Previous note : I wrote this review in my native language and translated it with the help of a translator. Despite personal proofreading, it may contain mistakes. I hope these mistakes will not hinder understanding of this review.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOIL
This review will take up my opinion on the first and second season of Solo Leveling, I don’t see the interest in doing 2 reviews.
To start, I decided to watch SL following the reviews on the fact that Frieren deserved to win the Crunchyroll award. So I watched Fieren first, and I ate a nice artistic slap, then I started watching SL.
1. The music
In my opinion, an anime must be marked either by a good opening or a good ending. One must be able without the image to know which anime corresponds to the music. Good examples are Demon Slayer, Tokyo Ghoul, Bleach, etc ...
The opening and ending of the first season of SL did not particularly impress me, however, for the second season we have a quite nice opening with a chorus that remains well in my memory. So it’s a good point for SL.
As for the ost on the other hand, none is memorable ... we now have Spanish-sounding music that has nothing to do with the atmosphere and that breaks the viewing. As for the others OST, they are quite classic and the only one that made my ear a little tighter is the one from the fight against the king of ants (EP 24 so very late in the anime).
As for the sound design, it’s quite basic but the work is well done. The sound of shadows is satisfying and the sound of the swords clashing, blows of points and impacts are good. It’s not exceptional but it’s not bad.
2. The characters
Here the subjects are quite difficult because it is quite uneven throughout the 2 seasons.
Let’s now move on to an observation about the different characters:
Finally, some characters that are not very striking, except for their design and a little by their power. Almost non-existent developments or rusher and a relationship between the characters only good between the S-ranks (which are not even the main characters).
3. The background behind the animation
Solo Leveling made me understand that for people to find an anime good, there was no need to evoke great and deep things, that emotions came after and that ultimately the most important thing is that it’s beautiful and that it sticks. Obviously when I saw that Solo Leveling had won the category 'Anime of the year', I told myself that there must still be past emotions through this work because to win against humorous animes (Dan Da Dan), dramatic (The Apothecary Diaries and Frieren), a certain depth in history is still necessary.
So certainly, the anime offers some passages with moral questions: how far can one go to save their family? Does gaining strength and power not make us a monster? Is taking the life of others necessary to achieve one’s ends? How can one live with the weight of people whose lives are taken?
All these subjects could have been very interesting if they had been pushed further, but no, the work simply asks the beginning of the question and starts with another fight.
I am so disappointed because there was something to produce good psychological moments: Jinwoo seeing the statue of the double dungeon again and again, even preventing him from sleeping, from fighting when he is facing enemies that are too strong. Or even, seeing him sink every time he has to take the life (of a human), because deep down all he wants is to save his mother’s life, he would wonder if his mother’s life matters more than all the lives taken by him in order to save her, questioning his ethics. So many things that could have been shown on the screen and that would have allowed the character to have more depth, more humanity, to be more endearing to the viewer (Jinwoo even won the award for best main character ...).
The same goes for all the female characters, who are almost all there only to support a man, or to fall in love with Jinwoo and let themselves be saved by our great and powerful protagonist.
Solo Leveling is the proof that for a majority (because it has won the anime of the year), what matters in an anime is neither the background of the story, nor the depth of the characters and even less the relationships they maintain which matter, but only the image that is on the screen (especially the fights).
Here's a French article about the fact that the only episode (EP21) of SL without fights and when Jinwoo cry is the most dislike of the anime.
4. The animation
On this point, I won’t be able to say much. SL has a very good animation, both in combat and in the less important scenes (scenes in the car, at home, this kind of scene). The graphic style and the design tanks are really good, the transcription of mana on the screen is visually very good (TBATE had to take an example ...). The movements are of a very qualitative fluidity whether it is in battle or in the scenes of marches.
However (there is always something to criticize at bottom), I haven’t been a big fan of fight choreography. I find that in many situations the movements were difficult to read, we did not understand where the blows were placed, in short it was difficult to identify the movements made by the 2 people who are fighting. The highlight of this defect was in certain moments of the fight between Jinwoo and the ant king, I am not a very big fan of fighting moments where we only see two rays of lights colliding (a bit like in some passages of the fight Gyutaro VS Usui in Demon Slayer)
We can however note that throughout the anime the fights improve, I don’t even understand why people don’t talk more about other fights (for example the fight with the king of demons was really very qualitative). I find it silly to sell an anime only by talking about the last fight (so keep the 24th episode waiting ...).
In the end, I wasn’t a big fan of the fights on the first season but I find that the choreography and the animation of the movements improved on the second season. So it’s not a bad, nor a good. I’m just noticing an improvement and I hope it will continue like that next season.
5. Conclusion
To conclude, SL is not a bad anime, far from it, but it’s not the masterclass that everyone sells either. It’s a cool anime that looks carefully, an anime that doesn’t need to be bothered (but still wants to try to sell itself as such). It’s the kind of anime that one watches in the evening after a long day of work or in the morning outside their café.
However, when one wins the anime of the year title, one should not just be that kind of anime. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a work of immense transcendence (I’m not asking that SL become the next SNK) but it still has to prove certain things. And the problem is that beyond the promise of a great work of the new generation, we do not propose much other than combat.
For a person like me who likes to debate about anime, I find that SL does not offer large discussions (what topic could be addressed during a discussion between anime fans about SL?).
SL does not deserve to be hated but it also does not deserve to become a standard of comparison for the other animes, for my part I do not want the majority of the animes that come out to be look-alikes of SL, in which case everything would become bland.
Thank you if you have read so far. Obviously, I am open to the debate, so if you want to come and give me your opinion, you can come write to me, I would be happy to discuss with you!
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