Talk about people's appearance is keep going on from the past to the present. Of course, the criteria for people's appearance differ from person to person and they all have their personal preferences. However, the fundamental interest in people's appearance is expected to remain even in the distant future when the boundary of humankind would expand to the universe beyond Earth. In such trend, webtoons based on people's appearance have also arrived in various ways. As expected, though they have attracted a number of criticisms, it is clear that people's appearance has become the material for these webtoons. Among them, I have picked three webtoons with different styles.

 

1. Lookism/ Tae-Joon Park/ LINE Webtoon  

 

<Hyeong-Seok Park> isn't handsome. Actually, he rather looks ugly. That became the cause for everyone to simply harass him. As he was tormented by such harassment, a miracle happens to him one day as if God has recognized his desperation. It was absolutely a perfect face and a perfect body, which he was granted. Though the reason why his appearance was changed doesn't come out in detail, such transformation was enough to shift his life by 180 degrees.

 

 

However, the webtoon claims that his new look isn't his everything. To prove that, there are people who even loves his previous ugly appearance, and ugly <Hyeong-Seok> truly has his own charms that handsome <Hyeong-Seok> doesn't have. The webtoon may seem bittersweet at first glance, yet, it still calmly affects the heart of the readers. As the title suggests, The webtoon employs people's appearance as it's material to unfold the stories regarding the main character, <Hyeong-Seok Park> and the other characters around him.

 

2. Mask Girl/ Maemi, Huise/ LINE Webtoon

 

<Mo-Mi KIM> is ugly. Yet, more than anyone else, she pursues to be beautiful. She is obsessed with beauty and craves to be loved by others to a point where she can simply give up her life to become pretty. But the real world is harsh and she doesn't get any opportunity in society. Perhaps that's why her environments seem to be so cruel to her. However, that's the reality for us as well. Because it is the reality that we are facing, we have no choice but to empathize more and understand her mind, which is sometimes merciless and yet, more often humiliated.

 

She lies frequently in the webtoon. Nevertheless, she can't let go of her last hope to become beautiful. Maybe that's why the webtoon implies that having a good look is like holding a double-edged sword. It is a feature that everyone wants to have so much that will make them bleed while wielding it. As the character <Mo-Mi Kim> reflects the brutal aspects of today's society, the webtoon instills fear like a piece of a thriller.

 

3. Soscias/ Min-Seok Kang/ Lezhin Comics  

 

Unlike the two earlier webtoons, and the main character has a decent appearance compared to others and gives off favorable impressions to anyone. However, who would have thought that such characteristics should become a poison for him. To him, who manipulated his image to meet middle-aged ladies to scam them for money, his appearance was his natural accessory which he used as a weapon at the same time.

 

However, his life starts to get twisted due to his appearance that looks just the same as the face of a serial killer. Hence, everyone soon begins to turn away from <Gang-Hoon Lee>. Thus, he makes an intense effort to find out the hidden truths about it. In <Gang-Hoon Lee>'s story, the element of one's appearance is treated both especially and peculiarly as it is turned into the material for mystery rather than being used as a point of criticism.