Solo Leveling

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(I strongly advise reading the entire review to understand everything about Solo Leveling. Or at the very least the TLDR review, thanks for reading in advance.)

This is the story of a man who levelled up all alone.

It's hard to write about Solo Leveling whilst accommodating to everyone, which is something I'd like to try to do since the series is both an obscured masterpiece whilst actually still being very good so much so that it doesn't deserve to be overshadowed by some of the hate it gets.

To understand why Solo Leveling is a good piece of work we first need to understand the community. It's ... crystal clear to me that two types of individuals exist. The ones who enjoy a bit of hype action regardless of internal plot/story content, and the ones who call out stories for being exactly that. As is Demon Slayer, and probably JJK (hell, might as well be every shounen for that matter), Solo Leveling is no expectation in this case. I wish to be on a point of which I understand where both sides are coming from since to me it is clear that stories like Solo Leveling is literally just trying to be a simple hype piece of work for action lovers, but there are some elements in which makes me believe that this story is just not there in masterpiece status, which I will get to more on later. In actual fact, it is why I can actually side with the latter callout group in this work rather than others simply because of some of the stuff that Solo Leveling does that makes me become unforgiving.

At its core, SL is a simple story. That story is levelling up, and levelling up my dude Sung Jin-woo is so damn good at. This "zero to hero" story takes its sweet time getting into the actual good parts that make everything about SL so enjoyable, that is, literally just levelling up I suppose. It's a slow game but the payoff is a pleasant one, and for the most part, it is the grind from nothing to god type power that is the core of SL, because that is where the levelling up actually happens. Of course, it isn't a flick of the switch like OPM for example, Sung Jin-woo goes through many experiences calling for a wide variety of tactics, strategies and strengths for him to be the true king of the playing field. Many times you may find yourself thinking as to what Jin-woo will do in X situation. With him being overpowered, it doesn't mean that he is liable to just battle alone, the story does exploit some real-life calamities that need well-thought decision making, a little bit like politics if you like but only specific to the hunters in this story. SL knows this all and plays with such elements in a way that would make you want to praise the story even more. Faults are present here, however, which I will come onto more later. Something else I'd like to touch on here is the themes of such a story. What we have here is not just plot specifics that are respectable and all, but past a transparent layer, you are met with some interesting themes about the absurdity and reality of having such immense strength in a real situation. Sometimes these themes drop off as easily as they come, but the existence of such only gives me a reason to praise the thought anyway, it is just a shame that it was not expanded on, as that would have been quite an interesting way to develop Jin-woo, which it does in a literal sense, but not enough so it has a lasting effect as an actually good and developed idea. The means of being so overpowered would have forcefully changed his life anyway, so to call it something of a developed theme in that sense is missing out on the specifics that actually carry the story to where it goes. Such is just my perspective on the matter, however. Take what you will from it.

Or in other words, being overpowered is no simple game. And I like SL's acknowledgement of that for sure. However, SL does fault a lot when getting into "serious" and "mature" territory as such. When something gets into said grounds, I'd expect it to take itself seriously enough so that the setting can become enjoyable. SL has nothing wrong in that matter, it is serious enough to understand everything and still not raise eyebrows. My issue with it is simple. It is boring. Really. Very. Boring. I know I've just praised the story a whole lot. It is something that makes sense to itself, but it can come across as something of a disorderly author trying to piece together two very different puzzle boards and hope that something good will come out. I am not here trying to say that "serious" + action is some inherently bad connection to make or write a story on, I quite liked *most* of Attack on Titan, and I would imagine maybe FMAB would probably fall under the same category (talk about a controversial duo). But SL was literal switch-ups to and from the "serious" side with the hype content. It isn't even a theme thing, this is a plot thing to need to get used to. When you are flying well with one side, you then get another almost irrelevant matter on the next. You could argue that in the nature of the webtoon, in order to move forward content, one would need to have this game of catch for it to just be stable. In my eyes at least, that is problematic. It ends up being a binary system only having to wait on when a foretold event comes over another. I'd be more willing to forgive if the—let's just call it SoL—side of things was actually interesting. It is mostly made up of "we need Jin-woo here!" or "who should we send to fight the beasts" or something trivial like that. I mean, it probably could have gone further and at least made such moments interesting. Unfortunately, I was not met with such whilst reading all unfolding. Oh well.

There's another bit of storytelling I need to touch on as well. That part is the lore of SL. Now, truth be told, I don't remember all of it. I don't believe it was interesting enough for me to care about and was something that came across as a copy-paste RPG type thing with all "monarchs", "rulers", "god" and all that rubbish that came out of my ears as fast as they came in. Though, I give respect for it to even include such. Sure, it was a certain and integral part of the story, but in the drawn-out chapters of this webtoon, at least it didn't just say "ah yeah, those guys existed and now they have beef". I respect that it is something of detailed lore that whilst not the most enjoyable or interesting there is to offer, was still something anyone could tell has some thinking behind it. Whether you will submerge yourself within the lore is a detail for another day. I won't go too much on the topic too, mainly because it had no real overarching themes plus such info gets given away way later on in the series so I have no real intention to discuss such.

Now. Characters. Or the character. This webtoon has a tendency to make everything about Sung Jin-woo. He really does level up alone. I don't exactly have a problem with everything being centred around the dude, and to be fair, that is what I quite like about the webtoon. It is just about him at the end of the day and his journey as the solo leveller. With his strong development from zero to hero, I can only really praise what goes on in the story in relation to him. At one point we are given a time in which we can actually see the change from zero to hero, like a literal side by side comparison. For such a long series, the flashback only makes for such a staggering effect on the mind to absorb into oneself. Seriously very good stuff around Sung Jin-woo. It's a little absurd though, I have no idea if this was intentional or not to in fact embrace the solitary nature of the story, but I will comment nonetheless, and that is the lack of importance of side characters. Everyone who isn't Jin-woo gets minimal treatment to the point in which they could actually be considered background characters, as fast as they come is the period in which they also depart. It is a little disappointing at times since many had the potential to become pivotal characters in the webtoon, but I supposed that such is to be expected from an egocentric story. That isn't to excuse the matter though, since bothering so much about some characters lead to a disappointing memory of their existence. Actual thought out characters like Yoo Jin-ho, Cha Hae-in, Go Gun-hee, members of Jin-woo's family, hell even Radiru Esil should have either been minimal matters, or people you could actually look back and think "wow, what a great character". Such of course is not present here, and whilst I do understand that, yes, it may have been a good call in a story of this kind, it still acknowledges that at the end of the day there were some very disappointing characters here.

Now, the selling point of SL. The entire reason (I believe) it is so highly praised.

That is simply due to the art in the webtoon. Now, I will point out that I don't read a ton of webtoons (as of this review's publication anyway), but I will point out that of all that I've seen in the medium, SL easily topples everything in terms of quality. The only thing coming close is "The Horizon" but that has an entirely different story so you need to take the art in a different manner than you would this action, actually "The Horizon" may even be better but that is not the point right now and is for another time. But anyway, this webtoon has some seriously good art. Whilst I'd like to believe that SL is just a product that is close to a reflection of the webtoon medium, I have yet to see something as good as itself, so I truly would go out of my way to say, yes, this is some kind of artistic masterpiece. This is like the Demon Slayer equivalent of webtoons. It is that good. What is consistently found is not just a heavily detailed sequence of action and battles, but detail to a point where it is made to become believable to an illusory point of actual motion. It's not just onomatopoeic, it is an edited work to suit such tones consequently enhancing the many clashes that arise in this webtoon. As you have moments of intense action, you are able to fly through them in a way that would make you the camera of the moment. You have your page turns from manga to create effects and such, SL took the webtoon's infinite scrolling as a means to guide the reader down an action-packed path suitable for their imagination, whilst also having enough moments to make for a quick and intense battle as everything is made out to be in the story. It's kinda genius really, but I am not sure whether to consider such as coincidental or intentional, but with panels literally being too large for a perfect fit length (unless you are on 50% zoom or something wild like that), you are met with a forceful scrolling down of actually moving yourself to see the entire picture unfold. You'd have one side and then go down a bit to see the other. You'd have characters at the top of the page in a wide shot, only to cross-hatch down to a close up of how intense the battle was going from up there. I may be making some obscure thoughts here, but I genuinely felt that way when I was reading the webtoon. It is a good way to exploit the endlessness of a webtoon in a way to forcefully make you drag yourself down for what lies ahead. Not that the action isn't enough though, being equally intense and immersive, I should refer back to how the effects here are no joke too. You have tilt shifts and blurs here that do a splendid job at conveying speed and movement relative to the characters and where they are. I should go on about the comic book type format too, which works really well in making for some action as you'd expect from something with the style. Coherent, bombastic enough to not care about meaning, fast enough to not end up lost, there's a long list of things to go on about, some of which I've just forgotten about after reading this for a long while now, but my point stands and even in the early chapters, considering how consistent in quality this is, there was no point in which I feel as if the artwork lacked in some kind of area associated. It's a magnificent action webtoon and something that has its well earned praise with apex level work being a permanent mark in its entirety.

Now, to end with, I will go over the enjoyment reasons for SL and give a fair judgement as to why it isn't as bad or good as made out to be. SL's reputation is an easy target for it to be obscured by both aforementioned sides, that is, the lover of visual spectacle, and the seekers of zenith literature. What I see in the community is the lack of acknowledgement from either side to understand the reasonings either side tries to present. Because it is probably the best example, I will use Demon Slayer. As SL, Demon Slayer is a manga that received an anime adaptation that whilst indeed was praised to some absurd (but reasonable) degree, is still something that should be understood as to why it is so loved. Take any "overrated" anime/manga, Your Name, Clannad AS, literally any top shounen. Titles which are praised when other *very* similar titles are not praised as such, called out as overrated for some trivial matter like "the art is the only reason it is good" or "it's just boring dramatic cry bait", to which I say "so?". Such takes are obviously very reductionist and don't take the whole criticism into account, but those are usually the foundations. Of course, whilst they are indeed valid opinions anyone could have, it's strange to be someone to disregard something as trivial, in a way that states that it is some kind of objective statement. Why can't clarity be a sophisticated reason as a means to enjoy something? I've seen many works with "nothing" to speak of that still manage to land some very high praise from me simply because it was an honest passionate piece of work that managed to understand its audience and simply delivered the highest quality piece of work you could imagine in such a genre. To say Demon Slayer and the likes are bad because there is no "detailed story" or "characters were flat" is the equivalent for me to take Monster and call that out for being "too philosophical" or "boring for being so serious". I am not saying to start getting your ideals checked out, you can enjoy what you want, I simply say to understand why it is people like the works as such. SL is a very enjoyable piece of work because of how it is a magnificent action-packed eye-candy full of tirelessly battles that only know how to give more than the last. It is very VERY reasonable as to why it is currently sitting at a score of ~8.8 as of this review.

Though, of course, this doesn't help out for people who are actually looking for a well thought out story. When we have one side not acknowledging why people will be quick to point out irrelevant plot issues. The same side lacks awareness for the legit reason of pleasure that comes with an elegant piece of literature. SL happens to be devoid of this. Completely. This is not a problem in a rational sense. Why does everything need to be deep? But, at the very least for SL, is something that I have to agree on, that yes, it becomes a fault—it needs to be considered too. At least with Demon Slayer, it doesn't have all that lore and pseudo politics, at least with Your Name it doesn't try to expand on a simple idea with a simple story. SL tries to go and play a safe game where it should have noticed that said the safe game was a very conflicting element in large in retrospect like I would have ignored this argument if it weren't for that, but the reality of the situation is that there more reasons become apparent whilst criticizing the story of SL in what it actually habitats. It's sad, but hey, that's what we have here.

In some collection of thoughts, SL becomes something of a great webtoon to enjoy. It's one with a ton of basic features like good art and hype that sustains it long enough as it has already done so albeit as with action anime/manga—ones with good production behind them. A distortion arises a wall between two very vocal sides who forget the simple needs of the other. With an entirely flashy and fierce presence comes a lackluster story that was indeed good, but faltered as time went on with the abundance of newly found monotonous discussions that seemed to linger for an eternity.

At the end of the day, I suppose SL is a game of patience for the fans of action, but seeing the high reception, even those fans seem to be fine with everything here. Otherwise, others who thought they were in for some kind of next FMAB have come to the wrong place, though, there's no harm in wanting a bit of fun here in my opinion. Take what you will from this webtoon, it's not every day something as SL comes, in its own culture of copy-paste RPG type manhwa as you have Japanese fantasy light novels flooding the place. Why not just have a bit of fun? Isn't that why you entered the medium?

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TLDR Review:

Story - 7: A simple story that expands itself a little too much to the point where it has to consider a lot, effectively making it boring at times due to a lack of interesting moments that consistently find themselves present here.
Art - 10: Undoubtedly amazing art. From crazy fights to insane detail that it almost looks like GFX. What is not to like with the additional scrolling mechanism that enhances the experience?
Characters - 7: It's all Jin-woo's world. Other characters are kinda disappointing to have a memory about. However, in Jin-woo's solo hold up of the story, his development is pretty cool and likeable.
Enjoyment - 8: Very enjoyable for its hype moments and only that. Otherwise, content which aims to show something more "sophisticated" is devoid. That's kinda not the point but given how seriously this webtoon takes itself, it can be understood why one would dislike it for such. Still very good tho.

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I somehow managed to write a lot on this which was kinda easier than I expected but also had a very low input than I would have imagined, but I consider this review a good write up of mine so I will publish what I have written without any major changes for the sake of haha long review I must be smort :))). But yeah, SL was in some grey area of what it was that made it good and bad that I haven't (explicitly) seen many comments on about. So I thought to give both sides of the argument and well, just say that it was fun, because it really is. To anyone who wants though, I've read a webtoon similar to SL which actually has a more profound and thought-provoking story to it. It goes by the name "Omniscient Reader" which is well worth the read if you weren't so much of a fan of this due to a dry story. But whatever. One thing is certain with SL though:

This extraordinary story of a man who went from nothing to the most powerful human on earth. That man's name is Sung Jin-woo, how he got to that position was truly a grand event to witness. How did he do it?

"I Level Up Alone"


Overall - 8.0 (8)

The manhwa community entitles Solo Leveling along the lines of "Not like the other manhwas" or "Not your typical power fantasy." And although I respect their awareness of the prevalent mediocrity in the medium, the aforementioned descriptions are still false. Solo Leveling is your typical power fantasy. And let's be honest, "not like the other manhwa" is not that much of a compliment.

It's mediocre, worse even, to be brutally frank. The narrative is brimming with formulas, has one of the worst character writing I've ever witnessed, and is overall a boring read. The protagonist's tale suffers no risk and receives all the rewards. No suspense ... is there to keep the reader on the edge of their seats or in any way to make it engaging. However, Solo Leveling's popularity proves otherwise, and it's understandable.

The author knows how to attract a specific audience; gamers. The manhwa is the closest thing I've seen to a game developer playing the video game he made, where he knows every exploit there is.

Solo Leveling is a superficial narrative. And that simplicity, that lack of depth to its characters, setting, and premise, helps the story in a way that would easily be understandable and doesn't create any frequent inconsistencies. However, it still has significant flaws erected from the beginning that was never fixed and became prominent over time.

Solo Leveling is very repetitive, and that coincides with its predictability. The beginning does a decent job of depicting the development of Jin-woo's power. His power grew steadily, and there was still tension in his fights due to Jin-woo's struggle. However, after Jin-woo fully comprehends his abilities and exploits the system, every battle he enters is an automatic win. The initial struggle for power made for great pacing; however, anything after the Igris fight was too easy for him. Every battle was always one-sided in favor of Jin-woo. No single match is present where you'd think he would lose. It would be more engaging if there's a difference between how he wins every time using his wit but he uses nothing but pure power. There is no risk and no suspense. The lack of tension and suspense undermines the narrative's engagement, ruining the average reader's experience.

Another flaw that you'll notice the further you read the manhwa is the characters, more specifically, the irrelevance of every character apart from Jin-woo. Not that Jin-woo is a well-written character in the first place. Every supporting character is just there to be in awe of Jin-woo's power, and every villain is there so Jin-woo can flex his power. Spoilers: This is prominent at the final battle, where everyone is useless, and only Jin-woo and his shadows are the only ones with the chance to fight. Everyone else is a liability, and even the most powerful hunter next to Jin-woo becomes a damsel in distress.

Even from an interpersonal relationship basis, none of the characters served a purpose, whether it was codependency or for his character development. Interaction with his family and friends that intended to create suspense never works. The slight tension and suspense it tries to portray is immediately undermined, knowing the plot is always in favor of Jin-woo.

The sad irony of these poor character development attempts only worsened Jin-woo's character. Before re-awakening, Jin-woo exhibited the most depth out of the other story parts. As his power increases, he becomes more blank, often confused with developing apathy - it isn't apathy. Jin-woo loses depth further into the story, making him more of a self-insert character than he already was.

I acknowledge the author's ability to attract the audience more than other trite cash grabs. They promised a power fantasy, and a power fantasy they gave. It doesn't pretend to be anything it is not and continues to satisfy the audience they meant to attract. And the artist's talent strongly contributed to the manhwa's success. Solo Leveling's most vital asset is its art. Each panel's vivid drawings and coloring coincide well with its portrayal of power. Things that don't make sense are present, like many anatomy issues and shadows emitting light, but that's not an issue since, like the story's typical writing, it's only there to look cool. The artist knows how to draw fight scenes and anything in general - making full use of techniques such as perspectives to their maximum effect.

Solo Leveling is just like any other manhwa out there, only that it grew more popular than others due to how it carried its mediocrity. There's nothing special or unique about Solo Leveling, but it knows precisely what it's doing. If you like power fantasy, you'll most likely enjoy this manhwa. If you hate these overused formulas, you'd be wasting your time if you tried to read this.

This my first time writing review so go easy on me.

Solo leveling has great start we have MC that is weakest hunter but still explores dungeons in order to pay medical bills for his sick mother and to help his sister become doctor however after a incident he gains mysterious power that helps him level up his rank and become strongest.
So let's start with good points of solo leveling
(1).Good start
Start of Solo leveling is good like I said earlier story has relatable MC in the beginning but after that it's down hill
(2).Art
Solo leveling has great art it's fully colored and it's easy to read ... it's clean, plus characters are good looking.
Now for what's bad
(1).Story
After the good start of story solo leveling gets predictable and boring
Every time over mc enters dungeon we know that he will defeat the monster and than say his catchphrase "Arise" and add that monster to his shadow army this is same process over and over.
(2).characters
Worst thing about solo leveling is characters,characters of solo leveling are like NPC. They are here for only two reasons either admire the mc or to hate him no in between. Every time new character is introduced they either praise the mc or hate him. New character are disposed after mc's business is finished with them. No character are relevant they only exist to make us feel how great MC is.
(3). Main character
Main character of story is sung jin-woo, like I said earlier he is relatable in beginning but than after gaining his powers he becomes self insert,Overpowered,emotionless. If I have to describe sung jin-wooin one word that is Korean Kirito.

My prediction for this manhwa is that people will know how bad this is in my opinion this series is going age like milk.

I would not recommend this series to anyone with good taste in anime and manga.
If you like power fantasy than read One punch man. It's sad to see this manhwa is ranked higher than manga like OPM

Solo leveling is just a Good looking trash but trash is still trash.