Solo Leveling Episode 10 - Jinwoo the Finesser

Following a high-octane episode last week, Solo Leveling spent episode 10 doing more exposition, character development, and role setting. In episode 9, Jinwoo finally fought someone who was nearly his match. The episode was exciting primarily because of all of the high speed movement, clashes of blades, and, most particular to me, the frequent use of skills. Skills have of course been used earlier in Solo Leveling, but episode 9 showcased people other than Jinwoo really showing how skills like Stealth can be used to their maximum potential.

While this week’s episode didn’t have a level of action like that, I still found it plenty engaging, especially since a lot happened in-world at a more than satisfying pace. (Spoilers ahead for Solo Leveling episode 10: What Is This, a Picnic?)

A Ragtag Strike Team

The episode begins with a brief scene wherein Joohee tells Jinwoo she’ll be retiring from her job as a Hunter and moving back in with her parents. Compared to what Jinwoo’s been up to since the double dungeon, this is more or less the opposite reaction. Joohee already had relatively strong powers prior to the incident, but was so scarred by it that she is afraid to properly make use of those powers now.

Conversely, Jinwoo was weak going in, but him striving to survive despite that weakness was what led to his secret quest and acquisition of the System. Personally, I find it refreshing whenever semi-main characters in action anime opt to leave the fantasy life behind. In Joohee’s case this is incredibly understandable. I hope the show doesn’t have her randomly get over her timid personality without some more development, because for now I think this is a fine place for her character to go, especially now that Solo Leveling is introducing more upper-rank Hunters.

Following that, we move toward the execution of Jinwoo and Jinho’s plan to complete 20 dungeons by themselves and, I must say…this plan is and always was awful from the standpoint of keeping Jinwoo’s identity a secret. This obviously isn’t an issue for me personally; exposing Jinwoo’s identity pushes the plot forward and forces him to contend with the different forces that will either seek to aid or challenge him. I’m not surprised that they were sniffed out by someone quickly, and I’m actually fairly surprised it didn’t happen faster.

Looking toward the execution of the episode itself here, I felt that the little dungeon-clearing montage was well done. While this of course isn’t some massive dungeon boss fight, the montage tied in several types of enemies that Jinwoo has fought before (giant serpents, goblins) and showed him taking them out with ease, in C-rank dungeons at that. It’s a subtle way of communicating not only how powerful he’s become, but also how his mindset around enemies of this level has changed. He’s a lot more confident going in and we don’t hear any internal misgivings from him.

Guilds Making Moves

The second half of the episode was more entertaining than it was plot dense. By this, I mean there wasn’t a lot happening, but what did happen was enjoyable to watch. Even more, we got the revelation of some additional movement amongst other hunters and guilds. A brief flash to the Jeju Island raid plan foreshadowed a pretty brutal battle, something we’re sure to eventually see the resolution of.

A warning to Jinwoo early in the episode confirmed he’s about to have an S-rank hunter after his head. And catching the attention of a major guild willing to spend hundreds of millions just for his contact info means he’s unlikely to be a secret for long.

In terms of the arc of this series, I do feel hungry for a bit more than what I think I’ll get with one more episode. It’s always hard to end a season of anime at exactly the right time, and I think Solo Leveling is doing a good job of both pacing and balancing action with storyline and character development.

But the downside of this, especially when considering one week of the season was recap, is that I don’t feel like it’s going to be a full anime season’s worth of content. The job-change quest is a good large-sounding milestone to end things on and I’m sure the episode will be great. But we’ve gotten so much great content out of Solo Leveling that I don’t want it to stop. We’ll see how well the final moments close off the season.

If you enjoyed Solo Leveling episode 10 then be sure to vote for it in our weekly poll. The series is streaming on Crunchyroll with new episodes airing on Saturdays. As of January 20th, Crunchyroll is also streaming the English dub of the anime.
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