True Beauty

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]

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Background

True Beauty is originally a webtoon series which has been officially published in book format by Young Com (영컴) since October 29, 2020.

The series has been published digitally in English by Webtoon Entertainment since August 15, 2018. It has been published in print by Wattpad Webtoon Studios under its Webtoon Unscrolled imprint since November 8, 2022.

Later, it was then adapted into a 16-episode Korean drama, airing from December 9, 2020 to February 4, 2021.

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Adaptation:

Yeosin Gangnim

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Characters

Han, Seojun

Main

Lee, Suho

Main

Lim, Jugyeong

Main

Lee, Selena

Supporting

Lim, Juyoung

Supporting

Reviews

Mar 12, 2022

Kaguyachinchin

Recommended

Preliminary (112/257 eps)

Read it, but (like others said) -- be prepared for the letdown.
Ideally, for your sanity, end it before the Jugyeong goes to college arc. The premise is really nice and the pacing was good at first-- filled with good comedy and two male leads who both give each other a run for their money. They're sincere and also a bit kooky. Inperfect for sure. Yet they both take up a place of your heart, even with their very stereotypical personalities. It was also adapted very well into the k-drama that everyone's been hyping over. That said, it's pretty clear when the series lost all of ...

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Nov 15, 2020

-glas

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (100/257 eps)

True beauty is honestly such a let-down. As a long time reader i'm super disappointed. True beauty started off as an amazing manhwa, it was interesting and kinda a new concept.

The art for true beauty isn't really anything to complain about, it can honestly be really pretty at times. The main complaint i have about True beauty is the repetitivity, as soon as the manhwa started gaining more and more fame it started going downhill. The creator pleased the boring newer fans instead of sticking with the original plot.

Love triangles are already annoying but i feel as though the creator has dragged this out, ...

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Feb 12, 2021

mobbuu

Not Recommended

Well-written

Preliminary (132/257 eps)

I actually really liked True Beauty in the very beginning. Jugyeong was an interesting character, and I really related to her as someone who also wears makeup whenever they go out because of low self-esteem. I also loved her little obsession with horror and gore and found her to be quite cute.

We have two male leads, Suho and Seojun, and they aren't completely boring.
I liked how they had distinctively different personalities, and I enjoyed that they also had a long history with each other instead of being two random dudes that have inexplicably fallen for our MC.

You think one guy is endgame the ... whole time but then you find out that this manhwa suffers from "Second Lead Syndrome" and I really didn't mind it. It didn't destroy the story for me because at the end of the day, the point of True Beauty was Jugyeong and how she uses makeup to present herself as "beautiful", and the constant fear that she'll one day get discovered as a catfish and have her whole life blow up in her face or something dramatic. And then maybe she'll learn from this experience that the "true beauty" was inside herself the whole time, or something cliche like that.

Or at least it WAS.

As the story progressed I stared to realize that Jugyeong has had little to no character development. She's shallow and a hypocrite, constantly berating other people for "catfishing" when she's literally doing the EXACT same thing, and we the audience are made to feel like we're supposed to side with her. The author has almost completely dropped her "real personality", being that she loves horror and is a huge nerd, and all we ever see is her shallow personality and "pretty" face. The story is all about her boyfriend and relationship anxieties.

All of the promises that were made in the beginning of the story were never followed through on. It almost feels like the real Jugyeong doesn't exist anymore. All the anxieties she had in the beginning about being caught are gone. There's no personal struggle as to how she sees herself vs how the world sees her. She's just a superficial, bland insta baddie now and that's it. IDK how our male leads see anything in her considering that, comparatively speaking, they've had more character development than she has.

I guess she's supposed to be nice? I mean, she helped two different characters overcome their own low self esteem by giving them a makeover and covering all their facial imperfections with concealer. Personally I don't really like the message that sends but whatever I guess.

Also there's a bunch of side characters that you think are relevant in the beginning and then you never hear from them again. I guess the focus of the story shifted once the development for the kdrama began, and the author just switched gears out of nowhere to make True Beauty a more generic kdrama. (I haven't watched the kdrama yet, so hopefully they fix some of these issues with its adaptation).

All in all, True Beauty is still ongoing so I can only hope all of these issues will be fixed. However, the story is literally going nowhere and there is no end in sight. The bar is literally on the floor right now. Just one introspective thought from Jugyeong will actually amaze me, but my expectations are very low.

The art is still pretty and that's really the only saving grace.

Side note. I find it pretty weird that this manhwa is called True Beauty when Jugyeong's solution to everything is just covering up imperfections with makeup.

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Manhwa 'True Beauty' Gets Anime in 2024

The Crunchyroll Industry Panel at Anime NYC announced an anime adaptation of Na-young Kim's True Beauty manhwa on Friday and revealed a teaser visual (pictured)...read more

Nov 17, 2023 9:21 PM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (47 comments)

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Finished! rockleefunnytoe - Jul 3, 2023	1 replies	by CipherIkkoku »» Jul 3, 2023 2:05 PM
True Beauty PV IridescentJaune - Dec 15, 2022	0 replies	by IridescentJaune »» Dec 15, 2022 5:19 PM
True Beauty Chapter 222 rockleefunnytoe - Nov 8, 2022	3 replies	by Kytamy »» Dec 7, 2022 7:05 AM
Poll: True Beauty Chapter 138 Discussion Narwal1234 - Mar 24, 2021	7 replies	by GurschachX »» Apr 16, 2022 1:27 AM
Poll: True Beauty Chapter 156 Discussion kuraidai - Jul 28, 2021	0 replies	by kuraidai »» Jul 28, 2021 4:07 AM

True Beauty
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