Solo Leveling is just an Above Average Story

Solo Leveling is a series that those who have entered the anime community have surely heard of because it is very popular. There were many viewers and manhwa readers waiting with great excitement (hype). When I heard about it a few years ago, I wondered what kind of series it was. In the comments, it was always said “It’s so good, it’s so gripping” and so on. Even though it was a bit stagnant at the beginning, the immersion increased with the Igris fight and the series managed to maintain this for a long time. I read like crazy until a part of the manhwa because as they say, it sucked you in. However, the plot was not complex; it was simple. The author wrote with a very simple logic and got repetitive. The main character realizes his goal in the middle of the series. So, what happens now? He grew stronger, like a wild animal. After that point, the series started to decline for me and became monotonous. After I finished it, I said, “What kind of ending is this?” Since he was already absurdly strong, there was no challenge to push him. We all know well that stories should have an element of conflict. The bad beauties clash, the poor fight with the rich and the fiction progresses in some way. Can you write a story without conflict? There are enemies who will clash with our main character, but we already know that our character will be defeated. We know the end of this movie and it is very boring.

I’ve read and moved on, even though other series have had this happen. I’m partly an author myself, so I pay attention to plots, characters, and conflicts. When Solo Leveling got an adaptation, I watched the first few episodes and let it go. It couldn’t draw me in because it was a cookie-cutter series. You’re supposed to consume it once and throw it away, but I guess people didn’t see it that way. This series had some serious fans. Then one day I saw a review video about this series on YouTube. A channel called Muharrem Sahin who is a Turkish Youtuber harshly criticized the Solo Leveling in eight minutes. When I watched it, I agreed with him in most places. This series was mediocre as a story. There was nothing interesting about it and the only factor that made me read the series was that it was gripping. Taking this into account, I call the series above average and I will explain this.

Why Solo Leveling is Mediocre?

Solo Leveling was completely mediocre as a story. I’m not going to completely bury the series here like Muharrem. He called Solo Leveling the dream of an eight-year-old playing with his toys. An eight-year-old doesn’t know what a plot is, let alone how to write such a plot. The things that a child of that age can imagine are very limited in length, even if they are creative. For me, Solo Leveling is the manifestation of a passionate high schooler’s wet dreams mixed with a bit of talent. I thought of something like Solo Leveling in middle school. I developed this universe even more in high school. Every time I got older, I felt that the story I had created in my head was more mature and deeper. My main character also had an army that served him, and he was both developing and growing this army. I would say the similarities were limited to that because my story was set in a completely different universe and the supportive characters were important.

Where are Supportive Ones?

The last point is essential because how many characters in the Solo Leveling series do you remember the names of? Other than the main character, what do they do in the story? Seriously, what do they do? Do they contribute to the development of the main character? They don’t, and instead of experiencing character development, our guy evolves in the opposite direction and becomes an empty man. There’s nothing interesting about him, he’s not even a typecast character. He’s an overpowered, emotionless, handsome asshole that teenage girls will fall in love with. Saitama is a thousand times more interesting than this guy. Even Denji, who walks around just wanting to grab tits, makes you laugh. What does this guy do? He talks coldly, he talks back and forth, and he gives orders to his soldiers. He says he needs to get stronger and nothing else. The loser version of this guy was better than this idiot version.

If we go back to the other characters, there are those who either admire this guy’s power or those who rant at him. And then there are the monsters inside the system. If monsters aren’t more interesting than most people in the series, I don’t know what is.

Solo Leveling Women Remain in the Stone Age

I think the women of this series live in cave times, or so they think. I think our brilliant author understood “women are hypergamous” from his ass. “Women love the strong ” does not mean that a woman falls for the muscular man she sees. No matter how many empty female characters in the series, they swoon when they see our guy’s muscles. Whenever he speaks coldly, these women surrender their souls on the spot. Where do you live? If he says, “You’re my wives from now on,” they’ll all accept unconditionally. I understand all those women, but that S-class blonde, at least sell yourself a little slow. Are you such a shallow woman? When she saw him working at the construction site, she passed out. In real life, only gossipy women in the village fall for our bearded uncles. I don’t understand what kind of a fantasy world the author lives in. We had a demon girl(I loved this character). Even this demon fell in love with our man.

What is the Goal?

What was the point of the whole series? Our guy wanted to fight those statues, he wanted to heal his mom. After doing these two things, our guy needs motivation. And this time, monarchs appeared. Our guy comes and fights them and gets stronger again. At some point his father shows up, something is going on. Our S-class hunters watch the events like watching a TV series and the story ends. Can those who praise this series tell me what they learned from this series? Can they tell me the names of three characters without looking them up online? You can’t do any of that because you didn’t care. It was an above-average story based on action and fighting with zero depth and zero philosophy, nothing more, nothing less, and never has been. The concept is not original either. There was already a manhwa with the same logic before this one, do some research. The series just exploded when the fights were good and made you read it. If such a series is read or watched fifty years from now, it is our shame as humanity. There are thousands of manhwa series like this. In Korea and Japan, everyone who can pick up a pen has become a writer. When we see a slightly different series, we are happy like children.

Summary

To sum up there are a few good and bad things about this series:

• Good immersion and fluency
• The universe it deals with is intriguing
• Good fights and action

The downsides are

• No character development
• The supporting characters are too weak
• Nothing but action
• There are unnecessary comedy elements inserted between
• The plot is monotonous and simple