First Impressions of Solo Leveling

This Saturday, January 6th, it debuted in the catalog of Crunchyroll the first episode of the long-awaited anime series adaptation of the novel Solo Leveling.

The novel of Chugong began publishing the work digitally in July 2016 and a webtoon adaptation was published on KakaoPage by the hand of Jang Sung-rakending in December 2021. As we previously reported, the artist Jang Sung-Rakbetter known as DUBU, unfortunately passed away in July 2022.

anime is produced by the studio A-1 Pictures (86: Eighty-Six, Sword Art Online, Kaguya-sama: Love is War), directed by Shunsuke Nakashige (Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory), the story is of Noboru Kimura (Gundam Build Divers, Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!), the character designs are by Tomoko Sudo (Alice in Borderland, Fragtime) and the soundtrack is the responsibility of Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Blue Exorcist, Kill la Kill, Mobile Suit Gundam UC).

In the original voice cast of the anime we have Taito Ban like Sung Jinwoo/Shun Mizushino, Reina Ueda as Cha Hae-In/Shizuku Kosaka, Hiroki Touchi as Baek Yoonho/Taiga Shirakawa, Genta Nakamura as Yoo Jinho/Kenta Morohishi, Daisuke Hirakawa like Choi Jong-In/Shin Mogami, Banjou Ginga as Go Gunhee/Kiyoomi Gotō and Makoto Furukawa as Woo Jinchui/Akira Inukai

Solo Leveling Synopsis

Ten years ago, after the “Portal” that connects the real world with a world of monsters opened, some ordinary people were given the power to hunt the monsters in the portal. They are known as hunters. However, not all hunters are strong. My name is Sung Jin-Woo, an E rank hunter. I am someone who has to risk his life in the weakest dungeons, “The weakest in the world”. Without having any skills at my disposal, I can barely make money in low-level dungeons… At least until I find a hidden dungeon with the highest difficulty within Rank D! In the end, while accepting my death, I gained a new power…

Even though I follow very little of the Korean Webtoons market, I am aware of the fame and success that Solo Leveling has within the middle. When fans of the work celebrated its release in Brazil and Portugal, it became clear to me that there was something different that made its content so acclaimed by its audience. However, when watching the first episode released on CrunchyrollI felt like I was seeing more of the same.

There are currently many anime works based on RPGs, medieval games, or mixing their themes with isekai, I myself have followed several works of this type over the years, with the fame that Solo Leveling I thought the work had something different that others of the same type of theme didn’t have. Certainly the point that I found most interesting in this first episode was how things from games mix with the human world, most of the time it is humans who end up going to the game. This brought up an interesting debate about the use of economics and the magical side being incorporated within the real world economy. This is also evident in the few moments in which guilds are shown, revealing an interesting side of the incorporation of hunter work within the economic market of that world.

On the other hand, seeing a protagonist who has the stereotype of being weak, and who will clearly gain absurd power after a certain event, ended up breaking some of the episode’s dynamics for me. This type of character is what currently irritates me the most in anime of this type of genre and I hope to have a break in expectations in the next episodes. The second episode is already ready and was shown in South Korea andto some people in the press recently and perhaps my initial impression about the anime could be different if this second episode was released alongside the first.

In terms of animation, the first episode of Solo Leveling It’s well produced. I liked the dynamic of showing the protagonist’s adventure and worldly issues in parallel. This helped to initially introduce the world of the series. I found the mix between characters in medieval costumes, people in current clothes and the mix between the magical side and the current mundane side very interesting. In terms of character movement for the fight scenes, it’s still not possible to know because very little of the fight scene was shown, but at least the animation is at a level well above powerpoint.

In general, Solo Leveling had a great presentation of the world and how the global economy is integrating with the use of magic, on the other hand its protagonist follows a very simplistic side and is often used in works of this type of theme. With well-produced animation and interesting visuals, there is a real possibility that the work will be one of the best, but this will depend on how its story will be developed in the next episodes.