Lookism is an ongoing serial Line webtoon by Taejoon Park. The characters are made based on real people, and the protagonist Daniel Park is also a real person.

Daniel, who has been bullied in school, gets a man’s body perfect in everything. The story is about the things happen as he started a new life with his new body.

The protagonist, Daniel, as the owner of the old body, gets always beaten by bullies in his school. He’s exhausted by school violence of such beating and doing all their errands, but his family has not enough money to have him transferred to another school.

The day before his transfer, the story begins as Daniel comes to have two bodies: the old body and the perfect body. Daniel goes to new school in the perfect body because he is worried about that he could be bullied again in the old body, and he gets tremendous attention in his new school. The story goes on with various characters, near two Daniels.

Looking at the episodes of the webtoon, we can feel familiarity on its development with that of classical tales.

1. Appearance of an ugly person who does odd things and a good-looking and strong person who does evil things

2. A conflict occurs between the two people and they have a fist fight, then mostly the ugly one loses

3. During the climax, the one changes into a person with a superb personality 

4. At last the good wins and the evil is punished

As it uses this pattern every time, honestly the story is not much expected. It is always like this: a person who feels insecurity for Daniel’s good looks makes an accident and Daniel and his friends goes there, fight the person, and wins. Now I want to read a new content.

Lookism shows lookism like the title states. Moreover, in each episode, it vividly shows the culture (?) of Korean juveniles and how they live, like making a living as a part timer, obsession of minors toward goods and fashion of high-priced brands, a bully problem, a fighting or violence, and suggestive personal broadcast by minors. 

During the early stage, it is easy for readers to think of it as a criticism to things including lookism, but actually it does not judge any of them. It only shows the situations which are subject to controversies. Criticisms or evaluations are reserved for the readers. It seems the author knows well that a person truly knows something only through experiencing it. It’s of no use to tell something many times. When you show them the situation, people will be immersed on the situation. If you compose episodes to make people put in the shoes of offenders and victims of violence, the readers will experience it and feel the situation. Then the readers naturally come to a critical perspective on such matters.