Solo Leveling review

NotArt3mis9
Apr 17, 2021
Solo leveling (season 1) is a pretty good power fantasy but the story falls flat for me in many aspects. These is well compensated enough by the great art and reasonably fast pacing to make up for this.

When I think of power fantasy anime/manga/manhwa the first thing that comes to mind is one punch man. A world where the protagonist hopelessly outclasses everyone else but still has a solid, unique character to him along with a world brimming with interesting characters who all have their own struggles and goals. Now comparing that to solo leveling. Well 'solo' leveling is really what you get because while this story has a slew of interesting looking side characters, almost none of them get the screen time to be given any character after the first 30 ish chapters.

So then what about the main character? Jin-woo is probably the most bland character you could ever write. He reacts like a piece of card board to everything. It really is a shame cause when you first are introduced to him, you get a sense of relatability and hope for this underdog family man, who even though he is 'the world's weakest hunter' still goes out every day to try to provide for his school age sister and comatose mother. But as soon as he gets power, all of that goes away. At times it becomes hard to even remember that his original goal was to help his mother and sister as they are thrown to the side as if they don't exist for some 80 chapters while MC just goes off and beats up monster after monster, with little to any thoughts in his head about well anything aside from killing more monster. This is especially exemplified when at one point somewhat early on, Jin-woo's sister asks to join him on a jog as she notices he's been working out. So what does Jin-woo do? Totally abandons his sister and sprints as fast as he can with no care for where she is or care for connecting with her as she is trying to do with him right now. Scenes like these are so frustrating because as a reader I WANT to feel a connection with these side characters, but all Jin-woo cares about is getting more power at the expense of any connection to those around him.

At the end of the day this is a really fun read but it woefully lacks the charming characters of something like one punch man or even Reincarnated as a Slime, that really makes the story feel whole. It especially is sad because there are some fun characters in here that I yearned to know more about, but just as quickly as they show up so quickly are they gone. Reading this story, you might as well be playing a RPG with a silent protagonist where all the characters you meet get as little emotional development as your character does.
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Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling
Author Chugong
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