True Beauty (webtoon)
True Beauty (webtoon)
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True Beauty (webtoon)

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True Beauty (webtoon)

True Beauty (Korean여신강림; Hanja女神降臨; Korean pronunciation: [jʌɕʰinɡaːŋnim]; lit. The Advent of a Goddess), also known as The Secret of Angel and other names, is a South Korean manhwa written and illustrated by Yaongyi. First published in Naver Webtoon from April 2, 2018, to June 28, 2023, it centers on a young woman who mastered the art of makeup in her teenage years in order to transform herself into a gorgeous "goddess" after being bullied and discriminated because of being perceived as ugly.

As of January 2022, the official English version of True Beauty has accumulated 6.6 million subscribers and 825.9 million views. The comic updates every Wednesday. True Beauty was the third most viewed series on Webtoon in 2019 and a print version was released starting October 29, 2020 by Young Com. It was also adapted into a television series of the same name which premiered on tvN on December 9, 2020, and later received an aeni series of the same name which aired from August to October 2024 which can be seen on the streaming services Crunchyroll and U-Next. As of 2025, a second season has been announced.

In her teenage years, Ju-kyung Lim has been treated unfairly by her family and bullied by her enemies due to being perceived as ugly. She starts learning how to use makeup by binge-watching tutorial videos on the Internet. She masters the art and her makeover proves to be gorgeously transformative as she quickly rises to fame and people become awed at the sight of her newfound beauty. Soon, she makes an unlikely relationship with two of the most handsome, most popular boys at school: Lee Su-ho, who is the first to recognize her beyond her makeup, and Han Seo-jun, a "bad boy" who is not on good terms with Suho. Living in a society where people are judged based on their physical appearance, Jugyeong navigates through her high school days and into her college life while struggling to keep her makeup-less face a secret and facing various challenges with her self-esteem, love life and career.

The plot of True Beauty can de subdivided into the following story arcs:

The planning for the Webtoon that would later be known as True Beauty started when Webtoon author Kim Na-young, better known under her nom de plume Yaongyi, was in her late teens. She published the early version of True Beauty in Naver Comics' Challenge Comics (Korean도전만화; RRDojeon manhwa), a platform for new, self-publishing Webtoon's (akin to Webtoon's CANVAS). In this version, the protagonist was male and was described by Yaongyi as a boy with a "warm appearance" and an "anime otaku."

After a break from webcomics, Yaongyi returned to working on True Beauty in her mid-twenties and changed its protagonist to the current female character Lim Ju-kyung but she kept the Webtoon's theme of "true beauty" (e.g. the person's inner goodness is better than their physical appearance).

Yaongyi also once worked as a fitting model before venturing into webcomics. This, combined with her penchant for fashion and cosmetics, helped her conceptualize True Beauty which would later be published as a formal Naver Webtoon beginning with April 2, 2018, and has been running on a weekly basis on Monday.

Various official translations of True Beauty were published on Naver's non-Korean Webtoon platforms as early as May 2018, when the Thai and Indonesian versions were released starting on the 14th and 19th, respectively. The Chinese version followed on June 29, 2018 while the English version was released on August 14, 2018. In 2019, True Beauty was also translated into Spanish and French, released on November 21 and December 18 respectively.

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