YMMV / Once Upon a Time in High School

• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Jang-Hoon maybe an asshole who likes to pick on others with his bully friends, and who Hyun-soo has so much hate for. However, he is also a school disciplinary member, who is actually committed to his job, and considering what kind of school he attends to, his hardass scolding can be very justified, since most of the students he confronts are lowlife such as Stabber. Even more so, since we saw that Woo-sik and later Hyun-soo were the ones who antagonize him first, especially since his just doing his job and even greet Hyun-soo rather friendly until, he shot a Death Glare at him and things nearly went south early.
  • Hyun-soo's homeroom teacher and the security guard 'puppet master', who are downright jerkasses but are actually just doing their job, especially the former, and he got a lot of crap thrown at him.
  • Despite his constant abuse, and overly harsh attitude towards his son, Hyun-soo's father actually means well. Sure, he rough his son up so bad, that he very nearly commited suicide, but considering how important education back then, he have a very good reason to act harsh, although he does go overboard most of the times.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Hyun-soo tries to act tough when Jang-hoon comes to his class to bring Stabber to the disciplinary office, and even tries to help the latter after Jang-hoon punch him in the gut. This is ignoring the fact that he is ONE of the victims of Stabber's antics and gets picked on by him the first day he came to school, yet he acts like a concerned friend. On the otherhand, Jang-hoon is just doing his job as a school discplinary member, and has every right to scold Stabber's gambling activity. In the end, Hyun-soo picks the wrong time and wrong guy to help, and he got punched for his trouble.
  • Woo-sik after his fight with Jang-hoon. We are supposed to feel bad for him when he lost and eventually left school. However, before that he has Took a Level in Jerkass where he cheats on his girlfriend, picks fight with Hyun-soo who still means well, and frequently bullies Hamburg for his porn bussiness, especially since we found out later that the later used the money to pay for his tuition, unlike Woo-sik who is wealthy with an actor for a mom. In short, in spite of Hyun-soo's reaction, Woo-sik just suffered a very deserved Kick the Dog.