Solo Leveling

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Solo Leveling deserves a solid 10/10 in my book. As the first manhwa I ever read, it set an incredibly high standard. From the start, I was hooked by its unique premise and immersive world-building, where the protagonist rises from a low ranking hunter to an unstoppable force. The art is stunning, with dynamic action scenes that bring every fight to life, and the pacing keeps you on the edge of your seat. Watching Sung Jin Woo’s transformation and growth is incredibly satisfying, and each chapter left me wanting more. If you’re looking for a story that perfectly balances action, adventure, and character development, Solo ... Leveling is an absolute must-read.

This is my thoughts about this series right after I finished it, I kept any spoilers to a minimum possible while still giving a generic overview of the story:

Everyone hyped this story too much so i guess i was a little disappointed.
The art is great, the action too, but at least for me... There is a crucial aspect missing in Solo Leveling.
And that is "story".
Don't get me wrong, but, when you sum up the overall story, it doesn't have much going on besides the mc finding a strong enemy, getting stronger to beat it up, and then repeating.
The world building is quite good so it ... doesn't feel as plain as other stories that follow similar pattern..... BUT....
WHERE ARE THE CHARACTERS???
Let me know them. Let me care for them. Let me see them more, instead of just showing them to give a simple speech or to say "This guy seems different"+"How can you be so powerful?!" and forgetting these people until the mc needs them again.
This "little" thing really took away most of the fun in this series for me. I can't get too sad when someone dies, or feel that a romance makes sense if the characters involved just show up in this bland fashion.
And as such, my favorite part in the whole series is the start and the side stories, because that's where I can finally know some of the characters I'm reading about.

I wanted to like Solo Leveling. I'm Korean; I genuinely want to see manhwas succeed and stamp their place within the Animanga industry, but I finished reading and regretfully my first and only thought about Solo Leveling, without pulling punches, was that it was utter garbage. It's completely devoid of creativity, it's painfully predictable, the characters all suck (not that anybody other than the MC mattered in the first place), and because of these numerous faults it made for a very boring and unengaging reading experience.

When I think of how one could still manage to write an interesting story in which the protagonist is ... dumb overpowered, I look to One Punch Man and how well Murata managed such a difficult task with Saitama. Saitama is untouchable in the OPM world, every reader knows this, we know Saitama can never lose yet OPM is still so special because it does everything else so well. The side cast is excellent, characters like King, Genos, Garou, and others each exhibit their own charm and display a belonging within the story. Of course, whenever Saitama is in action the outcome is an obvious victory for our MC, but this never feels like a problem because we as readers are cognizant of this fact; it's because Saitama's opponent is always presented as the challenger rather than the other way around that makes for such an interesting element, like a Souls game, except in this instance our protagonist is the seemingly impossible boss fight. This is why such a heavy emphasis is placed on the side cast, as One Punch Man is ultimately a story about our stupidly overpowered protagonist in search of his equal, and therefore to make such a thing happen the side characters must be more important than even the main character.

On the contrary, Solo Leveling failed to compensate for its overpowered MC in every possible fashion. Sung Jin Woo begins the story in the abyss of powerlessness, just but an ant at the very bottom of the food chain. Jin Woo then receives a massive power-up, as expected from any story like this, and gradually scales his way up the food chain but at a certain point in what was still the infancy stage of the story he gains quick access to completely busted monsters that eventually work under him as slaves. From this point on it really was a cake-walk for Jin Woo, as nobody and nothing stood a chance to him. None of the side characters are worth a single penny within Solo Leveling; all of them are utterly powerless and rendered useless before Jin Woo and it certainly does not help their case when not one of them possesses any traits that make for a good character. Instead of using the side cast to augment and give some more depth to the overall story like any good writer would, the creator of Solo Leveling would rather treat these side characters as throwaways to further increase the gap in power between Jin Woo and everybody else. What is the point of a ranking system when nobody other than Jin Woo is worth a damn? Almost like Naruto and how everything in between Genin and Jonin ultimately meant nothing. The story is disgustingly unoriginal which goes without saying: the typical zero to hero. There is no depth whatsoever, just a linear path without any obstacles from one enemy to the next until we finally arrive at the last one. Whatever type of half-assed effort of world-building was immediately vanquished when Jin Woo went from the strongest hunter in South Korea to immediately the strongest in the world. Just an absolute sh*t show.

I'm just not understanding where this Solo Leveling hype stems from. Is it because it's in color and you all view it as a novelty? Or is it because you enjoy a story even an average 3rd grader is capable of writing? I'm not a fan and wouldn't recommend to anyone with any type of standards.