Omoshiroi is a Japanese word that means “interesting,” “entertaining,” or “amusing.” In some contexts, it means “funny.” But when I say Solo Leveling episode 14 was omoshiroi, I mean “interesting” or even “intriguing.” I guess that’s your Japanese lesson for today. Now let’s recap this episode and discuss why I think it’s so omoshiroi.
Episode 14: I Suppose You Weren’t Aware
Episode Rating: 9/10
While Jin-woo commands the spirits of the ice bears to serve him, Hunter Baek and a few other men are waiting outside the Red Gate. It’s been three hours since the party disappeared. That means nearly three days have passed within the dungeon. Dong-su violently threatens Ahn for information about Jin-woo, but Baek interferes. He has an intense stand-off with Dong-su and they look ready to fight. If nobody stops them, the two S-Rank hunters could destroy parts of the city. That’s how powerful hunters can be.
Thankfully, Jin-chul Woo risked his own safety and got between the hunters, convincing them not to fight. Meanwhile, inside the Red Gate, Hunter Kim wanders around in a psychologically broken state as the last survivor of his party. When he sees the lower-rank group sitting by a fire with food and coats, Kim goes a little crazy. And by a little, I mean a lot. He becomes completely unghinged, yelling furiously at Jin-woo’s group and saying it’s their fault his teammates died. This man has completely snapped.
Atfer knocking out the rampaging A-rank hunter, Jin-woo turns to face the real threat: an Ice Elf army led by an individual named Barca. This is where things start to get interesting, in my opinion. Much to Jin-woo’s surprise, he finds he can speak and understand the language of Ice Elves. Barca asks why Jin-woo is pretending to be a human. Jin-woo looks puzzled, so the Elf explains. Typically, dungeon monsters “hear a voice” in their heads driving them to kill humans. But with Jin-woo, they do not hear the voice, and thus do not harbor the same desire to immediately kill.
Jin-woo doesn’t seem terribly affected by this, but he becomes curious, asking what dungeon monsters even are. When Barca tried to reply, something strange happened. In slang terms, there was a “glitch in the matrix.” Barca’s words were scrambled and his face became distorted by visual noise for a brief second. The next moment, the Elf changed the subject, demanding for Jin-woo to hand over the humans. It’s like someone censored Barca’s words and reset the conversation.
For people who enjoy mystery, plot twists, and good world-building, Solo Leveling just got a lot more interesting. Suddenly, there’s so much to speculate about! Is Jin-woo human, and what does that even mean in this universe? Why is the system allowing him to understand the monsters only to censor the information they give? Is the system the entity doing the censoring, or is there an even greater power behind that? What is the system, and what’s the true nature of these magical dungeons? I’m intrigued.
That’s enough questioning for now. Jin-woo naturally refuses to surrender the humans in his care. Thus, the battle begins between Barca’s Elves and Jinwoo’s undead men (plus the resurrected ice bears). The clash of the two sides was epic. Both the visuals and music (composed by Hiroyuki Sawano) were outstanding. As the army leaders duke it out, it’s clear that Barca is significantly stronger, but Jin-woo holds his own by fighting smart. It’s been a while since I felt this excited about an anime fight scene.
During the battle, Hunter Kim wakes up again and charges toward Jin-woo, ready to kill him in a fit of rage. As ordered, Igris fatally stabs Kim and he dies rather pathetically. Will anyone even miss this selfish and unhinged man? Jin-woo immediately commands him to arise, and the attempt is successful. He now has an undead A-Rank Hunter at his beck and call. Chul Kim is renamed “Iron.” Thanks to help from Igris and Iron, Jin-woo defeats and kills Barca. Then the red gate finally re-opens. Everyone is free.
Though Ahn is thrilled to see Jin-woo alive, Hunter Baek is alarmed that so few high-rank hunters survived. From his guild, six people are missing, and only Hunter Park remains. Jin-woo refuses to talk when Baek tries to question him. Park tells the guild leader that Jin-woo is just exhausted and isn’t an unfriendly person. The real reason for Jin-woo’s bad mood is that he failed to resurrect Barca for his undead army. Apparently, he was too high-level, so all three attempts to make him arise were misses. That sucks.
There was a brief scene where Jin-woo stands in the bathroom, processing the fact that he was forced to kill a human being yet again. I’m interested in the theme of Jin-woo losing his humanity as he kills his own kind, but very little time is spent on that idea in this episode. Instead, the last scene is comic relief. However, it wasn’t very funny to me. I do enjoy sexual humor, but I don’t like shows making light of serious cultural issues.
As predicted, Song-yi Han has developed a serious crush on Jin-woo. When Jin-ho Yoo picks up Song-yi and Jin-woo, he mistakenly assumes they are in a sexual relationship. Yoo points out that Han is underage, to which Jin-woo says, “And?” This leaves Yoo with the impression that Jin-woo is a statutory rapist. Recently, I’ve been appreciating Jin-woo more as a character, so I hate the idea that his friends think of him as scumbag. That’s not amusing to me. Nevertheless, this episode was amazing overall.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke
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