I’ll be honest about the early storylines of season 2. I wasn’t a big fan. I generally don’t like the sudden perspective swap to a new character and initially I wasn’t a fan of Wangnan. He felt too much like a main character (and I suppose that’s kind of the point). He’s boring. He still is later on in the story, but since the focus isn’t on him completely it doesn’t become an issue. This story arc is called The Prince of Jahad so make of that what you will. I don’t know how straightforward the arc names and all that will end up being, or if there are some red herrings mixed in. I do know that this part of the story sets up a lot of fun stuff. Let’s look at the most interesting things that happen during this arc.
The first important thing is the introduction of Wangnan Ja, pokemon master in training and possibly important to the plot. He’s wearing a ring with Jahad’s symbol, which is definitely intriguing. He also seems to know something is up to an extent, but we never see him talk about it too much. He is a regular stuck on the 20th floor trying to get through the test there. It’s apparently a brutal test and many regulars end up giving up at this point. Wangnan doesn’t give up though and in doing so he’s accumulated quite some debt. This is his final chance in a way. When entering the test a strange person enters. His name, which we learn later, is Jue Viole Grace. He promises that none of the other people will pass the test and he alone will move on. At the point in the arc we’re slowly introduced to the members of the team. Miseng and Goseng are two young women who both want to go up the tower. Arkraptor is hinted to have a child they want to find. This is dismissed as a lie at some point, but soon after that seems to not be the case. Horyang/Ilmar doesn’t tell us much initially but we find out later that he and his brother are experimented on with an ignition weapon in their body. There’s also prince, the son of a loan shark who got betrayed by his helpers and slowly turns into a likable young man. Last but not least is Yihwa Yeon, a fire user from one of the great ten families. She seems to be quite conflicted and a bit of a comic relief character, but she ends up joining the team as well.
The team eventually managed to go through the 20th floor test.
The second, and most important moment, of these three important things is the introduction of Jue Viole Grace. That’s right, we learn that Bam is alive and working with FUG. FUG is an anti-Jahad organization that wants to use the power of Bam to kill Jahad, since he’s an irregular. The main reason Bam is going along with it is because they’ve threatened to kill all his friends if he doesn’t. You know, fun stuff. Hwaryun was an FUG guide all along and she’s the one who picked him back up after the tutorial. We’re introduced to Ha Jinsung, who becomes Bam’s teacher and mentor during this time. They trained Bam to become very powerful which comes in handy during the upcoming arcs in which he goes toe to toe with a ranker in one of the tests.
The second half that’s important about this is the meeting that happens after the 20th floor. The regulars are sent into a giant monster to harvest a jewel from it. What the regulars aren’t told is that every ranker sent in there is killed by someone. Inside this creature Viole meets with another regular whose name we’ve heard before; Urek Mazino. Urek is part of an organization that’s called Wolhaiksong. Their motivations aren’t super clear at this point but another notable member is Yuri, who we met in the earlier chapters. They want to recruit Viole to this organization as well, and Urek tells him to come to the 77th floor to meet them. They then pass the test and move on.
The third and final important thing to happen during this arc is the climb of both Shibisu’s and Khun’s teams. Both teams are going separately from each other. With Rak and Pickles being on a journey of their own. Khun’s team consists of Khun Ran, Novick, Gyetang, Dan, Apple, Michael and Rachel. At least this is true for the first half of this arc. Eventually Apple and Michael turn out to be FUG plants who kill Gyetang and cripple Dan while the rest of the team is off on a mission. It’s here that it’s confirmed Rachel is working with FUG, not a cripple and there’s definitely something special about her, with the amount of effort FUG is putting into her climbing the tower and gathering allies. Maybe there’s more to her than just a backstabbing little girl. Maybe I’m judging her too harshly? That’s not foreshadowing at all.
At the end of this arc the main players from all the teams end up at the workshop where the next arc starts. We’ll talk about this next time. Also a quick note. I’m using the names from Webtoon. I will assume those are correct, but I see many different spellings on the internet. I hope it’s clear enough who is who, but I assume it is.
Leave a comment or like if you like these summaries. There are some parts I want to dive into a bit more, and this arc wasn’t particularly interesting to me (still good though) so I kept it short. Thank you for your support once more.
Two small notes for this post:
1. yes, this post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I forgot while playing Apex, I’m sure you guys won’t mind
2. I will continue this series in the near future, but I feel like the upcoming arcs require a lot more indepth reviewing, which means I’ll read it at least once more (I’m sure I’ll manage), so next week you can expect something else.
Opal Kaharis 