Hardcore Leveling Warrior Season 1 Pop Culture References

Season 1

This page lists the pop culture references in the first season of the Hardcore Leveling Warrior webtoon.

List[]

The Galaxy S6 Iron Man Limited Edition mobile phone used by Gong Won-Ho may be homage to the Samsung Galaxy Series, the flagship of the South Korean multinational conglomerate, Samsung. The Iron Man reference is a homage to Marvel's Iron Man, whose colour scheme is Red and Yellow.
The character Choco Flavoured Potato Soup may be a homage to Shin-Chan to Shin chan, the protagonist of Crayon Shin-chan. Choco Flavoured Potato Soup's name might be a homage to Shin chan's love for chocolate.
An easter egg of a character resembling the Taoist from the weboon Taoist Land can be seen.
An easter egg of Katarina from the League of Legends MOBA series can be seen and she is one of the members of the Anti-Hardcore Leveling Warrior Union that attacked Hardcore Leveling Warrior during his Quest.

A character that appears to be wearing Naruto's PART II outfit can be seen in the second cut of this Episode.
The Yopi Grilled Skewer Chef is a parody of Liu Mao Xing (Chinese: 劉昴星; pinyin: Liú Mǎoxīng), the main character of the manga Chūka Ichiban! (中華一番!, The best in Chinese (food). In some other countries, the anime adaptation of Chūka Ichiban! was also called Cooking Master Boy (Korean: 요리왕비룡). In Korean dubbing version, his name was localised as 비룡 instead of his usual "류마오싱 劉昴星(유묘성)" . It was revealed in Kim Sehoon's blog post that the Chef's costume was changed in the Japanese version of Hardcore Leveling Warrior due to a copyright problem. Kim Sehoon also said that he never thought his work would be serialized in Japan when he was making the second episode.

Guan Yu is based on Guan Yu, one of China's best known historical figures throughout East Asia. Guan Yu's true life stories have largely given way to fictionalised ones, most of which are found in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms or passed down the generations, in which his deeds and moral qualities have been lionised. Guan Yu is respected as an epitome of loyalty and righteousness. He is portrayed as having a red face, similar to General Guan Yu in the series.
Zhou Cang is based on the fictional character from from the 14th-century Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Cang. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel, Zhou Cang is bearded male and swears an oath of allegiance to Guan Yu and is appointed as Guan Yu's weapon bearer.
Heart Heater saying "I will make you an offer you can't refuse" may have been a homage to the famous line said by Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Dark also with the baby Grabert on his lap while his face is covered maybe a homage to Victor Corleone stroking his cat.

The poster used by the Cyborg Assassins brother to scare him pays homage to the Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Cover

There are several Naver webtoon Easter eggs in this chapter. The toy wrappings have the main characters of several Naver webtoon series. The picture are of Kim Gu from The Head, Thunder from Sindorim, Jumbo from Sindorim and Hae-Tae from Troll Trap. The Witch can then be seen playing with the toys of Thunder and Jumbo, both from the Sindorim webtoon.

Assistant Manager Park's Mechanic Gatotsu is based on the Gatotsu (牙が突とつ, "Fang Thrust") sword technique used by Saitō Hajime in the Rurouni Kenshin series. It is a form of Hirazuki, which is a technique designed by the second in command of the Shinsengumi, Hijikata Toshizō. Saitō created the Gatotsu to maximize the destructive power whilst minimizing the user's exposure to strikes. However, because the user runs straight ahead to perform a thrust with his arm, there is a small blind spot that exposes the side of his body opposite of where they hold their weapon.

Yopy does not like comics that kill off his favourite characters too early. It is one of the reasons he stopped reading Gurren Lagann. The moment he is referring to is when the popular character known as Kamina was killed early on the series.

Nutella's name is based on the popular hazelnut cocoa spread, Nutella and the jar at the end of her broom-stick is a homage to the Nutella jar. Nutella's design, particularly her hat, may have been inspired by Magician Girl from Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Akira's motif is Thunder, the main protagonist of the Naver Webtoon series, Sindorim. Like Thunder, Akira uses a baseball bat with a lightning insignia on it. Akira's smoking/vaping habit is is inspired by '땡전' (English: Ttaeng Jeon) another character of the Naver Webtoon series, Sindorim.

Hae-Tae and Seol-Baek from the Naver Webtoon, Troll Trap, can be seen in the crowd as spectators.

The character Coma's (코마) (or "Koma") name, design and colour-scheme may have been inspired by Tachikoma (타치코마) from the Ghost in the Shell series.

The 1Up Mushroom is a parody of the 1-Up Mushroom from the Super Mario series.

Kim Sehoon put a few Easter eggs in the episode.

The first two barrels have a 'Thxs' 'for' reading', where he thanks the readers for their support.
the second two barrels have 'SKT T1' and 'MID LANER'. The SKT T1 is a reference to SK Telecom T1 , a famous Korean League of Legends professional gaming team based in South Korea. The 'MID LANER' is a reference to SKT T1's mid laner, a player called Faker.