Hardcore Leveling Warrior Season 2 Pop Culture References

Season 2

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

List[]

When Stone appeared for the first time, he was wearing Air Jordan 1 High Travis Scott.

Gangrim's mask, Kynee, is based on kyneê, the helmet of Hades. In the webtoon, it is a mask rather than a helmet/cap. Kyneê is a helmet or cap that can turn the wearer invisible. It is also known as the Cap of Hades or Helm of Hades. Hades has been known to lend the Helm to other gods and the wearers of the cap in Greek myths include Athena, the goddess of wisdom, the messenger god Hermes during the Giant War, and the hero Perseus who used it when he slew Medusa. Kyneê enables the user to become invisible to other supernatural entities, functioning much like the cloud of mist that the gods surround themselves in to become undetectable. It also allows dominion over the Underworld and the dead, which happened after the Titanomachy. It is said to radiate fear. The helmet was was forged by Elder Cyclopses for Hades as a gift to aid the gods in the war after Hades and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon freed the cyclops from Tartarus. He then used this helmet to great effect during the Titanomachy and was instrumental in routing the Titans

Akira's new bat design was most likely patterned after Thunder's new bat design in the second season of Sindorim.

On the 24th panel, a white symbol on the lecturer's stand looks similar to the emblem of Yonsei University. Yonsei University is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea and as a member of the “SKY” universities, it is deemed as one of the three most prestigious institutions in the country.
McDonald's is called "McRonald's for copyright reasons. Both Sora and her friend went there after their lecture and it may be the same branch that The Witch went to in Episode 139 but this was never confirmed. McDonald's was called XDonald's when Han Gun-Jae met The Witch in Episode 77.
The sweets Sora gave the Dragon of Evil that were from the real world were Kit Kat, Chupa Chupa and Myzum (마이쮸) (spelt as 머이쮸 for copyright reasons).

Kim Sehoon made reference to the Tekken Tag Tournament game in the episode. Hardcore Leveling Warrior said "뭐야 니네? 철X 태그냐?" (Literal: What is this? IronX Tag?) (Incorrectly translated by LINE as "What's with all this switching?"). 철X 태그 is a reference to Tekken Tag Tournament (철권 태그 토너먼트). 'Tekken' (kanji: 鉄拳 rōmaji: Tekken) (hangul: 철권 , romaja: cheolgwon) is the Japanese pronunciation of the hanja, 鉄拳 , which literally translates to "iron fist", so "Tekken Tag" means "Iron Fist Tag". Kim Sehoon did a play on words here, and called it "IronX Tag" most likely due to copyright.

Hardcore Leveling Warrior referenced Pikachu and Monster Ball from the Pokémon franchise. In the Pokémon anime, Ash's Pikachu did not like going into the Monster Ball. Monster Ball is also more commonly known as Poke Ball in the Western World.

The episode is titled 'The Gap' (차이). The Gap is an online gaming slang that derived from League of Legends. It refers to the skill gap between the enemy and the ally. Let's say you are playing Mid and you are doing poorly while the enemy is doing better, in that case someone might say "omg mid gap" or "omg mid diff" as in the skill difference between midlaners. It is also used in Overwatch.
Hardcore Leveling Warrior called the Dragons "Yonggary" (용가리, Yonggari) (LINE incorrectly translated this as simply "dragons"). This was a reference to Yongarry (sometimes spelt as "Yongary"), a giant dragon-like Kaiju originating from the 1967 South Korean film Yongary, Monster from the Deep. The film and its title character were produced to rival the success of Toho's Godzilla films during the mid-60s.

The computer game that the young Gong Won-Ho was playing was League of Legends. He used the game ID "School Drop Out". Pentakill was mentioned and they are band associated with League of Legends.
Later on in the chapter, Gong Won-Ho became a booster for League of Legends. More info on Boosting in the gaming world can be found here.

In a panel, Hardcore Leveling Warrior is offered the the red and blue envelopes from the Squid Game tv show.
In the same panel as above, He is seen playing a slots machine with both the faces of X and Ash from the X Ash series, which is written by the author himself.

ROR is a play on LOL which means League of Legends. In Korean, the “l” and “r” sounds come from the same underlying consonant ㄹ. So the author used ROR to most likely avoid a copyrights violation.
The ROR World Championship is a homage to the real life League of Legends World Championship.
Gong Won-Ho being the 3 time world champion is a homage to Faker, the player that is widely considered to be the best League of Legends player of all time.