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INGINEUN MUEONGA JALMOTDOEEOTDA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
October 26, 2022
CHAPTERS
86

DESCRIPTION

Si-Won Cha is obsessed with his popularity. Having transformed everything from his weight to his demeanor to remake himself into the perfect popular guy, he loves being the center of attention. What happens when he is challenged by over-eager and equally narcissistic rival Da-Un Hyeong? And why does Da-Un somehow think Si-Won has a crush on him?!

(Source: Manta)

CAST

Da-Un Hyeong
Si-Won Cha

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

PhosEnjoyer3575
85/100
Expected a romance, got a story about young adults growing as people
I did my best to make this review as spoiler-free as possible, even though the story's strongest points are unrelated to its predictability.

I did not expect much from "Who Can Define Popularity". Initially, I thought the story concept seemed a bit cheesy. Overweight guy transforms himself and his life, and a chance encounter makes a handsome guy obsessed with him! And then what? They play a game of push and pull until they finally get together, then the main character's dark past gets exposed and their relationship goes into jeopardy! Oh no! Yeah... no. I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler, but that is not what happens at all.

The male leads are incredibly narcissistic. They're both really beautiful and aware of it which is okay, but for the first duration where the author was still introducing characters... they were so full of themselves it was comedic. I thought that the rest of the story would be very shallow, since the character felt about as deep as a pancake. Flat. I ended up briefly dropping the story and rating it 3/10, until I reflected a bit on why I thought the story was so bad... then decided to give it another chance. I am very glad I decided to give this beautiful story another chance.

First of all, the characters are not very unique, but that is not a negative point. It is the character relationships which are what make the story special. As the story progresses, the relationships unfold very beautifully, with characters building each other up and growing together because of the relationships they build. Even side characters were made to learn from each other. It felt refreshing to read a story with average people (even if their looks or wealth aren't average) which had no tragedy or drama, rather it was an entertaining story about young adults growing as people. The characters get a 6/10 from me, but the character interactions are 9/10.

The art-style was very fitting for the story. It was both beautiful and cute. It was funny, heartwarming (and melting and breaking), and entertaining. It also was quite different from the usual art-style in this genre which I appreciated, but it might not suit everyone's tastes. Regardless, I give it a 10/10.

The plot was good, but I struggle to find anything about it that would make me want to recommend others to read it. The pacing of the story was really nice. At first I read 10 chapters thinking they were less (and that's when I dropped it because I thought the characters and story were too shallow to go on), and when I picked it up again, I read 60 more and finished the story before realising it. My only complaint is that I wanted to read more before the story was concluded, but the ending was satisfying, so this is not a point of criticism. The story itself gets a 7/10 from me.

I started reading this expecting a romance, but reading it felt more like reading a comedy and slice of life with some romance. The romance was a significant part of the story, and there is definitely more than enough of it for the story to be a romance, but, building the romance was not the only focus of the story. I loved that.
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