Beyond Beauty: Get Happiness, Too
Beyond Beauty: Why Looks Alone Can't Bring You Happiness
People naturally care about their appearance.
We want to become more beautiful.
We want to become more handsome.
We think that if we can achieve that, maybe we will finally be happy.
You see this kind of thing all the time in manga.
An ordinary-looking girl puts on a beautiful dress and suddenly looks completely different.
Everyone around her starts staring.
“Wait… who is she?”
Or someone takes off their glasses and suddenly turns into an incredibly handsome guy, and the person they secretly like suddenly starts looking at them differently—
They regain their confidence.
Everyone loves them.
They finally get together with the person they love.
And then—
HAPPY ENDING!!
…A dream-like development.
Well, I enjoy drawing stories like that too.
But here is an actual scene I created for my manga.
This is from Chapter 5 of That Winter Memory ~To You, My Eternal Love~.
Shotaro, who had always had a somewhat plain and unremarkable appearance, takes off his glasses and suddenly becomes extremely handsome.
The girls around him start screaming,
“KYAAAA!!”
But Shotaro himself—
Absolutely hates it.
It is the kind of scene where an editor might look at it and say,
“I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.”
So why did I draw a scene like this?
Because I believe that—
“Getting a beautiful appearance ≠ becoming happy.”
At some point, it simply doesn't matter how much you improve your appearance.
For a more detailed explanation about appearance, check this out.
If You Become Beautiful, Will You Really Be Happy?
Of course, compared to the past,
changing your appearance has become much more realistic.
In the past, even if you were born with an appearance you weren't particularly happy with,
you could only try to get closer to your ideal through makeup, hairstyles, clothing, and so on.
But today, cosmetic surgery and other technologies have also developed.
You can change the parts of yourself you don't like
and actually get closer to the appearance you have always wanted.
That is an incredible thing.
And I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to become more beautiful.
Quite the opposite.
The desire to say,
“I want to become someone whose appearance I can truly be satisfied with,”
can be very important to the person themselves.
But—
there is one problem.
Not everyone who becomes beautiful gets their happy ending.
That is the problem.
You get cosmetic surgery.
You get the nose you always wanted.
Your eyes look exactly the way you wanted.
Your facial contours become more beautiful.
You make your breasts bigger.
Your body gets closer to your ideal shape.
And yet—
“I want to fix this part too.”
“It still isn't enough.”
“Now I'm worried about this part.”
And so you get another procedure.
But you still aren't satisfied.
Then you find something else you don't like.
And in the worst cases,
it can even develop into
cosmetic surgery addiction.
…Wait.
Isn't something wrong here?
You were supposed to become happy by becoming beautiful.
So why can't you ever seem to become happy?
What Is Behind the Feeling That “It's Still Not Enough”?
Maybe you don't like your eyes.
Maybe you're worried about your nose.
Maybe your breasts still aren't big enough.
Maybe you're not tall enough.
Maybe you want to become even thinner.
Maybe you're unhappy because your body isn't shaped like an inverted triangle.
And so you start thinking,
“If I just fix this part, I'll finally be satisfied.”
But—
that's not it.
At the very least,
you cannot fill your true sense of satisfaction with your appearance alone.
Because you haven't reached for that thing yet.
If You've Gotten the Appearance You Wanted, Go Beyond It
If you've made it this far, you might be thinking,
“So… does that mean I shouldn't get cosmetic surgery?”
That's not what I'm saying.
If you've finally obtained the appearance you wanted,
there is no reason for you to stop there.
In fact—
this is where it really begins.
So,
you've got the appearance you wanted.
You've gotten closer to your ideal self.
Now—
how are you going to live your life and actually enjoy it from here?
From this point on,
let me guide you toward the path to happiness that lies beyond your appearance.
※The basics of appearance have already been explained.
Be sure to check this out, too!