Yeosin Gangnim

Tired of being looked down upon for her unattractive appearance, middle schooler Lim Jugyeong turns to the transformative powers of makeup. First, she experiments with BB cream, lip tint, and eyeliner; then she begins using mascara, double eyelid glue, and colored contacts. Before she knows it, Jugyeong goes from being a girl who is bullied for her ugliness to being praised as a high-class beauty. Constantly surrounded by those who adore her goddess-like appearance, Jugyeong can now live a more than comfortable life at school—she simply has to keep her bare face a secret.

However, everything changes when the new transfer student, Lee Suho, enters her life. Not only does the handsome Suho become immediately popular among their peers, but in a chance encounter, he also becomes the only classmate of Jugyeong's to see her face beneath the makeup. With her reputation on the line, Jugyeong must do whatever it takes to hide the truth about her appearance from the rest of her classmates. But the more time she spends with Suho, the more Jugyeong finds herself questioning whether one's true beauty lies solely in their looks.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Han, Seojun Main

Doujima, Hayato Japanese

Lee, Suho Main

Ban, Taito Japanese

Lim, Jugyeong Main

Suguta, Hina Japanese

Lee, Selena Supporting

Hyunwoo Supporting

Seyeon, Yoon Supporting

Skull Supporting

Kang, Sujin Supporting

Satou, Hinata Japanese

Suho's Father Supporting

Han, Gowoon Supporting

Rollo, Alfredo ADR Director

Yaongyi Original Creator

Bodart, Michaîl ADR Director

Reviews

Jan 12, 2025

Rian_Rahmat

Recommended

Even though it's not from Japan, I liked it, so I recommend you guys to watch it too.

A romantic comedy that might be relatively new to me, although this kind of story already exists in Japanese anime too.
But what's different here is that each has its own style of delivery, comedy and storyline. So for those of you who are bored with Japanese romantic comedies, I think this anime is one of the choices.

For the characters are cute, the comedy is funny, and most importantly not exaggerated.
I often see Japanese romantic comedies where the characters are exaggerated, with the Ikemen style, or sparkling eyes, and ... other things, maybe some of you have noticed that.

Even though there are some scenes that are still stiff, I still like it. I hope that anime released outside of Japan can also be more advanced, but with the note that Japanese dubs are used. I'm sorry because I'm used to hearing Japanese, so even without the help of subtitles I can understand a little of what they're saying.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 27, 2024

Asasphinx

Mixed Feelings

Prior to watching this I was able to read all of the chapters this adaptation managed to cover and I'm mixed on how I felt about this. I felt a mix of disappointment in what I saw, but part of me still wanted to keep watching because early on this adaptation seemingly deviates from the exact path taken in the manhwa while the outcome remains the same.

Take my first issue: I think the biggest issue comes from the means of storytelling on various fronts. The pacing of this whole show moves way too fast with all 13 episodes covering about 60 chapters of the manhwa. ... I don't feel like they give the viewer enough time to sit and process things as they happen before jumping right into new issues and had I not read the manhwa even I might've cared less about things. It's a drama but there's not enough time to breathe and take in the problems the characters face. For instance, Jugyeong, the main character, is a victim of bullying and falls to doing makeup as a way to give herself confidence socially and uses it to start from scratch in a new school. You don't get to see her through the process of learning how to do it to grasp how she becomes experienced in it, you're just told she learned how to do it and roll with it. It also just moves too fast from scene to scene. They don't let the drama simmer enough. Sometimes I feel like even the conversations ought to slow down and the transitions could be timed better without feeling abrupt or premature.

Even though I read this I still somehow managed to get lost in the narrative sequences because this adaptation takes some liberties and tweaks the order certain events happen as well as the outcome of some events in some cases. It's not always an improvement or better than what happens in the original, but very few cases I felt were good enough. I won't spoil anything, but it doesn't really help characters good good at times.

The characters are a bit of a mixed bag too. The main girl the most of the time feels like she can rely on the 2 love interests & even her 2 friends as a crutch when needed. She felt very safe a lot of the time because the majority of her problems minus the initial bulling experiences at the start + the tension of keeping up appearances from those close to her are quickly resolved and she's kinda the most boring character of the bunch but not someone that I dislike. The 1st love interest Suho feels like himself from the manhwa, but feels more like a kuudere prince type character initially, though maybe that's the presentation of the anime aiding that. The 2nd love interest Seojun isn't far off either but here he starts off rougher around the edges. Then her 2 friends felt the most different because they seem to be more involved with the main character here than in the manhwa and I seemingly cared more about them here than I did during the chapters this covered from the manhwa.

Onto more aesthetic elements, the anime isn't quite impressive there. AT times it feels like there's a lack of background music to accompany scenes that would've benefitted more from it and I also felt like they could've omitted or better used some of the whimsical gag elements. You're probably going to have seen a lot of complaints about the voice acting. I watched this in the Korean voice-over available at the start before English & Japanese dubs were made and at times it felt a bit awkward because the some voices took a minute to get used too sounding...fresh-faced to be nice and I'd get distracted a little with the audio quality too because the voices feel like got recorded with budgeted microphones. Each episode spans about 18 minutes seemingly, but about 4 of that is taken up by the duration of the OP + ED combined both of which are fine songs. I don't have much to say about them because they were alright.

The art was also just fine. Looks like at the time this has released this is their first outing with an animated TV series. There's visible kinks from background characters at times appearing slightly off and all models looking a bit stiff, but I wasn't bothered by it.

I'm not entirely sure how I felt about it because I cut it some slack in my mind because I wanted to like it, BUT I felt that had I not read the manhwa and wanted to give this more of a chance I'd probably think less of it. This adaptation didn't feel recommendable because the quality of it doesn't stand up well in comparison to other romance anime out there that outperform it in almost every way. If you want to give this a chance you'd be best off with the manhwa, and though I can't yet vouch for it the K-drama has gotten praise from other fans as well.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 28, 2024

Owlseer

Not Recommended

To my amazement, the True Beauty K-drama adaptation was a fairly good watch, reasonable enough to include about as much of the storyline as was maintained from the webtoon. I can say it was a hit but one that was ok but would not revolutionize the industry. To the best of my judgement, the drama did find a good balance – it was moving yet not fundamentally misplaced alongside the main emphasis of the plot, even if the main center of focus was not honed. There were some stereotypical features that K drama lovers have come to expect: the drama element, the love triangle affair ... and the fait accompaniment of little drama. But admittedly, I like these elements. Without them, it is difficult to imagine what in fact gives K-dramas the unique and special identity in the first place. They provide an opportunity of identifying more easily with the characters though at times this detracts from the nature of the story and slows down events in the drama.

While watching True Beauty, watching these emotional layers helped the characters. The characters were relatable and almost vulnerable — something that did not quite come off with the anime adaptation. Outer beauty, or pleasing the society was not the point of it; it was deeper, more inner conflicts, and every character had their own problem. The reality, the way the show handled these particular issues was realistic, although, sometimes maybe it went a bit too melodramatic. Incorporating the arcs of self acceptance of the characters, specially the main character it may have drawn some of the fans for the drama, for me, one of them is that. Or it might’ve been explained as the Wokey and cheesy in some cases, but I’d call it out K-drama bane. We always expect tension from them and as a result we always end up emotionally invested in the plot. You're very finely walking a line to stay with the major tale and still attempt to work with the moody scenes and I think the drama overall has gotten that harmony.

What was the anime version of that, in contrast, was rather, I don’t know, unbearable, I guess. I at least hoped the show would bring something new in despite the fact that there wasn’t too much excitement in my heart for it, given the anime’s creative scope. Unfortunately, it failed to produce the feeling and emotion that was a core element of True Beauty and thus became very popular in being a manhwa to draw. The animation was medium quality and the pace was so quick it didn’t allow any character development to take place that the plot required. In the anime, it seems that instead of going into the heart of the character change and the social conflict with which they must contend, that plot points in the anime were spent making sure they packed in as much as they could which ultimately blunted these emotional climaxes. It was unfortunate because there’s so much you can do with anime when it comes to delivering both a personal challenge as well as an epic story without taking a dilution angle like True Beauty.

Anime, unlike other art forms, can completely encompass the viewer and immerse them into an author’s desire in ways that are hard to achieve through live-action. If there is an author’s vision, there is also a director who works to achieve that vision in full by achieving the right colors, shapes and frequent infusing of the smallest details that make up the author’s imagination. Because of this, even the most fantastic worlds are portrayed in the most believable fashion. In anime, every aspect about a character and scene originates from the creator’s vision, combining together to tell their story exactly as it was meant to be told. In this way, anime provides an uncanny degree of accuracy to the viewer in terms of what the creator’s intentions were, and this brings about an experience that is not only memorable but a realistic sensation to the audience. This potential is what I was expecting to get from True Beauty’s anime adaptation; however, it did not come to fruition which was unfortunate.

Although they failed to produce a good anime adaptation, the idea of using manhwas as reference to anime is something which I look forward to. Since constantly expanding the anime industry, it is not just limited to adapting from Japanese manga, and I believe this is great. It offers so many opportunities to tell different kinds of stories, influence them with different cultures, create more varied characters which can be interesting to everyone around the globe. Not every story can be made in live-action because some stories are stylized or have setting or internal world that need artistic liberty to create. Here, there is an opportunity of engendering such magnanimous impressions fit to the screen without the imposition of realistic drama, and harness the potential of the manga-inspired format to its finest.

It’s fascinating to think about where this pattern may lead in the future of but is it possible for anime to move from just being an entertainment form rooted in Japan to ruling the world, or will it fail to compete with lots of other types of entertainment as it goes international? Time will tell, but there definitely is growth here and we look forward to the anime industry looking into this option more seriously. It feels like, thanks to studios gradually trying new formats from various sources – manhwas, novels, and whatnot – we might be on the brink of a new era for anime that has something for everyone.

As it is now evident, media changes constantly and the anime industry has a particular opportunity to reestablish itself to a whole new demographic that it has never targeted before. Perhaps some of the best ever novels and manhwas will turn into anime in the coming years, stories that ideally suited to anime and difficult to translate into live-action works. As of now, I am watching where anime industry is going..

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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