Solo leveling started out with a ton of promise. In those first few chapters, we are introduced to a likable and down to earth main character, side characters with unique personalities, characteristics, and motivations, and an interesting world setup that merges game with reality. It had all the signs of a classic in the making... Then you skip to 60 chapters later and all the initial side characters are background-chans, the world is now just some portal fantasy with gates connecting the various worlds, and the mc is about as likable and down to earth as that edgy kid in school who dressed in all black and talked like you weren't worth his time.

I'll explain the flaws in order from least significant to most significant. The first issue I have is the main character. Sung Jin-Woo started as a selfless, caring person forced into terrible situations by forces beyond his control. However, as the series progresses, he very quickly loses all idiosyncrasies and the only thing left is an edgy self-insert for the reader to paint themselves upon. This wouldn't be a huge issue if it weren't for the second issue I have with this manhwa, the author's complete inability to use side characters effectively.

Song Chi-Yul and Lee Ju-Hee were in an interesting position at the start of the story. They were long time acquaintances of Sung Jin-Woo and were in a prime position to act as some sort of commentary on how power can change people and alienate them from their friends and family. This would not be the case, as after the inciting incident of the story (where they abandon Sung Jin-Woo and run away) the author casually tosses them aside and uses them as background characters in other important events in the story. The only major recurring characters besides Sung Jin-Woo are a pitiful warrior with a rich dad and various antagonists that will be awed by Sung Jin-Woo’s massive growth as he slaps them across the face with his purposefully overpowered abilities. Those abilities lead me to the final thing that went wrong over the course of Solo Leveling.

The final issue I have with Solo Leveling is that it completely trampled the world-building and any chance of a good plot in order to make the main character edgier. For this point, I will use the ability point system as an example. At the beginning of the story, Sung Jin-Woo had to complete a task every day to get stronger, this included doing 100 push-ups, 100 curl-ups, 100 squats, and running 10km. Once he completed this quest, he got a few ability points, a stamina refill, and a free item. For the first few chapters, the author uses this system very cleverly: Sung Jin-Woo puts stats into the abilities he thinks are most useful, he uses the stamina refill at clever times to get out of tough situations, and the items he gets are either used immediately or tie in later on in the story. Then, the job selection quest happened. That arc is around where Solo Leveling started to devolve. After that arc, Sung Jin-Woo no longer made careful, personalized decisions about stats because he was leveling up so quickly it really didn’t matter whether he allocated his points or not. This was also the point where the power creep really got out of hand.

Power creep is the tendency for each arc of a series to be more intense, have higher stakes, and have the final boss be more powerful than the last. The only series I’ve personally seen handle this plot element worse than Solo Leveling is Dragon Ball. Solo leveling starts with relatively low stakes; the most that was risked in the first few battles are the lives of him and a few other people. From there, the stakes escalate rapidly to the point where the entire world was put at stake within the first 100 chapters. Once you have the mc singlehandedly defeat a world-ending threat, where do you go from there? I have a pretty good inkling of where the author will go to continue making the enemies more powerful, but that doesn’t matter. The lack of foresight and planning required to pull out a world-ending threat before chapter 100 of a power fantasy is shocking.

This manhwa is lacking in all of the important areas. The characters are flat or tossed aside, the world-building is ruined, the plot you’ve probably already seen if you’ve read other manhwa, and the conflicts escalate too rapidly to be considered healthy for a series like this. If you don’t care about any of that and just want a good looking manhwa, this is definitely the series for you. If you are interested in any of that, I’d implore you to not waste your time on this series.