house. His actual competence when it comes to martial arts is never seen, but it is implied to be nearly non-existent.
- In the last episode, he receives a real dummy along with a note encouraging him to "become a true martial artist" as a parting gift from Sehun.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Kwangsoo. Lampshaded by Sehun.
