Solo Leveling

The biggest mistake of Solo Leveling happens so early on, you might miss it. It’s not that the premise is poor (a power fantasy based around monster hunting), or that the world lacks substance (interdimensional gates spawning on Earth without explanation).

It’s that the show refuses to cut to the chase.

Solo Leveling’s first episode cold opens on an irrelevant battle with characters we’ll never meet doing things that don’t matter. This is followed by talking heads jabbering endlessly about ‘Hunters’ and ‘Gates’ in manners that could’ve been shot off with a few words, but instead, they stall for time until the end of episode twist, where the story finally gets over itself and down to brass tax.

This crucial mistake it makes, Solo Leveling makes time and time again, marring what could be a fun romp through monster city a dragging of the feet and a groaning of the mouth. At every opportunity, the show finds a way to shoot itself in the foot, from ramping up a sequence with a villain only for them to die in seconds, or going from a quick cutting montage to yawn-worthy inter-politics that won’t come into play until the (inevitable) second season.

And reveling in their absolute worthlessness are its characters.

same person? yeah, right!

Our protagonist, Jin-Woo, is presented as the “World’s Weakest Hunter”, attempting to provide for his family by placing his life on the line in these dungeon crawls, or “raids”, so he can foot his mom’s hospital bill. It’s an admirable goal…Until it’s completely dropped by the wayside. You see, the big “twist” of Solo Leveling is that the protagonist dies, and is resurrected via something only known as ‘The System’, which levels him up depending on tasks, enemies killed, and whathaveyou. This ‘System’ is toyed around with for but a few episodes until Jin-Woo suddenly becomes a juggernaut, crushing anything and anyone in his path with ease. It’s like a switch flips. Once Jin-Woo receives the system, he forgets all motivation, he forgets all love, he forgets anything that once made him even a sliver human all in pursuit of getting to the next level, in pursuit of ‘leveling’, hence the name.

Now, maybe this is the point? There’s definitely something with Jin-Woo losing touch with his humanity that gets glossed over, and there’s something you could do to form a character arc around this loss of humanity. But, no. It’s just forgetfulness on behalf of the writer. Solo Leveling has nothing in way of any characters to attach to. The side characters are disposable merchandise cutouts, the villains, recyclable, the heroes, trivial. Who are the characters beyond their tropes? ‘Best friend’, ‘girl next door’, ‘little sister’, ‘businessman’. Everyone is but what they are, and it makes it such a snoozefest!

In terms of what is done, in terms of what is accomplished, surely it doesn’t mess up there. All you gotta do is go up levels, make some friends, beat some baddies, and it’s all good, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! SO WRONG! We’re gonna spend our time wallowing about in high-rise office buildings and dingy alleyways, we’re gonna spend our time in our billionth conversation about ‘Hunters’ and ‘ranks’, we’re gonna spend our time not saving our dying mother, but instead, messing around with businessmen. (Not like that.)

Solo Leveling likes to posture as high-pressure high-stakes badassery, but beneath that veneer is…nothing. There’s nothing to chew on. No doubt, this will be lauded as a “turn your brain off” show, and there’s some truth to that. In pure television fashion, things happen just to happen, it’s sequence over story, something is occurring in Solo Leveling even if there’s no reason to care about it. There are complications without cause, situations without complexity, sequences without story. The fight scenes look rad, yeah! But what’s the reason for them, again? What’s at stake? Why should we care, when we damn well know Jin-Woo won’t lose, anyway! No matter how bloodied or battered his stale character design gets, he won’t fail.

Much like every other webtoon adaptation this side of the sun, Solo Leveling assumes. It assumes you’re interested in the world. It assumes you care. This is a very, very bad idea, because assumptions don’t provide reasons.

If you like momentum, flow, good pacing? This is not the show for you.

If you like good characters with intrinsic motivations? This show is not for you.

If you like an interesting world with clacking mechanics, satisfying payoffs, and story progression, the contemporary Shangri-La Frontier is right off to the side, waiting to be binged. And that just finished up, too!

This is not the show for you.

“Brainless action,” they’ll say.

“Boo,” I jeer.