In this story, an unattractive and poor young man, who is the victim of frequent assaults by other teenagers due to his looks and lack of status, magically wakes up in a new, very attractive body, while his original body lies sleeping beside him. He starts a new school in his attractive body during the day, and is awake at night in his original body. He experiences a new kind of social attention, and quickly gains social status due to his attractiveness. But, he makes an effort to befriend several fellow students who are less attractive and less popular. His new-found handsomeness causes conflict with both the more popular teenagers, and also with the unattractive teens he tries to befriend.
I thought the fantasy premise of this story was very interesting. It was much better that his old body was still there, but asleep, while he was awake in his new, attractive, body. When he’d fall asleep in his new body, he’d wake back up in his old body, which was the basis of some comedic content.
I also found the misunderstandings that occurred between himself, in his new body, and a couple of other characters interesting. Several people who first met him questioned his motivations, and assumed that he used his handsomeness for nefarious or manipulative purposes.
Throughout watching the series on Netflix, I wondered if there were other people with a similar secret -that they had an ugly body sleeping while their more attractive bodies were awake. At the end of season 1, such a revelation is made, although it wasn’t who I thought it would be. I suspect that there are more people with two bodies in this world, so I hope to see additional revelations in continuations of the series. That, in and of itself, would make an interesting story: a secret society of people who have an ugly body sleeping while their beautiful bodies are out and about.
I had two questions about this series. First, I was stunned by the way Korean high schools were portrayed. There seemed to be what could only be described as criminal gangs involved in extortion, robbery, and assault in the school. There was a level of brutality towards the less popular kids that seemed to go beyond mere high school bullying. It felt like these kids were living in “Lord of the Flies”. I’ve seen similar portrayals of high school life in other Korean TV shows. Since I’m not from that culture, and I’ve never studied it, I don’t know if this is just artistic exaggeration of the trials and tribulations of high school life, or if this is really how it is. But, the treatment of the unattractive, low-status teenagers was fairly horrifying to me.
My second question concerned the underlying themes in the story. These included questions about the nature of beauty, the earned versus the unearned, envy, social-esteem versus self-esteem, and the basis of social status. It seemed that the main character in his original body was treated badly not only because he wasn’t attractive, but also because he was poor. At one point, a group of kids were even going to publicly criticize him in his new body because he always wore such shabby clothing, and didn’t keep up with fashion trends. This points to the fact that social status is about more than mere looks. Wealth tends to play a role. A wealthy, but ugly, teenager could probably be fairly popular in school, too, just because he’s rich. He could also afford to improve his appearance, since attractiveness is probably only partly biological. Even aside from plastic surgery, he could wear better-fitting clothes, eat better to loose weight, invite attractive kids to hang out with him on his yacht, etc. (I’m somewhat leaving aside the issue of to what extent attractiveness is just “social convention” here, since I don’t want to go down that rabbit-hole.)
The main character was viewed as unattractive in his original body, in part, because he was overweight. (He was also below average in height, which, for males, means a lot of women will not consider you a good sexual choice. That’s completely beyond your control.) I tend to think that your weight is somewhat genetic, and therefore beyond your control, to a certain extent. But, I also think it’s possible to manage your weight, even if you have a genetic propensity towards obesity. I think it’s your responsibility to take action, if you have a weight problem. When the main character is awake in his original body, he makes an effort to exercise, although not much improvement is shown in his appearance. I hope that in future seasons of this series, the writers will address this issue further, and show the main character getting serious about improving his physical appearance in his original body through diet and exercise. I think this would be a positive message to convey in this story: that at the end of the day, you are ultimately responsible for improving your situation in life, regardless of how tall/short or thin/overweight you are.
