Makoto

Doesn't make justice to Class 1 and it's main character

Class 1 is one of my favorite dramas, right after watching it I went to read the webtoon and re-watched it a couple of times, so I was looking forward to this new season.

They had 2 difficult tasks with it: keep the level of Class 1 and adapt a webtoon that is +250 chapters long. The later was obviously imposible on 8 short episodes, so I was expecting big changes from the webtoon. At the end of class 1 they were teasing the new shcool and a new antagonist in the form of an organization called The Union. How they were introduced made me hopeful.

They did the obvious cut out many characters and most of the story, they kept the key characters and did a story that lead to the same ending as the webtoon with a very different path, but keeping some key points. I'm totally fine with this decision, wouldn't mind if story was completely new as well.

Class 1 was an original story, based on a ~15 chapters flashback which explained the origins of the main character Si Eun. This rebooted story was a masterpiece on it's own, and, even though the story was different, it had the soul of Weak Hero and Si Eun character gave the same feeling as the original one, some moments even reminded of webtoon best moments... A great way to adapt Weak Hero and a great drama with dark and emotional moments.

Sadly this new season doesn't do a good job on adapting Weak Hero. It fails to continue Class 1 and doesn't bring any of the good aspects of the webtoon to the screen. I have multiple complaints about it regarding the story and the characters: the pacing, there wasn't chemistry between the main characters, the villain, fighting scenes felt worse than on Class 1, didn't have emotional moments... It's true that the drama is short, so building up the characters and creating feelings towards them is hard, but Class 1 had the same length and it succeeded.

But my main issue about this season is the most important part of Weak Hero: they destroyed Si Eun character.

To explain Si Eun character let me talk about his story on the webtoon. Si Eun was a top student, his best friend at school (An Su Ho) starts to get bullied and eventually jumps from a roof while Si Eun was away from school. After this event he stops going to school, he was traumatized, but also he was getting ready to avenge his friend. He's aware that he has a weak body, but he spent his learning techniques that would help him with his revenge and preparing a plan that would guarantee his victory. After months he comes back to school, his classmates thought that he looked like someone who had lost his will, but he carried over his plan and beat everyone responsible for bullying his friend to a pulp. After that he gets transferred to Eunjang a school where fighting is more common than studying. On his first day there the class bully (Choi Hyo Man) targets him but Si Eun doesn't have any problem dealing with him, while he was doing so his desk-mate (Seo Jun Tae) notices that Si Eun hands were trembling, that's how we know that he actually feels fear while fighting but doesn't let it hold him back. During the webtoon we learn that after what happened to his friend he had promised himself to never lose again, he's also someone who doesn't talk much but cares about his friends and doesn't hesitate to help them. He's someone with a weak body, but uses his brain to plan fights and come up with tricks to put him at an advantage when he needs to fight.

That Si Eun is exactly who we saw on Class 1 right from the start, he doesn't hesitate to defend himself from bullies even though its obvious he's afraid and has no fighting experience, through the season he grows fond of his friends, doesn't hesitate to go fight instead of them, analyses the situation when fighting... At the end he was someone able to make bullies afraid of him and even fight people more skilled and strong than him They did a good job when writing the first season to create Si Eun character keeping all of his essence and Ji Hoon did an excellent job with the performance. He was someone weak, but he behaved like a hero.

On this season they present us Si Eun as someone without will, traumatized by the events after Class 1 he decided to don't fight again. That's not the Si Eun we saw on Class 1, he was someone trying to get stronger to protect his friends, who didn't give. Neither is the Si Eun from the webtoon, who goes through most of the story never losing a fight. Instead they bring us a Si Eun who is only weak. He's not even able to take care of the class bully, someone who is all talk but actually weak. And even when Si Eun recovers his will he never feels like the Si Eun from Class 1.This doesn't only ruin Si Eun character, but also the season pace. They waste so much time with the class bully plot and with Si Eun recovering his will that there's no time to create a proper story for the season.

If they were loyal to the last scenes of Class 1 (dealing with the bully on that moment and The Union being aware of Si Eun) they could've started the drama with better pace, creating connections between the characters, a more interesting reason to fight The Union, constructing a better villain... Because Si Eun is not the only character who suffers from this season writing.

The villain is another character that was destroyed, its the same one as in the webtoon, it's "final boss". But nothing from him remains, not even the iconic tattoos on his hands they showed on Class 1 credits. He is supposed to be a great villain, someone impossible to defeat with a lot of build up, but nothing of it remains. It's disappointing coming from how well Class 1 villain was written.

As a summary, the season suffers from bad writing decisions, which ruin the characters, both Si Eun and the new characters introduced on this season, taken from the source material, and it fails on creating an interesting scenario.

On the other side, the cast is good. Ji Hoon shows again he was the perfect choice for Si Eun, he can't save the character from the script, but helps keep part of his essence.
Geum Seong Je actor does a good job with his character, feeling like the original one.
I also liked Seo Jun Tae and Na Baek Jin actors work, even though the latest had a hard job to do.

I would still recommend watching the season to anyone who enjoyed Class 1, but it's a shame how the wasted it's potential.

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