True Beauty in my mind is the ultimate missed opportunity.
Why you ask, we will be talking about that in this review.
Title: True Beauty
Author & Artist: Yaongyi
Overall rating: 5 out of 10
Story: 4.5 out of 10
Art: 9 out of 10
Status: Ongoing.
Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy, School, Teenage, Love Triangle
*Overall rating might change in the future depending on the future chapters. Since this webtoon is currently on-going.
True Beauty (여신강림; Yeosingangrim, translated as Advent of a Goddess) is created by former fitting model and artist Yaongyi. The theme of the webtoon is about the social standard for beauty and our way of justifying it – at least that is what it was supposed to be.
Coming out first in the Korean Line Webtoon App on April 2nd, 2018, and then August 15th, 2018 on the English Line webtoon App with few regions receiving earlier access to read the story under the name The Secret of Angel. The Korean app having over 150+ episodes available to read and the English app has 122 episodes as I write this review.
With the rise of popularity in both Korean and internationally, the webtoon has recently got a green light for a Drama series by TvN. Casting being finalized, the drama was said to release in later of 2020. For more details about the drama and the cast,you can click here.
With that huge amount of unnecessary Info dump out of the way let’s talk about True Beauty and what made it one the most popular story in Line webtoon and why I have rated it my lowest rating ever.
Before the story, let’s talk about art.
The art is gorgeous. When I first saw True Beauty it was the art that had gotten my attention. It reminded me of a cross between anime and vector art.
I love the color palette that is being used. Light colors and black lining. Also, the faces/expressions are funny!
If you remember, at the beginning of the review I have mentioned that our Author is a former fitting model. For this reason, the dress/costumes drawn in True Beauty are truly runaways worthy.
Now the important part. The story. First the official synopsis.
“After binge-watching beauty videos online, a shy comic book fan masters the art of makeup and sees her social standing skyrocket as she becomes her school’s prettiest pretty girl overnight. But will her elite status be short-lived? How long can she keep her real self a secret? And what about that cute boy who knows her secret?” – Source Line Webtoon.
From the synopsis, we get this idea about the story, that it is about beauty standards and how we – especially women- are judged based solely on their beauty. Unfortunately, it is nothing like that….
The webtoon starts with Jugyeong – our MC – who is shy and funny but not pretty, cause she always keeps her hair tired up and has some pimples. She is also into comic books and wears glasses which makes her a nerd. Plus the only things she wears are tracksuits and baggy t-shirts. So from the get-go, you can tell that she is our average ‘Not like the other girls/ I’m not a pretty girl’ girl or a regular average teen.
And society doesn’t like normal people. She is being bullied by other students and is teased by her younger brother for her looks. So she decides to change her appearance. Therefore, she learns how to do make-up. Throughout the summer vacation she practices and practices. When the next school year starts she is as good as a professional make-up artist.
Now she is the pretty new girl that everyone wants to be friends with. Except for that one guy who she doesn’t want to be friends with cause he knows how she looks without the make-up.
We also have a love triangle.
The story is your every other teenage-love-triangle available with a few added new dramas. And it is enjoyable. It is funny and dramatic.
And this is why it is so popular. People love it. They ate up the love triangle and the comedy part of the story.
But the reason why I liked this story was that in the beginning, it gave us a hint of an important question. ‘A pretty face or a pretty personality, which is more important?’ And throughout the story – in the first 30 chapters at least – with the love triangle and the dramas, this is something our MC Jugyeong asks herself – which is also something the upcoming drama will be dealing with.
But that is all there is. The question, the message that was a big part at the beginning of the suddenly got written off as the love triangle became the main focus.
Currently, season 2 of True Beauty is going on. Which I have not yet finished – couldn’t finish.
I enjoyed the first season. Everything in season 1 from the message, the quirks in Jugyeong, the cute interaction, the comedy with little dramas had a sense of reason to it. It had a bigger purpose. And True Beauty is funny as hell! The faces and the pop-cultural/meme references in True Beauty, they are funny.
But that is all it is.
It feels like a continuous drama after drama with comedy inserted in parts. Which has no actual meaning to the story. Repetition of the same tropes/scenes over and over again. The series falls flat when you look at the overall picture, as it offers nothing.
The author could have given us perspective throughout the comedy and drama of how Jungyeong faces the social double standards.
Instead, we got a very dramatic and teen love story – with pretty and handsome -idol-like teens that offered nothing special.
Another reason, that was really infuriating was that the hypocrisy of our MC. She judges people for looking different than their photos. And there are arcs after arcs that do nothing for character growth or anything except for drama. I am not a fan of writing like this.
With the start of season 2, I felt what season 1 had established got wiped out. And it just turned into a full-on romance Webtoon. And the message, the discussion, the society’s standards for beauty and how it is affecting all of us; everything that made me like True Beauty suddenly got changed. And it just became a love story. Even the ending portion of season 1 was romanced heavy but it was more than just romance at that point.
I am a very picky reader, with a tendency to finish everything that I start. But right now I haven’t read True Beauty since chapter 74. I may go back to it. Though it won’t be right now. Or any time soon. Or ever…
With all webtoon and books that I am currently reading, this is the only one that is on pause right now. I have no intention of going back to it until the season finally comes around. Maybe even later.
And that itself speaks volumes.
The sad thing is True Beauty went from one of my favs to one of those stories that I don’t even give a second glimpse of. And a lot of readers feel the same.
A lot of readers either dropped the story or are still reading it because of the time they have invested.
Now if you are none of those readers and are truly enjoying everything that is currently going on, there is nothing wrong with it. It is common for one to like it and another to not. Everyone has different tastes and right now it does not suit mine. I had this review in my draft since November 14th of 2019. I didn’t want to publish it as I feel like I was criticizing the story for being romance-heavy.
I have not rated it low for being a romance story but because the message that was first introduced got lost in the unnecessary drama that really doesn’t add anything to the story. That is the part I didn’t like. It has no plot. No direction or anything…
Romance is not the problem, getting sidetracked was.
And with the upcoming drama, this might also be a problem. Often time unfinished stories being adapted results in more fan-focused endings for the said adaptation. Flashback to Cheese in the Trap drama. As a fan of the webtoon, the drama ending was not my favorite. And I think one of the reasons for having that unsatisfied ending in the Cheese in The Trap drama was that the actual webtoon was still ongoing at the time the drama was made and finished. The drama needed an ending so they went with a vague one and that kinda went…
With True Beauty, I have a similar fear. But after reading the drama synopsis and watching the trailer, it looks like the drama would be focused on season 1 of the webtoon. I think that is a great idea. Rather than giving people a messed-up ending, an open ending is better.
Here is the synopsis for you to read. I also added the trailer at the end.
“True Beauty is a romantic comedy about a high school girl Lim Ju Gyeong, who rises to pretty girl fame after she masters the art of make-up from YouTube. She turns into a goddess because of her makeup skills, but would rather die than reveal her bare face to anyone. It tells her love story with the only boy that saw her without makeup, Lee Su Ho. Lee is an attractive and handsome boy who appears cold because of his dark past but is actually very caring. They grow when they meet each other sharing their secrets and finding love with each other, but can Su Ho make Ju Gyeong find her true beauty?” – Source: Wikipedia
What also got me excited about the drama is the cast. The actors’ names are in Italic&Bold.
Main cast
- Moon Ga Young is playing Lim Joo Gyung
- Cha Eun Woo is playing Lee Su Ho
- Hwang In Yeop is playing Han Seo Jun
- Park Yoo Na is playing Kang Soo Jin
Supporting cast members are:
- Im Se Mi is Lim Hee Gyung – Joo Gyung’s sister
- Park Ho San is Lim Dae Soo – Joo Gyung’s father
- Jang Hye Jin is Hong Hyun Suk – Joo Gyung’s mother
- Kim Min Ki is Lim Joo Young – Joo Gyung’s brother
- Kang Min Ah is Choi Soo Ah – Joo Gyung’s friend
- Shin Jae Hwi is Lee Sung Yong – Seo Jun’s friend
- Lee Sang Jin is Ahn Hyun Gyu
- Jeon Hye Won is Park Sae Mi – Student
- Oh Eui Shik is Han Jun Woo – Teacher
- Park Hyun Jung is Lee Mi Hyang – Teacher
- Kim Byung Choon as Vice-principal
True Beauty Drama is said to come out on December 9th, 2020.
Enjoy the trailer before that.
This review became longer than I intended it to be. So going to end it here. I think I did go a little hard on True Beauty but that is because it was something that I have really liked from the get-go. So maybe in time, I might give it and myself another chance.
If you have not read it yet then just click here to read True Beauty and here to watch the upcoming drama.
As these are all my opinion, it doesn’t mean you will also feel the same. Maybe it will suit your taste more than mine.
Until next time, happy reading!
Literary Hana 
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