Solo Leveling review

Aerosa10010
Apr 16, 2021
Okay, I don’t exactly know where to start, but I’ll try to do this as orderly as possible.

To start with the less significant thing, the art style is actually pretty good, but most manhwa do end up looking all relatively the same to me. There’s no initial complaint about this honestly, though I do believe it’d look better as a gorey/action if it was done like a traditional manga (black and white, the typical ordeal). I’m usually picky with art style, so to me this is a somewhat important point to my typical critiques, but it won’t play a role here.

Now, the plot is... mid at most, if I’m being completely honest. It’s very typical, extremely weak mc suddenly becomes extremely op. There’s a lot of components within this manhwa that I do dislike to some degree; stereotypical shounen, isekai, and underlying harem tones (though they aren’t that strong, I won’t give it too much complaint). But, this manhwa does have points I do like to contrast those (for the most part); an mc that isn’t excruciatingly annoying, monsters not constantly characterized by boobies and falling in love with the mc, and whenever harem tones are presented here, they’re almost immediately eliminated. Though, parts of me does wish Jinwoo was somewhat more like a villain rather than a constant one-man heroine, I do appreciate his character a lot more than I thought I did. The fact that he struggles more with humane conflicts rather than simply just strength is honestly a bit refreshing, too. But, even with all the good attributes of our mc, I ultimately feel like we’re getting nowhere in the story. It’s not at all enjoyable in the sense of “omg! I wonder what’s going to happen next,” it’s more of a “what the fuck didn’t we just solve the major conflict and there’s fucking more?” That entire part of it just made it stressful and somewhat obnoxious. And I don’t mean major conflict as in just fighting, I'm talking about genuine things surrounding mc that eventually get dealt with, and then it just drags out for a long while. That being said, it does leave a little bit of space for a somewhat unpredictable ending (though, I feel like it’ll take a Demon Slayer turn, just one massive L).

Personally, I think saying this manhwa is amazing is an overstatement, but it isn’t straight up awful either. Though, I strongly believe that if this project is handed to the right company, the anime adaption would be pretty spectacular (it’s an action based series, it’s really more about the visual than the plot if we’re being completely honest).

Maybe I’ll change my mind about it within time, because I’m too far in to drop it now. As it stands right now though, I’m settling on a 6/10 (edging closer to a 5.5, but there’s no rank for .5s, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt).
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Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling
Author Chugong
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