If you would have told me at the beginning of 2025 that I’d be yapping about Solo Leveling for months, I wouldn’t believe you. My journey to this manwha is kinda wild. I started the year with a goal to read a new-to-me manga series in its entirety, and started One Piece and Haikyuu!! thinking it would be one of them.
My sister encouraged me to read Solo Leveling and I blew it off, as older sisters do. I moderated a panel with One Piece live action actor Steven John Ward in Tampa Bay during the summer, and he gushed about Solo Leveling and how he’d want to be part of it. So, I did what anyone would do when a nice, attractive man with an accent says to try something, and I started the anime. My husband and I flew through it and I turned to the books to get more of the story, then was assigned the Solo Leveling panel at FanX Salt Lake City, which was one of the most fun panels I’ve ever done. Aleks Le, Christopher Sabat, and Christopher Wehkamp are true gems.
I read these books in such quick succession, that I don’t remember exactly what happens in which book. Therefore, I’m reviewing the whole series at once as a whole instead of trying to pick out plot points among the 13 books in the main series. (There are still two books on the way, but they are side stories.) I’ll try to keep this as vague as possible on the spoilers, but please note, there will be some details mentioned.
Solo Leveling [Buy Bookshop Amazon] introduces us to a world where portal-like gates open to dungeons full of magic beasts. If they are not dealt with right away, the beasts can break out and cause destruction in our world. Jinwoo is one of the hunters who goes through those gates, but he’s an E-rank and known as the weakest of all hunters. Not great for his ego, but he’s doing it to pay the bills. His dad disappeared, his mom is in a coma, and his sister wants to go to medical school. Not cheap.
One of those gates is a double dungeon where most of his team is slaughtered. He’s a second away from death, but a pop-up window appears asking him if he’d like to be the player or his heart will stop beating. He opts to be the player, but doesn’t know what he’s playing or who is behind it. Instead, he learns that battles level him up and he gets stronger, which was previously not possible. He goes from being the weakest hunter to the strongest in a very short amount of time. As much as he’s trying to hide it, his appearance changes and tales of his conquests don’t stay quiet for long.
Overall, I would recommend this series. It has a rep for being a smasher, but there are also some sweet moments in there as well. I may have teared up a bit with a certain scene in the hospital with his mom because it hit pretty hard for an oldest child. There is a lot of fighting throughout this series, but don’t let people (cough angry Frieren fans cough IYKYK) tell you there’s no real story to it. There is.
This series is such a wild adventure. At points, it did feel repetitive, but then something would happen and totally blow my mind. The art is beautiful overall, but I didn’t always love the fight scene art since they are blurry and don’t give much detail. I get that it’s meant to show action, but I’d rather it be clear and not make my brain hurt. Keeping track of the plot points was enough for my brain to handle; I didn’t need the art to wear me down too.
As to the ending of the series, I was kinda let down. It involves a trope I don’t particularly love since it’s a bit of a cop out. There are other ways this story could’ve unfolded, but didn’t. I get the purpose of it and why the author did it that way, but also, I wanted something stronger with more meaning.
I’m still looking forward to the next two volumes of side stories because I want to see Jinwoo and Cha Haein try to date as S-ranks or get a buddy comedy with Jinho. They all deserve some fun after the chaos.
Did I mention there are some really funny moments throughout this series? I need the middle fingers to be animated into the series, okayyyyy. It’s too funny to leave out. I wish they didn’t leave out some of the motivations of the Japanese hunters during the Jeju Island raid, but I can see how that situation got watered down.
Okay, I’ll stop my random thoughts now….
If you’re looking for a fun series, check out Solo Leveling and buckle up for one wild ride. I’m interested to check out the light novels as well [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] to get even more insight on what’s going on in Jinwoo’s world, so you just might see some more reviews coming your way.
Ratings:
Literary Hypewoman 
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