Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise From the Shadow- returned with its third episode and delivered some movement in many areas of the plot. In terms of adaptation, the episode was decently faithful, smoothing out a variety of scenes and cutting some expository detail in order to pace things better and move certain scenes along.
This is incredibly important considering what kind of episode this was; compared to Episode 2 of this season, which was almost solely focused on combat and only had a few moments of moving plot points outside of Jinwoo’s successful clearing of the red gate dungeon, this episode oscillated a lot between different elements of Solo Leveling.
In order to fit all of that dynamic movement into a single episode and have a coherent ending and beginning to it, it makes sense that there were some changes. And considering how action-packed and high octane last week’s episode was, it makes sense that the anime would slow things down in some places, adding a lot of dialogue and expository detail.
Overall, this episode was great. I’ve seen some grumblings online about pacing, but I think anyone frustrated with the pace of the anime this early on is mistaking their own personal anticipation for poor pacing on the anime’s part. Solo Leveling does a remarkable job of making you immediately want more to watch, so much so that a week can feel like ages of waiting. That’s just proof the anime is doing its job more than well enough.
A Final Raid with Jinho, Jinwoo’s Father Revealed
It’s good to see more of Jinho doing more than driving Jinwoo around, even if he’s been reduced to an essence stone collector alongside the shadow soldiers. This first section of the episode was good for that reason, but it also provided a subtle index of how powerful Jinwoo’s shadow soldiers are at this point. He and Jinho are clearing C-rank ish dungeons, meaning the shadows he’s acquired are more or less as strong as a normal strike team from a guild.
Considering Igris was around A-rank in strength when they fought and Iron comes from an A-rank hunter, it makes sense that the overall strength would be about here at this point. Following the completion of the 19th and final raid, we get treated to a relatively touching scene between the duo as they toast to their success and declare a new relationship as brothers. This scene was changed from the source material in a few ways, some of which I think actually helped with Jinwoo’s characterization.
For one, they’re drinking beer instead of liquor, for whatever reason. But secondly, originally, Jinwoo asks Jinho directly what he sees their relationship as, leading to the conversation about Jinho’s older brother. In the anime, this conversation comes more or less unprompted, making for a more natural scene of Jinho expressing his comfort and opening up rather than being prodded to do so. In either case, it’s a remarkably human moment for Jinwoo who acted incredibly cold and inhuman just last episode as he orchestrated Kim Chul’s death.
Similarly, there were some changes made to Jinho’s conversation with his father, but these were all changes that vastly streamlined the scene and removed some unnecessary complexity. This exchange was brief but did something important: it established the start of the major guilds’ competition for Jinwoo and his newly discovered strength. One thing it didn’t include was some of the comic’s contextual details about the different guilds and their balance of power, something I hope gets brought up later.
Jinwoo’s (supposed) father, Il-hwan, coming out of a gate and the consequences of that is a set of plot points sprinkled throughout the episode, which I felt lent some air of anticipation to his identity early in the episode. The anime made some choices to cut a lot of the early indications of how strong he was in comparisons to other hunters; in reality he’d cleared out the dungeon that the American hunters were in of all of its monsters solo as well as taking out the entire high ranked strike team without killing them.
I actually liked how his strength was more of a last-minute shock reveal in this case. While I was personally hoping to see more of the fight between Il-hwan and Hwang Dongsoo, seeing the latter beaten to a pulp was its own satisfaction. What was a bit interesting about these sections was how allergic they seemed to mentioning country names. It’s not made immediately clear that the gate Jinwoo’s father popped out of is an American one (only indirectly) and they refer to him as a “foreign hunter” rather than a Korean one. I don’t know if that’s going to be a pattern but it surely will make things weird going forward if it is.
The middle portion of the episode also semi introduces Cha Hae-in, but it’s done in a rather unremarkable way and focuses more on her ass than any particular character points. Her early mentions in the source material are a bit more contextual so hopefully the anime doesn’t just keep dangling her about instead of properly introducing her.
Attack on the Demon Castle
The anime made one of the most significant changes in the series’ plot way back in Season 1: it introduced the recipe for the elixir of life far far far before it was ever brought up in the original source material. This has a strong impact on Jinwoo’s motivations for going to the demon castle and speaks to the urgency with which he wants to do so.
Without knowledge of the elixir, this trip is one he takes just to explore and get stronger. It makes it seem like a self-interested move when he essentially cuts off all contact with the outside world for a week. With knowledge of the elixir, the Solo Leveling anime gave Jinwoo a stronger sense of purpose and it paints the entire arc in a different light. I like this change a lot and appreciate the anime making small deviations that add a bit more to his humanity, even while still showing his heartless and inhuman moments.
As expected, the combat in this episode was well animated, well choreographed, and had some pretty decent CGI used in appropriate places without ever being too much of a scene. What I most feared going into this episode was whether or not Avaricious Vulcan would be animated well, considering it’s a massive enemy that moves uncharacteristically fast to an almost goofy extent. I was happy with how its movements turned out and how that fight looked in general. I’m a sucker for high speed movement scenes in action anime and this episode brought plenty of them. It also did some work to streamline the fight and reduce the amount of inner dialogue we got from Jinwoo. Moments like deciding he’d need Iron’s shield or using his telekinetic powers to evade a strike were shown rather than told, keeping the focus on the action and reducing the downtime between exciting moments.
This was a good episode. Just like with Season 1, I was spoiled this season by getting to see the first two episodes at the same time with no break in between. I wish I could watch Episode 4 already because the fights to come are sure to be some of the most visually spectacular yet. For now though all we can do is anticipate them and enjoy Solo Leveling as it comes.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Solo Leveling Animation Partners
The comments are temporarily unavailable for maintenance.