Solo Leveling
(2024)

Solo Leveling ⏳

The beloved Korean web novel series Solo Leveling has accumulated over 2.4 million readers, and has now received the anime treatment by the production team at A-1 Pictures, who have previously worked on other noteworthy anime series such as Black Butler, Sword Art Online, and Kaguya-sama: Love Is War.

Solo Leveling takes place in a version of Korea where a series of portals that link Earth to an alternate dimension have appeared. Within those gates are creatures and beasts that can’t be killed by traditional human weapons, but there are those who have awakened abilities that help protect the human realm, people that are now known as hunters.

Once your powers have awakened, there’s nothing you can do to increase them, but this story follows Sung Jinwoo, the lowest-ranked hunter, who somehow defies the odds and is able to level up in ways never seen before.

It’s a secret he must hold close, or he risks catching the curious eyes of other hunters who may be worse than the creatures and beasts they have signed up to fight against.

The one genre in anime that has evaded my interest forever is one others seem to love, which is Isekai.

I’m all for a good slice of life, and of course Shonen or Gundam will always have my attention, but Isekai does the whole jokingly perv thing or kawaii stuff that just isn’t for me. I know I’m in the minority on this.

Solo Leveling is able to tear away from a lot of the tropes that I feel hold Isekai from reaching its true potential in a more mature, isolated story of growth that captures what is essentially the life of a die-hard and committed PC gamer with the twisted fate of real-world stakes.

As someone who barely games, I’ve always been curious about the undying loyalty and dedication of those who play years worth of time in games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and DOTA but after watching this, I kind of get it.
There’s this escapism in this that I don’t think anything else in life can provide, where you can be the things that the real world holds you back from being, where you can showcase the internal spirit animal of the strength within through time, commitment, and patience.

That’s the heart of this story, where a young man who wants nothing more than to pay his mother's medical bills and save enough money to put his sister through college continues to be held back by the many roadblocks that life has put in his way that somehow have followed him into this portal dimension, or has it…

I’m a fan of the way the story unfolds, and even with the convenience or luck of our main character, there’s enough going on to keep your curiosity through to the confirmed second season.

If you like the idea of Isekai but you’re like me and haven’t found one mature enough, this might be the gateway to getting you into an anime series that’s damn close.

Now time to do my Daily Quest of 100 push-ups, 100 squats, 100 sit-ups, and a 10k run before I get sent to the Penalty Quest.

Enjoy!

7.1/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 20mins
Episodes: 12
Where: Streaming on Crunchyroll

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