By Marion Peña
Spoiler warning: this overview will comprise spoilers for a number of main occasions that occur all through the principle sequence.
Content warning: there will probably be dialogue of some heavier themes this sequence tackles, together with obsessive stalking, home violence, PTSD, and suicide.
True Beauty is a romance dramedy comedian on Naver’s Webtoon in regards to the wrestle of studying to like your self. Its characters are mired in emotional turmoil, as they stumble by their integration into society. The predominant feminine lead is Jugyeong Lim, a woman in love with different rock and horror comics/films. Throughout center college, she was incessantly bullied for her look–bushy eyebrows, zits scars, monolid eyes, mainly something thought of conventionally unattractive to Korean youngsters.
It took her to on-line boards, desperately in search of an answer to cease her struggling, in order that she may look within the mirror and never be reminded of how toxically everybody has handled her. That was how she found the facility of make-up. Enter highschool: Jugyeoung has lastly solid the ability and expertise to mildew her type and vogue into what fits her. She lastly has associates! But lurking beneath at any time when she goes residence and washes her face earlier than mattress is a reminder of why she must expend a lot effort into her outward look. A stark reminder that each one of her connections and happiness rests dependent on the very fact she has to kind a persona. Horror is creepy, so don’t speak about it! Acne scars are ugly, you higher cake on that concealer! Contacts could make your eyes bubbly and approachable! It’s a lot effort, however folks will deal with you with precise human decency and compassion! And that’s what Jugyeoung has been craving since an early age.
Jugyeoung Lim, sporting make-up. Credit to Yaongyi and WEBTOON.
You see, she’s the center baby of her household. Her older sister is an instructional overachiever, and her youthful brother is the princely child. With her mediocre grades and homely look, even her mom can’t appear to assist however deal with her extra harshly, even when she doesn’t imply it. This is why she leans so deeply into her area of interest hobbies–it’s a way to revel within the unconventional, and discover consolation within the irregular. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any associates to share in these pursuits, till she meets our first male lead, Suho Lee. They stumble upon one another one evening on the comedian retailer after college, each aiming to snag the most recent quantity of a Junji Ito sequence. Naturally, that is after she’s taken off her make-up for the day. He’s abrasive, and leaves after taking the ebook for himself. The subsequent day, they meet once more however Jugyeoung recommends towards one sequence Suho tries to select up, saying that midway by the writing takes a nosedive. At her behest, he tries one thing else, and to his shock, he enjoys it! The develop a rapport all of the whereas Jugyeong is wracked with terror as she realizes he goes to her college and has no concept who she is as a result of her look is so starkly totally different. This terror and worry is clear and inherent to her all through all the 223 episode run of the principle sequence.
Jugyeoung Lim, with out make-up. Credit to Yaongyi and WEBTOON.
It stems from worry of exclusion, worry of rejection, and a fervent want to be cherished. She has spent all of her childhood and adolescence up to now being handled subhumanly. If anybody discovered of her secret, that her “natural” look will not be so fairly, the one factor she expects is even harsher rebukes and ostracization. It’s a really palpable worry, and the artwork does a powerful job of conveying it by the realistically detailed character designs. The proportions of faces and our bodies should not closely stylized, apart from comedic segments with SD (super-deformed) faces drawn with flat colours and easy shapes. I used to be anxious initially that such a practical artstyle would run the danger of making every part look too stiff and robotic, however that wasn’t the case. The faces are extraordinarily expressive, Jugyeoung has a rainbow of feelings, and all of them are proven in uncooked element. She cries, she feels scared, she will get glad, she rages, and he or she will get disgusted. The real pleasure she feels on the thought of sharing happiness together with her associates, concurrently with the guilt seeping in from holding her naked face a secret, stands out each time writer Yaongyi places it on show.
Various facial expressions. Credit to Yaongyi and WEBTOON
So what does it imply when Jugyeoung slips up and her face will get found? We wouldn’t have any drama if the established order isn’t shaken up, and that’s precisely what occurs early on with Suho. As it seems, Suho doesn’t care about that. He has been dealt his personal shitty hand in life, and doesn’t care that Jugyeoung’s face in school clashes together with her picture in school. He’s simply glad to have somebody that enjoys the identical issues he does–his first good friend in years. Suho is taken into account engaging, and isn’t a stranger to ladies coming as much as him for his quantity or to ask him out. But he can’t afford to consider ladies. He has additionally been bullied–for being Korean-Japanese. It has left him with mistrust and wariness to anybody coming as much as him solely as a result of of his look. When it involves Jugyeong, he’s simply glad to attach with another person on a private degree, not superficially, after wading by his personal swamp of feelings.
In center college, Suho had a good friend named Seyeon Yoon who truly broke into his shell, and invited him to coach collectively as idol trainees with a gifted singing classmate named Seojun Han, the second male lead of this sequence. Long story brief, Seyeon, the peppy and likable all-rounder, finally ends up the sufferer of a nasty PR cycle from on-line followers who flippantly determined to not help him. It results in him overworking and feeling like he has no method out. Seyeon commits suicide, on the day he tries to contact each Seojun and Suho, however each can’t choose up as a result of of their very own private familial points. This occasion–which occurred in center college–steers Seojun into delinquency and makes Suho much more delinquent. Suho’s curiosity in horror stems from morbidity and a consolation that the supernatural isn’t actual, or reasonably, as actual because the occasions he’s needed to endure. Along along with his first good friend dying, he additionally needed to grapple with the dying of his mom, and his father’s obvious infidelity within the wake of it–that is the explanation he couldn’t choose up Seyeon’s name, and the explanation he blames himself for his good friend’s dying. It results in episodes of post-traumatic stress for each Suho and Seojun, with Suho choosing remedy and drugs to assist course of his grief. So yeah, within the face of this emotional baggage, Suho doesn’t actually care about Jugyeoung’s white lie about her look.
For about 95% of the sequence, Jugyeoung’s secret stays a secret to the overwhelming majority of folks she is aware of. This implies that so much of her inside struggles with loving herself and creating confidence and vanity are likely to ebb and torrent with how she sees how others understand her. As a poor pupil with mediocre grades, when it got here to profession paths, Jugyeoung was torn between getting a common schooling–the economically possible alternative–or getting licensed within the make-up arts, which is extra expensive and requires a special entrance examination. She finally ends up going to a standard college to check visible arts, however continues to pursue her ardour on the facet. There are a number of mini arcs the place she finally ends up serving to folks round her, like college students, moms, or professionals that recruit her, and it turns into clear to her how fulfilling it feels to make folks happier together with her make-up prowess. This works in the long term, as a result of many of these characters come again in later arcs as ancillary components of Jugyeoung’s character arc and the principle story. There’s a nerdy pupil in Jugyeoung’s movie research class, who doesn’t know a lot about vogue, however desires to look good to impress a woman he likes. She’s apprehensive at first, however decides to assist him out anyway as a result of he’s been an excellent group associate and needs to return the favor. Jugyeoung is sort of notorious amongst her shut circle of associates for being naive and fast to sacrifice her personal time to assist others, but it surely’s to her benefit as a result of her persona attracts simply as many grateful souls as opportunistic ones who’d need to screw her over.
One of my favourite elements of this story is that we get to see what occurs when such a sort, weak particular person ultimately will get shot as much as a place of public curiosity. Through her laborious work and lively social media presence, Jugyeoung turns into an influencer with tons of of 1000’s of followers on this sequence’ equal to Instagram and Youtube. She witnessed firsthand what it’s prefer to work together with on-line trolls, seedy starlets, and obsessive stans. Fame comes with obstacles to freedom and private selections. There are instances the place she will get attacked by malicious feedback from jealous and insensitive anons who need to tear her down for merely daring to just accept a lot consideration by having a public profile. It gives a really legitimate and insightful motive for her to step again and analyze what it means for her to proceed dwelling a life the place her job depends on the notion different folks have of her. It’s a singular perspective, particularly whenever you examine it to her love pursuits Suho and Seojun.
Suho Lee. Credit to Yaongyi and WEBTOON.
Suho Lee is the son of Jooheon Lee, a Korean actor who married a Japanese girl named Yuko and spent a portion of his life abroad earlier than coming again to settle in his residence nation. Suho witnessed firsthand how fickle the general public might be, and after his greatest good friend Seyeon handed away after the cyberbullying and relentless vitriol spewed his method, he wished nothing of it. Seojun nevertheless, got here up from poverty, and singing was his ticket to wealth and offering for his sister and sickly, unemployed, widowed mom. One boy rejects fame when introduced the selection, the opposite begrudgingly accepts; each being conscious of the risks that include it. It’s truly Jugyeoung who convinces Seojun to proceed to pursue his dream, in an ironic growth that makes that the explanation they drift aside. At the tip of their highschool careers, Suho’s father collapses whereas filming a brand new mission, and will get taken to Japan for remedy. Suho follows, and on the peak of his romantic pressure with Jugyeoung, should forgo pursuing his relationship together with her as a result of he nonetheless loves and needs to be there for his father–even underneath the misunderstanding that his father was dishonest on his mom after her passing. It was underneath these circumstances that Seojun and Jugyeoung progressively grew nearer, as Suho stopped contacting them and the passage of time allowed them to maneuver on.
Seojun Han. Credit to Yaongyi and WEBTOON.
Seojun and Jugyeoung ultimately start relationship, some two years later and alter after Suho is gone. It was throughout this time that Seojun’s monetary troubles got here to floor, and Jugyeoung pushed him to return to the leisure business. Unfortunately as success begins to bloom, additionally they haven’t any alternative however to half methods, as a result of being a star or public persona ingrained in Korean idol tradition implies that followers might be rabid and unforgiving in terms of scandals or any type of relationship with the alternative intercourse. Seojun truly turns into sufferer to stalking, by an obsessive sasaeng (a Western equal being stan or “stalker fan”), who truly approaches Jugyeoung after deducing she may need one of his exes by their Instagram posts. She meets Seojun at a fan meet-and-greet and offers him a teddy bear with a hidden digital camera. She additionally infiltrates Jugyeoung’s make-up research course and steadily modifications her look to seem like her, to be able to method Seojun and usurp her place in his life. It’s genuinely harrowing and terrifying seeing the lengths she went to, and it escalates to the purpose of violence, the place she takes out a knife to stab Jugyeoung. It was Jugyeoung’s plan to confront her alone to be able to collect circumstantial proof to persuade the police to take motion, however Seojun himself finally ends up injured as an alternative. These varieties of folks exist in actual life, and whereas they don’t at all times attain this level of hurt, the written legal guidelines haven’t fairly seen to catch as much as the fashionable period to be able to shield the victims of such conduct.
It’s not simply the principle forged who experiences every part that comes with fame and fortune. One of the earliest antagonists, Sujin Kang, grows immensely because of her relationship with Jugyeoung and her follower base. Originally, she was a petty, bitter excessive schooler who discovered early on that her appears to be like have been the one factor giving her fast, tangible rewards. Her father left her household, and her mom grew to become an abusive alcoholic. In center college, she hit puberty early and it gave her unwarranted consideration from the alternative intercourse. But, in highschool, she discovered that she may use that focus to leverage her presence in social media and construct connections that may ultimately catapult her out of her dwelling state of affairs. Unfortunately, the stress to take care of her physique led her to develop bulimia after she had a depressive episode. This occurred fairly early, earlier than the midway level of the sequence, and I’d have been upset if that was the place her story ended. But it was not.
Things led to a different, and at a breakthrough level in her on-line presence, she was launched to a different abusive relationship–with a boyfriend who manipulated her into streaming Youtube content material that flaunted her intercourse attraction. Whenever she disagreed or talked again to him, he would beat her and scream obscenities, drilling into her a way of codependency and depleting her vanity. He would purposely pummel her in areas that might be coated by clothes in order to keep away from suspicion, and guilt her into pondering it was her fault for talking out. When Sujin at some point reconnects with Jugyeoung, she’s crammed with a blended feeling of disgust, jealousy, and confusion. She can’t perceive how Jugyeoung has cultivated a following when she was so naive and didn’t even understand that she was being manipulated by her in highschool. But when Sujin’s masks slips, and Jugyeoung realizes underneath what circumstances the previous resides in, she immediately confronts her about it and tries to get her out. It culminates in one other home violence episode the place Sujin’s boyfriend truly discards all pretenses and attracts blood from attacking her face and physique. After he leaves, she locks him out and begins a livestream, asking anybody watching to assist her–ultimately drawing the authorities to her residence as her ex was now determined for forgiveness and wished to comb every part underneath the rug as a misunderstanding.
This arc within the story was severely intense, emotionally. It wasn’t the primary time that it drew on the darkness that folks might be mired into, but it surely was the primary time that bodily violence was portrayed exterior of male-on-male bullying. Author Yaongyi’s portrayal of home violence was realistically scary. Abusers cycle between abuse and acts of apology, reward, and tenderness to be able to conceal their conduct and make the sufferer really feel like their abuser truly cares for them; that they’re doing it out of goodness and concern. Sujin was deep into that cycle, and Jugyeoung was in a position to inform and instantly clarify it to her in plain phrases that have been straightforward to know. Before, Jugyeoung largely did the minimal social interplay crucial, however as she started to work together extra with others, she developed the fast pondering and charisma essential to assume on her toes. It was a second of noticeable progress throughout the board. Jugyeoung was made conscious and accepted the truth that she wasn’t truly appreciated by Sujin in highschool after it got here up in dialog, however additionally accepted that Sujin wanted assist and he or she was the one one who may inform her what wanted to be mentioned. Jugyeoung was additionally thorough in her follow-up, by speaking and holding involved after the incident to ensure she’s recovering; particularly after the fiasco left Sujin for the vultures of social media within the public eye.
No matter the place you go, the web could have folks speaking about something. People behind a display will really feel empowered to say no matter they need, be it type, malicious, miserable, sympathetic, offended, or no matter you possibly can assume of. Some folks don’t study this till they turn into well-known sufficient to have those self same folks speak about them. But True Beauty lets us know that by displaying us precisely what it means to be well-known. The title will get dropped a few times inside the story, however for probably the most half, it appears to have been left up for interpretation. Jugyeong by no means will get cosmetic surgery, a simple and socially accepted answer in Korea in terms of magnificence requirements that really feel unimaginable to uphold for some. She by no means heals from her zits scars, although she tries numerous therapies and residential treatments. She nonetheless makes use of make-up at any time when she leaves her home for social occasions, though opts to not when she’s doing private errands like going to the comedian retailer. She continually questions whether or not she’s worthy of receiving love from her household or her lovers, when she was bullied a lot that the concept of displaying her naked face to her boyfriend Seojun throughout an in a single day resort keep gave her a lot nervousness she handed out. But even within the face of all of this, Jugyeoung accepts that she deserves all of it. She’s labored laborious, for herself and for others. She used particular results make-up to permit for a scarred burn sufferer–who by no means took an image together with her daughter at her life occasions like graduations–to lastly have a household picture when that daughter lastly received married.
True Beauty lies not solely within the eye of the beholder; on this case, Suho Lee who has by no means as soon as stopped loving Jugyeoung, but in addition within the soul. The climax of the 223 episode predominant storyline comes in consequence of Jugyeoung’s Youtube channel supervisor, who leaks images of her center college years earlier than she started to make use of make-up. The motive was to attract uncooked publicity, and on the top of the scandal, flip the general public opinion by revealing that her center college bully was the explanation she started to cover her naked face, and the only real perpetrator behind tons of of evil feedback calling for Jugyeong to stop her profession and commit suicide. The factor is, this stuff did occur. Her bully was truly signed to the identical administration firm that scouted Jugyeoung to make her Youtube channel. But her producer/supervisor, who used to stay up for her and reassure her that there gained’t ever be stress on her to disclose her naked face, ended up doing it anyway to be able to silence her bully after the menace of an unconsenting face reveal being thrown into the combination. This scandal suggestions Jugyeong over the sting, leaving her with no alternative however to run away from residence for a number of days to calm down. It’s throughout this reprieve that she encounters older ladies dwelling in a retirement residence with agricultural amenities. She learns that although they’re solely of their late 50s and 60s, it’s time for them to take portraits to organize for his or her funerals, in case of emergencies. She rediscovers her motive for persevering with her make-up research–to unfold the happiness and confidence that comes with bringing out the wonder in somebody’s options. The grannies deal with her lovingly and specific their gratitude on the alternative to really feel like they’re middle-aged once more, due to Jugyeoung. It was the loving faucet on the shoulder that she wanted to remind her that regardless of what strangers may assume of her, her actions serve a goal that spreads achievement and contentment to these round her.
True Beauty was an intense learn. There have been moments that gave me whiplash, however loads extra that made me whooping and hollering like a sports activities fan. It was a satisfyingly bingeable sequence, and I used to be grateful to have the ability to catch up and skim the entire thing within the span of about 5 days. The episodes didn’t really feel too brief or too lengthy, and I felt that it made excellent use of its medium when it got here to structure. There have been a number of nice reveals that used the lengthwise scrolling of my sensible system to its benefit by increase pressure. I feel it was this sense, equal to an exciting “page-turner” in bodily books, that led to me studying it so quick. Another benefit that I’ve seen utilized solely by a number of different digital sequence, resembling Pocket Comics’ Lady to Queen, was the utilization of BGM, in Episode 150. The tune used is a vocal observe, presumably sung by the character Seojun, because it makes use of lyrics he sings later in the identical episode. It made for a uniquely emotional studying expertise that stood out very simply amongst all the opposite sequence I’ve ever learn. As webtoons and digital manhwa proceed to unfold worldwide, I can simply see this being extra generally used no less than as soon as for majorly fashionable sequence for climactic moments. It’s ingenious as a result of reside motion dramas and animation are instantly thought of to be probably the most logical kind of growth for these varieties of tales, however permitting for the visible comedian to flourish with an aural enhancement now looks as if the choice standing proper in our faces. With ideas like leitmotifs for characters or predominant/title themes, it permits for followers to dig deeper into the artists’ work and have a sharper concept of what these creators had in thoughts for his or her worlds.
Overall, I extremely advocate True Beauty if you happen to’re within the temper for drama. Every episode of the principle story is free to learn on WEBTOON, and there are 8 facet story episodes out there on their Fast-Pass. It additionally has a 16 episode TV drama out there on Viki. It’s an attractive, uplifting story about studying to put your self naked to the folks you’re keen on, after studying learn how to love your self. The method it approaches how social media capabilities in fashionable society additionally helps to floor it in realism. It’s a modern-day Ugly Betty, for comics lovers! With 940+ million international views, I feel there’s in all probability one thing that was achieved proper.
Marion Peña is a Dominican author primarily based in NYC. They’ve been studying manga and comics since childhood, and writing/podcasting about them since 2015. If you’d prefer to see extra of their work, all their initiatives are right here: https://microwavey.carrd.co/
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