Nerdy Office Worker Turns Out to Be a Hidden Beauty
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Warning:
There will be spoilers for the manhwa series Punch Drunk Love.
Content Warning: There may be references to BDSM (including emphasizing lack of safewords and mentions of slavery), obsession, gossiping, mentions of escorting, ageism, invasion of privacy, blackmail, manipulation, child abuse, child neglect, blood, bullying, gang activity, strained familial relationships, homomisia, classism, mentions of cheating (not between the main couple), peer pressure, excessive drinking, violence, sexual assault, corruption, secret recording, lookism, fake comedic depictions of suicide, dubcon, kink-shaming, threats of being outed, slut-shaming, sexism (specifically based on secondary sex), implied mpreg, and power imbalance, as they do appear in the manhwa.
Synopsis:
Park Seon-woo doesn’t care about what anyone thinks of him. Coworkers, strangers on the street, his supervisors – no one. As long as he is comfortable and doing what he wants, that is all that matters to him. Unfortunately, this does lead to some tense interactions at work. As an accountant, Seon-woo is responsible for ensuring that every transaction at the company complies with all rules and regulations and is accurate. While handling receipts on the company cards, he finds an unapproved charge made by a team lead.
The team lead is furious, refusing to rectify the situation and doing everything he can to get rid of Seon-woo for challenging him.
Seon-woo is resolute. This purchase was not allowed, and he has no intention of bowing down to this asshole. Similarly, the team lead is not giving in. He goes so far as to take it to the HR department, enlisting the help of the deputy manager Jeong Tae-moon. He hopes Tae-moon will be able to pressure Seon-woo into just letting the issue go under the pretense of company atmosphere, but he doesn’t realize that Tae-moon despises the team lead and disagrees with him, too. Still, Tae-moon says he’ll talk to Seon-woo.
What Tae-moon doesn’t realize is that Seon-woo has been hopelessly in lust in love with Tae-moon since they met, and while Seon-woo isn’t willing to give in on the work issue, he is more than willing to submit to Tae-moon in other ways. So, when Seon-woo happens to see a notification for a gay dating app on Tae-moon’s phone, he shoots his shot and asks to sleep with him. Tae-moon, though, perceives this as an effort to blackmail him, and rather than just denying Seon-woo outright, he decides he’s going to ruin Seon-woo in bed and scare him off that way. Unfortunately for Tae-moon, Seon-woo is a major masochist, and all he is going to do is make all of Seon-woo’s dreams come true.
Review:
I have to admit, there are times when my art snobbery works entirely against me. Moscareto is one of my favorite writers of all time, but the cover art on this one was just too antiquated-looking for me to read it. My dear friend, Porphyra, pushed me, telling me he knew I would love it if I gave it a chance, and he was so right. We’ll get into the specifics of the content in a little while. First, I need to talk about the art. Is the style on the antiquated side of things? Yes. Is it bad, though? Not at all. This is certainly one where judging the book by its cover was its downfall for me, but having finally read it, I can say it has some of the cutest and sexiest panels I’ve seen in manhwa. I wouldn’t say it is my favorite style of all time, but when it works, it works.
But where this really shines is in the writing, which I am not at all surprised by, since Moscareto is the writer. Everything they touch is usually a near-masterpiece, and this is no exception. If you’ve read Love So Pure, our main character Seon-woo is like a dumb version of Daeshik in the best way. He is unapologetically himself, totally content with being a perverted goofball regardless of what everyone else might think of him. That is such an attractive quality to me, and for a comedy-based story, it also works really well with the narrative tone. We get so many scenes where he is being silly, and you can instantly tell what kind of person he is. It makes the misperception Tae-moon has of him so much better because he is the complete opposite of the sneaky, slutty, traumatized beauty that Tae-moon assumes he is. He is actually a virgin from a very plain, happy family, and he is only manipulative to the extent that he does everything he can to keep Tae-moon going to bed with him.
I will say, Seon-woo is so likable with all of his antics that Tae-moon becomes super unlikable very quickly as a result. Of course, most of his issues stem from his own traumatizing past, which led to his misunderstandings about Seon-woo’s motives. But when you see Seon-woo singing with a dildo like a weird version of Snow White in his bedroom because he loves Tae-moon that much, only for Tae-moon to assume the worst of our pervy Disney princess, it is hard to understand him. Of course, it doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day, Seon-woo is happy to be treated like garbage as the masochistic sub he is, and Tae-moon learns the error of his ways, while we, the readers, eventually get to see why he is so distrustful. Tae-moon becomes a very endearing character, having been tricked, controlled, abandoned, and manipulated by everyone who ever claimed to love him or was supposed to, and this is presented in a very effective and thorough way. Both of our main characters end up becoming people who are impossible not to love, and that is what makes this such an easy work to love.
Now, as much as I have praised this and love Moscareto‘s writing, I do have one major criticism regarding the story, and that is the third season. This series could be divided into three major arcs, each corresponding to a season. Season one would be the fuck buddy arc, where Seon-woo and Tae-moon get into their physical relationship and grow physically attracted to one another. Season two would be the love arc, where Tae-moon comes to realize who Seon-woo really is (amid a flurry of funny assumptions and misunderstandings) and why he has these biases and preconceived notions of people. Meanwhile, Seon-woo realizes he may feel more than physical attraction for Tae-moon. Then, we have the third arc, the third season, and this is where we see a resurgence of the subplot regarding the team lead and his refusal to follow rules, and he tries to get Seon-woo fired instead. The whole thing with the company, Tae-moon’s family’s company, PR, influencers, meetings, and all that drama is so confusing and goes on for far longer than it should. I feel like they wanted to make sure they could bring in Tae-moon’s relationship with his father and try to resolve that through the issue with the team lead at the same time. While I loved the growth of Tae-moon and his father, I hated how the company plot line kept popping in and out with multiple, sudden plan changes. It just didn’t make much sense and really hurt the flow of the story.
Before I end this review, I did want to note how sad it is that there are so many typos in the Lezhin version of this title. It is such a good title, but it is long, which means it is expensive to buy on the platform. I don’t know if the Seven Seas version is any better, but I would think a platform like Lezhin would do its due diligence and ensure the wonderful work from its creators is treated with care before asking people to pay for it. A few typos? Fine. We’re human. As much as this has from a big platform like Lezhin? Not okay.
Results:
This was so good. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. With a character like Seon-woo leading the story, it is impossible not to love. The smut is so much fun, and I love that, though they love each other, Seon-woo and Tae-moon don’t change all that much when they are with each other. Tae-moon still berates Seon-woo, and Seon-woo will forever lust after Tae-moon. However, they make great efforts to be better in general, and their personal tastes subtly bleed into one another. At the end of the day, no one will know the real them better than they know each other, and that is beautiful. This easily became a favorite for me.
Have you read Punch Drunk Love? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!
