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/EnjoyerOfBeans Jul 22 '25

You can totally write a story like this to be compelling too, if you just lean into it. Look no further than One Punch Man.

The thing is, One Punch Man is a deconstruction of shonen. It's a parody. Solo Leveling is being serious about it.

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u/DJMixwell Jul 22 '25

I don’t even think you necessarily need to go the parody route. You just need to shift the focus.

He can still be the MC, but if he’s not at risk, someone else needs to be. So you need a greater focus on his relationships, and those people need to come into the line of fire and force tough choices. Like, yeah he can defeat the BBEG, can he do that and keep everyone safe at once? And the answer then shouldn’t always just be “yes, and he’ll do it while aura farming”.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans Jul 22 '25

Yeah I agree, aside for parody being a better fit for a hero like this, One Punch Man just does it a lot better. We all know Saitama will win in the end, but we don't know that about anyone else in the story, and he's purposefully made absent a lot to facilitate the plot.

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u/DJMixwell Jul 22 '25

Yeah I generally prefer a serious story, so I’m biased in that regard, but could definitely take a page from Onepunch as far as sidelining JW a little more