Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise From the Shadow- is here after under a year and I couldn’t be happier at having to wait so little. Solo Leveling had a legendary run following the premiere of its anime back in January of 2024; Season 1 of the anime delivered 12 action-packed episodes and showcased the growth of protagonist Sung Jinwoo from humanity’s weakest Hunter to its only Hunter capable of leveling up, something that slowly put him at the level of higher and higher ranks of Hunters.
Ahead of the official premiere of Season 2, the first two episodes were shown alongside a recap of the first season in a movie titled Solo Leveling -ReAwakening-. If you haven’t checked out any of Season 2 yet, you can check out our spoiler free review of the film before reading onward, as this article contains spoilers for Episodes 1 and 2 of Season 2 (Episodes 13 and 14 overall).
This anime was voted most anticipated anime of Winter 2025 and for good reason; the quality has been consistent since the first moments of Season 1. Season 2 starts of strong and maintains the momentum from the end of Season 1 with episodes packed with plenty of plot, characterization, and eye-catching combat.
An Episode of Aura Farming
While the transition from the incredible action of the job change quest to the Jinwoo parent-teacher conference was a bit jarring in the premiere movie, I felt that the beginning of Episode 13 was a very smooth re-introduction to the series. Oftentimes, anime like this will dedicate a solid chunk of the first episode of a new season to recap.
Given how many fans are likely to have seen the movie and, more relevantly, how little time it’s honestly been since Season 1 ended, I’m glad that Solo Leveling opted for a more tones down recap section that hit the high notes of the first season and communicated some relevant information many are likely to have forgotten about such as the formula for the elixir of life.
Even more, Jinwoo’s business casual transformation was incredible; the fit was good and the reaction he got from other’s was proof of it. Somewhat odd of his sister to try to set him up with a high schooler, but whatever.
I appreciate the sort of protective angle that this section of the story opens up with as well. Recall the early days of Season 1, when Jinwoo was perhaps just as privy toward protecting those close to him and making sure that only he needed to brave dangers, but he just wasn’t nearly as equipped to do so. It makes him sort of like a natural point of comparison for his own self at the same point in the previous season; rather than a weakling though he’s actually someone with recognizable strength and the sort of energy that makes people confident he can actually do some protecting.
Looking over and protecting Han Song-yi is almost like looking over and protecting a version of himself and his little sister at the same time, so it makes sense why he holds so much responsibility within himself for her. Jinwoo, rather than flat out telling her she needs to stop being a Hunter, offers her an opportunity to witness a raid in action and potentially reconsider upon seeing how brutal they can be. This is subtle, but it’s a way of having him respect her agency and opinion while still ultimately trying to get her to stop working as a Hunter, which is a really mature approach.
This scene is also changed up a bit from the comic; some dialogue is cut and it makes it seem much more like his aim is to stop her from becoming a Hunter.
As the episode progresses, Jinwoo and company are thrown into an immediately dire situation, stranded beyond a red gate in a wintery hellscape. Jinwoo wastes no time finding another moment to look like a badass, blocking an arrow from an Ice Elf and earning another tick on his aura spreadsheet. In the earlier stages of this expedition, what stood out to me a lot was the sound design of the episode.
While the quality obviously comes through a lot more strongly in theaters, I felt like the brief skirmishes between the upper ranks of the strike team and the bears, the sounds of arrows whisking through the air, and music were all great complements to one another and really reinforced the “remote wasteland” vibe of the scenes.
The ultimate instance of this without question was Jinwoo summoning his shadow army though. Like with the “Arise” scene back in Season 1, the “Get out here” had some extra sauce on it that really added power to the words. I’ll never get tired of that effect.
The army looks fantastic, especially Igris with his acrobatic movements. The battle between the army and the bears made sparing use of CGI, which I appreciated, though the moments where it came in were still well executed.
The soundtrack was excellent and gave the fight an epic quality without betraying any unearned sense of danger given that Jinwoo could’ve joined the fight and ended things quickly at any time. I appreciate that Jinwoo isn’t naive enough to think he’s much stronger than Igris though if stronger at all.
This entire episode really showcased not only the growth of his strength, but the growth of his reasoning, maturity, and perceptiveness. The opening and ending themes are both fantastic this season, too.
Showdown Against the Ice Elves
Following the opening of Episode 14, we’re treated to a nice confrontation between two S-rank Hunters and a close call on what would’ve been a fight between the most powerful combatants we’ve seen so far. Within just the first two episodes, Solo Leveling is doing a decent job at teasing some characterization for various S-rank Hunters.
Even while not giving them as much explicit exposition and characterization as the webtoon (there would often be entire pages dedicated to one character describing the personality or characteristics of an S-rank Hunter), the anime has done well to communicate the same information. Their aura was also beautifully done, and I really love the way that particular effect looks on screen.
S-ranks aside, Kim Chul was another standout this episode and from the end of the last one in terms of voice acting. While Taito Ban does a fantastic job stealing the show as Jinwoo, I felt like Chikahiro Kobayashi as Kim had some of the strongest portrayals of arrogance, obstinance, fear, and incredulity that I’ve seen in a while. The speed with which he arrives as an excuse for his strike team getting wiped out was incredible, and he’s been a strong presence since he first appeared on screen.
With Kim came more ice elves, and the Boss of the dungeon as well. This was probably my favorite section of the episode if only because of the implications it has toward the story’s overall composition and the lore of the system. We witnessed the first instance of a sort of glitch amongst the magic beasts, learned that Jinwoo isn’t considered human, and learned that inhabitants of dungeons hear a voice commanding them to kill humans.
All of those things are huge revelations on their own but were communicated to the viewer in quick succession. I thought it was clever how Solo Leveling handled the matter of the beasts speaking a different language as well; that distortion effect or reversing the sound is quite common when creating an unknown language effect but it was done well here.
The way the battle was animated did well to communicate the strength of Jinwoo’s army, but the most significant effects were showcasing how much faster and powerful Jinwoo and the ice elves’ commander Baruka / Barca were compared to everyone else.
The fight was relatively faithfully adapted, with the high octane portions of combat vastly enhanced by quality animation and really smooth choreography lifted right from the pages of the webtoon. One thing that I think wasn’t made quite as clear in the anime relative to the manga was exactly how orchestrated Kim Chul’s death was. I think this was actually something of a miss for the anime; this particular death scene says a lot about how Jinwoo has come to regard the lives of those he fights and almost made him seem to have the same sort of mentality as Hwang Dongsoo when it comes to killing.
When Jinwoo initially dashed off against Barca, he intentionally kicked a discarded sword so that it was next to Kim as he woke up. This of course led to Kim attacking, getting killed by Igris, and quickly revived as Iron. The anime did, however, add some extra emphasis to the importance of that instance of killing when Jinwoo was freshening up after the fight, so that makes up for it somewhat. That aside, the combat was excellent and quite satisfying to watch, especially once Iron joined the fray and it turned into an exciting 3-on-1 scramble.
The episode closed off with a nice little bit of humor as Song-yi displayed some clear signs of a new crush (who would go off to fight in an outfit like that?) and manifested a horrible misunderstanding. All in all a pure, hilarious way to end a fantastic episode.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Solo Leveling Animation Partners
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