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Major spoilers ahead for Season 2 of Solo Leveling. Season 2 of Solo Leveling has finally come to an end after another action-packed 13 episodes. The season finale saw the aftermath of the Jeju Island raid, Sung Jinwoo reaching level 100, his newest Shadow, Beru’s powers in action, and introduced some new, even more powerful hunters for Season 3. Season 2 was a pop-culture phenomenon, breaking records on Crunchyroll and dominating social media after each new episode. But reflecting on the past two seasons, and especially Season 2, Solo Leveling wasn’t actually that good!
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Based on that light novel and subsequent manhwa by Chugong, the series follows Jinwoo, who develops the magical ability to “level up” in a world where people’s power levels are fixed once they awaken. Over the past 25 episodes, we’ve seen Jinwoo climb his way to level 100, cure his mother’s mysterious ailment, and come to the rescue at the last minute against a foe that potentially threatened the entire world. The show is packed to the brim with brilliant action scenes by A-1 Studios. But it doesn’t offer much else.
Before diving into this postmortem on the most popular show of the 2025 Winter season, I need to first get a disclaimer out of the way; this is not an attack on Chugong’s light novel, the manhwa, or the staff at A-1 Pictures, all of whom clearly put their heart and souls into the show. Instead, it is a critique of Solo Leveling as a piece of narrative fiction and its place in the wider anime zeitgeist.
Solo Leveling Is an Empty Action Series
What defined Solo Leveling? Awesome action scenes? Yep. Sung Jinwoo’s constant aura farming? Definitely. Incredibly frustrating cliffhanger endings? Unfortunately, yes. A deep and rich story that will stay with you for years to come? Probably not. In terms of Solo Leveling‘s story, there is nothing going on beneath the surface.
The series follows Jinwoo’s rise from an E-rank hunter to an S-rank hunter as he battles stronger and more intimidating foes. There are wider mysteries within the context of its world still to be solved, like how he actually acquired this power, whether he is human, and who or what the ultimate threat is. Setting aside the immense hype behind the series, Solo Leveling’s story is rather straightforward and forgettable. How many other anime have you seen about a character trying to become stronger, killing monsters, and looking cool while doing it? Thanks to the stunning animation and clever episode structure that leaves you wanting the payoff, Solo Leveling has become an unstoppable hype train, but is it deserving of such a mantle?
What’s most frustrating about Solo Leveling is that there is so much potential for deeper storytelling within its premise. The world’s power system could be used to examine pre-determinism, as well as to offer a look at how we handle our own mortality. Jinwoo’s abilities could have been better used to establish complex relationships between himself and the other hunters. His ability to reanimate the dead (especially Min Byung-Gyu) could have created potential moral and emotional conflicts between himself and his fellow S-ranks. Instead, just when it gets thematically interesting, Solo Leveling dangles another animated battle in front of our eyes like keys in front of a toddler or wraps up a plot thread with little explanation. Ultimately, Solo Leveling could have been so much more than a by-the-numbers action series.
[RELATED – Solo Leveling Season 2 Finale Introduces Jinwoo’s Best Shadow (And It’s Not Igris)]
Even Solo Leveling Fans Know the Show is Shallow
If you’ve been watching Solo Leveling week by week, then you’ve undoubtedly seen the memes on social media. Fans have poked fun at Cha Hae-in’s obsession with smells, Jinwoo looking like Derek Zoolander while mining, and voice actor Aleks Le attempting to change “Arise” to “Wakey Wakey.” But one meme that has been all over anime pages on social media asks fans to name three other characters from the show (Summons don’t count). Could you do it without scrolling back through this article for reference? Probably not.
What’s most unfortunate is that the source material puts a lot more emphasis on the side characters, giving them more backstory, depth, and individual motivations. But, Solo Leveling‘s anime cuts that down to give Jinwoo more time being nonchalant and looking cool. With the Jeju Island raid now complete, fans are hoping that Season 3 will delve deeper into Jinwoo as a character and give the supporting cast more agency and depth.
To summarise, is Solo Leveling a great action show? Yes. Will it likely be remembered in a decade to come as one of the all-time greats? It’s very unlikely.
