Weak Hero Class 2 (2025)

Action-packed — but rushed and without the charm of S1

So I really enjoyed the first season and decided to read through the webtoon before S2 came out. I enjoyed it thoroughly and grew to love the gigantic cast of characters. I was really excited to see how it would be adapted — all while keeping in mind that it’s very different.

With that being said, I don’t mind when an adaptation takes creative liberties, but I think this season is not only missing the structure of the webtoon but also the charm of the first season.

I think it’s pretty obvious that eight 40-minute episodes is not enough to go through the complete journey the main character goes through in the comics. It’s an epic journey of going to a new school and slowly learning how to make friends again, as well as fighting for them — starting from defeating the mindless bullies, to taking down the one at the top and dismantling the entire system.

The drama just goes through everything WAY too fast. It feels like we’re speed-running through fights, dropping backstories in 5-minute conversations, and going from place to place and defeating antagonists without even establishing who they are. It’s unclear why one plot point is leading to the next, and the final fight is so short and so quick, and the drama never established WHY we had to do everything to get to that point.

The webtoon really gets us deep inside Si Eun’s mind as he learns who’s who in the hierarchy and how to face each one. Choi Hyo Man / Colton Choi is the first fish — the one whose bark is larger than his bite. Geum Seong Je / Wolf Keum is second — the arrogant and prideful one who is quick to start fights and enjoy them. And finally the story works its way to the top, where we have Na Baek Jin / Donald Na — the charismatic leader and the mastermind fueled by his own tragic backstory.

In the drama, it feels like these antagonists run in parallel, and either their motivations aren’t fleshed out well, or they just feel underwhelming. The different schools/factions blur into each other, and the fight against the Union feels more surface level and small-scale — we’re simply shutting down an illegal business and beating an ex-friend, instead of dismantling the entire power structure.

Still, Geum Seong Je (played fantastically by Jun Young) is probably my favorite antagonist. Na Baek Jin has great visuals and great acting too, but the changes to the backstory made it too cliche for me, and I also don’t think the show did a great job of establishing how powerful he was and why.

As a sequel series, I also think it doesn’t quite have the charm of the previous season.

While S1 really focused on Si Eun’s personality of carefully observing personalities and surroundings and implementing science/math into fights — which is what made it stand out in the first place — this season feels a lot more simple, punch-punch-kick-kick. His calculated personality isn’t shining through in the fight scenes anymore, and even outside of fight scenes, he feels a lot more passive and a lot less intentional. Pacing has been the main issue so far and that affects this as well — Si Eun is just not given time to “study” his opponents. And when he does…I think we were in desperate need of more internal monologues because from the outside, it seems like he’s just running around, doing whatever the next plot calls for.

I like that we are seeing him go through grief and guilt though and the drama doesn’t shy away from reminding us how much Su Ho shaped his identity — the show is strongest in those moments.

I also think the friendships are just a tiny bit less strong, although I love the casting for every single character and I actually REALLY buy into them as a friend group when I see them together. Once again, though, they’re hampered by the short runtime. The group chemistry is fantastic when they’re having fun, but I just can’t buy into the more emotional moments.

Compared to season 1, it’s also pretty obvious there’s a new production team, The color grading and cinematography are a little off sometimes, and I really miss the gritty and darker vibes from the first season. This is minor compared to my other issues, but when you take a weirdly satured color scheme and combine it with the glaring pacing problem, it just feels like we lost a lot of tension.

One last gripe: I will never like the car accident trope lol. K-drama writers…stop it.

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A Brutal, Thrilling Sequel That Forgets What Made It Special

Weak Hero Class 2 is one of those seasons where I was eating it up the entire time while simultaneously going "wait...something's missing." Like don't get me wrong, I binged all of it in basically one sitting and I was ENTERTAINED. The action? Insane. The budget? You can literally see the Netflix money on screen. Every punch sounded crunchier, every fight looked prettier, every location felt bigger. But...why did I come out feeling less emotionally destroyed than I did after Season 1? That's my biggest issue.

Season 1 tricked everyone into thinking it was an action drama when it was actually a tragedy wearing a school violence costume. The fights weren't even the point. It was loneliness, abuse, trauma, guilt, toxic masculinity, broken friendships, watching kids slowly become monsters because nobody ever saved them. Every punch HURT because of what it meant emotionally. Here...sometimes it felt like emotional conversation...fight...emotional conversation...fight...another emotional scene...another fight. Amazing choreography, yes. Some of the best I've seen. But eventually I was like CAN WE JUST SIT DOWN AND TALK FOR FIVE MINUTES???

And I think a huge reason for that is because this season wanted to be so much BIGGER. New school, new gangs, union, more schools, more characters... more everything. But because there were SO MANY PEOPLE, nobody really got enough room to breathe. Season 1 was basically Si-eun, Su-ho and Beom-seok and that's why every little glance between them carried so much weight. Here we suddenly have Baku, Jun-tae, Hyun-tak, Baek-jin, Dong-ha, Geum Seong-je, Union members, random fighters showing up every other episode and my brain was just trying to keep up.

Like I genuinely loved Baku. Ryeoun absolutely killed it. He has so much screen presence it's ridiculous. Jun-tae?? Such a sweetheart. His chemistry with Si-eun was honestly one of my favorite parts and then the show barely lets us sit with them. Hyun-tak was so fun too!! I wanted MORE OF ALL OF THEM. That's literally my problem. I liked these characters enough to wish they had another four episodes.

This genuinely feels like someone wrote a 12-episode script and Netflix went "lol you get eight." Because the pacing towards the end??? HELLO??? Slow down??? Baek-jin especially suffers from this.

Lee Jun-young did everything he possibly could. Dude was charismatic as hell and genuinely intimidating.

Baek-jin feels like the show WANTS me to sympathize with him but never actually gives me enough time to get there. I understand the outline of his character more than I actually FEEL his character, if that makes sense.

And then don't even get me started on the ending because WHY DID IT FEEL SO FAST?? We spent all this time building up the Union only for everything to wrap up before I had properly processed half of what happened. It wasn't bad, it just felt...unfinished? Like somebody pressed fast forward during the last two episodes.

ALSO SU-HO. THAT'S ALL I'M GONNA SAY... SU-HO!!

But through literally all of my complaining, one thing never changed: Park Ji-hoon is genuinely incredible. Like what is this man doing with his face??? He'll stare at a wall for three seconds and suddenly I'm feeling seventeen different emotions. Si-eun is still the emotional center of this entire franchise and Ji-hoon carries every scene with such quiet exhaustion that even when I wasn't fully sold on the writing, I was completely sold on HIM. That's honestly what kept pulling me back.

And can we appreciate how insanely good the new cast was too?? Ryeoun? Fantastic. Lee Jun-young? Fantastic. Bae Na-ra? Fantastic. Nobody was the problem here. The acting across the board was ridiculously good. It's literally the writing and the episode count that held them back.

And I know manhwa readers have...feelings about the changes and honestly I get it. Even as someone who wasn't obsessing over adaptation accuracy, I could feel that certain relationships and emotional beats probably had more room to breathe in the source material.

So yeah...I really, really liked Weak Hero Class 2. I had fun, I binged it. I gasped, I yelled, I winced during every bone-crunching fight. But Season 1 left me emotionally hollow in a way this one just...didn't. Season 2 is bigger, louder, prettier and objectively more ambitious, but somehow it also feels smaller emotionally.

Season 1 was an excellent human drama that just happened to have incredible action. That's the difference for me, and honestly, that's why I don't think this one reaches the masterpiece status of its predecessor.

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