Mar 30, 2024
So, Solo Leveling has finally finishing airing its first season. I went into this series with pretty high expectations as the Manwha is one of the most popular series I've heard of but the question now is did the anime live up to that hype? I would say both yes and no. Yes it lived up to the expectations of having a lot of cool fights and really good animation and solid music with an OP that grew on me each week. However, I would also say no because if you're someone like me who cares more about characters than anything else then Solo Leveling
...
is lacking in that department.
Characters: While I like Sung enough as a protagonist there's really not any other character that I care about enough to memorize their name. Sung has a solid enough motivation that I could get invested in for why he goes on all these dangerous dudgeons despite being so weak he nearly dies every time he goes to one. However, everyone else doesn't get much screen time or has just an ok basic motivation that we learn about that will ultimately not matter to us as we will only see them every other episode. I will say this could absolutely change in the next season since this was a short season and needed to set up the world and Sung's change but I have seen shows with only 12 episodes do a better job at getting me invested in several characters so I have to minus a point for this.
Story: The story is nothing really crazy and I didn't expect it to be. It's just about a guy who needs to earn money to save his mom and starts as a weakling until something happens that allows him to grow stronger. I did really like the way they go about how he gets stronger. Sung basically becomes a character in an RPG who has to focus on each stats and builds and as a RPG fanatic myself this really grabbed my attention as I was curious as to how he would go about his abilities and weapons. I also think it was a perfect fit since the world revolves around guilds with mages and tanks. Though we do take our time to get to this point as it isn't until episode 4 this gets going and when I started to go out of my way to keep up with the show when it dropped a new episode. However, another negative for me is that Sung's power scaling jumps up so fast that I quickly started to realize "Oh he isn't going to lose ever huh?" I wish the story was more of oh he's getting cocky and will almost die fighting above his class and will have to retreat till later but this only happens once and It wasn't because he was losing it was because he got tired. Overall the story is a bit of a mix bag for me I like it more than I dislike but it won't be everyone's cup of tea.
Music: The soundtrack is really solid and as I stated earlier I really like the OP more now than the first time I heard it. No real memorable tracks for me so far outside that OP but the music was still good enough that it didn't hinder the experience in anyway.
Animation: I thought the animation was very good from start to finish. There were a few stand out scenes during some episodes but I wouldn't say a single episode as a whole outshined the others. Very solid animation throughout the whole show and it's a a beautiful looking show all around so no complaints from me.
Overall: I would say Solo Leveling is a really fun watch if you want something short you could binge in a day and if you are someone who loves action and animation above all else you can't go wrong here. If you care more about characters (like me) and story you might have some problems with it but even then while it may not make your top 10 list or so you'll still walk away from it having a positive experience. I enjoyed my time with it and will watch season 2 when it airs so I give Solo Leveling season one a 8/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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