If you could become another person at the drop of a hat, would you do it? Would you walk around in a body that isn’t yours if it meant you could completely change your life? Lookism is a Korean anime series based on a popular Webtoon where a young man, bullied for his weight and appearance, finds a way to live a double life in a body that society respects.
But is it all it’s cracked up to be? Can he find a way to be accepted by his peers when he’s living a life that isn’t truly his? These would certainly be compelling questions if this adaptation wasn’t such a milquetoast attempt at bringing the story to life. Lookism doesn’t quite land the way it should, given its timely message.
LOOKISM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot:The camera pans over to a window, then a pair of legs walking over to a bathroom sink. A young man stares at himself in the mirror incredulously, as if he can’t believe what it is he’s looking at.
The Gist: Park Hyeong-seok (Garrett Gallego) is an overweight high school student who’s bullied by his peers for the way he looks. He’s bullied to the point of tears every single day, treated like a pig, and beaten up if he doesn’t cooperate with his bullies’ demands.
One day, after a particularly bad experience at school, Hyeong-seok goes home and falls asleep, ready to give up on his life. His mother (Susan Haruye Ioka) can do little to help him, and his bullies are relentless. So when he wakes up and he’s in a tall, thin teen’s body, he’s shocked in ways it’s difficult to understand.
He believes this could be the key to changing his life, and decides to go out in this new “shell” of sorts. But what will this end up doing to his life? How long can he continue to keep up both existences?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There are a variety of isekai shows that explore “life in a new body” concepts, or “starting a new life” storylines. Similar to magical girls who transform into different costumes or forms so others don’t recognize them, these make up a major part of the genre.
But as easy as it is to make the comparison, Hannah Montana is a close analogue. She’s just regular Miley before she puts on the wig, and then a superstar when she’s Hannah Montana. That’s how Hyeong-seok ends up when he learns he can be someone else – sounds silly, but that’s the vibe.
Our Take: There’s no shortage of anime series that take the protagonist and give them the ability to age themselves up (like Fancy Lala or Full Moon wo Sagashite). It’s a trope that’s been used time and time again, especially when it comes to magical girl series. And unfortunately, judging others by their looks is a frustrating fact of life that many of us have to deal with. The problem here is, even though the setup attempts to derive sympathy for viewers over its “hero’s” predicament, it ends up failing.
As a webtoon, Lookism is an engaging read that you can’t stop flipping through. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate well at all to the small screen. Tiny details are missed and twisted, our protagonist isn’t relatable given his horrible personality (despite being bullied), and there just isn’t anyone likable to root for. You don’t really get the sense that you want to see Hyeong-seok succeed, which means the entire premise collapses. He’s been treated like garbage for so long it seems like it’s manifested in his personality too, and it’s quite embarrassing to see him treat his mother the way he does instead of trying to fight back and solving his own problems.
The dialogue tends to miss more often than not as well, and in turn brings the English voice cast’s performance down. For instance, relative newcomer Garrett Gallego does his best as Hyeong-seok, but is given a lackluster set of English lines compared to the original Korean dialogue, similar to the other voices across the board. As a result, the actors turn in serviceable performances, but never sound quite accurate for their characters. The script is too milquetoast when it needs to be forceful, and too aggressive when it needs to tone things down.
What’s more, Studio Mir’s animation has taken a fairly decent-looking webtoon and transformed it into cheap-looking schlock that’s reminiscent of some of the lazy American-flavored anime that’s emblazoned across the covers of “how to draw” books. These characters don’t look great, and they aren’t consistent, either. That makes for an even more uninteresting watch, with all these elements coming together to make it difficult to appreciate Lookism.
Sex and Skin: A brief glimpse at a female student’s underwear, but not long enough to be too distasteful as it’s done in context of the narrative.
Parting Shot: In his “new” body, Hyeong-seok strolls into his new school as his teacher introduces him as the new transfer student. Jaws drop and the entire class goes wild over what they’re seeing. A close-up of his face and a “nice to meet you” closes out the scene.
Sleeper Star: Susan Haruye Ioka plays Hyeong-seok’s mother, a woman who suffers so her son can live a better life, seemingly away from the bullies in his own neighborhood. Ioka brings a convincing warmth to the character that tugs at your heartstrings. You can feel the pain in her heart when she sees her son being bullied and hurt at school, and it cuts like a knife. It’s the one emotional scene in this first episode that’ll absolutely stick with you.
Most Pilot-y Line: “This is where I’ll start over,” a confident Hyeong-seok declares as he makes his way toward the small apartment his mother arranges for him in another city. He believes this is a time and place for new beginnings, and “starting over” is a theme that echoes throughout the first episode.
Our Call: SKIP IT. We all know when a book outshines its movie or TV adaptation. Lookism may be a webtoon instead of a novel, but its animated version leaves out too many details to be as much of an impactful experience as the original story. And not to completely miss the point of the tale, but ironically it simply looks cheap. Studio Mir’s animation is frankly unattractive, and the English voice cast leaves a lot to be desired. It’s also quite cringey at times: “He’s hot AF!” isn’t something real people actually say in conversation with their mouths. Further, the first episode won’t do much to hook you, and you’ll likely be left scrambling to get caught up on the webtoon instead of committing to the eight episodes available on Netflix. Let’s hope any future adaptations are less haphazard in their execution.
