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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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 Stretch
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[series:4831#628] | ||||||
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(Five episodes watched): It's hard to believe that makeup alone could transform a person and her life so radically, but that seems to be the underlying joke behind the premise of this show (and Jugleong was never really ugly). And that most people are so superficial that they judge you on the basis of what you look like without paying much attention to your actual personality. It's not until the very end of the episode that the first problem with her new strategy occurs, namely that Suho Lee, a handsome student of the acting department has run into Jugleong at a bookstore without her makeup and realizes that the two are the same person. Lee is considered to have a 'terrible' personality, though he didn't seem all that obnoxious to me. Another male character, Seojun Han, is briefly introduced and judging from the poster above a sort of romantic triangle will form. Things have just gotten started moving, but I am curious what will happen next and intend to keep watching for now. It quickly became clear that this was a Korean work, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. In episode two we see that the bookstore wasn't the first time Jugleong had met Lee (above, left). She once ran into him by the riverbank while having a very bad day at her old school. It seems that he has some sort of a problem as well, since rumor has it that he was a much nicer person in middle school but abruptly went to another country and came back changed. Han stumbles across a link between Jugleong's two identities due to an unlikely coincidence--not a sign of clever writing. Han and Lee have met before, and Han accuses Lee of being a 'murderer' at the end of the episode. I felt that there were too many coincidences, it was becoming difficult to keep track of who-knows-what, and the show might be losing the focus on main character Jugleong. But it is fairly funny, and I still hoped things work out OK for her, so I intended to keep watching. The scene where she runs into two of the bitchy girls from her old school was painful and infuriating. As of episode three, I still wasn't detecting any major lessons on vanity or self-esteem or anything like that. This show doesn't really mock those who put appearance above substance, instead Jugleong just has an ability to look like two different people--as if her makeup was basically just a disguise she sometimes wears--and this leads to odd stuff occuring. Or perhaps she has discovered that while she had always assumed that a person either would or wouldn't be born with beauty, in fact it is largely a man-made thing. But the show doesn't come right out and say this, and as a result my interest was waning. Anyway, Jugleong feels sorry for another girl who is in a situation similar to hers before she discovered the wonders of makeup. She offers to make her look beautiful before a performance--and this girl turns out to be the sister of a certain guy she knows. Another girl pretends to be Jugleongs new friend but has some hostile goal in mind. Basically, things happen but the plot as a whole doesn't seem to be moving anywhere that would be truly moving or surprising (since wild coincidences are par for the course within anime). But I continued watching, perhaps because the jokes could be genuinely funny at times and Jugleong is an authentic underdog. She is appalled to find that the first contest of the Goddess competition will be dancing, which she has zero experience or talent in. She would like nothing better than to concede, but a group of girls have placed all of their hopes on her and she cannot bring herself to dash them. Hopefully the fine arts will be included in a later contest, because she turns out to be an excellent artist. Jugleong agrees to a blind date with a handsome guy, but it seems too good to be true because it isn't. Han happens to save her from being framed and humiliated. Again, no major surprises. In episode five we learn why Han considers Lee to be a 'murderer'--another boy they once knew committed suicide after being cyberbullied and Han feels his death could have been avoided. I didn't understand why Lee was to blame. But in general I'm having trouble keeping Han and Lee apart. After learning who was behind the attempt to frame her, Jugleong vows that she won't back down anymore. It sounds like she will try to win the Goddess competition rather than avoid it. I could not get very excited about this and with the season rapidly approaching its end, I wondered if I should drop this show altogether. Last updated Sunday, September 22 2024. Created Sunday, August 18 2024. | ||||||||
