By Owen Glancy
Asst. Arts & Features Editor
It’s no secret that anime often adapts the stories told in the pages of manga and light novels, two mediums that very naturally lend themselves to animated adaptations. American comic books similarly have had many animated adaptations, which have become some of the most iconic films of the last decade.
South Korean manhwa can be considered a mix of manga and comics, often having more similar plot details to manga, but being entirely in color like many American comics. In recent years, manhwa has finally been given the attention it deserves, especially in the world of anime.
“Tower of God” (2020) really ushered this in, and now four years later, we’ve received an adaptation of perhaps the most famous manhwa, “Solo Leveling.”
Written by Chugong and drawn by the late Sung-Rak Jang, “Solo Leveling” is undoubtedly an extremely popular manhwa, mainly due to the incredible art and action scenes. While the story is simple enough to be easily translated into an anime, it’s this incredible art that makes this such a difficult work to adapt.
So how did the folks at A-1 Pictures do at adapting this?
The characters and story are all intact from the manhwa, and arguably enhanced. The addition of extra scenes that give context to certain character relationships make them go from archetypes to real people.
Obviously, the story is still in its early stages, especially in regards to the protagonist, Sung Jin-Woo. He is still basic and simple, very much a self-insert character made to make the viewer see themselves in him so that when he inevitably becomes overpowered, it allows the viewer to go on that same power fantasy.
The downside to this easy relatability is that the character is typically very bland, sometimes even unpleasant. Sung Jin-Woo is still very early in his development as a character, but as of this season, he is incredibly generic.
Thankfully, the characters were never the main focus of “Solo Leveling” - the art and the action was. This is where the anime begins to drop the ball.
Most of the character designs look great, but something about the way they’re adapted makes them look off. Little things like super pointy chins and slightly awkward hair distract from the usually manhwa accurate designs. But the action looks great.
The super fluid and fast action scenes are translated perfectly to animation and they put the vast majority of action anime to shame. This would all be true if this came out in 2017.
Anime has come a long way in terms of action animation. “Demon Slayer” shocked the world with its blend of 2D and 3D animation in 2019, the “Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel” films perfected this in the early 2020s, and the second season of “Jujutsu Kaisen” raised the standard for animation to an impossible degree less than a year ago.
Even more slice-of-life focused shows like “Spy x Family” and “Ms. Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” have action scenes that look better than some entire shows. While “Solo Leveling” looks better than many anime, compared to its incredible source material and its competitors, it is lacking.
It may sound like I hate this anime, but in reality that could not be further from the truth. It was the only show I kept up with in the winter 2024 season, and I consistently had fun with every episode. However, much of this comes from having read the original source material. To a new viewer, this show is just another power-fantasy with some fancy animation.
That is exactly what makes this adaptation so disappointing to me, because I know that “Solo Leveling” becomes so much more than its initial chapters. The odds were very stacked against this show, and it came up just short of expectations, mostly due to circumstances outside of the production team’s control.
Nothing would make me happier than to tell you all about the excellent things inevitably in the show’s future if they keep at this pace, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Even if “Solo Leveling” doesn’t go past above average in any particular area, for those seeking a solid, consistently fun watch it is a must-see.
Rating: C
Needs to grind some more levels