Viewers around the world spent almost 3.1 billion hours watching Asian TV series on Netflix’s global Top 10 in the first half of this year – a drop of 17.1% compared to the first 26 weeks of 2025.

ContentAsia’s analysis of Netflix’s weekly Non-English Global Top 10 rankings shows 3,076.9 million hours viewed in 2026 compared to 3,712.2 million in 2025 – a decline of 635.3 million hours.

Much of the difference can be traced to the second season of “Squid Game”, which pulled the original season back into the global rankings alongside it. 

Together, the two seasons were watched for 1,135.4 million hours in the first nine weeks of 2025.  

Stripping “Squid Game” out of last year’s total, 2026 is more than half a billion hours ahead of 2025. This implies that the rest of the field improved year-on-year.  

Leaving the “what ifs” aside, for all its Korean hits in the first half of this year, 2026 had nothing that came even close to “Squid Game”. 

The top Asian title for the first half of 2026 (weeks 1-26) by total hours viewed was limited series “Teach You a Lesson”, with approx 498.9 million hours viewed across its four weeks on the charts. 

In week 27 – the first week of the second half of 2026 – “Teach You a Lesson” added 49.9 million hours viewed, giving it a total of just under 549 million hours for its five-week run in the top 10. 

The new rankings for the week of 6-12 July 2026  will be released in the U.S. overnight on Tuesday (Wednesday morning Asia time). What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report for the first half of the year is expected to be released this week along with the company’s Q2 financial earnings.  

“Teach You a Lesson” is a 10-episode South Korean action-drama about a government task force – the Educational Rights Protection Bureau – that is created to reform a school system where teacher authority has collapsed and campus violence, bullying and corruption are rampant.

The series released on 5 June, drawing 68.7 million hours for the week of 1-7 June. 

Hours viewed spiked sharply for its first full week (8-14 June) on the platform, to 225.8 million hours, an increase of 157.1 million (228.7%), and have declined every week since in a classic front-loaded viewing curve. 

Week 25 (15-21 June) came in at 126.2 million hours, a drop of 44% on the previous week; followed in Week 26 (22-28 June) by another 38% drop to 78.2 million hours. Week 27 (29 June-5 July) puts the series 78%  down from its week 24 peak.

By total Non-English Top 10 hours viewed in first half 2026, the second top Asian series was Korea’s “Can This Love Be Translated?”, with 271 million hours across 5 weeks in the Top 10 – about 46% lower than “Teach You a Lesson”.