I admit that I was hesitant to try out Solo Leveling despite the hype, because of its title and what it implied. My impression was that this this show was going to be about a character “soloing” the game game world and destroying everything in his path with so little effort. Power fantasy isekai and VR game stories, which involve omnipotent protagonists defeating everything in their path with zero effort, aren’t my jam. Good for me that the title was misleading and that’s not exactly what this title is.
This series is about characters going to a gateway to a fantasy world that uses your standard JRPG mechanics, with a twist, that this is not based on a Japanese light novel, but rather a Korean webnovel named “Only I Level Up”, originally published on Korea’s “KakaoPage” website (and has since been published in English by YenPress). Despite being based on a Korean source, on paper, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between this series and previous JPRG world stories we see in anime. The main character, Sung Jin-Woo, is the predictable underdog with the pathetic E rank, but of course he gains an advantage no one else has. That advantage is that this JRPG verse has one major difference from most of the genre, warriors cannot level up and are stuck at the strength level they are locked into from the beginning. Of course, our protagonist, is the rare exception and is able to get stronger, which gives him a major advantage.
Based on the playbook, my guess was that our main character would wind up being an omnipotent god, like so many underdog characters in fantasy/JRPG worlds who are alleged to be weak. We’ve seen this archetype with Rising of the Shield Hero, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, So I’m a Spider So What, and a bajillion more. The twist is that despite this ability, Solo Leveling‘s protagonist takes lots of beatings, lots and lots of beatings. He may be able to defeat the big scary hyped up monsters, but it is never as an easy fight. There feels like actual stakes in these action scenes. This anime was done by A-1 Pictures, most famous for the show that started the power fantasy JRPG world subgenre in Sword Art Online. As with that series, the action scenes are visually stunning and worth the price of admission.
The most notable fact about this particular brand of JRPG world anime is that is much darker and gorier than many of its contemporaries. When monsters die, blood squirts out everywhere. Humans in this world can be just as nasty as the monsters, as this world’s monster hunters, not so creatively named Hunters, tend to prey on other Hunters as much as monsters. Our course, Sung Jin-Woo has to deal with other Hunters as much as the monsters. Some villains are particularly depraved and this series is not for the feint of heart. Like several other titles I’ve reviewed, this is another gorefest.
In terms of guy fighting monsters in a JPRG universe shows go,
this is by far one of the better ones as it avoids the worst pitfalls of this genre by not having an omnipotent protagonist or gratuitous sexual assault scenes. It says a lot that even a hardcore hater of most JPRG world shows like me recommends this show. If you like action anime, go ahead and watch it. It was the best action anime of the Spring 2024 season. Better than Ninja Kamui. If it will go on to be the best new action anime for the entire year remains to be seen.
