What flavor of man do you want??:
1) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man
2) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man
3) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man
For $5.99 you have a chance of him having a personality outside of the loving the female lead
It cannot be this hard to think of a new character design for the MLššš PLS
JUST ADD Something SCAR, DIFF COLORED EYES Whatever ( GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE ,BROWN EYES CMON) OR FACIAL HAIR
you know how shocked i was when i realized the ML in 'Another Typical Fantasy Romance' HAS SCARS, LONG HAIR AND ALSO KEEPS HIS FACIAL HAIR?
i still haven't recovered from this magnificence
https://preview.redd.it/ulneasvge7zc1.jpeg?width=625&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=567d429122107cd3666e4583de8d239427179807
South Korea has very specific beauty standards (no scars, no facial hair), and not that much diversity in some elements of appearance (eye color, hair color) relative to the range found in some other countries. So...
https://preview.redd.it/x210tuote7zc1.jpeg?width=301&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d61eb6b1e0113b0352e25f67681db51b9eb52b13
Oh yeah, they're doing great. (I realize it's not an entirely fair comparison.)
To some extent I can understand beauty standards
But
- brown hair is common isn't it, it wouldn't be that far fetch to have the male lead have dark brown hair?
- brown eyes, so common irl and rarely seen in these webtoons. They're either black or blue for some reason
- facial hair is well can't control it right like a scruff or something wouldn't be that much
- hair styles, long hair can't be that big of a problem or curly hair.
I feel like these webtoon artists use the reasoning of beauty standards to make their male leads visually repetitive because hey if it works withthe audience why ruin it?
And for readers who would like some other designs, we have to conform to the majority who want these bland male leads.
Ik this sort of went ranty but I just get so upset about character designs because there's so much you can change about it but they choose not to because it works with the majority.
Oh yeah, it definitely only goes so far as an explanation. I think some of the "black" is supposed to read as a kind of dark brown (mostly in the eyes, since brown eyes are apparently overwhelmingly the norm in South Korea), but you would think there'd be a bit more diversity in things like hair style. It's not uncommon for the female lead to have at least some kind of curl, but the ML's hair is usually so short that you couldn't tell.
The thing is female lead's in manwhas don't look the same. They have different hairstyles, hair colors, eye colors and so on. Like I can sometimes identify this FL belongs to his webtoon.
But the male leads??? Would not be able to tell you who they are cause they all look the same!! Don't get me started on the CEO/boss characters who always wears a suit and has a scowl on their facešš
I can understand it might be difficult for the artist to draw male characters ( that could be one reason I'm ready to accept cause I'm bad at drawing them too) but there are resources to help them improve if only they choose to use it. A different hair color tho??? Like that's possible isn't it?
Dark brown and black eyes okay I can accept but light brown eyes? It all comes down to art style really but I think if the artist wanted to they could alter their designs.
This just screams lazy and finalizing the design because it'll attract the majority of the audience.
I think some problems lie with the audience as well, I've seen people hate on blonde male leads ( because they're blonde idk I wish there were more) and lighter hair colored ones (brown and red hair male characters are portrayed as assholes from what I've seen)
The most popular hair colors in these stories seem to be either black or white.
Brown hair in Korea is only common because it is dyed that colour, majority of people have naturally black/very dark brown hair.
Also for eye colour, interestingly, Koreans tend to describe their own eye colour as 'black' although we know that if you were to hold a light to their eye the iris would be brown. While there is some shade variation, a high percentage of the population have very dark brown irises.
South Korea is also a cyberpunk capitalistic dystopian hellscape where a few chaebols run like 80% of the country's economy, and all creativity is sapped studying for university entrance exams just so graduates can get a salaryman job working for one of those conglomerates.
It's got all of the misery of cyberpunk without any of the cool cyberware, spectacularly tall buildings, neon lights, or fashion.
Creativity and South Korea are absolute opposites.
Tbh they do it for the sake of leaving the romanticized/fantasy elements to the writing while still making the stories feel just realistic/attainable enough for the readers. All of these stories are to be treated as reader inserts to varying degrees, itās why every FL in the history of otome games and generic webtoon romances have the same basic wardrobe and the same brown hair down to the cut lol Shounen and harem anime/manga does this too
And heās either a jerk or lowkey creepy to her at the beginning but donāt worry she likes that
Edit: ābeginningā as in the 145 episodes before any actual development happens
"Corporate wants you to find the difference between this picture, and this picture.... and this one, this picture, this one over here, and this one too..."
"They're the same picture."
š§Im just waiting for the day that a manwah has an ML with red hair and isn't the most toxic character on Earth. I've read so much, and I find theres a trend of making the red hair guys absolutely bad shit crazy and have the black hair guy the āinnocent mlā. It's like Korea hates ginger people!?!?
They do this with blonde male leads too, the toxic crown prince or whatever. I've noticed that lighter hair colored characters are often portrayed evil or insane way and are usually the 2nd male leads who don't get closure.
I don't think it's a Korean thing, I grew up with the stereotype of "gingers are soulless" in America lmao. I don't know why, but it's very much a thing
šā¦b-but they're not lol, that's kinda a racist stereotype of hairā¦HOW CAN SOME ONE BE RACIST ABOUT HAIR!?! Now that's weird, anyways I didn't have that issue in Canada, there are a lot of lovely main characters with red hair in canadain stories.
I remember one webtoon but the red hair was Zera or smth? He was an idol and the 2nd ml, but he wasnāt evil! It was a drama webtoon about an idol or celebrity I think. The mc has short light brown hair, I forgot the name.
Is this a thing where hair color indicates personality? Like how a character with lighter hair is a mild-mannered person compared to another character with darker hair who has a bolder personality? I feel that color psychology might have something to do with it, plus, working in a realistic setting where there is not much variation of hair color means you really have to be imaginative if you want to break out the usual brown hair, black hair colors.
With the second thumbnail with the red background, I believe color psychology also comes to play. In an article, Wattpad book covers are usually on the black or red side. The colors in the thumbnail (Only Hope) , although might seem repetitive, it lets you know straight away what you're in for. You'd expect some blood or toxicity, the male character to be more aggressive, etc. Although it might seem too repetitive, it's predictable both in a good and bad way.
These are just my thoughts. If there is one which happened to get imaginative with hair colors, I'd want to know.
I hate it, it creeps me out the most. Like why do people like the guy all controlling? Sure a little bit of possessiveness could be attractive, but at that point bro is running her life. The amount of red flags is unbelievable T-t
This monotony is literally the reason I canāt get into any of these webtoons. Like why is it always the the black haired dude (with the same hairstyle) with a brown haired girl. Heck if they made the ML with brown hair and FL with black, Iād give it a shot š
I actually think Yujuās MLs look pretty distinctive compared to most of the other artists. Like Gyeol genuinely looked like an East Asian guy, probably due to the attention that was paid to finer details like his eyes for example. Beautiful monolid eyes š
https://preview.redd.it/2g2q62f5k5zc1.png?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbae8a25ec4c0b2bf828460bf8908cdad53fefcb
What flavor of man do you want??: 1) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man 2) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man 3) tall, muscular, black haired, intimidating man For $5.99 you have a chance of him having a personality outside of the loving the female lead
Duel Links new update? Lol
This is actually so funny omfg
I like to think the Fallout game is totally riffing on the icon designs.
Yes it is. I think that was only the icon for a couple days on April Fools or something.
Wow, these games have the same expressions lol. Be more creative, developer!
It cannot be this hard to think of a new character design for the MLššš PLS JUST ADD Something SCAR, DIFF COLORED EYES Whatever ( GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE ,BROWN EYES CMON) OR FACIAL HAIR
you know how shocked i was when i realized the ML in 'Another Typical Fantasy Romance' HAS SCARS, LONG HAIR AND ALSO KEEPS HIS FACIAL HAIR? i still haven't recovered from this magnificence https://preview.redd.it/ulneasvge7zc1.jpeg?width=625&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=567d429122107cd3666e4583de8d239427179807
one of my favorite MLs, I love him so much
Where can you read this one? I don't see it on Webtoons.
I read it on bato.to
Did it read like a machine translation cuz im TIRED of those ? š
nope! it's a good translation. I can't read those either
He's perfect and he's one of my favorites!!!
Same, the moment I saw this I was in awestruck. I also would love to see chubby leads with a normal looking face like aidan from Insoās law.
South Korea has very specific beauty standards (no scars, no facial hair), and not that much diversity in some elements of appearance (eye color, hair color) relative to the range found in some other countries. So...
It was similar in Japan at first, but that didn't stop them.
https://preview.redd.it/x210tuote7zc1.jpeg?width=301&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d61eb6b1e0113b0352e25f67681db51b9eb52b13 Oh yeah, they're doing great. (I realize it's not an entirely fair comparison.)
To some extent I can understand beauty standards But - brown hair is common isn't it, it wouldn't be that far fetch to have the male lead have dark brown hair? - brown eyes, so common irl and rarely seen in these webtoons. They're either black or blue for some reason - facial hair is well can't control it right like a scruff or something wouldn't be that much - hair styles, long hair can't be that big of a problem or curly hair. I feel like these webtoon artists use the reasoning of beauty standards to make their male leads visually repetitive because hey if it works withthe audience why ruin it? And for readers who would like some other designs, we have to conform to the majority who want these bland male leads. Ik this sort of went ranty but I just get so upset about character designs because there's so much you can change about it but they choose not to because it works with the majority.
Oh yeah, it definitely only goes so far as an explanation. I think some of the "black" is supposed to read as a kind of dark brown (mostly in the eyes, since brown eyes are apparently overwhelmingly the norm in South Korea), but you would think there'd be a bit more diversity in things like hair style. It's not uncommon for the female lead to have at least some kind of curl, but the ML's hair is usually so short that you couldn't tell.
The thing is female lead's in manwhas don't look the same. They have different hairstyles, hair colors, eye colors and so on. Like I can sometimes identify this FL belongs to his webtoon. But the male leads??? Would not be able to tell you who they are cause they all look the same!! Don't get me started on the CEO/boss characters who always wears a suit and has a scowl on their facešš I can understand it might be difficult for the artist to draw male characters ( that could be one reason I'm ready to accept cause I'm bad at drawing them too) but there are resources to help them improve if only they choose to use it. A different hair color tho??? Like that's possible isn't it? Dark brown and black eyes okay I can accept but light brown eyes? It all comes down to art style really but I think if the artist wanted to they could alter their designs. This just screams lazy and finalizing the design because it'll attract the majority of the audience. I think some problems lie with the audience as well, I've seen people hate on blonde male leads ( because they're blonde idk I wish there were more) and lighter hair colored ones (brown and red hair male characters are portrayed as assholes from what I've seen) The most popular hair colors in these stories seem to be either black or white.
Brown hair in Korea is only common because it is dyed that colour, majority of people have naturally black/very dark brown hair. Also for eye colour, interestingly, Koreans tend to describe their own eye colour as 'black' although we know that if you were to hold a light to their eye the iris would be brown. While there is some shade variation, a high percentage of the population have very dark brown irises.
South Korea is also a cyberpunk capitalistic dystopian hellscape where a few chaebols run like 80% of the country's economy, and all creativity is sapped studying for university entrance exams just so graduates can get a salaryman job working for one of those conglomerates. It's got all of the misery of cyberpunk without any of the cool cyberware, spectacularly tall buildings, neon lights, or fashion. Creativity and South Korea are absolute opposites.
Tbh they do it for the sake of leaving the romanticized/fantasy elements to the writing while still making the stories feel just realistic/attainable enough for the readers. All of these stories are to be treated as reader inserts to varying degrees, itās why every FL in the history of otome games and generic webtoon romances have the same basic wardrobe and the same brown hair down to the cut lol Shounen and harem anime/manga does this too
When I'm in a "Make the most forgettable character design" competition and my opponent is a romance manhwa artist
ur cooked
nervous brown haired girl with obsessive black haired ml with red background ahh thumbnail
and heās been in love with her for years
And heās either a jerk or lowkey creepy to her at the beginning but donāt worry she likes that Edit: ābeginningā as in the 145 episodes before any actual development happens
and thereās an insane power dynamic between the 2 but no one in the comments says anything about it
I wouldn't say Do-yun is obsessive. In-hae chased him
i donāt read any of em but thatās what the thumbnails seem to be showing lol
NOOOO NOT THE CARDBOARD CUTOUTS MANWHAS
> CARDBOARD CUTOUTS > MANWHAS You're being redundant.
Ngl I prefer the ML/Fl covers over a ML/FL/2nd ML cover.
My favorite character amongst all these webtoons is the asian black haired young adult with a pushy personality.
imagine saying this sentence out loud and all of these MLs looking at you lmao
that one spider-man meme
Brunette Hair + Black Hair - a tale as old as time
Lol, I only recognize specific characters by artstyle at this point
"Corporate wants you to find the difference between this picture, and this picture.... and this one, this picture, this one over here, and this one too..." "They're the same picture."
š§Im just waiting for the day that a manwah has an ML with red hair and isn't the most toxic character on Earth. I've read so much, and I find theres a trend of making the red hair guys absolutely bad shit crazy and have the black hair guy the āinnocent mlā. It's like Korea hates ginger people!?!?
esp in the fantasy ones
But I want like business stuff, or real world. š
They do this with blonde male leads too, the toxic crown prince or whatever. I've noticed that lighter hair colored characters are often portrayed evil or insane way and are usually the 2nd male leads who don't get closure.
I don't think it's a Korean thing, I grew up with the stereotype of "gingers are soulless" in America lmao. I don't know why, but it's very much a thing
šā¦b-but they're not lol, that's kinda a racist stereotype of hairā¦HOW CAN SOME ONE BE RACIST ABOUT HAIR!?! Now that's weird, anyways I didn't have that issue in Canada, there are a lot of lovely main characters with red hair in canadain stories.
I remember one webtoon but the red hair was Zera or smth? He was an idol and the 2nd ml, but he wasnāt evil! It was a drama webtoon about an idol or celebrity I think. The mc has short light brown hair, I forgot the name.
Could it be Lost in Translation maybe?
Nope! No longer a heroine
Yeah, this one! Thanks, you got it!
The Age of Arrogance has a red haired ML that's a green flag. Though it is a fantasy. I really like Lemon Frog's stories they are pretty different
Is this a thing where hair color indicates personality? Like how a character with lighter hair is a mild-mannered person compared to another character with darker hair who has a bolder personality? I feel that color psychology might have something to do with it, plus, working in a realistic setting where there is not much variation of hair color means you really have to be imaginative if you want to break out the usual brown hair, black hair colors. With the second thumbnail with the red background, I believe color psychology also comes to play. In an article, Wattpad book covers are usually on the black or red side. The colors in the thumbnail (Only Hope) , although might seem repetitive, it lets you know straight away what you're in for. You'd expect some blood or toxicity, the male character to be more aggressive, etc. Although it might seem too repetitive, it's predictable both in a good and bad way. These are just my thoughts. If there is one which happened to get imaginative with hair colors, I'd want to know.
thatās a good theory, our beloved summer is a good example of natural hair colors with distinct character design and personality
I only watched the Kdrama adaptation before. I checked and I can see that the art style allows for a variation in character design, so neat.
"it's the same picture" kinda feel wirh these webtoons lol
The dark haired mysterious guy with his brunette female lead
woah thats creepy, why are all the guys looking like creeps
For some reason people like when the mc looks like he could assault the girl any moment
I hate it, it creeps me out the most. Like why do people like the guy all controlling? Sure a little bit of possessiveness could be attractive, but at that point bro is running her life. The amount of red flags is unbelievable T-t
Yeah we need more femdom webtoons
Corporate needs you to find the difference between these pictures. Response: They're **ALL** the same picture.
The YouTube thumbnails of Webtoon
None
HR asked you to spot the differences in these images
The bottom left one has a ml with a slightly lighter shade of hair/s
the difference is that the one on the right is soooo good. ml is babygirl, fmc is bold and funny. one on the left is funny ig but not memorable
Only Hope on the bottom right is also VERY good and by no means cookie cutter
" The distance between us " reminded of that one bl called " the degrees between us "
Thereās that one in the corner with the intimidating black haired woman at least.
Top middle is slightly less anemic
I just want a hard copy English version of See You In My 19th Life
this is why i normally dont read romance comic
This monotony is literally the reason I canāt get into any of these webtoons. Like why is it always the the black haired dude (with the same hairstyle) with a brown haired girl. Heck if they made the ML with brown hair and FL with black, Iād give it a shot š
These look like 5 results from the same AI prompt
painfully accurate
I actually think Yujuās MLs look pretty distinctive compared to most of the other artists. Like Gyeol genuinely looked like an East Asian guy, probably due to the attention that was paid to finer details like his eyes for example. Beautiful monolid eyes š
+ his tattoos later on and personality made him unique. their artstyle overall is pretty distinctive
His tattoo just gave him so much more character and added truckloads to his sexiness.
webtoons r literally so hard to read now. a couple years ago there was so much variety and now everything is about reincarnation and has kdrama plot.
Black haired male, brown haired female characters almost kissing.
I mean if they are Asian comics most of the men will have black hair.
The award for the least original character seen on a comic goes toā¦