This is a review of the show because I can’t find an English translation of Mask Girl anywhere and my struggle Korean isn’t good enough to read the original.

*spoilers ahoy*

Mask Girl aka Kim Mo-mi works a mundane job in the streets, but in the sheets she’s a streamer who wears a mask. Mo-mi is actually “”ugly”” and treated poorly by men (and society in general) because of it. However, online she is the mysterious and charismatic Mask Girl: beautiful, desired, admired, and loved. Something Mo-mi has always wanted as her father is error 404 not found and her mother is elitist trash.

Naturally, things only go down from there. Mask Girl becomes entangled with a stalker (Oh-nam) who assaults her and then she kills him like the queen she his. However, his mother (Kyung-ja) is straight psycho and devotes her delusional life to making Mask Girl’s already miserable life more miserable. Mask Girl gets plastic surgery and totally changes her face, becoming unrecognizable and joining a club where she sings karaoke, but alas. She’s eventually entangled in an even deeper web of craziness resulting in several deaths. And she’s pregnant!

While the men in Mo-mi’s life are either absent, lustful, or trash, the women in her life aren’t much better. When Mo-mi works in an office, she is jealous of the more conventionally attractive A-reum whom all the dudes like because of her looks. A-reum obtains what Mo-mi has been working so hard for simply by being attractive: the admiration, attention, and love other others.

Mo-mi’s own mother is uninterested in having a relationship with her. Kyung-ja, the other prominent female character (besides Mi-mo – Mo-mi’s daughter) is understandably upset over the death of her son, but her anger is misguided. Not only does she do everything in her power to ruin Mo-mi’s life, but when Mo-mi is eventually sent to prison and jailed for her crimes, she spends her elderly years ruining Mi-mo’s life.

However, her relationship with Kim Chun-ae balks expectations. When we’re first introduced to Chun-ae, she like Mo-mi has gone through extensive plastic surgery to change her face and win over a trash dude the boy of her dreams (by cannon balling his career as a Korean pop idol – arguably deserved). Chun-ae is mistaken for Kim Mo-mi by Kyung-ja, who kidnaps and threatens to kill her. Chun-ae however spins a tale as old as time. She also wants to kill Mo-mi, but for a far pettier reason: Mo-mi usurped her position as HBIC at the night club, stealing away the coveted attention of male patrons and becoming the favorite. Consequently, Chun-ae and Kyung-ja form a brief, tenuous partnership with the goal of killing Mo-mi.

Except Mo-mi and Chun-ae aren’t enemies, but friends. Having bonded rather than become jealous of each other, the two work at the night club together singing with each other and forming a friendship based on a mutual understanding of one another. Chun-ae immediately goes to warn Mo-mi (who’s pregnant) of Kyung-ja’s vendetta, but to no avail. Chun-ae’s garbage, abusive, leech of a boyfriend attacks her, and Mo-mi and Chun-ae end up killing him (again, kinda deserved). Kyung-ja tracks them all down and everyone but Mo-mi dies. Kyung-ja uses one of Gwin-am’s her 9 lives to revive herself and continue her vendetta against Mo-mi, this time against her daughter, Kim Mi-mo.

Both Chun-ae and Mo-mi improve their lives and obtain what they want by becoming beautiful. Beauty isn’t only wealth, it’s all that matters and both of their lives (kind of) improve when they obtain it. Big emphasis on kind of. Chun-ae gets revenge and gets the guy, but he turns out to be an abusive, depressed loser with no work ethic. Mo-mi gets the admiration she’s always desired, after murdering a man and spending several months on the lam. Ultimately, she ends up in prison with an estranged daughter who despises her.

While beauty gives them what they want, they aren’t ultimately happier for it. But what does bring them happiness briefly is their friendship with one another. Unlike Ariana Grande Chun-ae is a girl’s girl, and in turn Mo-mi becomes one too. The two support one another, defend and protect one another, even being willing to die for one another and, “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Sadly, being a girl’s girl didn’t save Chun-ae or Mo-mi for that matter, but it does show that in the end, it’s always better to be a girl’s girl and make a friend. Whilst most of the men in Mo-mi’s life disappoint her (the women too tbh), Chun-ae sticks with her until the very, bitter end and don’t we all need friends like that?