Lezhin Comics is a webtoon platform primarily aiming at adult audiences. Unlike most platforms which host content for free, Lezhin has a pay-for-model. This is mainly to get around South Korea’s search engine Naver, and to add adult content. Some of this adult content includes He Does A Body Good and a number of other titles which practically start a genre. For lack of a better term, this genre will be “mabeob-ui jeong-yog” (magical attraction). What does this genre mean for its audience and readers? Let’s find out.
Lezhin Comics: The Genre Maker
After one year of setting up the website, Lezhin Comics allowed creative teams to form stories focusing on quality. One of its earliest successes is He Does A Body Good. The series by Lee Wonsik and Park Hyeongjun focuses on Hosang a bachelor with no luck with women. When he humors a college friend, the electric mat she gives Hosang electrocutes him. But when he recovers Hosang discovers that the mat gave him a touch that causes people’s lust to act up. Eventually he gets caught up in a few moments where he meets women and ends up having sex with them.
From that premise alone this obviously sounds like wish fulfillment mixed with porn. Not wrong but not right. Unlike mabeob-ui jeong-yog’s Japanese ancestor harem (and distant cousin hentai) the women (and sex) isn’t the point. It’s really about people living their lives and how once their surfaces are removed, people’s inner selves reveal. This includes Hosang’s encounter with an actress as she reveals some healthy BDSM kinks. Sexuality is a part of people’s lives, sex is merely the act of sharing that with people.
Like most things in life however, it can be a bit of a problem. Hosang becomes concerned with how anyone he touches could be bent to his will. He’s too much of a “Sweet Guy” to take advantage of others. Unlike the series antagonists who want to harness his ability to get higher in life. As for mabeob-ui jeong-yog series succeeding this, they lean heavily into how much a burden this magical attraction can be.
Mabeob-ui Jeong-yog: Fulfillment Or Burden
About one year after He Does A Body Good comes a series with a similar premise, Stand Up! Hosang’s troubles with women were nothing compared to Jaejin. Born with erectile dysfunction, women he dates and even some of his friends don’t consider him a man. He tries not to let it bother him but it does leaving him rather bitter about himself. When on a hiking trip with his caring but patronizing childhood friend Mijin, Jaejin’s crotch gets bitten by a snake. Little did either of them know, the snake and the rock it was at was blessed by a fertility spirit. Now Jaejin gains his manhood… that won’t go down until he has sex (with a woman).
If anyone is familiar with priapism this can lead to serious tissue damage and cause permanent dysfunction. (Un)Fortunately Jaejin’s snake allows any woman in contact with it (or its fluids) to feel immense lust towards him. All except Mijin who shares a will-they-won’t-they relationship with Jaejin. But true love is the least of Jaejin’s problems when one of the women he has sex with is the daughter of a powerful company president. Or that the magic that allows Jaejin’s erectness can take control after a long period of time without sex. To be honest, the events that follow after the initial conflicts look made up as it went.
The Formula
Despite that more mabeob-ui jeong-yog appear in Lezhin Comics like Pheromone-Holic, and Touch to Unlock. All of which are beginning to show a formula. The protagonists are average looking young men down on their luck who by some means gain the power to induce lust in women. Now in order to cure this uncontrollable sex drive they have to copulate with the women. But rather than just make it about having sex with supermodels, the women and protagonist go through character development. The protagonist usually comes to care for the girls in question and some even begin to develop feelings for the protagonist. Because again, sex at its best is about sharing your inner self with someone else. On the other hand, some of these developments are just a moral excuse to bone.
That’s not the only flaw however, when following this particular formula, most interactions between parties can seem shallow. Since sex is an obligation this can be prostitution on the protagonist’s part. Since the women’s consent are via induced sex drive, this can seem like rape. If word ever got about these acts, both parties live would be all but ruined. Thankfully in all of these mabeob-ui jeong-yog the sex is a mutual agreement because the protagonists have good intentions.
The Characters
That however is the main problem, most of these characters other than a select few don’t have many layers. The protagonist is essentially someone with no dreams or desires other than wanting a girlfriend/wife. The main reason protagonists act so nice is because the storytellers want them to essentially be the audience’s point-of-view. Everyone wants to believe they’re the good guy after all. Identifying with a jerk would just ruin the fantasy. The women meanwhile tend to more or less be archetypes: innocent looking best girl, the authorial porn character (doctor/professor/boss), the bully, the friend with benefits, etc. Only a noticeable few of them get any real developments and usually only exist to have sex with the protagonist.
As such most of these series are more wish fulfilling fantasies than their predecessors. To be fair however unlike outright porn, these series have a lot more plot in them. The protagonists genuinely try to become better people, even if sometimes it’s just for better sex. Yet it’s that growth and learning through sex that make the sex scenes so good.
Lezhin Comics: Setting A New Standard
Lezhin Comics and the series they produce like mabeob-ui jeong-yog inspire creators. Some more adult comic platforms like Toomics arise, complete with glowing white genitalia. Because if you’re going to have some form of fantasy, you should at least have competition. The mabeob-ui jeong-yog sub-genre certainly has competition like sex anthologies, GL, and BL. So it‘s going to need to innovate or try to look at its scenarios with more perspective. Sex as a form of character development is a very good idea since it’s a part of people’s lives. But there are sides to everything.
Looking back the title that began this trend, it already set the standards to the double side. But now whether the creators are in Lezhin Comics or these other sites, they have the opportunity to try something new with it. Who knows maybe they could even show this from a woman’s perspective.