Lookism Review: Satisfactory Adaptation That Needs More Fuel and Footing

Lookism, initially meant to premiere in November, made its way to Netflix, as the Korean animated adaptation of the webtoon created by Taejun Pak, on December 8, 2022 with 8 episodes, each with a duration between 22-30 minutes. The school and teen animation’s art direction was helmed by Lee Dae-woo, produced by Studio Mir, and it welcomed a multi-faceted voice cast including Shim Kyu-hyuck, Han Shin, Ryu Seung-gone, Jeong Jae-heon and more.

Netflix describes the animated adaptation of the Naver webtoon as follows:

In a society that favors good looks, a high school outcast leads a double life switching between his two bodies that are polar opposites in appearance.

-Lookism Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-

Dealing head on with societal prejudices as suggested by the title itself, Lookism digs into the hypocritical standards of beauty discerned by the self-proclaimed ‘beautiful’ counterparts present therein. Weighing inner beauty against mere charming appearances often leads many being pushed to the ‘bottom of the life chain’. Park Hyeong-seok has to live with a similar situation and endure being bullied at his school at the hands of those who believe themselves to be superior, and believe their attractive visages as enough justification for their vile behaviours.

In order to put an end to the cycle, he plans on transferring to a different school, but due to the meagre financial conditions, with his mother already struggling to make ends meet, he faces yet another challenge. Finally making his way to the new school somehow, he aims at reinventing himself amidst the new crowd. However, he learns that people don’t necessarily change with the setting and once again falls prey to the same circumstances until a life-changing turn introduces the world to two versions of him.

The webtoon already had a massive fan following, so the ever-soaring anticipation for the animated adaptation was inevitable. Having read the initial chapters of the webtoon myself, I think it’s safe to state that the Korean animation adheres to the source material’s plot sincerely. Therefore, in terms of that particular aspect, it succeeds as an adaptation.

Character designs are also in line with the art style of the webtoon, with slight evolutions that make the characters seem even more attractive than usual in some cases. However, when taken into consideration solely from the point of it being a new show on the horizon, I hope the character art and the overall animation of the series is made a bit more seamlessly fluid in the future.

Much like the source text, the season, since it follows only the initial chapters of the webtoon, is primarily presented as a slice-of-life animated series, packed in with quite a few fight scenes due to its focus on instances related to bullying. The one addition that I’d hoped for was the animation’s focus on the psyche of the survivors instead of it completely relying on the action sequences. This could’ve been the one unique factor to have worked in the favour of the adaptation.

Following the plot up to chapter 26 as linked on the webtoon website, the storyline sticks close to Taejun Pak’s text. One of the major highlights of the series has to be its intro theme, Like That, recorded by Kpop sensation Ateez, which blends well with the opening sequence introducing all the characters of the story, with some name changes like the webtoon’s protagonist, Daniel becomes Park Hyeong-seok in the series.

Lookism: Final Takeaway

The animated adaptation, though takes after the webtoon, I couldn’t help but feel that it lacked something. While the webtoon fans are bound to turn up for their favourite series, a question we need to be asking ourselves right now is – would the people who haven’t read Taejun Pak’s story want to keep coming back for every episode?

There’s no doubt to the fact that the plot comes up with intriguing characters and elements that are easy to fall in love with like, Basco and his posse; Jin-seong with his eventual character development; Jae-yeol and his soft spot for Hyeong-seok; Ji-ho, Deok-hwa and Hyeong-seok’s friendship arc, while also leaving space open for more characters to walk in eventually if the series is picked up for another season. However, the centre of attention has already shifted from Hyeong-seok leading a double life. The ordeals faced by him in such a situation are only briefly highlighted, which is quite surprising especially since that is the actual trigger of the storyline.

Lookism‘s compact packing of short episodes makes it an easy-breezy watch, but we still need some unique inspiration to inflate the story concept, because even though it all looks good in the webtoon format, its translation to the screen can come off as prosaic. All in all, it’s a good adaptation, but as an original piece, it lacks some pace and allure despite its heartfelt trajectory, maybe the inclusion of a few more episodes could’ve helped fix the issue, but there is no telling that now.

Lookism is now streaming on Netflix.

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