Review of Solo Leveling Season 2: Arise from the Shadow

Oh fuck, this series. Solo Leveling has always been an interesting case to me when it comes to looking at its advantages and disadvantages, and, uh… let’s just say that it’s interesting in many ways that turned it into a toilet water fiasco. You see, this show has been depicted as the basic bitch action series with not much to offer and based on my observation, that is for a compelling reason. To add more salt into the wound, however, this trainwreck suffers from far more problems than one meets the eye, all of which we will tackle the more we yap. This series isso flawed to the very core that it’s actually obliviously astounding. Solo Leveling can’t really get even some of the simple stuff remotely right.

In case you missed it by that point, the whole premise behind the series is pretty simple. The whole story starts with a man named Jin Woo who lives in a strange world full of powerful monsters and magic users. He then wakes up and ventures on his own journey to see where things are going. Unfortunately, for him, he has to face the strongest entities known to reality. He has to try hard to get all of his shit together in order to stand a chance. Add on that he may have a miserable life and that puts him into a lot of consequences. Despite all of this, he still stands up to them and eventually gets stronger. I’ll have to admit that I do like the idea behind this. Yes, what it offers may be kind of basic, but I still like the idea of someone getting their things together to counter their biggest obstacles. Heck, it can apply to anything. Even some of the most vanilla of action stories can have something like this and go quite well as long as the rules of keeping your storytelling is given at hand. Unfortunately, though, this will never apply to Solo Leveling, and S2 doesn’t change it up.

Despite the otherwise basic premise being actually a bit more thoughtful than one would say otherwise, any sort of potential is negated very hard. Of course, it’s not like we expect a lot of philosophical stuff or political discussions akin to that of LotGH, Gundam, or whatever involved (okay, there are actually political discussions involved but more on that). As we all know by now, the action is this show’s main nucleus and this is where we see a bigger picture here. A good action series for me is when there a consistent buildups paired with choreography involved within polished stakes, all while still having good direction as well as character writing just like any other type of story. Stuff like Fist of the North Star, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Gurren Lagann, for example, and for contrast, follow this criteria quite well, regardless of flaws. While Solo Leveling having a lot of action scenes isn’t remotely a bad thing by itself, the number of issues plaguing Solo Leveling is so glaring that the whole series has to pay not one but hundreds of heavy tolls. Yes, there are some break-time scenes, but those aren’t important enough to affect the story all that much. The whole aura farming gimmick wouldn’t really be enough to excuse this series.

For starters, this has some of the most blatantly obvious asspulls any piece of fiction could ever make. Despite Jin Woo starting pretty weak, he gets “some” powers, and surprise, surprise, he becomes the anime equivalent of a Nokia phone. Sure, him being an overpowered edgelord can look kind of cool but it gets stale really fast, especially when he’s just like that for the whole show. It doesn’t matter if you put in a mage, it doesn’t matter if you put in a summoner, it doesn’t matter if you put in an eldrich abomination, and it doesn’t matter if you put in a shitpost that cracks jokes about how a pebble can tank a nuclear explosion, Jin Woo will just one tap any and all of them into their bumfuck graves. The reason why this is so baffling comes down to one word, “indication”. We don’t really see how Jin Woo even becomes so overpowered in the first place, even by video game standards. The plot turns him into an indestructible brick just to move the plot forward. If he’s absurdly broken, then what’s the point of introducing him as a weakling? None of his struggles or hell, even his ideals (if there’s any) matter anymore if you just turn him into a brute-ass silent god.

Still on the topic of indication, I can’t express any further just how bad the world-building is. Again, the whole mysterious monsters and magic users thing is pretty badass. On top of them looking very cool, there’s lore to them that could spice the story further. Aside from their origins, their connections with the strange world are very enticing and could even show some sort of meaning. Not the most accurate guess explaining those things on their own but even then, let’s at least hope that they’re far more compelling than Jin Woo’s journey. Well, not really. Despite those things having any sort of potential, just like the Jin Woo adventure segment we talked about earlier, they were thrown into the dumpster for some reason. They’re cool-looking, sure, but there is no elaboration on how they’re formed in this place, let alone having any sort of relationship with the present terminus or how Jin Woo wanders around. Yeah, I know that what we’re set in is a game but just because the world is a game doesn’t mean we don’t need context as to how we end up here. So we’re just living in an MMORPG we wouldn’t give a flying damn about and every edgy pawn on sight is just Jin Woo’s everyday happy meal. Yeah, we have political discussions regarding the world, but again, they aren’t compelling enough to highlight anything. They’re just there to excuse something or make assumptions.

And all of the inconsistencies and asspulls are just in one virus, by the way. Do you wanna know what other virus we’re also conflicted with? Boredom. This shit is fucking boring. Just to chuck in another veggie into the milkshake, the one other glaring flaw is repetition. And I don’t just mean repetition, this goddamn show has the tendency to repeat the same stale-ass story format for the whole series. Other titles like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Sword Art Online (again, for contrast) are action series that suffer from poor writing, but at least they still entertain me with a lot of toys to play with, even if they don’t boost their story at any point. Do you know the whole “Jin Woo gets waked, punches a monster, and then gets OP as hell” kind of thing? Not only is that bad writing on its own, but this has been extrapolated in every single episode, and it’s outright dreadful to look at. We get it; Jin Woo is absolutely broken, and he flings his enemies into the trash can. You don’t really need to shove that right into our faces if you’re showing us what your series looks like. Notice how everything I rambled so far talks about the entire series as opposed to the second season itself, but to be honest, that’s actually true.

Season 2 as we’re still talking about right now is the same shit stain as its predicessor. It has a dreadful story formula: the protagonist being overpowered without any bit of context, the worldbuilding being shoved into the gutter, some talks involved but none of the topics remotely matter at all, no stakes, no change of pace. Oh, but don’t you worry! Season 2 actually gets a change of pace, heck, a dedicated episode, in fact! This episode shows Jin Woo showing “emotions” (more on that) towards his mother now that his mother has woken up from her coma. This sounds sweet, doesn’t it? Sure thing, until you, once again, take a look at the lack of context. The biggest issue here is that we really don’t see any chemistry between or background within the two. Yeah, they’re a part of the family, and they’re happy that they’re together again, but what about it? What is the relationship between Jin Woo and his mother like? Is the mother also an aura farmer or at least used to be one? What are their connections within the world? Better yet, how do they end up in said world? Do you wanna know the worst part? His family will soon be forgotten the moment the story moves to the next arc. So even though Solo Leveling finds itself “a bit more variety”, this whole dedicated episode was infinitely more funny than remotely emotional.

And for the cherry on top of the horseshit sunday, this whole series has the tendency to copy something from Hunter x Hunter. Now, let’s admit that most stories aren’t original themselves but learning from other things is absolutely fine as long as you still differ your properties from others. With Solo Leveling, though, not only does it take something from Hunter x Hunter, but it outright plagiarizes it. What I’m talking about is the Chimera Ant arc. Both HxH’s ant arc and SL’s ant arc are way too similar. Both arcs focus on expanding the biology of ants with their magic, and their key characters eligible for their premises are stronger variants that appear to be ultimate life forms. The only difference I see is that the Chimera Ant arc is actually solidly written. Even if it’s my least favorite Hunter x Hunter arc, it still connects with the overall story of HxH very well and greatly expands on what Nen powers are. It also has Meruem, arguably one of the best villains in the medium. By comparison, Solo Leveling’s bootleg ant arc is nothing but filler. Even if it’s related to the story, it’s just a nothing burger just for the protagonist could easily feast on. Pair this with the aforementioned issues and it just makes the experience even more blatantly painful. If you see my laptop play the whole show again while I refuse to take another look, just assume I’m watching hippopotamus documentaries on my phone.

Distraction is the key to preservation. Well gee, isn’t that a striking parallel?

So we rambled about how the story and directing suck donkey bananas. Is the character writing at least decent? NO. These sore losers can be summed up in two words: “budget mannequin”. They are complete nothing-dolls that are either cheap plot devices or just exist as backgrounds. Starting with the aura farmer himself, Sung Jin Woo. He’s just a power fantasy stick. That’s the best way to describe him. He has no personality, no backdrop, literally nothing about him. He’s the soulless Gary Stu that’s used to excuse the story’s OP MC fetish. I hate using the term “Gary Stu”, but again, that’s really true. At least Kirito from SAO has some hobbies, has a husband-to-mother relationship with Asuna, and can be quite dorky at times. Not that they make his character much better but there are some things to him. Convincing Jin Woo to find a much more convenient change of pace is like teaching a group of jellyfish how to build a LEGO figure.

As for the side characters… I mean, if you want to talk about any of them then sure. But once again, they’re just nothing to talk about. The shadow guys? Who cares about them when they’re moving JPEGs? The statue of god? He’s more memorable through memes with his funny edgy face. Jin A? Might as well see her appearance in pornography instead. Some edgy abominations, including a Meruem knock-off? Gone, reduced to killbinds. Hae in? Okay, I guess she’s probably the coolest character in the series, but even then, you degenerates already know what you have on your hands for her, given that she’s yet another living nothing burger. Every side character, despite having their own purposes, turns out to be useless because the show has a weird obsession with glazing on Jin Woo and his dull-ass “aura”. The character writing involved is less than worthless.

While Solo Leveling sucks dick and will always remain that way, there are some things we could compliment, even if they’re not enough to save this bottom of the barrel Webtoon series. The animation and character designs are really good. Even though they may not be the best, they’re at least pleasant to have. The same cannot be said with the music and voice acting, however, especially in the English version, where Kargalgan sounded like a 14-year-old trying to roleplay as a Star Wars villain. Both Ban Taito and Aleks Le for JP and EN respectively did great as Jin Woo though, so shoutouts to them.

Every single problem Solo Leveling has committed would have been avoided if it learned not to set its food in a mud puddle. The most glaring flaws throughout the series are so obvious, yet they’re replicated over and over, and over again. It doesn’t even succeed in popcorn entertainment. Trying to enjoy this series is like slowly watching paint dry. It has a change-of-pace episode that’s more unintentionally comedic. And worst of all, it attempted to copy something from another series and called it a day. To put it shortly, Solo Leveling S2 and Solo Leveling as a whole is OFFENSIVELY BLAND. There’s just NOTHING going for it.