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The anime adaptation of the popular light novel and manhwaSolo Levelinghas been praised, especially in Season 2, for how well it was executed.Solo Levelingis celebrated for its high-quality animation and intense singular focus on its underdog story. However, despite the quality on display,the ending to Season 2 felt a little anticlimactic,causing the experience overall to fall a little flat.
While the anime has to follow the source material to a large degree, it would have made for a better ending to the season, especially since we will likely have to wait a while for Season 3, if they expanded on some of the characters and madeJinwoo’s victory over the Ant Kingfeel more earned.
Missed Opportunities
The Anime Could Have Done More to Hype Other Characters
One of the more disappointing aspects ofSolo Levelingoverall is the lack of development the show gives its side characters. Many of its characters have fun designs, but we barely see them doing anything cool or useful. The Jeju Island arc was the first opportunity we would have had to see the S-Rank hunters in action, but unfortunately, we really don’t see them do much of anything. The Korean hunters defeat some nameless ants, and then they are quickly defeated by the Ant King. The Japanese hunters get even worse treatment, with many of them killed offscreen, without the audience seeing what their cool powers would have been like.
The show could have improved this by drawing out the non-Jinwoo fights a bit more. This would allow us to feel some connection to these other hunters, finding them cool or empathizing with their thoughts and feelings. By building a better rapport with the audience around the side characters,it would make Jinwoo coming in to save the dayfeel more satisfying. Instead, the lack of impact that the other hunters have makes scenes with other characters feel like a waiting game until Jinwoo inevitably shows up. There is supposed to be a ticking clock element because Cha Hae-In is bleeding out, but the fact that we have never seen Jinwoo fail before means that we aren’t worried. Plus, we have already seen Jinwoo cure an incurable disease once, we haven’t been given much development for Cha Hae-In, and we don’t really have a reason to care about the fates of most of the other hunters. As the ending stands now, it’s a visual action feast, but some of the pieces are missing tomake the buildup to Jinwoo stepping in worth it.
Jinwoo Feels Too Strong
No Longer the Underdog, It Gets Harder to Root For Him
This series is a power fantasy,and Jinwoo is the main character. Obviously, it makes sense that he will grow impressively strong and defeat his opponents. However, Jinwoo at the end of Season 2 feels a bittoostrong, to the point where any tension in his fight with Beru seems gone. Jinwoo seemingly doesn’t break a sweat with Beru, not even employing his shadow army and toying with the Ant King as he tries everything he can to avoid being killed.
“The weakest hunter of all mankind understands.” -Hwang Dongsuk’s group taunting Jinwoo in Episode 6.
While it’s not necessarily wrong to have an anti-climactic fight in a show like this, putting it at the end of the Season after all the buildup in the series just feels like the show ends on a nothing note. In most fights, we see Jinwoo having to overcome or learn something to continue his quest for power. However, the Beru fight seemingly teaches Jinwoo nothing. While the animation and spectacle put into the fight is impressive, it nonetheless doesn’t feel impactful because Jinwoo is strong enough to erase any stakes and doesn’t grow as a character from it.
The Jeju Island fight feels like a departure from many of Jinwoo’s previous ones, where at least he had to struggle somewhat to put himself in a winning position. Some may find Jinwoo’s overwhelming victory in this fight a good thing, since it was his first debut as an S-Rank hunter to the world, but it also feels hollow as a stopping place for Season 2 and potentially the series as a whole for the time being.
Solo Leveling
Cast
A-1 Pictures' Solo Leveling is an anime based on Chugong’s popular web novel. Set in an unforgiving fantasy world where hunters explore dungeons filled with monsters, the vulnerable Sung Jinwoo gains a significant power boost after he is picked to be a solo player by the System.
