| “ | I'll make sure to burn it into your brain and show you what psychological torture is, until you come begging for forgiveness at my feet.
— Phillip thinking about how to torment Gray, Chapter 19
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” |
Phillip Kim (김필영 Kim Pilyoung, "Pil-young Kim") is a first-year student of Eunjang High School in Class 1-1, and a minor antagonist of Weak Hero. He is a former member of the Yeongdeungpo Union before he was prevented from taking over Eunjang High by Ben Park. He serves at the main antagonist of the Eunjang Arc, having orchestrated Gray's Harassment, the Yoosun Showdown, and indirectly the Hyeongshin Takedown in order to usurp Ben Park as the head of Eunjang.
After his public humiliation from Gray Yeon, Phillip has lost all of his credibility and status in both Eunjang and the Union.
Personality
Phillip Kim is a manipulative person who is also very cautious. He dislikes having to do things himself, so he uses his money and reputation to persuade or force people to do what he wants. This is shown when he manipulates Jimmy Bae to fight Ben Park to gain control of Eunjang High School.
When things don’t go his way, Phillip gets angry and blames failures on his subordinates. When Teddy Jin failed to beat Gray Yeon, Phillip Kim was quick to cut Teddy from his entourage. He is a very confident person because of his status and often looks down on others he deems “weaker” than him.
Phillip is strategic and advantageous, taking every opportunity possible to further his connections and gain power. He is also rather sadistic as he gleefully watched as Jimmy Bae beat Alex Go. Phillip in truth a coward who uses other people's strength to mask his own weakness and is nothing without his money.
After he is humiliated and exposed as a fraud, Phillip falls into a depression as everything he worked to obtain falls through his fingers.
Appearance
Phillip Kim is lanky in build, comparable in height to students his age.
He has black spiky hair that seems unkempt. He often wears a mask around his face for unknown reasons, though it is hypothesized that he does so to intimidate others. In early chapters he wore fingerless gloves on his hands. Phillip Kim mostly wears the Eunjang High School uniform, which comprises a white and blue collared shirt with black trousers. He never wears his tie or tucks in his shirt.
After being defeated by Gray, he cuts his hair shorter and stops wearing it spiked up.
History
Phillip Kim grew up in a wealthy family, with his parents being the owners of a massive real estate company.
At Imdo Middle School, Phillip became the Number One not by fighting ability, but through careful manipulation. Using his wealth to earn him prestige and influence, he would create the illusion of strength by deliberately picking weaker targets to brutalize. For those who were stronger than him (namely Jonathan Moon, Mike Oh and Lucas Seok), Phillip attacked with groups to defeat them (and would subsequently take more credit than he deserved). This strategy was largely successful, although some (such as Jimmy Bae and Myles Joo) saw through the ruse, and Imdo Middle School was seen as the weakest of the middle schools in the Yeongdeungpo district.
Phillip met Donald Na late in middle school and became affiliated with the Union as a result.
Plot
Eunjang Arc
After Gray Yeon's transfer to Eunjang High he is involved in a skirmish that involved Colton Choi, Eddy Moore, and Royce Na. Following this skirmish, where Gray managed to defeat the gang of bullies, Royce Na, Phillip Kim's cousin, asked Phillip to use his influence to intimidate Gray. The next day, Phillip entered Gray's class intimidate Gray into apologizing for attacking Royce, trying to use his status and reputation. Gray however was unfazed by Phillip's threats as he never heard of Phillip before. Ben Park, overhearing their conversation laughs at Phillip for trying to sound intimidating before gripping Phillip's shoulder and threatening him not to act like he was the toughest in Eunjang before dragging him out of the class.
Embarrassed by such disrespect and ignominy, Phillip plots to dethrone Ben Park in the hopes of becoming the leader of Eunjang and reconnect with Donald Na and the Union. Realizing that Phillip is no match for Ben in a physical fight, he calls up a fellow member of the Union, Jimmy Bae, who also has a history with Ben Park To provoke Jimmy Bae into fighting Ben Park, Phillip lies to Jimmy about Ben Park plotting to attack Jimmy, which Jimmy easily falls for.
As Jimmy began plotting to fight Ben Park, Phillip continued to harass Gray Yeon for disrespecting him. He first hires another bully named Teddy Jin to harass Gray Yeon by offering him to be part of his gang. While Teddy would continue to lightly bully Gray, he stood no chance against Gray in an actual fight. When Phillip learned about Teddy Jin's defeat he began to rethink his strategy of defeating Gray Yeon as well as ignore and bully Teddy Jin for his failure.
Yoosun Arc
At the same time during Gray's Harassment, Phillip met with Jimmy Bae at the Billiard pool hall where Phillip forms an alliance with Jimmy so they can take over Eunjang. A member of Ben Park's Gang, Alex Go appears with a group of friends where they run into Jimmy Bae and Phillip Kim. Phillip Kim watched with sadistic glee as Jimmy beat Alex repeatedly.
Days later, Jimmy Bae and his gang from Yoosun arrived outside of Eunjang to attack Ben Park. Seeing this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, Phillip stole Gray's bag and gave it to Jimmy Bae so that Jimmy could take care of Gray as well as Ben together. As Ben Park and his gang began to show up, Phillip hid away to watch the showdown from a safe distance. As the showdown breaks out, Phillip witnessed in awe at not only Ben defeating Jimmy Bae, but Gray defeating two members of the Yoosun gang single-handedly. Surprised by the outcome, Phillip quickly retreated before anyone noticed him.
Hyeongshin Arc
Following Jimmy Bae's defeat, Phillip scrambled for another solution on how to defeat Ben Park and the rest of his gang. Realizing Donald Na will not stand by after Jimmy Bae was defeated, Phillip contacts Forrest Lee of Hyeongshin High, where he learns of the plan to attack Ben Park. Phillip Kim assists Forrest Lee by giving Forrest a picture of all Phillip's friends in Eunjang and to attack everyone from Eunjang with the acception of Phillip and his gang. Despite their strategy and plans, Hyeongshin lost terribly to Ben Park's Gang, leaving Phillip left with no action to take against Ben.
With his reputation hanging on by a thread, Phillip continued to appear in power in Eunjang. He first provoked a fight with Rowan Im, an ally of Ben Park's Gang at the time of the Hyeongshin Takedown Operation. During lunch that same day, Phillip knocked into Eugene Gale, a friend of Gray Yeon, and threw his food at Eugene, knocking Eugene's food on the ground, not realizing that some of the food stained Gray's shirt as he was standing right next to Eugene. Gray called out to Phillip and demanded he clean up the mess he made.
Now fearful of Gray's new reputation as the White Mamba of Eunjang, he tried to escape the situation by claiming that Gray was not worth his time. Refusing to let Phillip walk away after everything Phillip was responsible for, called out to Phillip once again. Phillip, realizing he is backed into a corner and desperate to keep his reputation in tact, tries to intimidate Gray into backing down by pointing out that Gray can only fight with a weapon. Gray, wasting no time, swiftly elbows Phillip in his jaw and delivers a hard kick to Phillip's head twice as he fell to the ground, Gray further humiliates Phillip by tossing a tray of lunch on Phillip's face as he lays unconscious on the floor.
After recovering from his fight with Gray, Teddy Jin took the opportunity to challenge Phillip to a fight as payback for using and abandoning him. Phillip did not raise a fist to Teddy who raised his fist to strike Phillip who flinches at Teddy's attack. Teddy however does not attack Phillip as it was only a ploy to get Phillip to react and expose his cowardice. Because of this, Teddy Jin was able to become Class 1-1’s leader. With his reputation and influence now shattered and useless, Phillip sank into a deep depression, and became another outcast in Eunjang with no connections to the Union or Donald Na.
Ganghak Arc
Calm Before the Storm Arc
Jimmy Bae and Jack Kang Arc
Han River Battle Arc
Aftermath Arc
Relationships
Teddy Jin
Teddy used to be Phillip's underdog and associate, to the point where Phillip even bought all of Teddy's designer gear until Teddy lost to Gray in Class 1-5. Since then, Phillip has cut Teddy out of his group, seeing Teddy as useless and weak for losing to Gray. Eventually, Teddy gets back at Phillip shortly after Gray beats Phillip to a pulp. Teddy doesn't feel sorry about Phillip's ruined status in the later chapters as the story progresses, and the two grow further apart. Teddy, with Ben's help, is able to convince Phillip to help them fight against the Union.
Jimmy Bae
The two do seem to work together and synergize well when they both planned to take down Ben Park. However, it is later revealed that their work relationship is very ingenuine and only see each other as tools to benefit themselves. Phillip recognizes that Jimmy is powerful and can help Phillip back into the Union, and Jimmy sees Phillip as a "walking wallet." Since Jimmy's loss to Eunjang, Phillip has ditched Jimmy for other alternatives.
Forrest Lee
Phillip called Forrest shortly after the conference meeting with Donald Na, and Forrest doesn't seem to resent Phillip as much as the other Union members, even to the point where he asked Phillip what his friends looked like so they wouldn't get targeted by Hyeongshin. However, Hyeongshin has also lost terribly to Eunjang, and Phillip is left with no option to contact Forrest.
Myles Joo
Myles and Phillip do not like each other. Myles specifically avoided crushing Eunjang because only Phillip would benefit from Ben Park's loss, and Myles saw it as unnecessary dirty work that had no value for Hyeongshin's commission rates or status. Myles is well aware that Phillip has a lot of money, and he even says that without his money, Phillip is nothing but a weakling and an imposter. Phillip originally wanted to hire Hyeongshin to attack Ben Park but lost most of his influence thanks to Myles Joo refusing to associate with Phillip Kim and was forced to settle for Jimmy Bae.
Ben Park
Phillip originally had a one sided rivalry with Ben Park as Ben Park prevented Phillip from fully taking over Eunjang and expelling Phillip from the Union. Ben Park however did not take Phillip as a serious threat as Ben Park greatly outmatched Phillip in physical strength. Phillip was also aware of his inferiority to Ben Park's brute strength and would use his connections to have others fight Ben for him. When Ben's gang decides to go to war against the Union, Ben recruits Phillip and Phillip agrees to use his connections to help match the numbers.
Gray Yeon
Phillip did not care too much about Gray as he only saw him as a minor annoyance. However he felt disrespected by Gray's indifference towards him and hired Teddy Jin to bully Gray in revenge. After Gray defeated Teddy Jin, Phillip realized that Gray was a larger threat than he anticipated. Gray held nothing but disdain for Phillip as he reminded Gray of his old bullies from middle school, and sought out to punish Phillip for his transgressions. As Gray's reputation as "Eunjang's White Mamba" grew, Phillip began to fear Gray's fighting capabilities and became an outcast as a result of losing to Gray in a confrontation in their school cafeteria.
Donald Na
Phillip admired Donald and after being kicked out of the Union for failing to take over Eunjang High School, he sought out ways to overthrow Ben without directly fighting him. After he realized that Donald saw him as nothing more than trash at his feet, Phillip joined Ben's gang when the latter intended to go to war against the Union. Despite this, Phillip cried outside of Donald's funeral.
Wolf Keum
Abilities
Physical
Phillip has very little fighting experience, attacking only the weakest students who couldn't fight back and severely beating them. He also attacked students who were a threat to him, but only when his goons beat them up first. It can also be assumed that Phillip also lacks any resilience or toughness, as he greatly fears being struck by Teddy.
Mental
Phillip is a sly and cunning manipulator and bully. He knows how to persuade people and he has plenty of money to bribe people with. Phillip is also a strategist and is able to calculate how to provoke and organize fights with his allies against his enemy's.
Trivia
- He has owned at least two motorcycles so far, a blue Yaxaha and a blue S Zuki bike.
- His Inssagram account is "feel_young"
Phillip's Inssagram Post - Phillip Kim is the only character with both parents confirmed alive and caring. They run a brokerage firm in the Yeouido-Mapo area and spoil their son with a large enough allowance for him to buy a motorcycle and spend his money at Bar.
Phillip's Parents
- His latest phone is a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Green, as shown in Episode 183.
