Solo Leveling

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Alternative Titles

English: Solo Leveling

Synonyms: Na Honjaman Level Up, I Level Up Alone

Japanese: 나 혼자만 레벨업

Information

Type: Manhwa

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Mar 4, 2018 to ?

Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Authors: Chugong (Story), Jang, Sung-rak (Art)

Serialization: Kakao

Statistics

Score: 8.86¹ (scored by 123,463 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #21²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #13

Members: 232,953

Favorites: 23,331

8.86

Ranked #21Popularity #13Members 232,953

ManhwaKakaoChugong (Story), Jang, Sung-rak (Art)

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Synopsis

Ten years ago, "the Gate" appeared and connected the real world with the realm of magic and monsters. To combat these vile beasts, ordinary people received superhuman powers and became known as "Hunters." Twenty-year-old Sung Jin-Woo is one such Hunter, but he is known as the "World's Weakest," owing to his pathetic power compared to even a measly E-Rank. Still, he hunts monsters tirelessly in low-rank Gates to pay for his mother's medical bills.

However, this miserable lifestyle changes when Jin-Woo—believing himself to be the only one left to die in a mission gone terribly wrong—awakens in a hospital three days later to find a mysterious screen floating in front of him. This "Quest Log" demands that Jin-Woo completes an unrealistic and intense training program, or face an appropriate penalty. Initially reluctant to comply because of the quest's rigor, Jin-Woo soon finds that it may just transform him into one of the world's most fearsome Hunters.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Solo Leveling is an adaptation of Chugong's web novel series of the same title. It is originally a webtoon series which has been officially published in book format by D&C Media (디앤씨미디어) since September 26, 2019.

The series has been published digitally in English by Tappytoon since June 4, 2020, and has been licensed for print release by Yen Press.

More characters
Characters

Sung, Jin-Woo

Main

Cha, Hae-In

Supporting

Radiru, Esil

Supporting

Sung, Jin-Ah

Supporting

Sung, Il-Hwan

Supporting

Lee, Ju-Hee

Supporting

Yoo, Jin-Ho

Supporting

Go, Gun-Hee

Supporting

Choi, Jong-In

Supporting

Baek, Yoon-Ho

Supporting

More reviewsReviews

Sep 28, 2019

110 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 6

abystoma2 (All reviews)

903 people found this review helpful

"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.

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Sep 26, 2019

86 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

BTDarklings (All reviews)

692 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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Sep 27, 2019

86 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

we4btr4sh (All reviews)

306 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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Sep 26, 2019

86 of ? chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

Raito (All reviews)

261 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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	Thoughts on earlier chapters? Oremonogatari - Jun 14	9 replies	by FurySlasher »» 6 hours ago
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