• By Nick Patel
  • 30 Oct, 2026
  • Charts

Vertical 52 Recap, Oct 29: Love Is A Dangerous Game Takes #1 as 17 New Shows Arrive

By Nirav Patel, Founder, Vertical Charts

The Vertical 52 turned over almost a third of its lineup this week. In the October 29 update, 17 titles are new to the chart, 17 dropped off, and the show that held #1 last week, Forbidden Fling With My Bestie’s Dad, fell all the way to #25. The new #1 is another DramaBox romance, Love Is A Dangerous Game, which climbed from #6. Here is what moved and why.

The top 10 at a glance

  1. Love Is A Dangerous Game (DramaBox), VertiScore 85.9, up from #6
  2. Deny Me, Dragon King (DramaBox), 83.7, up from #3
  3. Think Again! I’m the Hidden Boss Mom (DramaBox), 82.2, up from #8
  4. Falling for the Prince at Dark Arts Academy (DramaBox), 82.0, new
  5. Five Years of Hate, a Lifetime of Regret (DramaBox), 79.7, new
  6. Tempest: The Last Mecha (DramaBox), 78.0, up from #9
  7. The Reckoning Takes Flight (ReelShort), 77.9, up from #32
  8. I Wish It Were You (DramaBox), 77.7, up from #11
  9. Chosen by the Dragon Baby: His Human Mate (DramaBox), 76.4, new
  10. My Billionaire Patient Is My Baby Daddy (DramaBox), 76.3, up from #13

DramaBox holds nine of the top ten spots and 14 of the top 20. The full chart is split evenly, 26 titles from each app, because our selection takes the strongest 20 from each platform plus recent releases. One caveat we repeat every week: ReelShort counts plays and DramaBox counts views, and the two aren’t measured the same way, so cross-app comparisons are rough. Our methodology page explains how each VertiScore is built.

A quiet #1 with a loud score

Love Is A Dangerous Game didn’t get to the top on raw size. Its roughly 95 million DramaBox views are well below what several shows further down the chart have racked up. It won on pace and loyalty: it maxed out our velocity component (views per day since release, scored 100) and posted an 89 on engagement, which is how often viewers save it relative to how many watch it. The show released on September 22 and runs 43 episodes, short by DramaBox standards.

The premise is a classic forbidden-love setup with a twist: a wife is paired with her best friend’s husband at a partner-swapping retreat, and he turns out to be nothing like his wife described. We tag it 18+ for mature themes. Its rise fits a pattern we flagged in our trope analysis of the Vertical 52: forbidden love and concealed identity keep pulling the strongest save rates on DramaBox.

Why last week’s leaders fell

The biggest story is how far the old top five dropped. Forbidden Fling went from a 94.6 VertiScore to 68.7, and Poisoned by His Love slid from #4 to #29, its score falling from 89.2 to 67.5. Two other former top-five titles, He Broke the Heart That Saved Him (#2 last week) and Shifter Academy: Taming Three Wild Mates (#5), left the chart entirely.

None of these shows lost viewers. Forbidden Fling actually grew from about 137.5 million to 145.7 million views in a week, and it still scores a perfect 100 on velocity. What changed is placement, the quarter of each score that reflects where a title sits on the platform’s own official lists. Forbidden Fling scored 100 on placement last week and 0 this week, because it no longer appears on any of the DramaBox lists we capture. Poisoned by His Love and He Broke the Heart That Saved Him also score 0 on placement now. A VertiScore measures how hard a show is being pushed and watched this week, not its lifetime success.

DramaBox’s October class arrives fast

Nine of the 17 newcomers are DramaBox titles, and several of them debuted near the top within about ten days of release. Falling for the Prince at Dark Arts Academy and Five Years of Hate, a Lifetime of Regret both hit the shelf on October 19 and opened at #4 and #5. Neither is a giant yet, at about 20 million and 15 million views, but both score 96 or higher on velocity.

Falling for the Prince is a dark-fantasy academy romance about a woman drawn to a demon prince who secretly bonded her the night her parents were killed. Five Years of Hate is a mafia revenge-and-regret story. With Chosen by the Dragon Baby at #9 and The Hidden Tyrant: A Retired Godfather Baking in Sicily at #18, they show DramaBox spreading its bets across fantasy, mafia and family stories rather than leaning on one formula.

DramaBox’s business news points the same direction. On October 27, Deadline reported that the new French streamer JLA Play licensed about 30 DramaBox micro-dramas, mostly drama and romantic comedy. A catalog that sells abroad gives DramaBox more reason to keep new titles coming.

ReelShort’s partnerships show up on the chart

ReelShort placed only one show in the top 10, but its biggest move of the week was dramatic. The Reckoning Takes Flight jumped 25 places, from #32 to #7. Its views barely moved, but it showed up on an official ReelShort list this week, lifting its placement score from 0 to 57, and it kept an 89 on engagement. It’s a July 2025 release, which shows how platform promotion can revive an older title.

Two newcomers come straight out of ReelShort’s partnership deals. Worth the Chase, the second Wattpad adaptation, which Wattpad said would launch October 27, debuted at #12 with about 9.3 million plays on its ReelShort page at our snapshot. We covered its launch and how the first Wattpad title performed in our Worth the Chase preview. That first title, Just One Kiss, slipped from #19 to #35 this week as its list placement eased and its save rate stayed low. Right behind Worth the Chase at #13 is Agent of Shadows, the first micro-drama from ReelShort’s WWE partnership, which pairs WWE wrestlers with established micro-drama actors and was announced to premiere October 23.

Other ReelShort arrivals include the sports romance How to Dump a Hockey Star at #11, with more than 213 million plays. ReelShort’s biggest catalog hit on the chart, The Great and Powerful Genie, held at #20 with nearly 589 million plays. It still ranks lower than its size suggests because it isn’t on any of the official lists we capture.

Other moves worth noting

What to watch next week

Three questions will shape the next update: whether Love Is A Dangerous Game keeps its spot on DramaBox’s official lists, the thing that sank Forbidden Fling; whether the October 19 releases stay in the top five; and whether Worth the Chase and Agent of Shadows turn partnership buzz into lasting saves.

The full ranking, with every show’s score breakdown, is on the Vertical 52 chart. The next update lands Thursday, November 5.

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