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EP. REVIEW: Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow-


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Nyren



Joined: 07 Oct 2014
Posts: 766
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 1:08 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
Quote:
From his conversation with Jinwoo, it's clear his mind has been twisted to serve Jinwoo with complete loyalty, even as he remembers fighting him just minutes before. Suddenly, creating shadows feels a lot more sinister—more akin to brainwashing and slavery than creating ethereal zombies.

Hmm. That's not how I read that interaction at all. The ant was pretty clear about being grateful that, having been defeated by a superior force, he miraculously did not die, but was "reborn." For a creature with an already built-in hierarchical mindset, his attitude wouldn't require any brainwashing. Plus, he hadn't even been alive for all that long - a few days at most? - so getting to live on and see more of the outside world probably sounded like a pretty sweet deal to him.
Yeah the part that kind of got left out that is in the webtoon is that the desires of the soul he's trying to extract DO play a part in how easy or hard it is to do so in addition to his power. Beru was easy to extract not just because Jinwoo was stronger after leveling up a few times after defeating Beru(The fight should have made it clear that while Jinwoo came out mostly unscathed it was basically an even fight until he got Mutilation and overpowered him which was literally right on the verge of having his eye destroyed.), but because Beru WANTED to serve Jinwoo. He was loyal to the Queen, and then she died, which made him the de factio King, but then the human King killed him, and he wants to serve such a strong king. Meanwhile, Byung-gu in the webtoon took three attempts to resurrect because he was opposed to it until Jinwoo made a plea to save Cha and he consented on the third attempt. The single attempt plus Byung-gu reaching out to Jinwoo to use his power is apparently a light novel thing. The anime is kind of a mixture of both plus some original shots.
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chronium



Joined: 25 Apr 2005
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 3:54 pm Reply with quote
I was quite disappointed with this season because they were so focused on getting to Jeju that they cut a fair amount of the story they just needed another episode maybe two to spread out what was cut. Compared to the first season the story overall was pretty bad.
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 2504
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:55 pm Reply with quote
Another fun season!

What I dig about this show is that whereas other power fantasy series try to force in romance or other stuff awkwardly creating dull asides we don't care about, Solo Levelling doesn't bother with unnecessary fluff, it knows what it's strengths are and give it to us hard and good. The public gawks in awe, enemies fear him, men want to recruit him, women want to bed him, but our boy Jin walks past 'em all like a monk with his eyes set on over-levelling his way past Samsara.

Which is how I play my games btw, so I can cakewalk everything in my path; truly a man after my own heart! Unfortunately, the ladies aren't as empressed with me...

I imagine Jin's starting his guild specifically to help lower levels and those in need similar to his mother, what a good boy!

I think as others explained, the ability and reasons behind absorbing the dead into Jin's personal infantry make sense, and I like that the circumstances led to this. Will look forward to binging the next season!
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:57 pm Reply with quote
I'm not surprised that Jinwoo Arised Byung-Gu as a Shadow to save Cha but I wasn't expecting it to turn into a surprisingly heartfelt scene that re-emphasized Byung-Gu's humanity as a healer who only wanted to protect others, and he didn't deserve to keep getting dragged into fights serving Jinwoo. Also shows that Jinwoo isn't so far gone that he would dismiss the life of someone who was truly good.

I love Beru Aura Farming even in death and Aura Farming even more as a Shadow. Also, who can say no to more Akira Ishida (aside from when he's voicing Regulus)?

Were the Joohee boob jiggle and the close-ups of martial arts girls' thighs necessary? I'll leave that to you to decide. And also, Cha's outfit was extremely tight in the chest area during close-ups.

Oh hey, Tomokazu Seki! China is in good hands.

This was a complete failure for the Japanese. Most of their S-Rankers are dead and that probably made up a good chunk of the casualties Jinwoo was being dogged over (though honestly it says more about him that he felt like he should've been there from the start compared to the people criticizing him).

Cha, you helped take down the queen, don't be beating yourself up so much. Though trying to stand by Jinwoo's side is a laudable goal.

Song-Yi is still on that Jinwoo-kun grindset even if she's basically forcing herself into a lead role in his and Jinho's new guild.

Some future antagonists on Jeju Island, I presume, with more ominous warnings.

Fitting to end on Jinwoo once again entering a lower-ranked dungeon that turns out to be a Red Gate and just flexing with his army while he waxes lyrical about what it mean to be a Hunter as he decides to get back to Solo Levelling. And even bringing things full circle with the season 1 OP.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4858
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 5:12 am Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:
I'm not surprised that Jinwoo Arised Byung-Gu as a Shadow to save Cha but I wasn't expecting it to turn into a surprisingly heartfelt scene that re-emphasized Byung-Gu's humanity as a healer who only wanted to protect others, and he didn't deserve to keep getting dragged into fights serving Jinwoo. Also shows that Jinwoo isn't so far gone that he would dismiss the life of someone who was truly good.

I love Beru Aura Farming even in death and Aura Farming even more as a Shadow. Also, who can say no to more Akira Ishida (aside from when he's voicing Regulus)?

Were the Joohee boob jiggle and the close-ups of martial arts girls' thighs necessary? I'll leave that to you to decide. And also, Cha's outfit was extremely tight in the chest area during close-ups.

Oh hey, Tomokazu Seki! China is in good hands.

This was a complete failure for the Japanese. Most of their S-Rankers are dead and that probably made up a good chunk of the casualties Jinwoo was being dogged over (though honestly it says more about him that he felt like he should've been there from the start compared to the people criticizing him).

Cha, you helped take down the queen, don't be beating yourself up so much. Though trying to stand by Jinwoo's side is a laudable goal.

Song-Yi is still on that Jinwoo-kun grindset even if she's basically forcing herself into a lead role in his and Jinho's new guild.

Some future antagonists on Jeju Island, I presume, with more ominous warnings.

Fitting to end on Jinwoo once again entering a lower-ranked dungeon that turns out to be a Red Gate and just flexing with his army while he waxes lyrical about what it mean to be a Hunter as he decides to get back to Solo Levelling. And even bringing things full circle with the season 1 OP.


however, according to source material readers, the whole red gate ending is anime only.

which means i have a really bad feeling that solo leveling got the dreaded read the books,, kids type of ending!

also, it was kinda apparent that he was planning to create his own guild after he offered jinho to join him after declining to join his father's guild!

i mean it was already ridiculed with controversy in the beginning of its production, with the jeju island arc more or less having the japanese hunters as antagonists, and getting humilated in the end, i can hardly see its animation production committee green lighting a season three unless the west fits the bill ala what adult swim did for big o
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MegaMooseJam2008



Joined: 20 Sep 2010
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 8:25 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
however, according to source material readers, the whole red gate ending is anime only.

which means i have a really bad feeling that solo leveling got the dreaded read the books,, kids type of ending!

also, it was kinda apparent that he was planning to create his own guild after he offered jinho to join him after declining to join his father's guild!

i mean it was already ridiculed with controversy in the beginning of its production, with the jeju island arc more or less having the japanese hunters as antagonists, and getting humilated in the end, i can hardly see its animation production committee green lighting a season three unless the west fits the bill ala what adult swim did for big o

The events at the end of anime aren't totally anime original but they do cut out a lot of material that was in the manwha. The red gate was in the manwha. Even had the stinger line "onto the next target."

I do agree that this all feels like a "go read the books" ending. But if they really wanted to, they could splice some of the cut content back into a theoretical 3rd season and go from there.
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Jabootu



Joined: 17 Jan 2024
Posts: 418
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 9:29 am Reply with quote
Per the review:

Quote:
Jinwoo has decided to set up a guild with Jinho (and Song-Yi if she can force her way in), but we get no explanation as to why this is.


The most obvious guess is that he's reevaluated his thinking on the matter now that most of his secrets have been irredeemably exposed. He requires his own power base now, and establishing his own guild accomplishes that. It also provides a platform to invite only people he trusts to be around him.

That said, I think it more likely that this was always Jinwoo's plan, and that he was just waiting until the time was right. Why his vehemence against the idea earlier? Well, first, his only real priority up until very recently was to ever grow stronger as fast as he could so that he could save his mother. That's been accomplished. He still is internally driven to grow stronger yet, but there's no real larger goal behind that anymore. At least not for now.

Given these former priorities, he wouldn't have wanted to be constrained by joining an already extant guild, one that in no way would prioritize the protection of his family above all else. Nor would he want management or teammates he didn't choose standing over his shoulder and learning his secrets before he personally decided to reveal them. Also, he wanted to do what he wanted when he wanted, which would have been impossible had he joined a guild.

Moreover it's clear if he did join an already established guild it would foster immediate chaos, as its newest member would be it's most powerful and by a pretty good stretch. I think you'd see a lot of bitter feelings from people who fought and suffered for years to climb the ladder suddenly being massively outshined by somebody who's still basically a kid and who is continuously growing stronger and stronger in a way that no one else can.

To me the real question is whether Jinwoo can discover a mechanism that allows his subordinates to level up also, ala his shadow army. I imagine that would be one of his top priorities right now.
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minamikaze



Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 385
PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 1:14 pm Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
i mean it was already ridiculed with controversy in the beginning of its production, with the jeju island arc more or less having the japanese hunters as antagonists, and getting humilated in the end, i can hardly see its animation production committee green lighting a season three unless the west fits the bill ala what adult swim did for big o

I'm not sure if you missed it or not, but the version of the show we saw was not the version that was broadcasted/streamed in Japan.

In the Japanese broadcast version (as well as in the Japanese edition of the Manha which it is based on), the setting is Japan not South Korea, and the main characters are all Japanese not Korean. The characters that are from Japan in the version we saw, are from a fictional East Asian nation called DFN, in the Japanese broadcast version (as well as the Japanese edition of the manha). Also the island in the Japanese broadcast version was not Jeju island.

Here are the Japanese character names used in the Japanese broadcast as well as the Japanese edition of the manha:

Sung Jinwoo -> Mizushino Shun
Sung Jinah -> Mizushino Aoi
Sung Il-Hwang -> Mizushino Junichiro
Baek Yoon-ho -> Shirakawa Taiga
Choi Jong-In -> Mogami Shin
Cha Hae-in -> Kousaka Shizuku

Yoo Jinho -> Morobishi Kenta
Chairman Go Gunhee -> Gotou Kiyoomi
Woo Jinchul -> Inukai Akira
Hwang Dongsoo -> Ukyo Masato
Han Song-yi -> Asahina Rin
Lee Joohee -> Mizuki Eri
Park Heejin -> Imamiya Satsuki

Ma Dongwook -> Machida Dogen
Lim Tae-gyu -> Kurosu Keisuke
Min Byung-gu -> Minobe Tsuyoshi

There are two different Japanese audio tracks: one with the Korean names and another with the Japanese names.
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Nyren



Joined: 07 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 7:20 pm Reply with quote
[quote=Jabootu"To me the real question is whether Jinwoo can discover a mechanism that allows his subordinates to level up also, ala his shadow army. I imagine that would be one of his top priorities right now.[/quote]
So the anime for whatever reason didn't cover this even though it was revealed way before this point in the Manhwa, but spoiler[the Shadows do level and Jinwoo is very aware of it. They get EXP the same way he does and it's shared with him which is why he can hang back and let them do all the work and he still gets EXP. Perhaps they intended to save it as some kind of big reveal later even though it's a very basic and fundamental part of how they function.]
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4858
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 8:48 am Reply with quote
minamikaze wrote:
jr240483 wrote:
i mean it was already ridiculed with controversy in the beginning of its production, with the jeju island arc more or less having the japanese hunters as antagonists, and getting humilated in the end, i can hardly see its animation production committee green lighting a season three unless the west fits the bill ala what adult swim did for big o

I'm not sure if you missed it or not, but the version of the show we saw was not the version that was broadcasted/streamed in Japan.

In the Japanese broadcast version (as well as in the Japanese edition of the Manha which it is based on), the setting is Japan not South Korea, and the main characters are all Japanese not Korean. The characters that are from Japan in the version we saw, are from a fictional East Asian nation called DFN, in the Japanese broadcast version (as well as the Japanese edition of the manha). Also the island in the Japanese broadcast version was not Jeju island.



unlikely. no way the manwha community would tolerate that! .

i mean after all, there was a lot of controversy before the show even started when the anime staff originally tried having the setting in japan and have the MC be japanese, only to immediately change course the minute they faced a massive amount of backlash on social media from both fans of the original manwha as well as fans of the light novel which was why in season one, they decided to have the location & characters generic & have not once mentioned that jinwoo and the other hunters were from korea!

that is, until ep 12 of the jeju island arc!


MegaMooseJam2008 wrote:



The events at the end of anime aren't totally anime original but they do cut out a lot of material that was in the manwha. The red gate was in the manwha. Even had the stinger line "onto the next target."

I do agree that this all feels like a "go read the books" ending. But if they really wanted to, they could splice some of the cut content back into a theoretical 3rd season and go from there.


the big hint in that ending was that they showed all the side characters going on with their usual lives which you mainly see in an anime that got the dreaded "go buy the souce materials" situation!

not to mentioned the fact that the ever hated rurouni kenshin (at least in this country) as well as re zero & shangri la frontier both got new announcements right from the get go means that the odds of solo leveling getting a new season announcement anytine soon, IF EVER are very low and it gets lower with each passing day.


so yea, i am definitely not liking its chances!
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minamikaze



Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Posts: 385
PostPosted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 11:45 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
minamikaze wrote:
I'm not sure if you missed it or not, but the version of the show we saw was not the version that was broadcasted/streamed in Japan.

In the Japanese broadcast version (as well as in the Japanese edition of the Manha which it is based on), the setting is Japan not South Korea, and the main characters are all Japanese not Korean. The characters that are from Japan in the version we saw, are from a fictional East Asian nation called DFN, in the Japanese broadcast version (as well as the Japanese edition of the manha). Also the island in the Japanese broadcast version was not Jeju island.

unlikely. no way the manwha community would tolerate that! .

i mean after all, there was a lot of controversy before the show even started when the anime staff originally tried having the setting in japan and have the MC be japanese, only to immediately change course the minute they faced a massive amount of backlash on social media from both fans of the original manwha as well as fans of the light novel which was why in season one, they decided to have the location & characters generic & have not once mentioned that jinwoo and the other hunters were from korea!

that is, until ep 12 of the jeju island arc!

The version of the Manha released in Japan uses Japanese not Korean names for the main characters. You don't have to take my word for it, you can confirm it for yourself.

If you click on the "Read Sample" button (below the image on the left) on these Amazon.co.jp pages and scroll down 4 pages to the character introduction page, you will see that the characters have Japanese names. They are not the Hanja (Chinese character) versions of the original Korean names.

Japanese manha release volume 7
Sung Jinwoo -> 水篠 旬 Mizushino Shun
Han Song-yi -> 朝比奈 りん Asahina Rin
Park Heejin -> 今宮 さつき Imamiya Satsuki

Japanese manha release volume 8
Baek Yoon-ho -> 白川 大虎 Shirakawa Taiga
Yoo Jinho -> 諸菱 賢太 Morobishi Kenta

Japanese manha release volume 9
Chairman Go Gunhee -> 後藤 清臣 Gotou Kiyoomi
Cha Hae-in -> 向坂 雫 Kousaka Shizuku

Japanese readers of the manha were already accustomed to having the story set in Japan with Japanese character names. So it made sense that when an anime adaptation was decided to be produced, that it would follow the Japanese manha release's setting and character names.

However, as you already know, releases of the manha outside of Japan use the original Korean character names and setting. So when readers of those releases complained, the anime production team's solution was to make two versions of the Japanese audio track: one that uses the Japanese names and setting (to broadcast and stream in Japan), and another that uses the original Korean names and setting (to stream everywhere else).

Again, you do not have to take my word for it, you can hear it for yourself in the trailer video embedded in the ANN article about the Jeju Island Arc preview trailer

That trailer uses the Japanese audio track from the version of the show that was broadcast and streamed in Japan.

The differences can be heard starting at the timestamps listed below. I have included the Crunchyroll stream Episode numbers and timestamps of the exact same scenes so you can compare them.

Trailer: 00:36 After his mother awakens in the hospital, she thanks her son by name: Shun, not Jinwoo, for having kept his promise to take care of his sister.
CR stream: Ep 21 - 11:12

Trailer: 00:54 The Hunter's Association Chairman says 架南島 Kanan tou (island) Raid, not Jeju tou (island) Raid. [Kanan tou (island) is a fictional Japanese Island, it is NOT the name that Imperial Japan used for Jeju island during its occupation of Korea.]
CR stream: Ep 20 - 06:32

Trailer: 00:57 The Hunters Guild President says Kousaka Hunter not Cha Hunter, as well as Kanan tou Raid not Jeju tou Raid.
CR stream: Ep 20 - 11:12

Trailer: 01:09 The Hunters Guild President says S-Rank Hunters from DFN (a fictional East Asian Nation), not S-Rank Hunters from Japan and he says their Guild Master's name is Ryuu, not Gotou Ryuji
CR stream: Ep 21 - 19:24

I have to give credit to the anime production team for doing the extra work necessary to satisfy both the readers of the Japanese version of the manha and the readers of the versions that preserved the original names and setting. If you think about it, they had to record every line that included a name in it twice: once with the Japanese name and then again with the Korean name.
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