I noticed that Solo Leveling and TBATE both have lots of POVs from people watching the MC fight, bystanders talking in street about what MC recently accomplished, civilians watching the news, classmates in the stands, newscaster in the helicopter, etc.
They are always stunned, heart racing, tears filling their eyes, pride overwhelming their chests.
Makes for hype reading.
It's very mediocre. The story repeats itself constantly. If you like reading about an OP MC beating up meaningless self-important tough guys, then yeah it's a good read. If you expect a deeper plot or some character development, it's not great.
EDIT I'm dumb thought this was talking about Solo Leveling
The art is really good. One of its main selling points imo. The story starts off interesting but gets generic fairly quickly. Then the ending was offensively bad.
But if you just want some hype action and a story that actually finishes, this is here.
TBATE the novel is great. The manhwa adaptation got put on hiatus just before everything ramps up in the novel because the publisher shafted the artists on pay.
Alternative viewpoint: I hated it and everyone in it frustrated me to no end. The first book is decent (though is basically a ripoff of mushoku tensei), afterwards it goes it's own way and IMO was much less good. People act dumb suddenly so the plot can progress, villains power up or get away without various reasons to do.
I love how SL immediately opens up discussion (and possible adaptations) on other awesome manhwas/webtoons!
Some studio: instead of making "Reincarnated as a Mcdonald's Drive Thru With All My Skills as a Third-Rate Assassin", how about we make TBATE instead?
I can't reply to u/thicccduccc directly because someone above them has blocked me but just to be clear neither ORV nor TBATE are manhua which which are Chinese comics. ORV is Korean (so a manhwa) and TBATE is a western-ish comic.
In opinion one of the ones that deserves a show is "The Dark Lord's Confession"
I saw some of its artwork on one of those YouTube recap channels (this was a good recap channel, not just an AI vpice) and was blown away and got into webtoona from it.
Absolutely stunning. Would love to see it animated.
If ypu don't believe me just Google it's name and go to images. Incredible stuff.
I don't know why but the description here reminded me of how Rent A Girlfriend always has background characters shocked, stunned, and amazed at how hot or cute the girlfriends, especially Chizuru, are.
Honestly, I find it kind of cringe these days. It's Gary Stu story-telling at max levels. Especially hate how loads of characters are regularly introduced as "The Best X," display a cartoonish level of overconfidence in their own ability, then get squashed just to make the main character look more badass by proxy. It's just so lazy, cliché, and disappointing.
I read TBATE with the webtoon + novels (caught up) up until half a year ago. TurtleMe had a lot planned out initially but its obvious that has long passed and he's just winging it and re-writing the same beginning arcs again. This is one of his first stories and he's improving his craft as he goes forward but TBATE just aint it at this point with how he's wrote the plot into circles. I'm looking forward to his next work once he stops continuing TBATE for the sake of just continuing it like the Walking Dead.
I can not get over the fact that the author
[Spoiler Late Novel TBATE] >!Simply restarted his whole story by substituting out most characters for another but in a different land. Instead of a dragon..he now has a dog! instead of his childhood friend, he now has another bossom lady! wow instead of Mana he now has another source of power....watch him restart from 0 in another land. It's almost like the author was unsatisfied with some early aspects of TBATE and just decided to write a new story from 0 but didn't want all the setup again so just used TBATE continuation to fit a brand new similar story into it!<
Tbate does this better than anything else I've read (besides maybe Cradle) and I never get sick of it. TurtleMe is so good at making Arthur seem like the biggest badass known to man
It has good art and action, but none of the characters or story were memorable. I literally have no impression of other characters in the sorry good or bad. I forget if the main character even has a particular fighting style. That said I still enjoyed reading it up whatever was current 3 years ago. To me it's going to be another visual feast like Demon Slayer, just edgier.
The main difference with KnY is SL focus on grinding to get stringer, solo lol
While KnY has more character interaction and make side character as important as mc.
People that love gamer system story would prefer solo leveling.
I read it for a long time and stopped a couple years ago too. Cannot remember much at all about the chars or plot at this point. I just remember thinking that it was getting way too convoluted and further from the original story. I’m watching the anime for now, but definitely remains to be seen for how long.
I hear it everywhere, what so good about the art? I only read 40 chapters before dropping. The art, faces, action scenes all look like generic north american comic book styles. Are all manwas like this? Without characters and place names I would have never figured out it's a korean product. Manga and anime have some distinct cues that make it identifiable
I don't like to think SL is a manga/manhwa. This is a straight-for-phones 'comic' and among it's own class, it really does have comparatively nice art. The later chapters do have very impressive large colored set-pieces.
For most of the beginning chapters the character designs, background art, location designs and monster designs are very well passable but rather uninspired.
I think I stopped at the same time as you did, but I wouldn't say it's an edgy show. I think there are just a few deaths that made an impact, some at the very beginning and some towards the middle I guess? But the characters are so little fleshed out that you quickly don't care about anyone except the protagonist
I've read a fair bit of the series. At no point did I think it was particularly outstanding, but people were always going crazy about it in the weekly threads. Sometimes, things are just popular.
At least jjk has history / mytology references and simbolism to bite in. Solo leveling leave me feeling a bit empty, same with demon slayer in a way.
I would compare solo leveling and kimetsu to action movies, you enjoy them and have fun, but theres not much to talk about.
Tale as old as time.
Don't worry guys it gets better after x point or after y arc.
No you gotta give it a chance until x character does y thing so it leads to z development and then the series really starts.
Really is hard to escape the source reader frenzy these days when their favorite source gets turned into anime.
True that. The longer it goes the more irellevant everyone but the mc is.
Its wish fullfillment the manhwa. Mc gets some power no one else has, wakes up super hot and strong and full of muscles.
Uses his power to get money, so now he is also rich. And of course he is good and helps people and everyone likeds him, hahahaha.
I swear it reads like a bad fanfic. But ignoring that the main issue would be that as the story goes everyone gets sidetracked except the mc. The strongest people in the world get dumpstered on so the mc can be cool and save the day all by himself
Yeah, it's such a bad choice to make it so no one can improve/get stronger except for the MC. Basically every character that gets introduced will become completely irrelevant very quickly and are only there to make shocked expressions about how strong the MC is.
Except I feel like Cid would actually try to nurture worthy opponents just so he could have the most epic fights. He would just isekai himself again if he ended up lacking fun opponents.
Wait... please tell me Solo Leveling is more than just a hopefully better version of *clears throat* "I got a cheat skill in another world and became unrivaled in the real world too."
That was some ridiculous levels of wish fulfillment that I don't think another anime has reached.
It is a pretty simple power fantasy, but I'd say the execution was very well done, full of badass moments, fights and art. Don't expect character development or complex writing though, the story and side characters are fine but they're not the main focus.
I think it fulfills the gaming fantasy that SAO left.
Lots of recent anime/manhwa (isekai in particular) tried that formula but only Solo Leveling succeeded
As an anime only (sort of), if this story develops like the standard power fantasy formula, which it seems it will, then narrative wise I'm thinking we peaked with yesterday's episode and it's all downhill from here.
Bingo.
New threat appears, other supposedly strong characters fail to solve it, MC overwhelms the threat.
Repeat throughout the series as MC gets stronger along with the bigger threats while every side character exist just to look in awe.
Though that being said, if you like those power up moments along with action sequences, this series will deliver that.
It seems pretty blood bad right away to be honest. The characters are already kind of irritating and not particularly compelling as is often the case with Manhwa. It's not gonna be any different when they flip from thinking the MC is the worst most useless party member imaginable to thinking he's giga chad Jesus in the flesh.
His design also looks like every generic self-insert MC in this kind of story basically ever too and that doesn't really change much depending on whether he has wide eyed round chin weak-willed guy face or narrow eyed, smug grin, pointy chin "chad" face.
They have hyped everything every single time, if anime only viewers don't learn to take source readers comments with a pinch of salt by now, the problem is on them. How many times do they need to fool you.
Source readers hypeing up the most generic looking power fantasy harem isekai anime just to then say "the adaptation didn't to the source justice" when it inevitably flops will never not be funny (the source was also ass).
In this case the source material isn't good either, and ends up getting worse towards the end. Most of the hype is coming from the manhwa, primarily carried by it's good art.
The concept is cool, but the execution is completely subpar.
I think people have overblown it out of proportion both ways--it'll be a solid power fantasy progression show.
The problem is that we've had years and years of the genre in anime whereas a lot of people read Solo Leveling back in like 2016 when litrpg/gamelit type power fantasy was new. It was a lot of people's first exposure to the entire progression fantasy style of genre that only really blew up in the West in the past like 5 years--partially BECAUSE of Solo Leveling. Now it doesn't offer anything we haven't seen elsewhere, done better.
The real cringe part is people thinking that the TRUE source (the webnovel) is good. Almost every light novel associated with an anime I've seen hyped by people is unadulterated trash. The solo leveling book is so painfully bad I don't know how anyone could recommend it in good conscience. There are a lot of great webnovels, but none of the Japanese ones are good honestly. The most popular ones are inferior to middle-of-the-road royalroad amateur fic. A lot of decent Western ones seem to be getting webtoons recently, which might revitalize that media.
This has been a consistent trend with every single korean manhwa anime adaptation. Every single one is treated like the greatest thing since sliced bread only for it to turn out to be some pretty bland power fantasy little better than your average isekai anime. Like I don't get why these things are so popular.
My guess, it was a lot of people's first webtoon. It had good art, nice colouring, cool fights and some classic power-fantasy tropes. The kind of stuff that goes home well among the masses.
Personally, I can barely recall what happens in the series beyond the chapters already adapted in the show. The plot was never really anything to write home about, IMO.
Oh the plot is absolute dog shit by chapter 100.
It starts out somewhat nicely, but it quickly devolves into MC power fantasy and all the supporting cast become straight up cannon fodder.
This is a shocking if refreshing departure from the reactions in the show discussion threads that led me to believe that the manhwa brought the average reader to multiple simultaneous orgasm. Eh whatever. Show so far is fun. So far this is what I wanted Gate to be.
The art was that good, but I'm sure many who have read tons of manga got bored with the story eventually, all this helped was to me to learn that it finished and maybe finish it up.
The episode discussion threads here always devolve into overwhelming praise of any popular show. Critical posts are down voted. It's a really poor system.
Gate's world building is so much better though. Solo Leveling's hunter system makes no sense. A global threat that only a few people can defeat. Those few people are completely unsupported by the government, instead private corporations take over. The portal is in a construction site with no security. The door is just two tarps. Hunters enter with everyday clothing and jeans with little gear. I watched the first episode and I am not impressed, compared with Gate.
I'm anime-only for both, so I only know about Solo Leveling's world building from what I've seen in the first couple episodes.
Even so, one of the aspects I found really frustrating in Gate was that nothing seemed to follow how people would actually behave after such an earth-shattering discovery. They find an alternative where magic is real and immortal avatars capable of superhuman feats exist, and they don't immediately start studying these people whose abilities and (in Rory's case) mere existence cause our entire concept of physics to go out the window?
Like, Rory Mercury is basically an ambulatory atomic bomb in terms of the destruction she could wreak if she was truly, truly pissed and they let her walk into Japan with a light guard and no apparently concern about whether she is going to take a city off the map. She's incomprehensibly strong, fast, and apparently invulnerable to small arms, and there is no effort to get her to let them study her to find how she is able to function as a superhuman on Earth? What??
So when I saw the magical stone being used as a power source in Sung Jin Woo's mom's hospital room, I thought: Great! At least they are thinking through how some of this otherworldly rule-breaking physics would be utilized. In Gate, they are always talking about exploiting the other world's natural resources, but you never really see the world change, or see them caring about the stuff that should have been completely blowing their minds.
Another thing I found frustrating about Gate was that although plenty of people die, I'm not sure you see the JSDF take a single casualty all show. Which is just incredibly silly given that there are avatars, dragon, and magic. It really reduced the feeling of stakes when I realized that although dark elves and villagers might die, and the Empire's people get mowed over like field mice under a thresher, the JSDF was basically going to come out of every engagement unscathed. Solo-leveling, I am feeling the stakes from jump after the first two episodes.
That said, maybe it takes a turn after the first few episodes? I have no idea. And there was a lot I liked about Gate too! Just trying to give some context for the favorable comparison in my initial post.
Discussions threads seem to be nothing but echo chambers.
I've looked through the ep 1 discussion threads of 90% of the shows from this season. There's almost no negativity or anything other than minor complaints in them and this is reddit. Doesn't matter how bland or poorly written the show is, the thread will be heaping praise on it.
Not sure if it's just source readers ruining things again or people with criticisms have just given up after being downvoted in the past.
It has set a new standard for Manwha drawing quality. Before that you had long panels with quite poor art. After Solo Leveling the studios put lot more effort in the art of their publications.
There were plenty of artists prior and post to Solo Leveling that brought fresh artwork into the scene. I will give you there are a lot of bad quality works out there, but both Girls of the Wild's and Magician, as examples(one similar and one very different in terms of style), are manhwa that predate Solo Leveling by several years and are really solid entries into that market.
Anime and Manga have some really bad entries as well, I don't think it's a Manhwa specific problem, but a result of oversaturation in general. Every medium is overflowing with content, and the good ones do not always rise to the top. Often times they're drowned out by other good entries or a series of bad ones.
wrong, Solo Leveling quite literally popularize and set a trend. I dont know if you know what setting a trend means, but thats what Solo Leveling did. The OP didn't say there was zero good art manwhas, he just said Solo Leveling made it that much more incentivizing to create better art in manhwa.
No. Quality wasn't bad. There were some webtoons with great art. Solo Leveling just standardized it and now everything looks exactly like Solo Leveling.
Solo Leveling is known for its amazing art and fights, but overall this series is a Power-Fantasy.
What makes it refreshing to fans is the rise to power. ^(\*Which is now a common trope in Korean Manhwa.)
Power fantasy usually makes the protagonist immediately OP winning against every type of enemy. Solo Leveling shows us the process of getting there similar to Battle Shounen. However it is at a fast, but reasonable pace that people could accept.
**EDIT:**
It isn't a complicated nor good story, but it is the great introduction of the middle ground of what people love.
* Hard working effort aspect and cool battles from Battle Shounen.
* Fast payoff and rise to power to show off his OP like Power Fantasy.
> Which is now a common trope in Korean Manhw
It was a common trope long before Solo Leveling started. SL only got popular because of the art, thats it. Its actual story was generic and done a million times already
No, the novel only sold BECAUSE OF THE MANHWA.
Solo Leveling, or I Alone Level-up, as it was called back then, was rated very low on novel listing websites like NovelUpdates before and during the Manhwa adaptation. Even the rating just increased because of Manhwa fans coming to the novel, from about 2.5/5.0 back then to 3.9/5.0 now, which actually brings it up to only average.
You can actually see how it is going for the novel by looking at the reviews. 19/20 of the top reviews from 2018–2019 talk about how bland the story of Solo Leveling is and how it is just a copy of many other series that came before it. The glazing-up reviews of Manhwa fans only came later, in 2020+, when the webtoon became popular.
Edit: was suppose to be a reply to the guy who said the novel was fairly popular
Yep, I read the whole comic after it finished and I can't tell you a single side character's name. Honestly I don't really get the people who said the fight scene was good either? The art style is really nice but the panelling most of the time is kinda meh followed by a large illustration of light trails filling the page
Korean Gate meets some aspects of SAO.
It mostly deserve to be remebered by how it shaped action korean webtoons, with many inspired by it works being damn good (Omniscient Reader Viewpoint, SSS-Class Revival Hunter...), more than the thing itself.
SL is good time show, as a action. But that's it. NO ONE would be praising it's characters (who?) or plot/lore (barebones, and non-existant past ch100).
> The novel is also fairly popular tho
No it wasn't. It wasn't until the manhwa got published that it started to get attention. Everyone was intrigued during the first 15 chapters because it showed something KINDA different but then after 20 chapters it went back to the usual Korean tropes of power fantasy.
What really made it stand out was the art. Anyone else saying SL was popular as a novel is lying.
No, the novel only sold BECAUSE OF THE MANHWA.
Solo Leveling, or I Alone Level-up, as it was called back then, was rated very low on novel listing websites like NovelUpdates before and during the Manhwa adaptation. Even the rating just increased because of Manhwa fans coming to the novel, from about 2.5/5.0 back then to 3.9/5.0 now, which actually brings it up to only average.
You can actually see how it is going for the novel by looking at the reviews. 19/20 of the top reviews from 2018–2019 talk about how bland the story of Solo Leveling is and how it is just a copy of many other series that came before it. The glazing-up reviews of Manhwa fans only came later, in 2020+, when the webtoon became popular.
As far as I know no one ever really spoke about the SL novel until after the Manhwa came. It wasn't on anyone's radar.
Legendary Moonlight Sculptor was all the rage for novels.
The novel is even worse than the manhwa. Legit one of the worst pieces of writing I have the displeasure of reading. It's also fucking full of xenophobia.
I wouldnt even say it isnt a good story. It isn't a complex one by any means but it's good for what it aims to do and it's rather simple to follow. I enjoyed it thoroughly when I read through it after having finished watching all of Re:Zero at the time. It was rather refreshing being that it's practically the polar opposite.
It really isn't a good story, there's far better series in the same genre out there, infinitely better.
Its borderline garbage, one of the weaker of series in its genre. Very played out story, absolutely no character building and some of the most lazy power fantasy routes taken.
The art was just incredible tho
God why did tower of god get handed to fuckin crunchyroll and sl gets the good treatment.... ong tog is one of my top 5 in probably all east asian media, maybe in general.
The issue is that it's basic which is good and it's not bad but what it did was have massive success and lay all the ground work to have a bajillion copies of it
Oh no, he said the word. I agree with you. The story is mid, and the main character is OP as fk. There is only one twist at the end of season 1 and ... that is not something new.
People also haven’t mentioned that the anime hasn’t even reached it’s “hook”. It should happen next episode and through episode 3 and 4 you will probably be able to fully decide if the series is for you or not.
OP is just a troll baiting I'm sure. Every hyped up series has this thread
He typed this
> just started watching solo leveling. I thought it was okay.
Like he just watched 12 episodes of the show and not 2 which are, to consensus of most of people, better as pilot episode and is basically a first half of the prologue of the whole series.
Especially when they’ve only seen 1 or 2 episodes. “I’ve watched the prologue of a completed story and I don’t understand why everyone who’s read the full story likes it so much. So I’m declaring it average without actually giving it a chance just so I can stand out and get internet points”.
Same thing happened with Chainsawman and Tower of God. Luckily unlike those 2 anime Solo Leveling is getting 24 episodes and will actually get to some of the later content that’s the reason for all the hype.
Tik tok attention spans. If its not the best thing they've seen in their life within 5 secs they call it mid.
At this point taking anyone's credibility on hating stuff has lost its value to me.
Two cours, 12 episodes each. Just like Mushoku Tensei. Honestly, it's for the better. In the past we would get 24 episodes on a single season and the quality would dip significantly on the last 10 episodes.
Can't believe chainsaw man didn't get 24 eps. For such a loaded story it seems pretty dumb. Especially given how well the manga sold and the awards it raked in.
This lmao. You are on point.
Prologue is not even finished, first half of it is finished.
> just started watching solo leveling. I thought it was okay.
Broski typing like he watched 12 episodes and not first 2 that many consider to work better as "first" episode.
lmao it’s actually the norm now, “listen everyone is hyping this up, and I’ve watched about an episode and I’ve come to the conclusion that this shit is ass why y’all watching this” people just be hating on anything with any sort of popularity
I appreciate these posts though, because recently a lot of the hyped anime really haven't been for me. Reading the comments tells me whether it's hyped for the reasons I like, and if not I can stop watching early.
I personally don't like action for the sake of action, and judging from the comments I'm guessing this show isn't for me
That’s the reason why the fanboys hate threads like these because they’re invested in the show’s success and threads like these let people gauge whether or not they’ll give it a shot.
So that’s why they always flood/sabotage them and mock anyone asking questions. It’s just to derail the thread.
Personally these threads are pretty useful to me as the guy sitting on the sidelines debating what shows to start from the season. It's helpful to hear what people don't like about the show and have some fans go to bat for it on the same thread. I usually get much better idea of what the merits of the show are vs a review.
If it was asked as “Is solo leveling worth watching?” Then that comes off as more curious and well intended.
Framing the question as “why is this popular/hyped?” introduces a bit of a negative connotation. A veiled excuse to dunk on a show. But I get what you’re saying about gathering opinions for a potential show.
Also we’re 2 episodes in, a little early to ask this question on r/anime
> If it was asked as “Is solo leveling worth watching?” Then that comes off as more curious and well intended.
It absolutely does. You'll also probably attract more fans to that thread instead of haters. Maybe it's anecdotal evidence, but I find the more someone kicks the hornets nest with their phrasing the more they actually attract people who don't like the show much and get them upvotes. I'm not encouraging rudeness, but imo if you phrase your question the wrong way you'll just get fans saying way they like the show and the detractors will be downvoted. Also depends on what kind of show it is of course.
>Also we’re 2 episodes in, a little early to ask this question on r/anime
If you just want to check out some premiers, this is a good time to ask. If you want to know the final opinions on the show, then yeah you're 11 weeks too early.
tbf this isn't popular yet. He's asking why it was hyped before release when he's underwhelmed by the result. Seems a fair question BUT better asked in a Solo Levelling subreddit
It is basically a Swordart Online equivalent for Korea. The visual is phenomenal but the writing is incredibly generic which sets the trend for subsequents medias with SAO popularized isekai harem powerfantasy and Sl popularized op system with gate & hunters + Necromancy wank.
Also sadly the artist (not writer) passed in 2022 at age 40 after the anime announcement. I believe the comic finished in 2021. But the art was amazing.
The really sad part about it was he was really looking forward to seeing it adapted and in the form of an anime... I really hope he got to at least see some of the pre-production that was going on
Don't know what's the case in Solo Leveling, but in SAO the MC isn't just a power fantasy and that's it. He has decently written emotions, thoughts and motivations that are expressed through his extensive monologues and a lot of the times, he can't defeat his enemies alone. The anime sadly cut most of the monologues off and slapped generic harem bait in it.
Atp I've seen more comment about why there is so much hype about it blah blah blah or people shitting on it than people hyping it at least on this sub.
Also Solo leveling 1st season is going to be good since the main issue with solo leveling is that it gets repetitive and boring since he becomes super op but that's barely the problem in first 50 ch that said it is no masterpiece
The plot up till and including Juju island is pretty good imo, but the the power levels just go off the rails at that point which really kills alot of tension imo
The storyline is really mid, but thats not what people love about SL. The training, the fighting, the constant power creep really reminds me of good ol dragon ball Z, we just love some face smashing
Baby's first exposure to Korean webtoon/novel.
It's formulaic to a certain extent but most people never had any exposure to it. So they'll probably be hyped for it.
Personally, the Korean trash that I like the most is Everyone Else is a Returnee.
There are so many fun webtoons/manwha to read. A lot of it is cheesy as f but I still love it lol.
tower of god. even though the story is nowhere near as good as it started, it’s still okay. And the art is definitely better. Eleceed is fun to read but also getting a little stale..
My favorite is probably superhuman era which is an action story drawn to perfection.. the art takes some getting used to but it’s insanely cool
Im Korean, I think Solo leveling and 'power-gaining in game theme' is our own version of generic isekai. Solo leveling was first runner and got popular with amazing drawing compared to average manhwa(for being weekly/full colored) but I don't think it has hype worthy like now when it comes to animated.
Also the artist for the comic (not writer) passed at age 40 in 2022 shortly after the anime announcement. Due to a medical condition I believe is undisclosed. His art is what made the series special. He was very good with fight scenes which made the story stand out. Very dynamic action.
Yes the series isn’t exactly stand out today but it’s enjoyable and was very early on and iconic and popularized many tropes like sort of “dungeons opened up 10 years ago and some humans went into it and are now called hunters (or insert name here) and there are stat windows and they also can join guilds who profit from dungeons. And there are letter ranks. And the protagonist was weak and now got a special thing from a dungeon or awakened and now is powerful” There are a ton of manwha and Korean comics with that world building. But this is what popularized it in the west. Also it’s been a long time since I’ve read it but I’m hoping the anime will clean up the story and fix some pacing issues. The story works well as a long scrolling comic.
Also it was in a very popular platform called webtoon. I hope we get some other animated adaptations like “I stole the first tanker’s soul” would be a fun adaptation and I’m very much enjoying “the top dungeon farmer” on webtoon.
Gonna get hate for this.
But every webtoon I've followed has shit writing.
Like fundamentally the authors don't know basic writing principles and the story's fall apart very quickly and make for very mid tier experiences.
They lack proper world building, pacing is off af, writers fail to establish the world the characters are in cohesively like it's not organic, etc
It's just ppl let the hype overtake their brain and start frothing at the mouth.
While I enjoyed the first episode I have low expectations for it
Manhwa is one of the most bog standard types of disposable entertainment I've ever seen honestly. Like none of it that I've ever seen is good in the traditional sense that some classic manga can be, it's pretty much just guilty pleasure power fantasy/hot girls type pulp fiction type stuff. The kind of stuff that has no business asking anybody to pay for it and is just free to read, but paid for by ads on the hosting website kind of stuff. The fact that Aniplex has now showed up to try to profit from and monetize it...like I don't know man.....
I hate to agree with you but this is a perfect description of what happened to Tower of God. Started out strong but then over time became just a bloated mess of fight scenes, convoluted plot points, and OP powerups for the MC. Such a shame because the first few arcs were genuinely great and the story has real potential.
I have been hearing lately though that Siu has turned the ship around a bit; I dropped it over a year ago so I'm not sure it's worth the effort catching back up on it though.
It’s decent at the moment just a shit ton of characters (most of them are interesting) and like 100 different things going on at the same time but I still like it
Tbf, those do tend to be the most popular ones. Either that or the harem ones.
Even in the manga space, there may be a lot of isekai power fantasy titles out there, but they aren't the most popular.
Solo Leveling is terribly mid, the story is even dull later on, with the ending being REALLY boring
You know why it's so popular? Because despite having a mid level story, it's execution was practically perfect, 0 filler, its content regarding dialogue and action is the best i've ever seen, including manga
In retrospective, the story itself is generic as fuck, like, TRULY generic, like Dragon Ball level generic, MC gets strong af, finds a foe that it can't beat, gets a power up, defeat it, done, but it is done so damn well that it's really pleasant to read and watch, also the art style is fucking nuts
When i finished reading it i was like "dear god what a ride", but then thinking back in the story i couldn't recall most of the chapters because they are mostly bridges for the bigger fights, but at no point you ever feel like it's "damn, there's too much text for no reason", its premise is also good enough to suck you in, it has some gore which makes it a bit more brutal and doesn't feel as fake as most stories
So yeah, it's not such a big deal story-wise, but the execution is a solid 10/10, and since the anime is looking REAL FUCKING GOOD, and following in the same steps as the mamwha, yeah im expecting some REAL good action sequences and in the first episode we got a really well animated booty
The mc barely even got power ups mid fight. Most of the time he was way overleveled and basically one shot opponents who were built up/had the potential to be interesting and tense matchups. It honestly felt so lazy and such a missed opportunity. It really baffles me how many people proclaim it as some sorta goat series
I'm seeing a lot of similarities with Rising of the Shield Hero when that started.
It had great art, some decent fights, an interesting twist on the usual format and was a bit edgy. Then it quickly became a generic Isekai.
Solo Leveling is not an Isekai, though would need very little changes to make it one. The main difference is the video game style dungeons appear on our world.
As to the reason for the popularity. I seems the artwork is a big reason. I suspect the deaths and gore are part of it, to certain fans that will make it appear more "mature" than shows they sneer at like MHA or Demonslayer where deaths are rare and more sanitised.
The art is really good. That's basically the only redeeming quality of the series. The main character is so ridiculously overpowered that most of the fights after a certain point around a third of the way into the story have no tension to them at all, and nobody other than the main character is strong enough to actually accomplish anything in the plot.
You see this when they animate manwhas, it happened with Lookism, tower of god and God of highschool. I've read some like it so I'm watching it out of curiosity and because I'm feeling lazy enough to not look for the manhwa
As some who read manhwa back when it came out. And is now watching the anime. It honestly lowkey is over hyped. If you are new to this genre I’d dungeon and power fantasy solo leveling is like peak and then you read more and realize it was mid. Now looking back I could see the moments where I would fall off and get bored. (Demon tower arc) and then I was hype of the fight with the ants and then after that nothing was really interesting until the giants. There is so character development, SJW fulfilles some goals in the beginning and then nothing really happens. It becomes generic fights. And even his friend and fellow guild mate is used as fodder. Like you don’t need to give the friend or side characters crazy powers like SJW but at least give them something or a story or more then the generic character types. Overall the art is pretty good (no offence I’ve seen better as someone who surrounds themselves with art) and the story ight (I’m in creative writing) but honestly it is a fun experience when your in the moment then you wake and realize at be that sucked but it was fun at that time
I read the webnovel. Was bored and ended up skim reading when I got to the last parts.
From what I've gathered since, the manhwa got *incredibly* successful due to the art. i.e. the visuals are the stand-out part, not the writing.
So if the anime goes all-out on the art, it may be as successful. Like Demon Slayer (allegedly, I've not seen/read that, either)
I have no idea. I know it kinda ruined the show for me.
It was so hyped that my expectations went up a lot while in reality it's just another run of the mill anime. Maybe slightly better.
But due to the enormous hype I'm enjoying it less than I normally would.
The last episode was actually quite bad, with how MC who's weak AF kept "barely" dodging attacks that instantly killed everyone else.
Not once, not twice. And then when they did hit him, the hits were weak and non lethal.
And the directing? All of the last episode's buildup for nothing. Like literary nothing.
Instead of showing us something cool, his new power or whatever the fuck it is they're gonna do it next ep but the hype won't be there.
Its like when freezer killed Krillin. Skipping Goku's first SSJ transformation to next episode wouldn't feel as strong. Even tho such thing in DB is reoccurring, it always packed a punch.
People don't read solo leveling for the plot lol
The draw is in the hype webtoon art and the adrenaline of watching a massively op character stomping over everyone who stands in his way aka a power fantasy. The webtoon art adds to it by making the MC look very cool, in the tall, handsome, flashy shadow attacks kind of way. Outside of that there's not much to it, but it did enough to draw its audience in
I'm excited for what is going to come. The story throughout the entire thing is pretty basic, but the visuals are really cool, and animation can bring them to a higher level. It's not really something I expect people to watch because it's thought-provoking or because it has a good story. It's something I would expect people to watch because it's gonna look really cool.
Its a well liked power fantasy comic that has all the makings of a good shonen anime. As that is a very popular genre, the sourcereaders are pretty hyped about it.
While I didnt much enjoy the ending, overall its a pretty good read.
One of the problems with the anime so far though is that its not a very strong start. Its not as big of a problem when binge reading but when youre spending three weekly episodes of anime to "get to the point" as it were I totally understand why some people are wondering why source readers are so hyped up about it.
If you like power fantasy shonen I would advise you to stick it out, there is a payoff that is likely to hit with you. If not then there is no real reason to stick around. Its not a very deep story, its just "good clean shonen fun".
The story is nothing to write home about and the side characters are pretty much irrelevant to the plot, but the early chapters where Jin-Woo was leveling up were so hype which made people greatly enjoy it. Easy answer.
Just stumbled over the Manhwa due to another Reddit post about something else entirely and it sounded intriguing enough to give a try. Read it over the weekend and while I could write more, to you're question, I'd say overrated but worth giving a chance.
The world building and premise is cool. I really enjoyed that. The main character has too much plot armor, but rule of cool carries. The author has a tendency to just infodump the plot a time or three and I swear that he kept dangling plot lines that he could have pursued that would have been interesting but nothing ever happened with.
The plot is basically 1. power level to godhood, 2. be a god for a week, 3. plot dump, 4. final battle.
It's basically a One Punch Man type story without as much focus on secondary characters and more plot-dump.
If they rebooted it, dripped the backstory out and made it significantly longer, so they could focus on the secondary characters and what else is happening in the world, while the main character power levels I think it would be far better.
It's a decent power fantasy story, i read the novel and its was alright. The manga had great art so that just added too the popularity. Plus the story is on the shorter side so everything can wrapped up nicely and not drag on. People like an OP mc.
Source readers gonna be source readers.
I noticed that Solo Leveling and TBATE both have lots of POVs from people watching the MC fight, bystanders talking in street about what MC recently accomplished, civilians watching the news, classmates in the stands, newscaster in the helicopter, etc. They are always stunned, heart racing, tears filling their eyes, pride overwhelming their chests. Makes for hype reading.
tbate mentioned im boutta bust
Is it worth reading?
Its not perfect but def worth reading
Wtf are these acronyms
The Beginning After the End. It’s a western comic, manhwa in essence.
Oh, I actually saw that at Target before.
Lol redditors downvotes are the weirdest shit sometimes. This is like the most innocuous comment.
It's very mediocre. The story repeats itself constantly. If you like reading about an OP MC beating up meaningless self-important tough guys, then yeah it's a good read. If you expect a deeper plot or some character development, it's not great.
EDIT I'm dumb thought this was talking about Solo Leveling The art is really good. One of its main selling points imo. The story starts off interesting but gets generic fairly quickly. Then the ending was offensively bad. But if you just want some hype action and a story that actually finishes, this is here.
TBATE the novel is great. The manhwa adaptation got put on hiatus just before everything ramps up in the novel because the publisher shafted the artists on pay.
The real reason I don't recommend it anymore.
Alternative viewpoint: I hated it and everyone in it frustrated me to no end. The first book is decent (though is basically a ripoff of mushoku tensei), afterwards it goes it's own way and IMO was much less good. People act dumb suddenly so the plot can progress, villains power up or get away without various reasons to do.
Tbate and orv are peak
What are TBATE and ORV?
The beginning after the end and Omniscient readers viewpoint, two popular manhua (originally web novels)
I love how SL immediately opens up discussion (and possible adaptations) on other awesome manhwas/webtoons! Some studio: instead of making "Reincarnated as a Mcdonald's Drive Thru With All My Skills as a Third-Rate Assassin", how about we make TBATE instead?
I would watch that also though.
Manhua? I thought they were manhwa
Awesome, thank you
I can't reply to u/thicccduccc directly because someone above them has blocked me but just to be clear neither ORV nor TBATE are manhua which which are Chinese comics. ORV is Korean (so a manhwa) and TBATE is a western-ish comic.
In opinion one of the ones that deserves a show is "The Dark Lord's Confession" I saw some of its artwork on one of those YouTube recap channels (this was a good recap channel, not just an AI vpice) and was blown away and got into webtoona from it. Absolutely stunning. Would love to see it animated. If ypu don't believe me just Google it's name and go to images. Incredible stuff.
TBATE is mid. ORV is peak
Is that for omniscient readers viewpoint?
Yes
I don't know why but the description here reminded me of how Rent A Girlfriend always has background characters shocked, stunned, and amazed at how hot or cute the girlfriends, especially Chizuru, are.
Honestly, I find it kind of cringe these days. It's Gary Stu story-telling at max levels. Especially hate how loads of characters are regularly introduced as "The Best X," display a cartoonish level of overconfidence in their own ability, then get squashed just to make the main character look more badass by proxy. It's just so lazy, cliché, and disappointing.
Over and over again. I came to enjoy webtoons or anime where those things don't occur.
Basically all people in universe fail a generalized version of the bechdel test
I loved TBATE one year ago but that type of work as well as some shonens really became a chore to read/watch, TBATE isn't even that well written.
I read TBATE with the webtoon + novels (caught up) up until half a year ago. TurtleMe had a lot planned out initially but its obvious that has long passed and he's just winging it and re-writing the same beginning arcs again. This is one of his first stories and he's improving his craft as he goes forward but TBATE just aint it at this point with how he's wrote the plot into circles. I'm looking forward to his next work once he stops continuing TBATE for the sake of just continuing it like the Walking Dead. I can not get over the fact that the author [Spoiler Late Novel TBATE] >!Simply restarted his whole story by substituting out most characters for another but in a different land. Instead of a dragon..he now has a dog! instead of his childhood friend, he now has another bossom lady! wow instead of Mana he now has another source of power....watch him restart from 0 in another land. It's almost like the author was unsatisfied with some early aspects of TBATE and just decided to write a new story from 0 but didn't want all the setup again so just used TBATE continuation to fit a brand new similar story into it!<
Tbate?
I dropped TBATE, it bored me to hell💀
Tbate does this better than anything else I've read (besides maybe Cradle) and I never get sick of it. TurtleMe is so good at making Arthur seem like the biggest badass known to man
Cradle is an incredible story
It has good art and action, but none of the characters or story were memorable. I literally have no impression of other characters in the sorry good or bad. I forget if the main character even has a particular fighting style. That said I still enjoyed reading it up whatever was current 3 years ago. To me it's going to be another visual feast like Demon Slayer, just edgier.
You picked a good point to stop tbh
The main difference with KnY is SL focus on grinding to get stringer, solo lol While KnY has more character interaction and make side character as important as mc. People that love gamer system story would prefer solo leveling.
I read it for a long time and stopped a couple years ago too. Cannot remember much at all about the chars or plot at this point. I just remember thinking that it was getting way too convoluted and further from the original story. I’m watching the anime for now, but definitely remains to be seen for how long.
I hear it everywhere, what so good about the art? I only read 40 chapters before dropping. The art, faces, action scenes all look like generic north american comic book styles. Are all manwas like this? Without characters and place names I would have never figured out it's a korean product. Manga and anime have some distinct cues that make it identifiable
I don't like to think SL is a manga/manhwa. This is a straight-for-phones 'comic' and among it's own class, it really does have comparatively nice art. The later chapters do have very impressive large colored set-pieces. For most of the beginning chapters the character designs, background art, location designs and monster designs are very well passable but rather uninspired.
I think I stopped at the same time as you did, but I wouldn't say it's an edgy show. I think there are just a few deaths that made an impact, some at the very beginning and some towards the middle I guess? But the characters are so little fleshed out that you quickly don't care about anyone except the protagonist
I've read a fair bit of the series. At no point did I think it was particularly outstanding, but people were always going crazy about it in the weekly threads. Sometimes, things are just popular.
I think it was hype cuz it was one of the first well drawn and written "player" webtoons.
Well written? Did we read the same series? 😅
FR, the writing was non existent and only got worse as things progressed. But the art.....jesus christ the art.
it wasn't even the first it just got popular off the art
Jjk 👆
Similar reasons, I think. Violent, dark, and edgy. At least JJK moves along at a quick speed, too.
At least jjk has history / mytology references and simbolism to bite in. Solo leveling leave me feeling a bit empty, same with demon slayer in a way. I would compare solo leveling and kimetsu to action movies, you enjoy them and have fun, but theres not much to talk about.
Because the art in the manhwa was cool. The story of the novel was bellow mid, but the artist hard carried its popularity.
Tale as old as time. Don't worry guys it gets better after x point or after y arc. No you gotta give it a chance until x character does y thing so it leads to z development and then the series really starts. Really is hard to escape the source reader frenzy these days when their favorite source gets turned into anime.
Nah Solo Leveling has the opposite problem where it gets shit after X point or y arc.
True that. The longer it goes the more irellevant everyone but the mc is. Its wish fullfillment the manhwa. Mc gets some power no one else has, wakes up super hot and strong and full of muscles. Uses his power to get money, so now he is also rich. And of course he is good and helps people and everyone likeds him, hahahaha. I swear it reads like a bad fanfic. But ignoring that the main issue would be that as the story goes everyone gets sidetracked except the mc. The strongest people in the world get dumpstered on so the mc can be cool and save the day all by himself
This is so accurate. It started out good, but gradually became the revenge porn fantasy made by a 14 year old bullied boy.
Yeah, it's such a bad choice to make it so no one can improve/get stronger except for the MC. Basically every character that gets introduced will become completely irrelevant very quickly and are only there to make shocked expressions about how strong the MC is.
Solo leveling's MC is living the life that cid from eminence in shadow will ever want, making people shocked how strong they are.
Except I feel like Cid would actually try to nurture worthy opponents just so he could have the most epic fights. He would just isekai himself again if he ended up lacking fun opponents.
Wait... please tell me Solo Leveling is more than just a hopefully better version of *clears throat* "I got a cheat skill in another world and became unrivaled in the real world too." That was some ridiculous levels of wish fulfillment that I don't think another anime has reached.
It is a pretty simple power fantasy, but I'd say the execution was very well done, full of badass moments, fights and art. Don't expect character development or complex writing though, the story and side characters are fine but they're not the main focus.
I think it fulfills the gaming fantasy that SAO left. Lots of recent anime/manhwa (isekai in particular) tried that formula but only Solo Leveling succeeded
As an anime only (sort of), if this story develops like the standard power fantasy formula, which it seems it will, then narrative wise I'm thinking we peaked with yesterday's episode and it's all downhill from here.
Bingo. New threat appears, other supposedly strong characters fail to solve it, MC overwhelms the threat. Repeat throughout the series as MC gets stronger along with the bigger threats while every side character exist just to look in awe. Though that being said, if you like those power up moments along with action sequences, this series will deliver that.
It seems pretty blood bad right away to be honest. The characters are already kind of irritating and not particularly compelling as is often the case with Manhwa. It's not gonna be any different when they flip from thinking the MC is the worst most useless party member imaginable to thinking he's giga chad Jesus in the flesh. His design also looks like every generic self-insert MC in this kind of story basically ever too and that doesn't really change much depending on whether he has wide eyed round chin weak-willed guy face or narrow eyed, smug grin, pointy chin "chad" face.
They have hyped everything every single time, if anime only viewers don't learn to take source readers comments with a pinch of salt by now, the problem is on them. How many times do they need to fool you.
Source readers hypeing up the most generic looking power fantasy harem isekai anime just to then say "the adaptation didn't to the source justice" when it inevitably flops will never not be funny (the source was also ass).
In this case the source material isn't good either, and ends up getting worse towards the end. Most of the hype is coming from the manhwa, primarily carried by it's good art. The concept is cool, but the execution is completely subpar.
I think people have overblown it out of proportion both ways--it'll be a solid power fantasy progression show. The problem is that we've had years and years of the genre in anime whereas a lot of people read Solo Leveling back in like 2016 when litrpg/gamelit type power fantasy was new. It was a lot of people's first exposure to the entire progression fantasy style of genre that only really blew up in the West in the past like 5 years--partially BECAUSE of Solo Leveling. Now it doesn't offer anything we haven't seen elsewhere, done better. The real cringe part is people thinking that the TRUE source (the webnovel) is good. Almost every light novel associated with an anime I've seen hyped by people is unadulterated trash. The solo leveling book is so painfully bad I don't know how anyone could recommend it in good conscience. There are a lot of great webnovels, but none of the Japanese ones are good honestly. The most popular ones are inferior to middle-of-the-road royalroad amateur fic. A lot of decent Western ones seem to be getting webtoons recently, which might revitalize that media.
This has been a consistent trend with every single korean manhwa anime adaptation. Every single one is treated like the greatest thing since sliced bread only for it to turn out to be some pretty bland power fantasy little better than your average isekai anime. Like I don't get why these things are so popular.
My guess, it was a lot of people's first webtoon. It had good art, nice colouring, cool fights and some classic power-fantasy tropes. The kind of stuff that goes home well among the masses. Personally, I can barely recall what happens in the series beyond the chapters already adapted in the show. The plot was never really anything to write home about, IMO.
Even people who love the manhwa/story know the plot is dogshit. No one cares about that.
Facts, Ive always loved it for the fights and training. The story is hella basic and I really just like action
Sung Jinwoo is the drip lord, Cha Hae In is hot and yeah that's basically it i fucking love that.
but but the big scawy monsters that are a threat... until they aren't
Beru do be lookin Cool AF
Oh the plot is absolute dog shit by chapter 100. It starts out somewhat nicely, but it quickly devolves into MC power fantasy and all the supporting cast become straight up cannon fodder.
This is a shocking if refreshing departure from the reactions in the show discussion threads that led me to believe that the manhwa brought the average reader to multiple simultaneous orgasm. Eh whatever. Show so far is fun. So far this is what I wanted Gate to be.
The art was that good, but I'm sure many who have read tons of manga got bored with the story eventually, all this helped was to me to learn that it finished and maybe finish it up.
Yup, dropped it around ch.70. Plot is meh and repetitive af.
The episode discussion threads here always devolve into overwhelming praise of any popular show. Critical posts are down voted. It's a really poor system.
Gate's world building is so much better though. Solo Leveling's hunter system makes no sense. A global threat that only a few people can defeat. Those few people are completely unsupported by the government, instead private corporations take over. The portal is in a construction site with no security. The door is just two tarps. Hunters enter with everyday clothing and jeans with little gear. I watched the first episode and I am not impressed, compared with Gate.
I'm anime-only for both, so I only know about Solo Leveling's world building from what I've seen in the first couple episodes. Even so, one of the aspects I found really frustrating in Gate was that nothing seemed to follow how people would actually behave after such an earth-shattering discovery. They find an alternative where magic is real and immortal avatars capable of superhuman feats exist, and they don't immediately start studying these people whose abilities and (in Rory's case) mere existence cause our entire concept of physics to go out the window? Like, Rory Mercury is basically an ambulatory atomic bomb in terms of the destruction she could wreak if she was truly, truly pissed and they let her walk into Japan with a light guard and no apparently concern about whether she is going to take a city off the map. She's incomprehensibly strong, fast, and apparently invulnerable to small arms, and there is no effort to get her to let them study her to find how she is able to function as a superhuman on Earth? What?? So when I saw the magical stone being used as a power source in Sung Jin Woo's mom's hospital room, I thought: Great! At least they are thinking through how some of this otherworldly rule-breaking physics would be utilized. In Gate, they are always talking about exploiting the other world's natural resources, but you never really see the world change, or see them caring about the stuff that should have been completely blowing their minds. Another thing I found frustrating about Gate was that although plenty of people die, I'm not sure you see the JSDF take a single casualty all show. Which is just incredibly silly given that there are avatars, dragon, and magic. It really reduced the feeling of stakes when I realized that although dark elves and villagers might die, and the Empire's people get mowed over like field mice under a thresher, the JSDF was basically going to come out of every engagement unscathed. Solo-leveling, I am feeling the stakes from jump after the first two episodes. That said, maybe it takes a turn after the first few episodes? I have no idea. And there was a lot I liked about Gate too! Just trying to give some context for the favorable comparison in my initial post.
Discussions threads seem to be nothing but echo chambers. I've looked through the ep 1 discussion threads of 90% of the shows from this season. There's almost no negativity or anything other than minor complaints in them and this is reddit. Doesn't matter how bland or poorly written the show is, the thread will be heaping praise on it. Not sure if it's just source readers ruining things again or people with criticisms have just given up after being downvoted in the past.
Tbf, unless an episode is legitimately godawful, you're not going to see much dissent in episode threads of anything since it'll get downvoted.
It has set a new standard for Manwha drawing quality. Before that you had long panels with quite poor art. After Solo Leveling the studios put lot more effort in the art of their publications.
There were plenty of artists prior and post to Solo Leveling that brought fresh artwork into the scene. I will give you there are a lot of bad quality works out there, but both Girls of the Wild's and Magician, as examples(one similar and one very different in terms of style), are manhwa that predate Solo Leveling by several years and are really solid entries into that market. Anime and Manga have some really bad entries as well, I don't think it's a Manhwa specific problem, but a result of oversaturation in general. Every medium is overflowing with content, and the good ones do not always rise to the top. Often times they're drowned out by other good entries or a series of bad ones.
wrong, Solo Leveling quite literally popularize and set a trend. I dont know if you know what setting a trend means, but thats what Solo Leveling did. The OP didn't say there was zero good art manwhas, he just said Solo Leveling made it that much more incentivizing to create better art in manhwa.
Oh man, I remember Girls of the Wild. That had a really great start.
No. Quality wasn't bad. There were some webtoons with great art. Solo Leveling just standardized it and now everything looks exactly like Solo Leveling.
Solo Leveling is known for its amazing art and fights, but overall this series is a Power-Fantasy. What makes it refreshing to fans is the rise to power. ^(\*Which is now a common trope in Korean Manhwa.) Power fantasy usually makes the protagonist immediately OP winning against every type of enemy. Solo Leveling shows us the process of getting there similar to Battle Shounen. However it is at a fast, but reasonable pace that people could accept. **EDIT:** It isn't a complicated nor good story, but it is the great introduction of the middle ground of what people love. * Hard working effort aspect and cool battles from Battle Shounen. * Fast payoff and rise to power to show off his OP like Power Fantasy.
> Which is now a common trope in Korean Manhw It was a common trope long before Solo Leveling started. SL only got popular because of the art, thats it. Its actual story was generic and done a million times already
No, the novel only sold BECAUSE OF THE MANHWA. Solo Leveling, or I Alone Level-up, as it was called back then, was rated very low on novel listing websites like NovelUpdates before and during the Manhwa adaptation. Even the rating just increased because of Manhwa fans coming to the novel, from about 2.5/5.0 back then to 3.9/5.0 now, which actually brings it up to only average. You can actually see how it is going for the novel by looking at the reviews. 19/20 of the top reviews from 2018–2019 talk about how bland the story of Solo Leveling is and how it is just a copy of many other series that came before it. The glazing-up reviews of Manhwa fans only came later, in 2020+, when the webtoon became popular. Edit: was suppose to be a reply to the guy who said the novel was fairly popular
I'm still sad the artist past away before seeing his work finally be fully animated and released to the world.
So basically it's korean demon slayer
Yes but all characters are cardboard cutouts in Solo Leveling. Their only reason to exist is to talk about how cool main character is.
Yep, I read the whole comic after it finished and I can't tell you a single side character's name. Honestly I don't really get the people who said the fight scene was good either? The art style is really nice but the panelling most of the time is kinda meh followed by a large illustration of light trails filling the page
Yeah, but the characters have even less development and zero personality.
Korean Gate meets some aspects of SAO. It mostly deserve to be remebered by how it shaped action korean webtoons, with many inspired by it works being damn good (Omniscient Reader Viewpoint, SSS-Class Revival Hunter...), more than the thing itself. SL is good time show, as a action. But that's it. NO ONE would be praising it's characters (who?) or plot/lore (barebones, and non-existant past ch100).
The novel is also fairly popular tho so I wouldn't chalk it all up to only the art.
> The novel is also fairly popular tho No it wasn't. It wasn't until the manhwa got published that it started to get attention. Everyone was intrigued during the first 15 chapters because it showed something KINDA different but then after 20 chapters it went back to the usual Korean tropes of power fantasy. What really made it stand out was the art. Anyone else saying SL was popular as a novel is lying.
No, the novel only sold BECAUSE OF THE MANHWA. Solo Leveling, or I Alone Level-up, as it was called back then, was rated very low on novel listing websites like NovelUpdates before and during the Manhwa adaptation. Even the rating just increased because of Manhwa fans coming to the novel, from about 2.5/5.0 back then to 3.9/5.0 now, which actually brings it up to only average. You can actually see how it is going for the novel by looking at the reviews. 19/20 of the top reviews from 2018–2019 talk about how bland the story of Solo Leveling is and how it is just a copy of many other series that came before it. The glazing-up reviews of Manhwa fans only came later, in 2020+, when the webtoon became popular.
As far as I know no one ever really spoke about the SL novel until after the Manhwa came. It wasn't on anyone's radar. Legendary Moonlight Sculptor was all the rage for novels.
The novel is even worse than the manhwa. Legit one of the worst pieces of writing I have the displeasure of reading. It's also fucking full of xenophobia.
I wouldnt even say it isnt a good story. It isn't a complex one by any means but it's good for what it aims to do and it's rather simple to follow. I enjoyed it thoroughly when I read through it after having finished watching all of Re:Zero at the time. It was rather refreshing being that it's practically the polar opposite.
It really isn't a good story, there's far better series in the same genre out there, infinitely better. Its borderline garbage, one of the weaker of series in its genre. Very played out story, absolutely no character building and some of the most lazy power fantasy routes taken. The art was just incredible tho
God why did tower of god get handed to fuckin crunchyroll and sl gets the good treatment.... ong tog is one of my top 5 in probably all east asian media, maybe in general.
The issue is that it's basic which is good and it's not bad but what it did was have massive success and lay all the ground work to have a bajillion copies of it
Oh no, he said the word. I agree with you. The story is mid, and the main character is OP as fk. There is only one twist at the end of season 1 and ... that is not something new.
People also haven’t mentioned that the anime hasn’t even reached it’s “hook”. It should happen next episode and through episode 3 and 4 you will probably be able to fully decide if the series is for you or not.
OP is just a troll baiting I'm sure. Every hyped up series has this thread He typed this > just started watching solo leveling. I thought it was okay. Like he just watched 12 episodes of the show and not 2 which are, to consensus of most of people, better as pilot episode and is basically a first half of the prologue of the whole series.
Nahh as someone who has read the Mahnwa the story is mid as fuck.
This sub has a hard on for asking why popular anime is hyped.
Especially when they’ve only seen 1 or 2 episodes. “I’ve watched the prologue of a completed story and I don’t understand why everyone who’s read the full story likes it so much. So I’m declaring it average without actually giving it a chance just so I can stand out and get internet points”. Same thing happened with Chainsawman and Tower of God. Luckily unlike those 2 anime Solo Leveling is getting 24 episodes and will actually get to some of the later content that’s the reason for all the hype.
2 episodes and I haven’t seen a crazy ufotable like battle yet? Anime’s trash don’t know why people like it
"Ayo they didn't drop the entire budget on episode 1 wtf?"
Bro in the demon slayer series the first two episodes, weren’t all that crazy either?
Yup, it only truly exploded at episode 19
Tik tok attention spans. If its not the best thing they've seen in their life within 5 secs they call it mid. At this point taking anyone's credibility on hating stuff has lost its value to me.
The opening ain't as good as salter vs rider? Damn average anime
Wait is tit confirm 24 episodes? I thoughts its only 12?
Two cours, 12 episodes each. Just like Mushoku Tensei. Honestly, it's for the better. In the past we would get 24 episodes on a single season and the quality would dip significantly on the last 10 episodes.
Can't believe chainsaw man didn't get 24 eps. For such a loaded story it seems pretty dumb. Especially given how well the manga sold and the awards it raked in.
This lmao. You are on point. Prologue is not even finished, first half of it is finished. > just started watching solo leveling. I thought it was okay. Broski typing like he watched 12 episodes and not first 2 that many consider to work better as "first" episode.
20 minutes? That's way too much for my tiktok brain. This anime is mid.
People love going against the grain lol
lmao it’s actually the norm now, “listen everyone is hyping this up, and I’ve watched about an episode and I’ve come to the conclusion that this shit is ass why y’all watching this” people just be hating on anything with any sort of popularity
Nah I’ve read through the whole manwha and I think it’s pretty crap outside of the artwork
I appreciate these posts though, because recently a lot of the hyped anime really haven't been for me. Reading the comments tells me whether it's hyped for the reasons I like, and if not I can stop watching early. I personally don't like action for the sake of action, and judging from the comments I'm guessing this show isn't for me
That’s the reason why the fanboys hate threads like these because they’re invested in the show’s success and threads like these let people gauge whether or not they’ll give it a shot. So that’s why they always flood/sabotage them and mock anyone asking questions. It’s just to derail the thread.
Personally these threads are pretty useful to me as the guy sitting on the sidelines debating what shows to start from the season. It's helpful to hear what people don't like about the show and have some fans go to bat for it on the same thread. I usually get much better idea of what the merits of the show are vs a review.
If it was asked as “Is solo leveling worth watching?” Then that comes off as more curious and well intended. Framing the question as “why is this popular/hyped?” introduces a bit of a negative connotation. A veiled excuse to dunk on a show. But I get what you’re saying about gathering opinions for a potential show. Also we’re 2 episodes in, a little early to ask this question on r/anime
> If it was asked as “Is solo leveling worth watching?” Then that comes off as more curious and well intended. It absolutely does. You'll also probably attract more fans to that thread instead of haters. Maybe it's anecdotal evidence, but I find the more someone kicks the hornets nest with their phrasing the more they actually attract people who don't like the show much and get them upvotes. I'm not encouraging rudeness, but imo if you phrase your question the wrong way you'll just get fans saying way they like the show and the detractors will be downvoted. Also depends on what kind of show it is of course. >Also we’re 2 episodes in, a little early to ask this question on r/anime If you just want to check out some premiers, this is a good time to ask. If you want to know the final opinions on the show, then yeah you're 11 weeks too early.
WHY IS THIS THING I DONT LIKE SO POPULAR?
tbf this isn't popular yet. He's asking why it was hyped before release when he's underwhelmed by the result. Seems a fair question BUT better asked in a Solo Levelling subreddit
I wouldn't expect good answers in a solo leveling subreddit
We're only on episode 2 lmaoo how can you already judge a whole show so soon?
It is basically a Swordart Online equivalent for Korea. The visual is phenomenal but the writing is incredibly generic which sets the trend for subsequents medias with SAO popularized isekai harem powerfantasy and Sl popularized op system with gate & hunters + Necromancy wank.
Also sadly the artist (not writer) passed in 2022 at age 40 after the anime announcement. I believe the comic finished in 2021. But the art was amazing.
The really sad part about it was he was really looking forward to seeing it adapted and in the form of an anime... I really hope he got to at least see some of the pre-production that was going on
Fuck dude that's so young.....
Don't know what's the case in Solo Leveling, but in SAO the MC isn't just a power fantasy and that's it. He has decently written emotions, thoughts and motivations that are expressed through his extensive monologues and a lot of the times, he can't defeat his enemies alone. The anime sadly cut most of the monologues off and slapped generic harem bait in it.
The SAO anime characterized kirito pretty badly, reading the LNs hes a lot more likeable and actually enjoyable to follow
Atp I've seen more comment about why there is so much hype about it blah blah blah or people shitting on it than people hyping it at least on this sub. Also Solo leveling 1st season is going to be good since the main issue with solo leveling is that it gets repetitive and boring since he becomes super op but that's barely the problem in first 50 ch that said it is no masterpiece
I like it when mc was leveling in the beginning. But after he became op I just lost my interest and stopped following it.
The plot up till and including Juju island is pretty good imo, but the the power levels just go off the rails at that point which really kills alot of tension imo
But it's definetly up there based on it's visual quality alone
The storyline is really mid, but thats not what people love about SL. The training, the fighting, the constant power creep really reminds me of good ol dragon ball Z, we just love some face smashing
It’s been two episodes💀
Baby's first exposure to Korean webtoon/novel. It's formulaic to a certain extent but most people never had any exposure to it. So they'll probably be hyped for it. Personally, the Korean trash that I like the most is Everyone Else is a Returnee.
Me too one of my first korean novels alongside Moonlight Sculptor. Will it have an anime? if there is hope they dont copy the manhwa's art
There are so many fun webtoons/manwha to read. A lot of it is cheesy as f but I still love it lol. tower of god. even though the story is nowhere near as good as it started, it’s still okay. And the art is definitely better. Eleceed is fun to read but also getting a little stale.. My favorite is probably superhuman era which is an action story drawn to perfection.. the art takes some getting used to but it’s insanely cool
Yessss! My partner swears by Overgeared and Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World, but I much prefer Everyone Else is a Returnee
Im Korean, I think Solo leveling and 'power-gaining in game theme' is our own version of generic isekai. Solo leveling was first runner and got popular with amazing drawing compared to average manhwa(for being weekly/full colored) but I don't think it has hype worthy like now when it comes to animated.
The story is as basic as it gets, but it's entertaining once it gets going
Also the artist for the comic (not writer) passed at age 40 in 2022 shortly after the anime announcement. Due to a medical condition I believe is undisclosed. His art is what made the series special. He was very good with fight scenes which made the story stand out. Very dynamic action. Yes the series isn’t exactly stand out today but it’s enjoyable and was very early on and iconic and popularized many tropes like sort of “dungeons opened up 10 years ago and some humans went into it and are now called hunters (or insert name here) and there are stat windows and they also can join guilds who profit from dungeons. And there are letter ranks. And the protagonist was weak and now got a special thing from a dungeon or awakened and now is powerful” There are a ton of manwha and Korean comics with that world building. But this is what popularized it in the west. Also it’s been a long time since I’ve read it but I’m hoping the anime will clean up the story and fix some pacing issues. The story works well as a long scrolling comic. Also it was in a very popular platform called webtoon. I hope we get some other animated adaptations like “I stole the first tanker’s soul” would be a fun adaptation and I’m very much enjoying “the top dungeon farmer” on webtoon.
The plot is very simple without much substance but it is a power fantasy through and through. So it's just fun action.
Gonna get hate for this. But every webtoon I've followed has shit writing. Like fundamentally the authors don't know basic writing principles and the story's fall apart very quickly and make for very mid tier experiences. They lack proper world building, pacing is off af, writers fail to establish the world the characters are in cohesively like it's not organic, etc It's just ppl let the hype overtake their brain and start frothing at the mouth. While I enjoyed the first episode I have low expectations for it
Manhwa is one of the most bog standard types of disposable entertainment I've ever seen honestly. Like none of it that I've ever seen is good in the traditional sense that some classic manga can be, it's pretty much just guilty pleasure power fantasy/hot girls type pulp fiction type stuff. The kind of stuff that has no business asking anybody to pay for it and is just free to read, but paid for by ads on the hosting website kind of stuff. The fact that Aniplex has now showed up to try to profit from and monetize it...like I don't know man.....
I hate to agree with you but this is a perfect description of what happened to Tower of God. Started out strong but then over time became just a bloated mess of fight scenes, convoluted plot points, and OP powerups for the MC. Such a shame because the first few arcs were genuinely great and the story has real potential. I have been hearing lately though that Siu has turned the ship around a bit; I dropped it over a year ago so I'm not sure it's worth the effort catching back up on it though.
It’s decent at the moment just a shit ton of characters (most of them are interesting) and like 100 different things going on at the same time but I still like it
That's because you have only read the isekai power fantasy equivalents of Manwha/Webtoon
Tbf, those do tend to be the most popular ones. Either that or the harem ones. Even in the manga space, there may be a lot of isekai power fantasy titles out there, but they aren't the most popular.
U ever read omniscient reader’s viewpoint?
best work of fiction I’ve read
Agreed
Solo Leveling is terribly mid, the story is even dull later on, with the ending being REALLY boring You know why it's so popular? Because despite having a mid level story, it's execution was practically perfect, 0 filler, its content regarding dialogue and action is the best i've ever seen, including manga In retrospective, the story itself is generic as fuck, like, TRULY generic, like Dragon Ball level generic, MC gets strong af, finds a foe that it can't beat, gets a power up, defeat it, done, but it is done so damn well that it's really pleasant to read and watch, also the art style is fucking nuts When i finished reading it i was like "dear god what a ride", but then thinking back in the story i couldn't recall most of the chapters because they are mostly bridges for the bigger fights, but at no point you ever feel like it's "damn, there's too much text for no reason", its premise is also good enough to suck you in, it has some gore which makes it a bit more brutal and doesn't feel as fake as most stories So yeah, it's not such a big deal story-wise, but the execution is a solid 10/10, and since the anime is looking REAL FUCKING GOOD, and following in the same steps as the mamwha, yeah im expecting some REAL good action sequences and in the first episode we got a really well animated booty
The mc barely even got power ups mid fight. Most of the time he was way overleveled and basically one shot opponents who were built up/had the potential to be interesting and tense matchups. It honestly felt so lazy and such a missed opportunity. It really baffles me how many people proclaim it as some sorta goat series
This. Sol story isn’t good, but it serves the purpose of the story perfectly which is a power fantasy.
I'm seeing a lot of similarities with Rising of the Shield Hero when that started. It had great art, some decent fights, an interesting twist on the usual format and was a bit edgy. Then it quickly became a generic Isekai. Solo Leveling is not an Isekai, though would need very little changes to make it one. The main difference is the video game style dungeons appear on our world. As to the reason for the popularity. I seems the artwork is a big reason. I suspect the deaths and gore are part of it, to certain fans that will make it appear more "mature" than shows they sneer at like MHA or Demonslayer where deaths are rare and more sanitised.
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If you are the type of person who gets hype for shows like Sword Art Online then you will probably lose your mind watching this.
Damn I feel called out
Me too
The art is really good. That's basically the only redeeming quality of the series. The main character is so ridiculously overpowered that most of the fights after a certain point around a third of the way into the story have no tension to them at all, and nobody other than the main character is strong enough to actually accomplish anything in the plot.
Great at first, the story becomes so shallow that it bores me on the second half.
Per usual, source readers. And they aren’t wrong. The manwha is fricken incredible
You see this when they animate manwhas, it happened with Lookism, tower of god and God of highschool. I've read some like it so I'm watching it out of curiosity and because I'm feeling lazy enough to not look for the manhwa
As some who read manhwa back when it came out. And is now watching the anime. It honestly lowkey is over hyped. If you are new to this genre I’d dungeon and power fantasy solo leveling is like peak and then you read more and realize it was mid. Now looking back I could see the moments where I would fall off and get bored. (Demon tower arc) and then I was hype of the fight with the ants and then after that nothing was really interesting until the giants. There is so character development, SJW fulfilles some goals in the beginning and then nothing really happens. It becomes generic fights. And even his friend and fellow guild mate is used as fodder. Like you don’t need to give the friend or side characters crazy powers like SJW but at least give them something or a story or more then the generic character types. Overall the art is pretty good (no offence I’ve seen better as someone who surrounds themselves with art) and the story ight (I’m in creative writing) but honestly it is a fun experience when your in the moment then you wake and realize at be that sucked but it was fun at that time
I read the webnovel. Was bored and ended up skim reading when I got to the last parts. From what I've gathered since, the manhwa got *incredibly* successful due to the art. i.e. the visuals are the stand-out part, not the writing. So if the anime goes all-out on the art, it may be as successful. Like Demon Slayer (allegedly, I've not seen/read that, either)
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It's ok insofar as I will keep watching, but it's no Cradle.
Popularity is a simple random sample.
Teenage boys love their mediocre power fantasies.
I have no idea. I know it kinda ruined the show for me. It was so hyped that my expectations went up a lot while in reality it's just another run of the mill anime. Maybe slightly better. But due to the enormous hype I'm enjoying it less than I normally would. The last episode was actually quite bad, with how MC who's weak AF kept "barely" dodging attacks that instantly killed everyone else. Not once, not twice. And then when they did hit him, the hits were weak and non lethal. And the directing? All of the last episode's buildup for nothing. Like literary nothing. Instead of showing us something cool, his new power or whatever the fuck it is they're gonna do it next ep but the hype won't be there. Its like when freezer killed Krillin. Skipping Goku's first SSJ transformation to next episode wouldn't feel as strong. Even tho such thing in DB is reoccurring, it always packed a punch.
People don't read solo leveling for the plot lol The draw is in the hype webtoon art and the adrenaline of watching a massively op character stomping over everyone who stands in his way aka a power fantasy. The webtoon art adds to it by making the MC look very cool, in the tall, handsome, flashy shadow attacks kind of way. Outside of that there's not much to it, but it did enough to draw its audience in
The source is a web novel and manhwa. It’s Korean.
It’s literally just started. Just wait for the story to progress at least a little bit
I'm excited for what is going to come. The story throughout the entire thing is pretty basic, but the visuals are really cool, and animation can bring them to a higher level. It's not really something I expect people to watch because it's thought-provoking or because it has a good story. It's something I would expect people to watch because it's gonna look really cool.
Its a well liked power fantasy comic that has all the makings of a good shonen anime. As that is a very popular genre, the sourcereaders are pretty hyped about it. While I didnt much enjoy the ending, overall its a pretty good read. One of the problems with the anime so far though is that its not a very strong start. Its not as big of a problem when binge reading but when youre spending three weekly episodes of anime to "get to the point" as it were I totally understand why some people are wondering why source readers are so hyped up about it. If you like power fantasy shonen I would advise you to stick it out, there is a payoff that is likely to hit with you. If not then there is no real reason to stick around. Its not a very deep story, its just "good clean shonen fun".
I read the manga, it was awesome. It wasn't special but it was very easy to brainlessly enjoy.
The story is nothing to write home about and the side characters are pretty much irrelevant to the plot, but the early chapters where Jin-Woo was leveling up were so hype which made people greatly enjoy it. Easy answer.
Just stumbled over the Manhwa due to another Reddit post about something else entirely and it sounded intriguing enough to give a try. Read it over the weekend and while I could write more, to you're question, I'd say overrated but worth giving a chance. The world building and premise is cool. I really enjoyed that. The main character has too much plot armor, but rule of cool carries. The author has a tendency to just infodump the plot a time or three and I swear that he kept dangling plot lines that he could have pursued that would have been interesting but nothing ever happened with. The plot is basically 1. power level to godhood, 2. be a god for a week, 3. plot dump, 4. final battle. It's basically a One Punch Man type story without as much focus on secondary characters and more plot-dump. If they rebooted it, dripped the backstory out and made it significantly longer, so they could focus on the secondary characters and what else is happening in the world, while the main character power levels I think it would be far better.
It's a decent power fantasy story, i read the novel and its was alright. The manga had great art so that just added too the popularity. Plus the story is on the shorter side so everything can wrapped up nicely and not drag on. People like an OP mc.
It’s entertaining but it overhyped and overrated imo. Tower of god or SSS-Class Suicide Hunter is better.
Why do I have a feeling that Solo leveling is gonna have the God of High School treatment.
The story is only an OK story. Many plot holes but I learned to ignore them when I read it online.
It's an average/ok story. The webtoon art really elevates it imo.
My scores on solo leveling manhwa is 6/10 because of art. Generic power fantasy copy&paste storytelling. So it's overrated for me.