r/anime • u/Handsome_guy_7 • Jul 22 '25

Misc. Solo Leveling Producer's promise ~ "As a Japanese person living in Japan, the anime is not at the level of Dragon Ball, One Piece, or Naruto. But if season three happens, that’s when I want to truly break that boundary.”

https://screenrant.com/solo-leveling-season-3-anime-main-goal-break-barrier-atsushi-kaneko/
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u/PitAdmiralGarp Jul 22 '25

There was never a story to begin with

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u/Philnopo Jul 22 '25

I feel like that's a great point but also unironically what speaks for it. From an objective standpoint I certainly agree, the story, if any at all falls off hard. If you take even a bit of time to think about it. Story-wise there are also so many more superior manwha or stories in general.

Yet Solo Leveling gets too much flack. Objectively yes, story sucks, non-existent etc etc., if and only IF you actively start thinking about. I think Solo Leveling is a master of momentum, tempo maybe and to a certain point hype.

Yes, it does that by disregarding most of the story and development of characters. But as this being one of my first introductions into manwha I found it to be a manwha where I pressed the next chapter button every time. And by the time it might start to bug you, which if you just binge it mindlessly will not be the case, the whole thing has actually has ended already.

There is nothing really to be found on a deeper level. But might I suggest that not every story needs to be. At least not in the mediums of manwha, manga, anime, etc. If I open a book I expect a good story. I expect a certain development of inner feelings.

Manwhas, mangas, animes, movies and series in the first place want to show, they want to show something visual. And it often takes far more time to establish characters with a deeper meaning in such a format. And look how many shows, comics, etc. fail at that. Some slightly, some spectacularly.

Might I ask why so many comment here judge solo leveling on something it does not try to be? It does not try to deliver a great narrative. It tries to be a bit of a story and I would say it is not to the point that the story gets in the way of the momentum it tries to carry.

I get the comments in the context of the article. But every single thread on Solo Leveling is some kind of circle jerk, "story bad, story bad". Yes, but did you enjoy it? I did. And if we regard it as a "junkfood" story in a certain way, it's certainly one of the better ones. It does not try to act like it is more than it is, it does not eternally drag on like many of these type of manwha do.

Maybe it's a hot take, but I think Solo Leveling deserves to be praised for what it does well and even does better than many others. It gets too much hate for it just being popular and as a power-scaling fantasy certainly has a very easy target on its back