Apr 10, 2024
Lookism is a story which had incredible potential to be a fantastic read covering sensible topics and real-world dilemmas in a high school setting, with elements of mystery, drama, comedy, supernatural and action. It could have had it all.
However Lookism as a manhwa has aged like milk. The weekly updates continue to pile onto a story that is now ultimately boring.
STORY
The initial hundred or so chapters are not bad by any means. The art isn't great per se but it's not detrimental to the overall read. You get introduced to the main cast with their varying personalities and quirks, you learn to hate them
...
and love them, sometimes both, comfortably settle into the story and prepare yourself for the joy of the coming chapters that will tie up all the loose ends, fill you with all sorts of emotions and finish the manhwa in beautiful fashion. Right?
It is here that the story starts deviating from its original plot points and into gang war sludge. Interesting characters are shelved to instead make way for brutes and gangs. How should we stop the prejudice against ugly people? With our fists!! Daniel Park says as he goes out of his way to beat up the local gangs because they were threatening this one character we'd almost all forgotten about. It's in this very manner that the story turns into one big dogpile of bloodied thugs and illegal business activities: pulled into a rinse-and-repeat cycle of 20 chapters of fighting, then one or two chapters of 'peace' to cushion the fall, then a further plunge with 20 chapters of violence and so on and so forth.
The fights are barely discernable in and of themselves as they all follow the same structuring in typical Tae-jun Park fashion; A and B fight, A gets knocked down, scene plays in which a side character reminisces about how A is special / has a hidden ability / trained a lot in secret, A gets an "unexpected" power boost, gets back up and beats B. It is predictable and frustrating, these fights and power boosts seeming nonsensical at times and making the characters completely unrealistic and superhuman.
The story built itself up well, but failed to deliver when it most mattered and instead left a hot mess in its wake, a mess which makes for a dreadfully boring read.
CHARACTERS
Unlike Viral Hit in which the fights complement the story and with a clear end goal in sight, Lookism's story seems to drift further and further from what it initially represented. The holes in the story remain open, and Tae-jun Park continues to pierce new holes into Lookism with each new chapter, with most of these revolving around our beloved main cast.
The author keeps drawing our attention away from them to instead serve us a 15 chapter arc on the backstory of a side character. Paired with the aforementioned troubled progression of the story, this leads to moments in which when we finally do see one of our main characters, it's usually for a couple of panels before another side story.
The characters' individual contributions to the story are usually minimal. Some may stand out every now and then but there are so many characters who get built up to be this important figure in the story and then almost never show up again.
OVERALL
TO CONCLUDE, Lookism feels like a project rather than a product. A brilliant idea which started out well enough, but ended up being tweaked and fiddled with to an unrecognisable point, and left to rot. It failed in its delivery and dug its grave further instead of fixing its pressing issues.
It is 2 stories in 1.
If you are interested in the fundamental story then don't bother as you will probably never receive a fulfilling conclusion.
If you are interested in gang wars and fights upon fights then start reading from chapter 150
Something I've noticed is that for a lot of the positive reviews they read up until around 150 (not strictly but around 120-180) where it starts to worsen, and I really thought the same, which is why I feel as though it's such a shame it went the way it did.
I personally didn't enjoy it but my best friend did and maybe you will too. He still reads the weekly updates and likes them. To each their own, and this manhwa is very much an example of that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
