By: Hannah Zhang

The world we live in today is filled with people jumping to conclusions left, right and center and judging others based on appearance alone. This may not be the case with everyone, but this sad reality has become almost second nature to most, if not all of us. We see a skinny person with glasses, they must be a nerd. We see a conventionally good-looking person with nice clothes, they must be rich. These labels we get from our looks are what define our society today, and it is all perfectly integrated into the Webtoon Lookism by Park Taejoon.

Lookism follows what we may call an “overweight loser,” Daniel Park, (originally Park Hyung Suk) in his journey throughout high school. He starts out as a kind of chubby pushover at his school, acting like a slave to his classmates who bully him relentlessly. When his mother found out, she was compelled to send him to a new school, despite the family being poor. There, Daniel wakes up one day to miraculously find that he has another body. This body, in contrast to his old one, was fit, tall, and everything he had ever dreamt of becoming.

Here, he faces a new set of problems. When he was chubby, people treated him like dirt because of the way he looked. Now he’s gorgeous, but people only assume that he’s a stuck up bully, because of the way he looked. Will Daniel ever escape these allegations?

As the title Lookism suggests, the story explores themes of making assumptions about people based on appearances and what we already know, without really getting to know this person. It really helps that this story is written in a comic format, where the author has more freedom to show the different sides of the same story. In a way, this can allow readers to think more deeply and reflect upon themselves and the times they judged others based on their appearances.

One heartbreaking flaw about Lookism, however, is that the meaningful plot it starts out with slowly morphs into high school gang wars. These gang wars, though entertaining, sort of undermines the goofy, thoughtful Daniel Park is, and loses some of its originality. The story sets out to convey the message that looks are not a talent, which is where the title of the story comes from: those deemed unattractive will be thrown aside, whereas those deemed attractive will be given special treatment. The term Lookism is discriminating against those who are conventionally unattractive, which is also which the story is centered around. High school gang wars just don’t seem too faithful to this down-to-earth, original theme. But at the same time, it also shows how our main character has grown, in terms of confidence and his abilities to survive.

Overall, Lookism is an amazing story, effectively conveying the issues and toxicity of modern society. With the added elements of comedy and character depth, Park Taejoon’s most popular work yet will undoubtedly sweep you away.