This series was literally just hype moments, and that's it. It had SO much potential. But the writing sucks so much. I thought that the Jeju Island Raid was gonna be a really good arc. I mean, in the first season, the red-haired guy had a nightmare about the last time he was at Jeju, so I thought "Hell yeah, great foreshadowing for a big character moment where he has to face his demons, and in the end, he'll come out on top". BUT NO. NOTHING. LITEARLLY NOT A SINGLE CHARACTER CHANGES IN ANY WAY AT ALL OVER THE COURSE OF BOTH SEASONS.

It feels as though every other character is there to make Sung Jin-woo look cool in comparison. It feels like an insult to the other characters. These are S-rank hunters, and they look like incompetent fools just for the sake of Sung Jin-woo coming in and saving the day for these helpless buffoons. The entire thing was like "Dang, what are we gonna do guys?!" and then Sung Jin-woo is like "sighs fine, guess I'll have to save the day and get some aura farming in while I'm at it".

Like, I get he's the strongest and his whole things is that he can get unlimited power from leveling up, but this is ridiculous. Without any kind of struggle at all, he exterminates the entire colony of enemies which the S-rank hunters could barely handle without dying. This guy comes in out of nowhere, kills the strongest one, flies away and kills literally every other enemy on the island by himself. It is an absolute joke how inferior the other characters look. It's literally just the Sung Jin-woo show.

Don't get me STARTED on the Japanese hunters. These guys are supposed to be some of the strongest that Asia has to offer. And all of them, including the main guy (who served NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO LET SUNG JIN-WOO AURA FARM BY THE WAY) get eviscerated almost immediately. It is baffling to me, honestly. The only characters whose names I remember are the main guy, his love interest (Joon-hee), and the one character in the entire series who seems to have SOME potential to be interesting (Cha Hae-in). THAT'S IT. The series doesn't make you remember the characters' names. That's how unbelievably boring the writing is.

Solo Leveling had so much potential, and up until this arc, I let it get away with all of its many flaws, because I really expected something big from the start of the series with the Jeju Island Raid. But this was the straw that broke the camel's back. There is zero reason for me to watch the series when the third season comes out an inevitably sweeps the Crunchyroll Awards again. I have no hope for this series. There is nothing that could give me any kind of hope. It is a crying shame, because the character designs are really cool, and animation is top tier, no doubt about it. I just have no interest in reading the manwha, light novel, or third season of the anime because there is simply nothing for me to enjoy other than the flashiness and aura moments. That is all Solo Leveling is and ever will be. It's going to amount to nothing and only be remembered for those moments where all sort of writing was sacrificed in favour of making the main character look cool.