Jul 4, 2022
True Beauty is the true embodiment of "龍頭蛇尾", a Chinese phrase which literally translates into dragon head snake tail- meaning something of a strong start but a weak end.
*MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS
I first discovered TB through a trailer on a social media platform. Captivated by the artstyle, I decided to download Webtoon for the very first time and give it a shot. BOY! It certainly did not disappoint. Not only was the artstyle gorgeous, but the plot sucked me in like a blackhole; with the constant thrill of fearing whether Jugyeong's appearance under all that makeup will be discovered, and which of the two male
...
leads will Jugyeong choose. Truly, during that period it was a constant cycle of scrolling through the newly released chapter at a very quick pace, and anticipating for more each week. However, as soon as Suho left, so did the charm of the True Beauty. It was as if the quality of the Webtoon gradually depletes with every update, and with every new chapter comes a new disappointment.
1. Poor Organisation of Storyline and Lazy Writing
Now, I'm not going to deny that I have been team Suho for a very long time, (No longer a team of either Suho or Seojun now, will get into that later) but I personally think that the downfall of TB began when Suho left for Japan. As soon as he left, the high school life of our main characters ended. Fast forwarded to their adulthoods, the author decided to have Jugyeong fall in love with Seojun and have them get into a relationship. Great! So Seojun and Jugyeong are canon! This was an inevitable and understandable development because Suho hasn't contacted JG ONCE since he's left. BUT for some reason, the author decided to break them up, and have JG confess that she's possibly never really been in love with SJ, and instead she's only been dating him because she needed a distraction from SH... what the heck?? No really, what the heck???????? Yeah, they've been dating for a prolonged period of time, but it is certainly realistic to have JG think of SJ as a mere "distraction", haha! In my humble opinion, rather than breaking up with SJ as soon as SH is back, this all would've made for a better story if JG just never dated SJ at all.- This was executed by the K-Drama adaption perfectly.
2. Dragging on of Plot
Another major issue with TB is its dragging on of the plot. I first discovered this webtoon during the first few weeks of it's release. Guess how long ago that was? Yes, that was almost 4 years ago (2018). The plot was very simple (copied word for word from the description under the Webtoon): "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?" This very simple plot turned into the author adding more and more unappealing and unnecessary characters to the story whose appearances would contribute little to nothing to the plot nor the development of the characters.
3. ZERO Character Personality + Development
Despite having 200+ chapters, the main characters have little to no character development- especially Jugyeong. JG has gone from this likeable, strong girl who's worked her way up to an arrogant crybaby who has no other personality than being ugly. For example, in one of the chapters JG was on a blind date with this other guy who looks better in photos than in real life. JG gets all disgusted with this guy who hasn't done anything remotely harmful to her, as if she doesn't do the exact same thing if not worse?? Talk about double-standards!
And yeah, it's not just JG with no character development, Suho is not exempted. It was such a poor choice to bring Suho back abruptly like this after several chapters of his absence, ESPECIALLY when the author decides that Suho should still be in love with JG when he comes back. It just never made sense to me that Suho never decided to contact JG, not even once for the entire time he was out of the country. Yes, he had his own circumstances, his father almost died, but bestie... it is just unrealistic that this boy who is supposedly so in love with JG never tried to contact her for the entire time he was absent.
Onto Seojun.. Honestly I didn't have much of an issue with him, except for that one time where Jugyeong was in danger at the karaoke and Suho simply tried to help, yet he got mad at him, even after acknowledging the weight of the situation, and after Suho told him he rooted for them as soon as Suho knew about SJ and JG's relationship when he returned. But other than that, SJ was the inherently the only sane one in the entire Webtoon. (Which is exactly why I am not on either team SH or SJ.. SJ deserves better and JG+SH deserves THERAPY)
In conclusion True Beauty was great at the start, but because of the reasons listed above and many other issues this Webtoon has (that I will kindly spare you of..), the Webtoon lost the charm it initially had- proven by the significant decrease in readers following each update.
In all seriousness, both Suho and Jugyeong needs therapy along with a reality check. Most of the events that occur in this Webtoon are way to far-fetched, and it is sad to witness my first Webtoon aging so badly.
NOTE: I apologise for any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, I am too tired to proof-read whatever I just wrote, and I am satisfied with just getting my thoughts out- lol.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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