Solo Leveling: ReAwakening combined the best parts and beats of the first season with an exciting premiere of the first two episodes of the second season. The movie falls into a trend I’ve been observing crop up as of late: theatrical releases of the first few episodes of a season in order to drum up excitement and give fans an opportunity to see some incredible quality anime with the acoustics, sound, experience, and snacks of a theater.
Series like RE: ZERO hosted dedicated screening events in the past, as have Demon Slayer and DAN DA DAN. Within these types of movies is a second subset that incorporates a recap, and that’s the category that Solo Leveling: ReAwakening falls into.
With that in mind, I think an immediate question on many fans’ minds is: is this worth it? The film has roughly a 2 hour runtime. The first 80 or so minutes are made up entirely of a recap of the first season, while the remaining 40 minutes encompasses the two new episodes and the immediate continuation of Sung Jinwoo’s journey to become one of the most powerful Hunters imaginable.
While I’ll go more into detail about the recap section, I will say this. In my opinion, the recap is not so thorough and detailed to be an adequate substitute for watching the first season. This is a good thing for returning fans. In other words, if you haven’t watched any of Solo Leveling, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by skipping the entire season and relying only on the recap. If anything, you’d probably be quite confused. Instead, what the recap does is condense the most exciting and pivotal moments of the first season quite well. It functions more like a highlight reel than a summary and, considering the number of highlights Solo Leveling has, it manages to occupy the entire early section of time.
The beginning of the second season, like the beginning of the first season, is best seen with the first two episodes put together, in my opinion. Both are fantastic, and would definitely be worth seeing in theaters. Season 2 covers some of my personal favorite arcs in the series and starts with Jinwoo contending with the new strength and abilities he acquired toward the tail end of the first season.
Because the narrative needs to show both of these things off, it sets up the first two episodes to be a meticulously crafted exercise in allowing our main character to shatter expectations, both of those within his world and likely of the audience. He’s powerful, more confident, and is in a position to make that mean something. Overall, to answer the earlier question, I think it’s more than worth seeing in theaters.
The Film’s Summary of Season 1
The pacing of the summary section is interesting and deliberate, and I think that’s part of why it came through as well as it did. Hours from the beginning of the season are condensed into just 10 minutes at the beginning; strategically minimal degrees of attention are given to expository sections and instead a lot of focus goes toward sections that are heavy on dialogue from Jinwoo to himself.
This takes advantage of the superb voice acting from Taito Ban and Aleks Le. Both actors did a fantastic job at embodying the self-loathing and desire for strength from Jinwoo early on. Within the full season, this was a continuous effort that bolstered later scenes and added characterization that distinguished between the passive, soft spoken Jinwoo the rest of the world saw and his inner thoughts. Within the scope of a movie, it comes moment after moment and functions as raw characterization for Jinwoo’s mindset as he encounters some of his first major challenges and most difficult battles.
The bulk of the summary section is dedicated toward the later parts of the first season, where there’s less exposition and where the events that are happening on screen tie a lot more directly to the first two episodes of the second season.
As the story progresses, the degree of content that’s cut seemingly decreased more and and more, with any sections surrounding major fights being almost completely included. I felt like the part where this would have felt like a lag was the early half of the season and didn’t mind the degree of detail included here. That rate of inclusion means that the final two episodes are included almost in their entirety, but with how amazing those episodes were, I truly didn’t mind one bit.
The Beginning of Solo Leveling Season 2
Arise from the Shadow begins at the 76 minute mark immediately following the legendary and beautifully animated fights from the end of the first season. It hasn’t been that long since Solo Leveling was airing weekly, but it genuinely felt nice to see those episodes again. It’s probably a particularity of anime that is high in quality, but seeing it multiple times was an excellent experience.
Season two started off quite strong, with the pace slowing down a bit in the beginning but picking up at the second episode. Without spoiling the finer details, the beginning of the season gives Jinwoo the chance to test out some of his necromancer abilities against brand new foes, all while those who are slowly uncovering his identity and true power inch closer and closer to a true understanding.
Animation-wise, the highest moments of the first two episodes felt close in quality to some of the earlier boss fights of the series. It didn’t quite reach the level of the fight against Igris, but there’s an impressive blend of 2D and 3D animation in these episodes that allows large hordes of enemies to face off while still allowing effort to be directed toward some of the more direct one-on-one fights featuring Sung Jinwoo.
As always, Solo Leveling is quite well choreographed, especially when it comes to close combat. This season is already shaping up to be an action heavy and bloody one, and Jinwoo gets some additional characterization as we witness his reaction and contending with that required level of fighting. The combat was scored well, with music that complemented each scene quite well. All of this comes together to deliver a satisfying intensity with enough of a focus on action to keep any shonen fan fully satisfied.
Closing Thoughts
All said, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed the summary section and I definitely enjoyed the opportunity to see the first two episodes of the second season before the official premiere date. Would I have been happy to have a theatrical release more in the style of DAN DA DAN, where three (new) episodes were released together, or in the style of RE: ZERO, where the first episode was a feature length one? Probably. But that doesn’t mean that the alternative is a bad thing.
If I had to hazard a guess, I imagine the intent behind this film is to both give returning fans an opportunity to watch Season 2 and give new fans enough recap to not feel entirely lost going into the season. Personally, I think the summary section is weighted too strongly to the second half of Season 1 for a new fan to truly get enough information, so if that was one of the goals of the film I think it fell short. However, I do think returning viewers will enjoy to see the season’s highlights and will definitely enjoy the next season’s start.
If you haven’t seen any of Solo Leveling and are curious about it, check out the movie but be prepared to be a bit confused on some early context. Maybe watch the first four-ish episodes if you can’t watch the full first season. If you value the experience of seeing an anime in theaters, you’ll definitely enjoy this. But, if you absolutely can’t stand the idea of any recap, it probably isn’t for you.
© Solo Leveling Animation Partners
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