Note: This review avoids spoilers except in one marked section
Solo Leveling is a bold anime in many ways, boasting amazing animation and stunning music. It was a bold new beginning for an impressive seinen fantasy. I wasn’t terribly interested in Solo Leveling at first mostly due to the overused story. But I ended up liking it eventually – first because of how amazing it looked and sounded. Afterward, the series also impressed me with the character writing.
It just goes to show that even if a premise doesn’t speak to me, I can still enjoy other aspects of an anime. I just needed to give it a fair shake, and I’m glad I did.
Article Contents
- Story
- Visuals
- Audio
- Characters
- Personal Enjoyment
- Overall Score
Story
Score: 6/10
Although I do like the series overall, and I think the writing improves as the story progresses, I still hold that the initial concept of Solo Leveling is unoriginal and boring. I don’t know why so many people got excited about the story when it’s so basic. A weak boy awakens to some kind of magical power and becomes the strongest man. Never heard that one before. He also inherits a system that tells him how to level up and function like a player of a game, which definitely isn’t an original concept. Fantasy anime with player systems in them are a dime a dozen.
Despite all this, an anime doesn’t have to be original to be good. For an example, I love Jujutsu Kaisen, which follows a fairly basic shounen outline. Perhaps I should be more understanding of the fact that this standardized storyline speaks to a lot of people. In the end, it spoke to me, too – less with the power fantasies and more with the mental turmoil of Jinwoo. I enjoyed getting inside the mind of this character and I empathized with him at many points.
Other elements of the story category include themes and messages, world-building, and a balance of content between light-hearted and serious. Solo Leveling’s comedic moments are few and far between. The world-building is decent but not great. As for themes and messages, they are fairly basic – effort is rewarded, people can change for the better, the world isn’t always fair, and people are easily corrupted by greed or fear. There’s also the theme of “the abyss stares back at you,” which implies that Jinwoo is losing himself slowly to the darkness around him.
This show also addressed the idea of trauma, even though it wasn’t the most detailed or realistic discussion of the issue. Joo-hee Lee was traumatized by intense battle and seeing people die in dungeons. She decided to quit being a Healer since it cost her mental health so heavily. Joo-hee isn’t the only one who deals with trauma. The Hunters who went to the first Jeju Island raid also lived through serious trauma, losing several members of their team. The Hunters in this world are like soldiers in that they deal with way more danger than civilians and often suffer PTSD or other trauma-related issues.
Jinwoo doesn’t seem to suffer from PTSD per se, but the frequent life-or-death situations and the misplaced guilt over certain necessary actions does cause him mental pain. It’s possible Jinwoo will continue to struggle more emotionally as the seasons continue, but he’s doing well in season one. I don’t think Solo Leveling has anything special or eloquent to say about trauma, but I’m glad it was at least mentioned as a real thing that happens. Overall, the story category was not bad. I would call it “satisfactory/fine.”
Visuals
Score: 9/10
Solo Leveling was produced by A-1 Pictures, the studio responsible for hits like Sword Art Online, Seven Deadly Sins, and Your Lie in April, as well as personal favorites like Erased (Boku dake ga Inai Machi) and Shinsekai Yori (From The New World). In other words, a very skilled and famous studio worked on Solo Leveling. People expected a lot from this anime visually, and as far as I can tell, it delivered. A-1 Pictures made Solo Leveling look fantastic.
The art style is more typical of a Korean manwha than a Japanese manga. (Solo Leveling started out as a light novel, but the anime is based on the manwha, at least according to MyAnimeList.net.) This means the characters have slightly more realistic proportions than in anime. Characters – especially the men – have particularly tall, muscular bodies, long necks, and eyes narrower than what you see in most Japanese anime. The style of Solo Leveling has a deeply shadowed, slightly angular look – especially in the pointy chins.
The fights and action sequences look excellent and smoothly animated. The still-shots, which are not overused, are detailed and emotive. Solo Leveling has a bold, rich color pallet with a lot of deep blue shades. Jinwoo’s design is a little boring, but most of the character designs are great. Some of my favorites are Hae-In Cha in her red and gold uniform and Yoon-ho Baek. I’m also wildly attracted to Jinchul. On a separate note, the face expressions are great, too. Some are unforgettable.
If you watch Solo Leveling, you should expect some fan-servicey shots from time to time, usually sexualizing the female characters. However, Solo Leveling is not the worst offender in this category by any stretch of the imagination. It’s fairly classy for an anime. In addition, there’s something to be said about the equal-opportunity fan-service moments in this series. Personally, I enjoy them.
Audio
Score: 10/10
Most people will agree that Solo Leveling has an amazing opening song. It’s called “Level” by Hiroyuki Sawano. It’s very influenced by western hip-hop and is sung all in English. (And it’s actually understandable!) Hip-hop has never been my personal style, but for weirdos like me, we have the more alternative/cyberpunk/emo ending song, “Request” by Krage. I absolutely love that song.
The composer for Solo Leveling was Hiroyuki Sawano. It was impossible for me to find a YouTube upload of the Season 1 OST, and I’m not rich enough to buy copies of every soundtrack I like. So, I wasn’t able to listen to the instrumental soundtrack for season 1. I cannot currently provide examples of my favorite pieces. But all of it is good because it’s Hiroyuki Sawano. As every AOT fan should know, Sawano’s music is always amazing. Also, the insert song “Dark Aria” was stunning.
Now let’s talk a little about the people responsible for the excellent voice-acting in this series. Taito Ban starred as Jinwoo Sung and did an amazing job. He reminds me a bit of Yuki Kaji when he does his gruffer voice. His roles have been limited so far as he’s only been actively voice-acting since 2018 from what I can tell. All the voice-acting is good, but I’ll mention a few names that stuck out at me below.
First of all, Hae-in Cha was voiced by Reina Ueda, who I’m not very familiar with yet. However, I enjoyed her voice in various roles here and there, like Ruri from Dr. Stone and Yuu in Mononogatari. She had few lines as Cha, so I hope to hear her more next season. Kouki Uchiyama, a personal favorite of mine among male seiyuu, appeared as Tai-Shik Kang. In addition, Makoto Furukawa played Jinchul Woo. He is best known for playing Saitama, AKA One Punch Man. I love his deep, dry voice. Clearly, there’s a lot of talent in this cast of voice-actors.
Characters
Score: 7/10
The character of Jinwoo didn’t impress me much at first, but I understand him better by the time of season 2, and I think his development in season 1 was decently written. Jinwoo is a humble and kind young man who wants to protect others. He’s simple in his desires, and yet always wants to improve. He is a genuinely good person. That’s why I suspect we will see him battle with corruption more over time. Hopefully he won’t become a Lelouch Lamperouge or an Eren Yeager.
Not all of the characters are as well-developed or likeable as Jinwoo. Although the supporting characters are generally good, there seems to be a problem with the female characters. They are all boring, poorly written, or have had no development at all yet. For example, Jinwoo’s sister Jinah could have been a very interesting character, but she’s really nothing more than a pretty-looking responsibility for Jinwoo. In addition, I wanted to like Joo-hee, but it was challenging when her main character trait was being traumatized. That’s not how you write a character.
As I mentioned, the supporting characters are generally good, with interesting concepts and at least a small amount of solid character development. I wanted to see more character development for guys like Jinchul Woo and Jong-in Choi. Older characters like Mr. Song and Gun-hee Go were excellent, and I genuinely liked Jinho Yoo. Although the antagonists have been one-dimensional villains so far, that may change in the future. I look forward to better character writing as the story continues.
Personal Enjoyment
Score: 6/10
Warning: Season 1 spoilers in this section!
This score for personal enjoyment is a bit lower than it is for most anime on which I spend my time. That’s mostly because I wanted more from the story than what was provided. In addition, although I can sympathize with power fantasies, it’s not something I think about often. I don’t feel a particular longing for great power. I don’t want to be popular or famous, either. As a result, there were many moments where I just couldn’t get into the spirit of Jinwoo’s huge empowerment and new life benefits.
There was still plenty to appreciate in this series, despite my complaints. Most of my enjoyment came from the audio-visual elements of this series. I loved the character designs, art style, and awesome music. Several of the fights were great to watch, including the epic match with Igris the Bloodred. The dungeons and the creatures in them look classic and excellent.
I did end up liking Jinwoo more as the series went on. I was also keenly interested in the moral and psychological dilemma of killing other humans. Jinwoo killed in self-defense; but even though his actions were justified, he probably still feels bad about it. That’s interesting to me since I like psychology and darker story elements. Last of all, I am intrigued by the “other Jinwoo” who haunts Jinwoo’s mind and wants him to fail. That’s very relatable to me.
Overall Score
Score: 7.6/10.0 Good
As you probably know, the overall score is calculated by taking the mean of the scores from the other five categories. Scores in the 7s range are good, though not great. I tried to be as fair as possible. Of course, this is just my personal analysis and won’t be true for everyone.
I recommend watching Solo Leveling if you like slightly darker fantasy anime with high-quality visuals and epic, memorable music. The premise may be basic, but this anime is bold in more ways than one.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
