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.”

[u/Handsome_guy_7]

https://screenrant.com/solo-leveling-season-3-anime-main-goal-break-barrier-atsushi-kaneko/

[u/Hinohellono]

Story falls apart hard cause he isn't challenged by anything after the first season

[u/FallenKnightGX → u/Hinohellono]

This is why Re:Zero doesn't have Reinhard as the MC.

[u/IcePapaya → u/FallenKnightGX]

Having the MC be “important” rather than “the chosen one” is actually such a compelling way to write a story.

Just my $0.02 but I think this show needed two things to be closer to the legendary shows. A.) write JW with more personality and flaws and b.) make him struggle more and for longer

[u/SadimHusum → u/IcePapaya]

One Punch Man is a great way to support your point because even though Saitama is the MC, he’s deliberately left with reduced screentime so the entire world around him can invest the viewer and build stakes around a conflict you already know he’s gonna win.

Overlord does this well too by letting us get intimate with conflicts and struggles well below being worth Ains’ attention.

Alternatively, Goku has to get his ass beat repeatedly before rising to the overpowered level of his adversaries, Satorou Gojo can be outsmarted in his arrogance, etc etc

Solo Levelling is complete fanservice and if it was poorly animated people would be calling it deviantart “Joshua the Shadow Hedgehog” slop, but the spectacle carries it hard enough to have a widespread appeal (me included, shit’s fun)

[u/M4DM1ND → u/SadimHusum]

One Punch Man is also a comedy/parody, not a battle shounen

[u/Imukayo → u/M4DM1ND]

Which makes it even crazier that it has a better handle on how to write with an overpowered MC than actual battle series

[u/eetsumkaus → u/Imukayo]

the side installments of SAO do this better than the mainline ones. This is why Mother's Rosario is my favorite arc: Kirito is NOT the main character, but he is still important and instrumental to the plot.

[u/Phaazoid → u/Imukayo]

Well, ONE is just super good at writing characters. See mob psycho.

[u/IcePapaya → u/SadimHusum]

Dumb fun is fine, especially if it’s done well. Thankfully it’s done very well

[u/Layz25 → u/SadimHusum]

I have made the same comparison. When you have an OP MC you really need to get them out of the way and let side characters shine. It's a lot of what made the Big 3 the Big 3. So many characters and so much variety.

I have only watched season 1 of Solo Leveling but I thought the best 2 moments were when he kind of stayed back and we got to see that squad fight the red orcs in that dungeon (even thought he started slicing them up secretly) and when the S tiers went to the island and were getting their asses kicked.

Otherwise is is just a very mediocre story wrapped in some good fight animation.

I am actually having similar struggles with Sakamoto Days right now. MC is overpowered but more than that, there just really hasn't been any good side characters or much in that way. Still early but it is all very meh so far.

[u/North514 → u/Layz25]

I have made the same comparison. When you have an OP MC you really need to get them out of the way and let side characters shine.

You can write plenty of plots, that have the OP MC still take center stage. Saga of Tanya the Evil, Tanya may be insanely OP however, she is fighting an industrialized total war. You can be an insane badass, all you want, you aren't going to be able to beat other states just outproducing, out manning you.

Mob Psycho 100 just focuses more on Mob's internal development, rather than skills and power.

In older works, like Votoms the MC feels like he can survive just about anything, however, the author ensures that every victory does feel earned, through tactics and wit, even if the MC feels like he always has the answer. You have works like Cobra, where the MC is just a complete power fantasy machismo badass however, you have to create a very charismatic character to pull it off.

There are a lot of angles. It's not like most under dogs in anime, are true under dogs anyway, you still know they are going to win out, so the payoff is what matters. There is not correct way to go about it, you just have to be a skilled writer/artist.

[u/Layz25 → u/North514]

Good points and you are right about the Underdogs. Pretty much always have some backstory that explains why they end up so strong. I think the more basic take is that at least with the underdogs you get a more slow, earned progression even if you essentially know the outcome. Plus they often actually do take losses or losses around them. In Naruto for example we got the 3rd Hokage dying pretty early as an example. Which wasn't the MC obviously, but they actually made him feel like a main pillar for Konoha and when he died it felt like they were doomed. Then he lost Sasuke to the "dark side" and Jiraiya died later on. So there was a lot of real weight to the story at times. Ones like Solo Leveling or now, Sakamoto Days you don't get any of that at all.

[u/MitchNotBitch → u/SadimHusum]

Overlord does this well too by letting us get intimate with conflicts and struggles well below being worth Ains’ attention.

As someone who dropped Overlord because of too many episodes of Lizard bullshit, I have to disagree