Rating: 2.5/5
Following the success of the first season, “Solo Leveling”’s first episode of season two started airing on Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 5 with a mostly faithful and well-animated adaptation. Although the anime’s quality has definitely improved from the first season, including smoother animation, especially during action scenes, and less vibrant color style for the season’s more “mature” themes, the show simply doesn’t have much interesting about it besides the fights.
Solo Leveling is considered a “portal fantasy,” a sub-trope of a power fantasy, where the protagonist receives some sort of unique power-up, usually in the form of a video-game-like leveling system, and fights against antagonistic supernatural forces, in this case, coming from portals. There is also typically an organized group of people – in Solo Leveling’s case, the Hunters – organized by how powerful they are, that fight alongside the protagonist against the enemy. However, the problem with “Solo Leveling” is not its genericness, but the lack of depth in its storytelling.
At its core, Solo Leveling is a power fantasy that aims to make the viewer feel good. At the beginning of season 1, Sung Jin-woo (Taito Ban), the protagonist, behaves relatively normally, being an awkward, anxious but brave teenager. By the end, he becomes rather emotionless and one-dimensional, which technically does help make it much easier for people to view him as an inoffensive self-insert.
I did not feel any sort of interest while watching the anime. I’m not curious about the mystery behind the supernatural elements because there isn’t anything unique about the show’s power system. To summarize: everyone else has an innate talent that cannot be altered while Jin-woo becomes stronger by leveling up.
The portals which the supernatural monsters come from are treated more as a device for creating conflict than having any meaning on their own. The characters are somewhat curious about the portals and want to close them to stop the monsters, but narratively, the story is more focused on Jin-woo becoming stronger and the portals are just the means by which he does so.
There is nothing at stake and nothing to create tension as its difficult to care for any of the characters. The cast is pretty broad, including many powerful hunters that fight alongside Jin-woo, but they generally come in two categories: strong characters whose sole character trait is being strong (in this age we would call this “aura”), and cute, wholesome characters who in some way show how great of a person Jin-woo is. The characters simply don’t serve a purpose or contribute to the story in any way besides making Jin-woo look more “human” or powerful.
While Jin-woo is the protagonist, it’s hard to be interested in him as a person. It is painfully obvious how the story tries so hard to make him so perfectly mysterious, charismatic, and intelligent.
There are no inherent flaws in the show. There are no egregious plot holes or poor animation, but there is nothing particularly interesting about it either. I wouldn’t say this is all the fault of the show’s creators, as it was one of the first popular portal fantasies in the first place; it pioneered the genre. However, because the genre is now so oversaturated, shows like “Solo Leveling” need more than just the basics down to stand out.