Review of Solo Leveling Season 2: Arise from the Shadow

hot take incoming, but this was a significant downgrade from the first season. itll probably sound contrarian at best or imbecilic at worst, but i mean it when i say that i drastically prefer season one over arise from the shadow. certainly the budget has maintained its gross size, and certainly the action scenes have all been improved in both number and quality, however, i simply dont get the fun in watching someone who is so much stronger than literally everyone around him dogwalk every person he comes across. its like the author read one punch man and got the exact wrong lesson from it. thereason that show rules is because saitama hardly fights, so it feels special when he finally makes an appearance. here, jinwoo is basically the only character present at any given moment. and the ridiculous strength he has over, quite literally every other character who has appeared so far, makes the show boring, and predictable, and without any stakes whatsoever.

i understand why its so popular. its eye candy, and like candy, its also easy to digest, and mostly inoffensive. but its also flavorless, and almost entirely devoid of any major substance. again, the show is insanely formulaic; some nobody hunters enter a dungeon or encounter an enemy that they have no chance against, all hope seems lost, then jinwoo swoops in and basically one-shots the seemingly unbeatable bad guy in the flashiest way imaginable without even a scratch. they try to "spice it up" by having jinwoo like, try, sometimes, i guess, but there is not any singular moment throughout this entire season when i thought he was in any danger of getting seriously injured, let alone losing. that, to me, is an issue.

so its palatable, its gorgeous, its full of "aura" as the youths are saying, and its also pretty much entirely devoid of any sexual content, which the youths are also dangerously averse to some reason. it makes perfect sense why its blown up so severely these last few months. and, granted, that final fight in the second to last episode was absolutely killer. i enjoy the show! i dont want it to seem like i dont. but i am a bit frustrated when something like this, which is basically so unchallenging and extremely generic, becomes so outrageously popular, completely disproportionate to what something like it really deserves, especially when so many other, much better series, are either lambasted or flat out ignored in its favor. ive been in the scene for my entire life so, i apologize if it seems like its coming off as me hating or something. im really not! theres just so much better than this out there. jinwoo earned his stripes in the first season, but back then this show ruled because he tried so hard. he struggled, he fought. he busted his ass in every single episode, and hardly even scraped by half the time. now its just..dull. im honestly feeling like jiinwoo himself now, watching this. its no fun when theres no challenge. so why even bother?

ill probably tune in for season 3 because, again, its not bad, and i do like it. but at this point im not expecting anything besides some pretty colors. i feel like thats more of a safe place to lay my expectations for this series going forward.