
a review by LeonhartAugust

a review by LeonhartAugust
"On the outside, there's this awesome image, but on the inside, there is filth."
This series was fairly entertaining at first, but it got old real fast. To start with the positive aspects, it has great art and paneling in the manhwa, especially when there's a fight scene going on. Oh, and Cha Hae-In's design is beautiful. In this adaptation, they hired Sawano Hiroyuki to compose the soundtracks and A-1 picture's animation and art is beautiful and well animated. There's also the well animated fight scenes, which is a shame since the fight lacks tension due to reasons I'll mention later. However, it's a vapid piece of shit series.
This series combines two deadly things for me; style over substance and little to no enjoyment. A anime/manga doesn't need to super deep like Shakespearean lit., but at least enjoyable or fun to watch/read, something SL doesn't have decency to do. It starts with the MC being a weakling and eventually becoming stronger and finally the overpowered sigmalord. My main problem is that the plot is the same shit over and over again: level up and get stronger, level up and get stronger, and level up and get stronger....again, making the series also repetitive and dull. At the end, I got real tired of reading it that I felt like quitting.
As for the characters, Jin Woo is the only one that matters, which ruins Solo Leveling even more. A lot of battle shounen have trouble managing huge casts (Naruto and Jujutsu Kaisen for instance), but at least the mangakas put some effort into making them relevant and having the strong and competent characters actually be strong and competent. This series on the other hand makes the S-rank hunters useless and incompetent in the face of actual threats in order to make Sung Jin woo have the spotlight to himself. A shame, since Cha Hae-In for instance would be special in a better series. Jin Woo is also an extremely vapid character. He only serves as wish fulfillment for the viewer and there's zero characterization or more dimension to him. I cannot recall any significant trait of his that isn't being a gigachad sigmalord, because who needs depth, characterization, or any potentially interesting traits when you can easily generate hype and kewl fighting scenes?
Worst of all ,Jin Woo being immensely overpowered also ruins fights. Outside of the first arc where he was an under-leveled scrub, there was actual tension and a sense of danger he faced, which quickly goes out the window. How can they be engaging when every single one of them results in Jin Woo easily overpowering the enemy? All in all, I do not recommend this. Spend your time watching an actual good action series instead.
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