Solo Leveling

(Note: This review contains some spoilers, but I doubt spoilers will ruin your potential enjoyment with this manhwa. Also, despite my rating, this manhwa can still be extremely enjoyable. However, enjoyable does NOT mean well-written. There's a reason why the term dumpster fire exists.)

"Do you have low self-esteem? Do the girls at school reject you because you're weak? Do you want to escape this unsatisfying reality? Well, oh boy, do I have the solution for you! Introducing Solo Leveling: the insecure weeb's most popular source of escapism and wish fulfillment."

The popular manhwa is rated a whopping 8.96 and ranked 12th in all manga, is it deserving of a 10/10? While fans may exaggerate it, saying, "this isn't your typical OP zero to hero story," it is far from a masterpiece. Every positive review for Solo Leveling relies on conveying their enjoyment and opinion through buzzwords. What do I mean? Quite simply, they're vague. Saying that something is "a f***ing masterpiece and amazing" doesn't specify how and why it is a masterpiece. Now, I'm probably going to anger a lot of people with this review, but keep in mind that I am NOT saying you cannot enjoy this or like it. I am merely letting people know that other than the art and early fight scenes, there is nothing praiseworthy within this manhwa. I have finally caught up and finished the first season of this webtoon and reread it entirely to be sure of my rating. So, allow me to explain why Solo Leveling is the equivalent of spraying Febreze on dog s**t and calling it a masterpiece.

Story: 1/10
Wow, already starting on an awful note, are we? I've been using my magnifying glass on all the panels within the manhwa, but I still cannot find the story. Not even Christopher Colombus would be able to find the story in Solo Leveling. Allow me to explain: Solo Leveling takes place in present-day South Korea, and magical gates leading to dungeons have appeared. In these dungeons contain evil monsters that will wreak havoc on the world.

Along with these dungeons, certain people have been "awakened." In which they gain powers similar to that of an MMORPG, and each person's power level varies. These people are called hunters. Quite simply, the concept is a combination of Overlord, One Punch Man, HxH, and Fairy Tale. We follow the journey of the world's weakest hunter, Sung-Jin Woo, who I will abbreviate as SJW. SJW is an E rank hunter and is scoffed at by his fellow hunters and wishes to get stronger. He and his group enter a dungeon only to decide to fight the boss of the dungeon foolishly out of greed. The result is some members dying, a few making it out, and SJW sacrificing himself due to circumstance. At this point, SJW is granted an opportunity from the system to receive a "double awakening" in which he would get stronger. He accepts but soon discovers that unlike previous awakenings, he can continuously become more powerful through experience points, and so begins his quest to become the best hunter in the world.

A relatively simple plot that screams shonen, and I won't lie; the first ten chapters hook you in and set up the story and main character decently. Unfortunately, that's about it as SJW quickly becomes OP after his first dungeon since the prologue. Now, I don't mind characters becoming OP, as it is the execution that matters. By chapter 17, after clearing the dungeon, he can already one-hit-kill a B rank boss using a broken blade. Alright, not the best start, but maybe it'll get better. Wrong again. Not only does he get more robust, but he ends up hiding his strength for no plausible reason. He'll tell you it's because it'll make him a target for other hunters, but make no mistake, he still ends up in danger through hiding his power. It becomes evident that the primary reason the writer decided to hide SJW's strength is to employ the troupe where everyone underestimates SJW only to be rescued by him and realize how much of a chad he is. The sole purpose is to make readers insert themselves as SJW and feel like the badass they're not in real life. In other words, pure wish fulfillment and escapism. No theme, no development, nothing.

The setup and execution for every dungeon are the same: SJW enters a gate under the motivation to get more powerful for no good reason. He then trounces all enemies but will give exposition on how they're still mighty. He then finds the boss who is either arrogant or mindless. SJW then has an "epic" battle with the boss and will give an empty narration on how he has to "go faster" and that he is in trouble despite never taking a single hit since the second dungeon. SJW levels up and gain some new power that won't change the course of the story in any way other than SJW looking more badass and edgier than before. Sure, there sometimes might be something different in context, but actually, the outcome is the same. For example, the system forces SJW to kill a group of hunters who betrayed him and attempted to kill him. We learn a bit about the system, but it only comes into play for the sake of SJW being edgy. Furthermore, the plot developments are as cringe-worthy as the interactions in The Office TV show. Unlike The Office, though, Solo Leveling is NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

The actual dialogue is also garbage. It'll usually consist of redundant exposition in which the writer dumps all of its world-building on you in the most annoying fashion possible. When it isn't exposition or boring narration, it creates the edgiest and most cringe-worthy lines I have ever read. Not only are they devoid of any meaning, but they also don't make any sense. The series exaggerates its events and attempts to convince you that its dialogue is balls deep when it is flatter than an A-cup. Not to mention the power system is just combining Overlord's MMORPG but dumbed down and ranks powers from E to S. Now, I'm not blaming them for using a system that's already been used before. The real problem lies in that this power system was used in Overlord because it fit the premise, here it's used so the author doesn't have to set any parameters and can be extremely vague in regards to power rankings. In other words, laziness.

Now, recently people have told me that the "true plot" hasn't been revealed yet and is being foreshadowed. It's been over 100 chapters, and the real plot hasn't started? In other words, SJW's boring and repetitive battles against shallow monsters are a set up to something even bigger? Yeah, I would lower the score of the story if it weren't already at a 1/10 if that's the case. Setting up is not the same as dragging the story. Like I mentioned earlier, every dungeon has the same formula just with something different in context to spice it up.

Overall, the entire plot consists of repetitive action against different enemies that look different, but the setup and outcome remain the same. Ultimately, the plot solely exists to make SJW look as cool, badass, and edgy as possible to make readers feel more secure about themselves before reality sets back in. Not to mention some dungeons/arcs feel as if they've been copied and dumbed down from other famous works. The Ant Arc is the most apparent one as it takes the concept of the Chimera Ant Arc in HxH and turns it into the laziest arc I have ever seen. I'm not even a fan of HxH, but even I was disgusted with what I saw. I'm sorry, but the Febreze (art) doesn't fix the fact that the story is still a load of s**t.

Characters: 1/10
Well, what a shocker, another 1/10! How can something be this bad? Thank you for asking my curious reader, let me tell you. The flaws start with our protagonist, who is the only main character in the story, Sung Jin-Woo. His reason for fighting is to support his little sister's education and pay for the medical bills caused by his mom being in a coma. Now, you probably think this is a pretty good reason to fight, and you're right it is. However, it is never expanded upon or brought up ever again. The author forgets it almost immediately. We never see SJW visit his mom or ever struggle to pay the bill. He even becomes filthy rich very quickly. How can you expect to believe he gives a s**t about his mom when he's too busy f***ing around in dungeons pretending to be weak. When I say not mentioned, I mean he doesn't bring her up in dialogue, monologue, and he never visits her. What's even more frustrating is that by the third or fourth dungeon, he could quite easily find a way to heal his mom but doesn't. Then the writer proceeds to resolve the issue in the most anti-climatic way possible but dares to act like he's been foreshadowing this and expects us to give a damn when he hadn't done anything to build upon SJW's relationship with his mother. Not even any flashbacks.

In addition to the trashy backstory and motivations, SJW is made to be as emotionless as possible so the reader can insert themselves into the story. He is morally ambiguous as he kills when the reader wants him to and helps others also when the reader wants him to, regardless of whether it is uncharacteristic or not. His face is always expressionless except for his edgy smile; he's calm about everything just to look more amazing; his attire consists of black and gray; he's able to make his armor invisible. All to make him as badass and edgy as possible for no reason other than "it's cool." He's a poorly written self insert character. The author wants readers to experience this absurd power-trip fantasy where they are the s**t, and everyone else exists to make them look more badass.

In a manhwa that's all about the "power development," it would be wrong to ignore it. The most glaring flaw is how vague SJW's strength is. The system will show stats like "strength" or "agility," but whenever he upgrades them, it doesn't feel like anything has changed. That's because the author has failed to use the golden rule of writing known as "show don't tell." It's no different than every other wish-fulfillment manhwa.

As I mentioned above, SJW's decision making follows no train of thought and is usually just whatever will make him more badass. His character development, if you could even call it that, comes off as edgy and cringeworthy like everything else. Except here, the author admits it is edgy like an offhand joke. However, it ends up being ironic because you'd think upon realizing this, the author would've started to give a s**t about his characters, but nothing changes. The story suggests that SJW is losing his emotions and humanity due to the system and getting stronger, represented by his flat facial expression and cold attitude. However, the writer fails to follow through with this as he continuously saves people he doesn't know at all. The Ant Arc is a prominent example of this as he decides to keep the main waifu from dying despite never speaking to her once and that he's lost his humanity, as the story suggested. Even worse, some random dude is killed during the event because he's not a woman, and the author expects us to give a f**k, which leads me to my next point.

If it weren't for the fact that the male characters are treated just as distastefully as the female cast, I would easily consider this manhwa's writing to be sexist. I'm no social justice warrior, but even I get annoyed when every female character exists to be SJW's damsel in distress and get rescued. The main girl, S rank hunter Cha Hae-In, falls in love with him because he "smells different" and, to this point, has never held an actual conversation. The female characters are said to be high ranked hunters but never accomplish or damage anything. At times they can even be utterly dumb like when Cha decides to head into a top-ranked gate, despite knowing the risks, without any armor or weapons except for a pickaxe she found at a nearby construction site. What happens as a result? She gets into trouble, and SJW rescues her, and she falls for him even harder. The third most favorited character on MAL for Solo Leveling is a character who has appeared in like ten chapters, and we won't see her ever again. Not to mention her role was mainly cute demon waifu who guides MC through the dungeon. Even worse, she starts as SJW's enemy in the cell, and after killing all the men, he leaps at her but spares because of wish-fulfillment. Despite being competent with a blade, she needs SJW's constant protection and falls in love with him. The writer saves all the women while the men die brutally. The purpose behind this is to satisfy the insecure reader's desire to be a chad. Women exist in the story to suck the reader's d**k and nothing else. The only aspect that makes Solo Leveling better than other wish-fulfillment manhwas is that it never takes the focus away from the combat, so there's that, I guess.

So how are the male characters then? Ugh, don't get me started. Whereas women are to boost the reader's ego through SJW, men exist to underestimate SJW and be evil. All men, except for a couple, are portrayed as arrogant serial killers who are greedy and have no redeeming qualities. Why is that the case? So SJW can put them in their place while looking a badass as the enemy says, "NANI!" I have never seen such poorly conceptualized and executed characters in my life. Your average hentai has more character development than this.

The only two characters I can give slight praise to are Yoo Jin-Ho, aka weak, rich kid who gains confidence, and Lee Ju-Hee, aka B rank healer with PTSD who we rarely see past the beginning. I almost forgot to mention, because Ju-Hee is a woman, she too gets saved by SJW. Great. That's about it, unfortunately.

Overall, these characters aren't characters. Instead, they're tools for SJW to feel even more robust and serve as wish fulfillment. It's the same concept behind almost every other popular manhwa: generic wish-fulfillment and power cultivating in a vague and unoriginal power system.

Art: 10/10
It's about goddamn time something good came up. The art is the Febreze being sprayed on the dog s**t story. The fully colored large panels make the action scenes come to life and are exciting. They're crisp, clean, and depict movement. It does everything it's supposed to do.
On the other hand, the character designs are lacking in that each character looks similar except for different hair colors and hairstyles. This flaw, combined with nonexistent personalities, makes it hard to distinguish the already forgettable cast. The weapons also lack a creative design and feel as though you could find them in any other fantasy action series. Specific action panels, for some reason, decide to zoom in on SJW's expressionless face as he provides meaningless and repetitive monologuing. As a result, it can be confusing to figure out what exactly SJW did in the next panel, often hindering some of your enjoyment. Nevertheless, art is a 10/10 and is easily the best aspect of the series, but that's not saying much.

Enjoyment: 3/10
Take this with a grain of salt, if you're looking for balls to the walls action with great art and wish-fulfillment, you'll have a great time reading it. However, the moment you start to desire more from this in other areas, your enjoyment will plummet. If I had to compare it to other series that fall in the power-cultivating and wish-fulfillment concepts, I would rank this second or third. Keep in mind that I like to keep my enjoyment separate from the quality of the writing. There's more to manga/manhwa than cool fights, masterful art, shallow waifus, and chad self-insert protagonists. Solo Leveling is comparable to Mountain Dew and Doritos: you may enjoy them, but that doesn't mean it's healthy for you. In other words, enjoyment does not always equal good writing.

Overall: 2/10
Solo Leveling is, at best, a dumpster fire, the writing is so bad, but you can't stop reading because, for some of you, it's so entertaining. The characters, plot, and even the art sometimes are all meant to make the self-insert protagonist feel even more powerful and edgier than before. Masterful art and crazy action panels don't equal an overall masterpiece, at least not for me.

"So did this review of the FANTASTIC manhwa known as Solo Leveling give you an insight into whether you need your ego stroked to feel more secure about yourself? Hopefully, it did, and you will realize that you don't need constant wish-fulfillment and escapism to feel better about yourself."

Story-3
The MC is crazy overpowered, and there's absolutely no tension left in the story because of that. There's not a single point in the last 50+ chapters where I could at least kind of imagine that he could've died because he NEVER loses. The most he'll get out of a fight is losing a handful of his soldier minions- which get easily replaced- and maybe a scratch on his cheek- which he can easily revert back to normal.
And he plot is super formulaic. Weak dude suddenly gets blessed with amazing powers and becomes an awesome hero, showing up all of the lazy corrupt "strong" guys who look down on anyone ranked lower than them. There's absolutely nothing about the story that's unique and sticks out.

[Side rant- The manhwa doesn't even hesitate to take a dump on the one actually well-written scene from the light novel, where we get to see the protagonist- Sung Jin-Woo- from the point of view of ordinary citizens, as people react to his fierce battle watching from their TVs at home, and as his heroic actions restore an old man's faith in the strength of Hunters. From that scene in the light novel, readers got to see Sung Jin-Woo as not just a monster-slaying warrior, but a symbol of hope for humanity as well. The manhwa downplays and shortens this whole sequence so much it might as well not have been included.]

Art- 8
The story might suck, but the art is good! The artist's constant use of glow and blur effects for action scenes really add to the sleek aesthetic of Solo Leveling.


Character-6
Sung had some minor character growth in the first 20 or so chapters but since then he's been stuck as an edgy edgelord (seriously, is the dude physically incapable of wearing clothes colored anything BUT midnight black?) The fact that he's a necromancer with the special ability to resurrect and control the monsters he kills certainly doesn't help.
Not only that, but he's a Mary Sue (well, the male version, Gary Stu or whatever) through and through. In this manhwa, the entire world revolves around this guy. Everyone wants to get close to him and use him, or wants to worship him as their savior, or is scared of his power and wants to kill him. A lot of characters want to do all three. He's isn't just a healer or a summoner or a mage- he's every Hunter type *and more*. He's overpowered, infamously famous, dark but not evil, never awkward and always charming, and dashingly handsome... who could get bored of a perfect character like that? (sarcasm, if you didn't catch that already.)

Solo Leveling even misses out on a key opportunity for giving him character growth. Since he's killed so many people and monsters, and since both people and monsters are sometimes good and sometimes bad, there's plenty of room for a moral conflict there- should he stop killing everyone so mercilessly and give them a chance to change? Or is he in a kill-or-be-killed world where compassion becomes weakness?
The writer completely ignores this opportunity for giving the story some depth and instead goes with a story revolving around our protagonist, a necromancer mage summoner supreme overlord of dark energy and death and flashy attacks, clashing with big angry demons in big fancy smashfests, each one more grand and explosive than the next.
No one else besides the MC even gets any development. There are some interestingly conflicted characters who were around at the start of the series, but since then they've been quietly shuffled into the background of the story.

Enjoyment-2
Immensely disappointing. The only reason I bothered to read the entire thing was because I wanted to see how it would end (the series looks to be ongoing so I didn't get to find that out.) The story and characters are flavorless and boring, and the artist did absolutely nothing unique with this manhwa.

"Solo Leveling", what seemed like an underdog story has really left me disappointed. At first glance, the whole reason I started was to expect him to grow as a character slowly and PROVE himself. However, this is not what I got at all.

Forget the underdog story, forget the meaningful process of character growth and development, the story tries it's hardest to make the character look like he's "struggling", but it's pretty difficult when the MC has the same emotionless, edgy facial expression on every panel.

It's just extremely confusing and frustrating how this supposed "underdog" MC gets so strong so damn fast. He is literally flawless, he feels completely void of humor and emotion and is just a living, breathing, OP, issekai MC. These 3 paragraphs alone are all about my number 1 reason as to why I dislike this Manhwa so much. The main character just really sucks.

The only thing that doesn't give this a "1" for me is the art. Absolutely amazing art that made me stomach through the horrible MC writing and directionless plot that could've been finished if the MC just didn't hide his power. The art was literally eye-candy, filled with clean line-work, shading and colours.

Anyways, if you don't like edgy, power-fantasy MCs, don't read this. If you were expecting the slow-climb and rise of an underdog, go read "Hardcore Leveling Warrior" (technically a "re-rising" here), or read Tales of Demons and Gods instead. The MC might be OP in HCLW and ToDaG, but they have limitations and a bunch of situations where they can't just "clean up" the enemy as easy as Sung Jin-woo.

2/10

Hello all,

This is my first time writing a review and I can say that this reminds me so much of many many good Anime startups like SAO and I can say that I was mesmerized when I first started reading it. I was going from chapter to chapter with such hunger for more, took me 8 straight hours to catch-up and I could simply not get enough of it.

Story: 10/10

Simply grabbing you by the neck and chockeslamming you, like a wrestle mania moment. When you start with the first chapter you simply can't get enough of the weak character, who is always depressed and scared of dying but he finds his way with hard work and blood to the very special place.

Art: 10/10

The coloring of the chapters and fights is very very good and gives you an exact feeling what will it look if this was turn to an Anime which I would pay to see to be honest.

Characters: 10/10

It presents not only the main-character as a weakling but shows the compassion of the people around him. Also showing how he goes when he starts to obtain power and his character slowly evolves into something more, a true bad-ass-hero.

Enjoyment: 10/10

As I said few times already, I simply can't shake off my hunger for it. It is really amazing manga and I wish to continue reading even if they go full "One Piece" number I will not get bored of it.

Overall: 10/10

Nothing left to say but give it a shot and start reading it! You will not be sorry, Solo leveling is simply on a next level compared to other mangas.

Oh no, where do I fucking begin. Despite what many of the manwha legion will claim, this story is not one that is good and has no real meaning that leaves you feeling bored after the official ending. This shit must have been written by an angsty 15 year old because it is every bit of power fantasy that you would expect from a something written by them. The main character has a heroic moment at the beginning, but after that his personality does a complete 180 and is easily one of the most powerful characters nearly 30 chapters in. A lot of stories seem to miss the slow progression of the hero and it is very saddening to see a bunch of the hero's development and charm nearly disappear.

Before explaining the rest of the story, a fatal flaw about the manwha must be discussed. The simple fact that no other character in the show (except for one other character that is promptly killed) takes all of the interesting progression out of the story. I do not understand why the author thought that it was a good idea to lock everyone else's power level and only have him scale up. Later on, this becomes a massive problem later on, but this is even important near the beginning.

The art is pretty good, especially for a webtoon. Panels can be boring and the backgrounds can be lacking. Overall, it's fine and there's nothing that can be too criticized, other than the fact that the character designs can be uninspired.

Here comes the issue. Spoilers ahead. The story revolves around leveling up, so it goes without saying that the enemies would need to be more and more powerful over time. Giving the main character a necromancer ability that allows him to use very strong monsters from past fights was a big mistake. It completely removes any weakness that he may have and effectively kills all the tension that may arise in fights. Having the main character lose builds character and increases stakes for later fights, but after so many fights with 0 losses I know that he can't lose. Power creep gets very bad after he clears the hard demon dungeon, and that's when I lost almost all interest. Every other character is sucking his dick and he has near infinite power. His edge is also through the roof as he kills without mercy but is still kind-hearted? I just didn't understand his character. When he single-handedly defeats an enemy that none of the other top hunters in the nation could do combined and rose him from the dead, I understood that the manwha could not go on and that it's problems could only get worse.

How could the character even lose at this point? He is unbeatable and untouchable. This is as generic and bland as it gets, saved only by the art.

Tl;dr I would avoid this one.

Solo Leveling does everything it tries to do goddamn right.

You may think the setting has been done a million times and it's just another generic overpowered main character doing what he wants, it's exactly that, but executed absolutely magnificently in every regard.

Story: 10/10
The setting is quite simple, one day gates start appearing all over the world out of nowhere and people start awakening magic abilities in order to close these gates. Our main character is a man dubbed "The Worlds Weakest Hunter", Sung Jin-Woo, who joins these raids in order to pay for his comatose mothers treatment and his younger sisters education. After a raid gone horribly wrong, Sung Jin-Woo awakens an ability that enables him to level up his abilities, which is unheard of. The story follows Sung Jin-Woo's growth as a person and a hunter. The mystery and high-stakes in this manhwa make it an enticing story to follow.

Art: 10/10
This is where Solo Leveling shines above all it's competitors.
What starts off as mediocre art suddenly improves drastically to become pure joy to look at, I've never seen manhwa done so beautifully.
It's so unique you can't really compare it to art you see from something like OPM for example. Each panel is a sight to behold and truly makes you appreciate it on a whole other level. Keeping in mind it's released on a weekly basis which is unbelievable.

Character: 9/10
Unique characters with good character development throughout the series. For most of the series the way they introduce new characters at the right rank milestones for Sung Jin-Woo is executed very well and at multiple times in the series will you go like: Whoah, holy... what a badass character.

Enjoyment: 10/10
In every aspect this is a masterpiece to behold and I urge you to give this a fair chance, you will not be disappointed, I guarantee it.

Overall: 10/10
Hands down one of my favorite reads ever, it's captivating and you may find yourself re-reading the series over and over again without even giving it another thought. There are quite a few minor and somewhat major changes done compared to the light novel, but in my opinion most of them have been positive changes.

What are you waiting for? Join the shadows!

Every. Damn. Time.

I don't understand why this superficial manhwa is so hyped

Solo Leveling tells the story of a mary sue named Sung Jin-Woo who tries to mimic a random isekai plot in search of a hollow character development, it's a kpop version of the Arifureta, but Arifureta can be funny for involuntary moments, but here, the things are they're stupids in a raw way, it's the kind of manga a person would make just to satisfy fetish self insert of a cool edgy guy in another world.

This story has a terrible worldbuilding, I thought it would show you at the beginning of your journey how the world works, but it did not this it at some point (even later), just leaves it to the reader to understand in such a flawed way, and when it suits, it's done in an expository way over and over, it's just "only talk, dont show'', it doesn't fully justify how the world occurs or at least sets a time for readers to be more immersed in him, that's the proof. How lazy you have to be to make a story.

The protagonist is the most uninteresting being here, I imagined that in the first chapter there would be a construction of all your motivation, but then it ends up being foul so you don't care anymore. He thinks he has been betrayed, as people worry about their lives, they are afraid, they have a family to come back to, but no, he needs to contradict himself later with stupid thoughts, the same one who decided that someone else should flee. And when we have a development, everything about it is simply empty, there is no consequence (maybe one, but not enough) to his life, he is a wind head, who only uses a self head when in a dungeon, and only the the most predictable answers at all times, in fact all this adventure is predictable without guaranteeing a moment of real distress or difficulty for the reader.

The narrative is lazy, bad and highly expository in the action scenes, as I had said: monologues that only focus when the MC is in the dungeon, we never see that anymore, the dialogues are horrible, I seem to be reading a story where each the characters is deaf and needs to repeat the same thing all the time, when he doesn't, have it, the whole dialogues are empty that don't complement much on the journey, and the author has the audacity to insert a totally random Nietzsche text, that doesn't fit the situation was only played because the author thinks the phrase is cool, and many people consider it deep.

The characters are all bad that we can sum up in 2 words: uninteresting and unimportant, I think only 2 characters I could care about, one of them is dead because they performed properly, and their last scene was a moment of construction, the another was only shown in different environments, I doubt the author will use it again, the antagonists are bad, only 1 of them has a plausible motivation, the rest is just bad for being purely bad, the author only knows to do this idea because he needs to satisfy The fetish of seeing a cool edgy guy killing someone.

Not even the flashback moments here work for anything, it's always something expositive, and the only thing shown is the first dungeon the protagonist had, basically every conflict for MC, they insert this flashback, jesus this manga not only be without creativity but disrespectful to the reader himself, insisting on something we already understand, because this universe is so empty that he at least has no courage to show anything else, not even a memorable memory at least as interesting as possible, not even his mother dear, who is informed in the first chapter, which has become a lousy excuse for you (the reader) to care about him at the first point and then forget about her, seriously how badly written this it and often lazy again.

The development of the protagonist in the general context is acceptable, but scumbag and continuing with shallow labels, I have never hoped for a comic moment to appear in the midst of such a tense scene. I currently arrived midway through the work, the protagonist does not show an interesting image, he is totally one-dimensional that not even his relationships with secondary characters strengthen him, not even in a "melancholy or mental" situation the author can humanize the character, he repeats the same flashbacks, give the impression that this is not a story of someone who fights for the people around them, but of someone who needs to satisfy the faster leveling fetish, he seems more like a character for fujoshi to fall in love with because he's so hot and uhh so much badass.

The most positive thing I leave is cap55, the first chapter that made me laugh without being stupid about this narrative, but it's still a bad and foul story. And I don't think that can change enough, even if he does, his first part has rotted just like the protagonist's will, it's just an amateur story that doesn't even show courage in his actions, I feel like I'm seeing a bootleg of a Izumi Shinichi just repetitive, I wanted to talk more about this journey, but this empty story keeps me, that's why i don't classify this Manhwa as a good thing, and I don't think I'm just the only person thinking differently.

Just a note: This is my first review, so pardon me if it has odd errors or is formatted wrong.

Why I must Write This Review: Essentially I have been forced to give this review, not out of the enjoyment I received from the series (although there is much), but simply to ask people to hold their final verdict until the story is closer to being completed. Although the story may not seem like it, majority of the important information of the series is withheld until later. This in turn, makes it appear as though the writer made people had powers just to have powers. This is not the case. Everything within the manhwa can be explained, just not until later. Think of it as a slowly unfolding mystery. I won't say anymore to avoid spoilers.

Story: You can read the synopsis, I won't be restating it here. The story in the beginning seems simple, and possibly even bland to some. A classic zero to hero story, great. However, this simple outlook could not be more misguided. Just know that the story itself in the beginning is highly enjoyable to most people, while the writing near the end (which has not been shown yet outside of the LN) is very well done. This eventual reveal in the LN truly blew my mind, so I'm giving the manhwa a 10/10 since its been a truthful adaptation so far.

Art: Nothing much to say. Fantastic art with its own unique style.

Character: Unfortunately, the one thing that can't really be carried over from a LN is all the internal dialogue. I would give the LN protagonist a solid 10/10, but for a manhwa, it only gets an 8. He's still a good protagonist, and you can visibly see him change, but the effect isn't as strong as the LN.

Enjoyment: The series is so enjoyable that its addictive. I blasted through the chapters lightning fast, and I didn't even realize. If nothing else, read the story just for a good time.

Summary: Great art, great story (which has not been entirely revealed), and good character (great in LN). Would recommend to anyone.

This Manhwa is only on top manga board because it was doing all the cliche, plot point of all the other shounen, OP main character trope from all the trend Sao, One punch man, Overlord,Moon light sculpture very well and all the new reader who was not feed up or familiar with the older would not understand how much this Manhwa suck dick. This Manhwa is just stalling time bomb, the MC keep getting stronger with little to no risk or stake, and the MC is just a cookie cutter guy with no trait worth noting, it just to make us feel like the MC so we can live out the fantasy of getting stronger easily and all the women just wet seeing us for no decent reason. It has biggest problem of shounen battle manga of just keep upping the scale (lazy writing) plus all the character all just foils for the MC and the setting wasnt entirely Inspiring or even felt real at all, like how can the government control all the volatile of power human running around, why haven't power human take control of the world, because Country paid them money to be law abiding citizen? because they will overlook their crime, bitch, the government was clearly demonstrated to not even compare to all the private own Groups? Why the government even allow private group to use the portal for grinding xp and item for levels and money anyway, China would fuck them all to death or nuke the whole country before it allow non regulated group to control them and tip the power scale, so i imagine, US, Korea should do their best to control all the gate and take all the power it can to compete. Like it so stupid to even allow a group to even have the opportunity, the chance to have the even more power than the government, not the people but private own group.
Overall Solo leveling is just copying all the trend without adding any unique twist, charm or even character to the genres, it just do all the old thing really well, that why the story is Pathetic, the character is poor but the art is very good lift up the whole Manhwa, the only reason it not getting 9,10 from art is because it's Manhwa, wasting paper POS format plus the design most of the time is only decent. It's still enjoyable cause the formula work but the OP power scaling Formal clearly have Aged A LOT especially if you are as generic as Solo Leveling so i'm not in good conscious give this anymore than a 5.

I'll keep this short.

What is it sometimes that makes a manga or manhwa so different yet so enjoyable at the same time. I'm sure you know it's just the coloring and preference in my opinion. Few people or readers sometimes find this cheezy.

But this is a manhwa that contains art which legit is on another freaking level and that may change other's opinions on manhwa.

Story: 9/10 I know this is a typical story for any manhwa. Whenever a story introduces a weak character in time he/she becomes strong as freak to defeat his/her foes and yeah, that's too typical, so that's a negative. But the main twist is that this has various monsters, powers, characters that is sometimes hard to remember/maintain in story. Yet it's done very cautiously so people don't forget the protagonist's main powers and goals.

Art: 10/10 What do you want me to say other than, "this is a fucking master piece" ?? I freaking wish that I could have given a higher score but I just can't. This manhwa's art is on another freaking level I'll tell you that. Every single detail on every other single chapter is not left out. Whatever previous chapters contained those artistic detail was in the present one (if any flaws I dunno, I was just too much involved and enjoying). Also after every new chapter comes out the art seems to get better and better with coloring, shading, highlighting, and much more.

Characters: 9/10 Though it introduces many characters through out time it introduces them very-very poorly and then leaves them aside or re-introduces them after a long time in the story. Though the plus point about this manhwa is that this solely focuses on the protagonist's growth and does not even leave out the little details on him that may have been given to the readers in the previous chapters. That's quite rare and interesting because it may bore the reader in time but it just doesn't. Character development is always done in some amazing style which always catches the eye.

Enjoyment: 10/10 Man does this manhwa has some seriously annoying cliffhangers but the art, fighting, and the story keeps you so much freaking involved and hooked to it you just may get some goosebumps as well or just re-read the whole freaking chapter. It's just too enjoyable.

Overall: 10/10 Overall this really is an amazing piece of art. Give it a shot.

"This isn't solo leveling anymore!"
- Solo Leveling, chapter 46

Ah yes, the highly praised webtoon, Solo Leveling. Now that it started being released physically too, it's finally added to MALs database. Does it live up to expectations? Not really, no.

Note that this review contains slight spoilers.

Solo Leveling is pretty much your typical "zero to hero" story, despite what fans might claim. Protagonist is weak, encounters trouble and is handed down some op abilities out of nowhere. Yes, he technically has to do quest to earn progress, but just the ability to do quests itself is unique to the world and is given to the protagonist with no explanation as to why. (Also the starting quest is ripped straight out of One Punch Man). This "underdog" is now stronger than almost everyone else, yet still has tendency to try to hide his abilities, for no apparent reason. I guess him being shown as strong all the time would hinder self-insertion.

The story is fine, more or less what you would expect from the genre, not great, not terrible. It's still a fun read, don't get me wrong, but it's hardly something I would call great. The greatest weakness is the repetitiveness. All the arcs after the first one go like this: MC enters a dungeon, something "unsusual" and "unexpected" happens, the expected difficulty increases, everything looks dire and unbeatable, MC starts doing stuff, the threat turns to be irrelevant as MC triumps over it relatively easily. More and more easily with each arc.

In fact, there is just no thrill anymore. Which is why the first few chapters were the best. You were worried about the protagonist as there was no telling whether he'll make it out arive. But at the current point of the story, the threath is there no more. It's just a massacre of obstacles.

The MC himself went from likeable underdog that works hard despite being the weakest to help his ill mother to not really giving a heck and having no problem straight out murdering someone. And this substory about ill mother? You would would expect that to get attention right after the protagonist gets strong and loaded, right? Nah, it doesn't get mentioned until much later when the author remembers that they made this substory in attempt to make the MC more likeable.

Edit: With the new chapters, the story does actually go back to the "mother is ill" part of the plot. It is thanks to a bunch of random item drops that conjuret the potion of plotforwarding, sure, but that's still better than nothing. A positive point for you, Solo Leveling.

With this are tied the "edgy spikes". I'm not that fond of using the "edgy" buzzword in a review, but in this case it fits as the description perfectly. Most of the time the manhwa is fine, but from time to time the edginess spikes out of nowhere, probably in an attempt to make the comic more interesting, but the result is exactly opposite.

The best part of Solo Leveling is undoubtly art. It's full colored, atmospheric, and the action is well drawn. On the other hand, it's not that's much different from most of webtoons of similar genres.

Overall, Solo Leveling is a fine read, but certainly nothing revolutionary.

Update: Since the 1st season of the webcomic is now finished, I'd like to comment on its last arc. With it, all the weak aspects of Solo Leveling are even more obvious. Not only the story of the arc is a porr man's cheap knock-off of Chimera Ant arc from HxH, the writing is terrible. The arc can be summed up as presentation of the the strongest characters the Hunter Association has to offer only for all of them to be beaten easily so the protagonist can waltz in and save the day effortlessly like the Gary Stu he is, takes a souvenir corpse to summon another overpowered servant and that's the arc done. This part really cemented Solo Leveling as nothing more than bad power fantasy with good art.

This isn't your typical "MC becomes crazy OP" story where the OP MC becomes absolutely boring af.

This story is a fucking masterpiece.
You may be skeptical about reading it, perhaps you think it will end up trash like many generic RPG/MMO style anime/manga.
I assure you that that opinion is completely wrong.

The Story: 10/10
Absolutely solid, it flows extremely well and is probably one of the best adaptions of a LN into a Manhwa I've ever seen.
The story is filled with plots that make sense, flowing with extremely well written character development, assisted by very good character interactions.
Of course, like many stories, it starts out slow. When I first started reading this story definitely pissed me off to the point that I was like "Does this even get better."
Yes, yes it does.
You may be annoyed with the MC and many supporting characters in the beginning but that quickly changes as the character begins to go through a change no one in this fantasy world has experienced before. He is able to level up his rank. Through that experience he drastically changes in personality and is able to experience much more action than previously before, at the bottom of the barrel. This manhwa quickly becomes exciting to read and you'll continuously be asking for more after finishing each chapter. Give it a chance and run through the chapters, I'm sure it's something all action and fantasy lovers will enjoy.

Art: 10/10
It's really hard to not love the art style honestly, it's beautiful and clear, well drawn, and definitely adds to the appeal of reading this.

Character: 10/10
I cannot get enough of how amazing each character is in their own way.
This being a fantasy, theres a loott of things we can't relate to in this story, but even with that the characters are easy to understand, or relate to.
The choices each characters make make complete sense based on our understanding of their personality, or their history.
We aren't stuck with any characters that have overly unrealistic personalities, which makes reading this all the better.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I have reread all the chapters available many times and it really doesn't get old.

You definitely may not see this as a Masterpiece like I do, but it is definitely a minimum of a 7/10.
If you love fantasy... action... adventure.. then this is for you.
Give it a chance and run through all the chapters available, I'm sure you will see the beauty in it.

Overall, I give these 86 chapters currently available to us a 10/10.

Solo leveling is a super fun read, where the MC is pretty much op but it never ceases to be boring. The story flows well and is a straightup an upgrade from the LN. Combined with the godly artist every page is just a feast for the eyes. This manhua is an example of op done right.

Story : 9.5
somewhat generic isekai power fantasy but that doesn't really affect the story.Starts off slow but quickly turns into a ride you can't get off. World building is done well in both the LN and manhua.

Art: 10
Most likely one of the best looking manhua/manga I've read besides berserk, being a manhua the colors just give that extra kick to make this an eyegasm

Characters: 10
MC goes from 0 to 100 real quick, many scenes where I just think damn, thats a fucking badass mf if I've ever seen one.

Enjoyment:10
I really can't get enough of these new chapters, one of the few things I look foward to during the week.

Overall: 10
In general a fucking good read

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!

Solo Leveling is a manhwa that always baffles me whenever I hear someone talk about it. They usually like to say nice sounding buzzwords whenever they praise it, but never bother to actually expand on it. It's always at the front page of whatever site or app you're using. But when I myself read it, it felt like I was reading a completely different manhwa than the one everyone was talking about. Let me break down the different aspects of the manhwa:

Art 8/10: Art is the one and only aspect I can praise Solo Leveling for. It's undeniable that it has fantastic art and I believe this is the second biggest factor for Solo Leveling's popularity (I'll get to the biggest factor later on). The shading and coloring is fantastic. The reason I have art at 8/10 instead of higher is because of the lack of details and background.

Story 3/10: Story...What story? The premise is that gates have appeared around the world with different levels of dangers within them. So they employ hunters to go into the gates and dispose of the danger within. We follow Sung Jin-Woo, a low ranking hunter who suddenly gains a power that allows him to grow stronger through quests and he quickly becomes a S-Rank hunter.

I'm gonna be honest, the first like 15 chapters were actually entertaining. And I thought it was gonna turn out to be a really good manhwa. The gate we entered in the prologue was so different than how they are presented in the rest of the manhwa. There were rules to be followed and if not followed it would mean death. This is not at all present in later gates, in later gates its basically just different monsters in different environments. Which means the gates themselves are not at all interesting after the prologue which is a shame cause you had this sense of dread and mystique surrounding the gate when they entered it for the first time.

Now I've only really touched on the prologue and gates. So how does the story develop after the prologue? Well...It doesn't really. We simply follow Sung Jin-Woo as he goes into different gates and strengthen himself at an insane speed. It just uses the same formula over and over again. He goes into a gate, something unexpected happens, for instance the gate was more dangerous than it seemed. He handles it with ease despite the difficulty change. And then rinse and repeat. It was very disappointing to have him become so extremely strong so quickly. There was no real sense of progress. One second he's the weakest and another second there is literally no threat in existence that can phase him.

Also a lack of overarching story makes it hard to be motivated to continue. There's no real goal Sung Jin-Woo set for himself. They did slightly touch on his mother being ill and he needing to heal her. But they barely explored his relationship with his mother or anything like that. It was more just a dumb reason for him to enter a gate. And it was resolved with ease.

Character 1/10: Now we get into the absolute worst part of Solo Leveling. The characters. Mainly Sung Jin-Woo himself. I mentioned earlier about the biggest factor for Solo Leveling's popularity, and this is it. That might sound like a praise, but it's definitely not. Sung Jin-Woo was made to be as bland as humanly possible so that people can insert themselves into him and live out a power fantasy. We barely know anything about Sung Jin-Woo. He doesn't have any real motivation that drives him. He doesn't have any clear morals. In fact, he doesn't really have any emotions at all. Almost every single panel he is in he will make the same generic emotionless edgy expression. He almost never smiles, laughs, look scared, nervous or anything like that. His expression is always like he's watching a mediocre movie cause his girlfriend wanted to see it.

He has no development at all either. He goes from being the generic weak main character that's surprisingly brave when the situation calls for it into the generic edgy overpowered main character. There's no transition. And even after he has become overpowered nothing still develops him. And besides, there's nothing to push him into development since the arcs never presents him with a dilemma that forces character change.

As for other characters, there aren't really any notable ones. They introduce some new characters each arc but then they just kinda forget about their existence and you never see them again. At this point I've stopped remembering the name of the characters because they've proven time and time again that there's no point to it. I also have a problem with how much they're pandering and using certain characters (mainly female characters) as tools for this. What I mean by this is that Sung Jin-Woo is made to be the ultimate edgy overpowered main character that you can self insert yourself into for a power fantasy. And they also uses characters as a tool to reinforce this, like him needing to rescue every female character as soon as they are about to get hurt (all the while the male characters gets slaughtered left and right).

Pretty much every female character he meets will at some point be rescued by him and/or fall for him. For instance there is one female character that is a bit obsessed with him cause he "smells" different than other people. And at another point where he's murdering monsters suddenly the last monster surrenders out of fear. And what do you know, that monster turns out to be a super hot monster babe that falls for him. All characters are just tools used to put Sung Jin-Woo himself up on a pedestal or as a measuring stick to see how overpowered he is.

Enjoyment 3/10: As you may already have figured out, my enjoyment for this manhwa is not really high. None of the characters are memorable, the arcs are uninspired and had no real purpose except to make the main character stronger. The main character himself was dull. Except early on in the story where it was actually interesting and he had emotions and there was a sense of overall dread.

Overall 3/10: I really can't give this any higher. Remove the art which is its only praiseworthy point and all you will be left with is the same generic self insert edgy overpowered main character power fantasy that has all the ladies fall for him. There's nothing memorable at all about this manhwa.