It has been ages since I properly followed a drama as it aired and I can't believe that after so long we've finally come to the end of True Beauty. It's so surreal because it feels just like yesterday when I first came across the webtoon and never would I have thought that this is what it would lead to. The experience of waiting for every new week with two brand new episodes is both fulfilling yet agonising and it's been really fun, a true double-edged sword. I've had a lot of time to really process my thoughts and feelings about this drama adaptation, and I've taken a good look at how it compares to the webtoon so it's time to dive into this series retrospect.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
While the webtoon is still ongoing, as of now it's split into three distinct arcs, the first two of which are complete. I will refer to them as Su-ho, Seo-jun and Ju-kyung, with each arc placing the most focus on the named characters and their relationship with the overarching plot. The first arc focused on Su-ho and Ju-kyung's budding attraction during their high school years, the second gave us an actual romance between Seo-jun and Ju-kyung post-high school and while it remains to be seen what the Ju-kyung arc will be all about, I have a feeling it'll give us the best look so far at our heroine's growth as a person without the need for a man by her side. I never expected the drama to be able to adapt everything into a 16 episodes so the final product was primarily based on the Su-ho arc with some elements brought over from the Seo-jun arc.
When you adapt anything from print to screen, there's bound to be differences for better or worse, whether it's comic books to films or TV series, or in this case from webtoons to dramas. This is the first time that I had actually read the webtoon before seeing the drama so I had a better understanding of what was going on and what changes were made to the story. I won't be going in-depth into these differences in this post because that would be way too long so I might come up with a separate post detailing the changes from the source material. If you're interested in me listing out the differences, look out for that. For this retrospect, I'll be focusing more on how the changes affected the drama's quality.
As I mentioned above, the drama takes a lot of inspiration from the webtoon's Su-ho arc, where we see our leads start to fall for each other. Many aspects are the same, like their mutual love for horror comics and how they spend a good portion of the drama being smitten with the other but not acting on their feelings. The biggest change was that they actually entered a relationship in the drama, whereas in the webtoon, they never embark on the next step. This was definitely a necessary change that needed to be made in order to push the drama forward. If they decided to not have Ju-kyung and Su-ho start dating, then there wouldn't be enough runtime for the drama to progress and to tell the story it needed to. If it was a 50+ episode-long makjang drama then yes it could happen but with 16 episodes, it's not enough. So I support this change.
Much like in the webtoon, Su-ho and Ju-kyung have to part because he needs to fly overseas to take care of his injured father. In the webtoon, it's because of this that the pair don't enter a relationship but in the drama, we see that the tough long-distance relationship plus Su-ho not wanting to burden Ju-kyung by making her wait for him results in our hero choosing to break up with her. This will directly tie into the elements of the Seo-jun arc that the drama utilises in its last 2 episodes. This change helps to add more weight to Seo-jun's story (in a drama context) by advancing the plight of the second male lead. In both iterations of the character, Seo-jun has feelings for Ju-kyung since high school but chooses not to make them known so that he doesn't come between her and Su-ho. However, once Su-ho leaves, the webtoon has Ju-kyung moving on and eventually she enters a relationship with Seo-jun. This doesn't happen in the drama because for starters there isn't enough airtime for them to do the story justice and also because it probably would result in a very rushed ending. The screenwriters needed to make Ju-kyung end up back with Su-ho because they're the endgame for the drama, so they had Seo-jun merely confess his feelings to Ju-kyung and attempt to win her over, to no avail. It's classic second male lead syndrome and lots of viewers definitely felt the pain that Seo-jun did when he once again takes a step back to let her reunite with her true love Su-ho. See? It adds weight to the character's arc within the drama because it makes the audience feel for him more, rather than have a copout and have him date her.
Since we're on the topic of character changes, Su-ho himself has also been changed quite a bit from the webtoon. In the webtoon, he's very much a more reserved and understanding character. In the drama, while he's very clearly cold to most people initially, he possesses an underlying hot temper that actually comes to the surface a lot. He has many jealous moments regarding how close Ju-kyung is to Seo-jun and even argues with her about it. This is something webtoon Su-ho would never do, he's far too composed for that. From what I've seen, there're many who were turned off by this character change because it made Su-ho more annoying than he really should have been. Personally, I wish they had kept Su-ho's composure rather than make him prone to fits of jealousy, but I understand that they needed to do this to push the love triangle element. For all we know if webtoon Su-ho had actually entered a relationship with Ju-kyung, he might have turned out like this as well.
Ju-kyung herself isn't all that different from the webtoon, many of her core character traits are brought over. However, I think the biggest change might be that she's a little more self-assured in a way in the drama. Webtoon Ju-kyung tends to be a little bit of a pushover, always trying to appease everyone and not really standing up for herself. Couple that with her initial fear of her bare face being made known and we get a fairly timid heroine. Drama Ju-kyung is slightly different. Yes, the drama plays up her fear of getting her bare face exposed but in truth, she seems to be a lot more assertive and actually stands up for herself. We see this most prominently in her arguments with Su-ho, where she doesn't give in to his jealousy and instead tries to reason with him. I think it's a nice change from the webtoon because a too timid female lead just wouldn't be as interesting to watch. Giving her a bit of a spine makes viewers want to root for her even more and I think this change worked out for Ju-kyung in the drama.
I've already talked about three of the drama's leads so who're we missing? None other than second female lead Su-jin. Undoubtedly out of these four characters she has been changed the most. Webtoon Su-jin is an influencer who possesses natural beauty and a smashing figure, who portrays a "nice girl" image in public but in truth, she's a huge bitch who manipulates others with her looks. This stems from her problematic family background, with her mother being an abusive alcoholic who takes out her alcohol-induced rage on her daughter. Su-jin then takes out all that pent-up frustration on those around her, with one of her targets being Ju-kyung. She also masks a more vulnerable side as we see that her past acquaintances think that she's a slut for "advertising" her body on social media and eventually all that pressure results in Su-jin becoming bulimic. In the drama, Su-jin is drastically different. Coming from an affluent household, we see that she's under a lot of pressure from her father, who physically and emotionally abuses her for not being the top student. While she initially starts out as one of Ju-kyung's best friends, she eventually becomes jealous of Ju-kyung and Su-ho's relationship. This marks her villain origin story as she goes out of her way to break apart the two by any means possible.
In the webtoon, Su-jin is evidently portrayed as an antagonist. It's strongly implied that she has an unrequited attraction to Su-ho so when she sees Ju-kyung getting all chummy with him, her insecurity and jealousy causes her to be antagonistic towards our heroine. Su-jin's very two-faced towards Ju-kyung, pretending to be friendly to her face when in actual fact she's backstabbing her. While we never find out the reason why, Su-ho and Seo-jun are shown to be very hostile towards her, with all we can assume being that at some point in their shared past a wedge was driven between them. In truth, Su-jin really isn't a lead in the webtoon, she disappears fairly quickly and isn't super important. The drama turns that on its head by actually making her a nice person before turning her bad. It adds a lot more depth to her character because rather than making her a one-note character who just wants to drive Su-ho and Ju-kyung apart, we get the element of friendship thrown in here too and whether Su-jin is willing to sacrifice her friendship to get what she wants. It's an interesting dilemma and was definitely one of the most interesting plotlines to follow. At the start of the drama, I honestly wished that Su-jin wouldn't turn out like how she did in the webtoon and just stay as Ju-kyung's badass friend but alas, they needed to progress the story. I'm happy that she came full circle and realised the error of her ways, reconciling with Ju-kyung at the end in a very heartwarming reunion.
There were lots of other changes made to the drama, with many side characters getting their own plotlines. I won't go into all of them here because I want to finish this post before I'm 80 years old but safe to say, I think giving these side characters their own stories was a good play. The webtoon is obviously very much focused on Ju-kyung, Su-ho and Seo-jun, and for good reason too. Having the drama only focus on the leads could've gotten boring fast so exploring and expanding on the vast world of True Beauty was a good move on the screenwriters' part. They took many liberties adapting the source material and added in a lot of original stories but that's fine because it made the drama far more interesting and gave us lots of hilarious moments.
I really enjoyed the performances by our four leads. Moon Ga-young has been one of my favourite actresses for some time because she's absolutely adorable and plays the high schooler role well, having great chemistry with the rest of the cast. Comedy is definitely one of her fortes and we get lots of slapstick moments befitting the webtoon-like nature of the drama. When this drama was first announced, I thought that BLACKPINK's Jisoo would end up being cast as Ju-kyung because of their visual similarity and everyone thought this too. When it was revealed that Moon Ga-young would be taking on the role instead, I was a little apprehensive but looking forward to it nonetheless. Now that I'm done with the drama, I can safely say that I've very much enjoyed her portrayal of our heroine. Contrasting to her bubbly performance, we have Cha Eun-woo as Su-ho. I've said this before and I'll say it again, Eun-woo is perfect for Su-ho because no one does the handsome, cold and silent male lead better than him. From the very start, Cha Eun-woo was the frontrunner for Su-ho so it's no surprise that he actually got the role. Initially I thought his acting would be monotonous throughout the entire drama and while we do get that in spades, the truth is his acting range is a lot wider, especially in the context of the drama. I think it's a good stepping stone for Eun-woo and will probably make many more viewers interested in his work.
Unfortunately, while I've always been a Su-ho x Ju-kyung stan for the webtoon, that changed a little with regards to the drama. While they shared many cute moments on screen, I personally thought that the chemistry between Su-ho and Ju-kyung was just a little lacking. The person that our female lead has better chemistry with is actually Seo-jun. It's hard to believe that Hwang In-youp is actually 30 years old, he actually looks like a high schooler. I find that because of his antics around and with Ju-kyung, Seo-jun often has far more interesting interactions with her as compared to Su-ho, which is why many people got hit with that second lead syndrome. In many ways, Seo-jun and Ju-kyung's relationship in the drama is nothing but wholesome, even more so than with Su-ho, and Hwang In-youp's incredible acting helps him sell this part. Last but certainly not least, I really have to give mad props to Park Yoo-na's acting as Su-jin. Because she makes you feel that Ju-kyung and Su-jin's friendship is real, it's all the more painful to see her turn into a "villain". Yoo-na portrays the antagonistic character very well and she's a character you'll really love to hate. That's good acting right there.
I like romcoms so this drama was right up my alley plus I already had emotional attachment to the source material. I enjoyed it but I felt that there were things that could have been executed better. For starters, this drama suffers from the usual K-drama trope of rushed endings. Rather than force in the Seo-jun arc into the last two episodes, I feel that the drama should've focused entirely on the Su-ho arc over all 16 episodes, while taking inspiration from the Seo-jun arc. In that way, we wouldn't have seen such a rushed conclusion to Seo-jun's story. I also wished that we got a better look at Su-ho's musical abilities, something that's original to the drama. The few scenes we got of Su-ho being a songwriter served their purpose of closing the plotline about his reconciliation with Seo-jun and them coming to terms with Se-yeon's death, but I think we could've seen a little bit more of that aspect of Su-ho. It might've been interesting, especially since it was something that wasn't in the webtoon.
I've had a really great time following this series. Frustration, happiness, sadness, amusement, I felt all of them as I journeyed with the leads. Even if I had a general idea of where we were going because of the webtoon, the drama was still very much a brand new experience for me. Now that I've come to the end of the drama, I think I'll be looking at the rest of the webtoon in a brand new perspective. It's been a lot of fun seeing True Beauty come to life on the small screen and I hope that y'all give it a chance too because it's seriously super entertaining. Thanks for reading.
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