Solo Leveling – 03 – Windows Vista

Jinwoo wakes up in a hospital missing precisely none of his limbs, and is soon visited by two Men in Black from the Hunter’s Association Surveillance Team. While the temple and statues the other five survivors described were no longer there, they have no reason to doubt their aligning descriptions.

For a barely E-Rank Hunter like Jinwoo to have survived such an ordeal mostly unscathed, the suits believe he underwent a Second Awakening, which usually results in a rise in rank. But when they test his mana, he’s at the same woeful level, and they have to apologize for getting his hopes up.

The suits leave without asking Jinwoo about the big blue window floating above his head telling him he has unread notifications, but there’s a good reason for that: he’s the only one who can see these windows. That’s confirmed when he has one open when his sister Jin-ah visits him.

It’s kind of refreshing for Jinwoo’s sister to not be a brocon, but rather takes off with her friend who was waiting in the hall when she confirms he’s doing okay. That said, she cares about her brother, and warns him if he keeps this up she’s dropping out and getting a job to help support them and their comatose mother.

After a brief Cha Hae-In sighting (she’s assigned as an instructor in the next big B-Rank raid) Jinwoo uses his sister’s advice about navigating game screens and explores the weird floating windows only he can see. They refer to him as a player in a system, and warn that failure to comply with the system results in penalties.

One window also displays a daily strength training quest: 100 push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, along with 10km of running. He dismisses this as ridiculous considering he’s still hospitalized, but when 24 hours are up, his failure to complete the daily quest results in a penalty quest. He’s transported from his hospital room to a vast desert where he has to survive an onslaught of giant centipedes for four hours.

When those four hours are up, Jinwoo is transported right back to his hospital room, and even receives a reward. For the few days he completes the daily quest and receives rewards, points that can be allocated to attributes like strength and agility, and random loot.

When Joohee learns Jinwoo is awake, she visits him at the hospital with flowers, only to overhear from the nurses that he’s in the courtyard running again, determined to get stronger. Joohee leaves without saying hello. In this manner, Jinwoo gradually levels up, and can feel himself getting stronger.

That said, I feel he’s a bit too overeager to get back into the dungeon game. When his random loot for the day is a key to an “Instance” Dungeon, he immediately heads to the entrance to a subway station to unlock the entrance.

While confident he can always run away if things get to hairy, as soon as he enters the dungeon the gate closes behind him and won’t open unless he defeats the boss or uses a teleportation stone (which he doesn’t have). With no choice but to clear the dungeon, Jinwoo heads down the stairs.

When he encounters three goblins, he recalls being stabbed in the chest by one on a previous raid, but finds he’s not only able to dodge their attacks, but is now strong enough to kill all three with his dagger. Just when he thinks things are looking up, a red, metal-jawed wolf monster appears and chomps his dagger to bits.

With no healer present and the wolf howling for its buddies before charging him, we leave Jinwoo in a bad spot. Perhaps there’s someone else in that dungeon. Maybe he’s able to dodge the wolf and find a way to kill it. Maybe he ends up near death again and has a Third Awakening.

Whatever his fate, this episode was an efficient and entertaining walkthrough of the mechanics of his new, very odd situation where he’s still a lowly E-Rank, but is now able to level up his stats on his own. A kind of solo leveling, if you will.

Solo Leveling – 02 – All By Himself

The “commandments” on the plaque in this chamber prove to be key to survival. Jinwoo figures out that approaching or making eye contact with the “god” statue will only result in a grisly death. Instead, he keeps his gaze low and prostrates himself to revere the statue. In response, it suddenly wears a Titan-like grin, stands up, and starts walking around, crushing people.

It isn’t until Jinwoo also figures out that “praising” the god consists of someone standing beside each of the statues with an instrument, which causes them to play music. He just manages to get to the last of these statues, the singer, to halt the god statue’s advance, but not before he loses his right foot. Joohee tries to heal him, but overexerts herself and bleeds from the eyes and mouth.

The final commandment, “prove your faith”, consists of everyone standing within the circle at the center of the chamber. There’s a red flame for each person, plus a ring of blue flames that constitutes a timer. If they simply keep their eyes on all the advancing warrior statues until the blue flames go out, they’ll pass the test and be safe. But that proves too much for all but three of them, who run for the open exit.

The leader of the party is fine to stay, but there’s a problem: Jinwoo can’t walk because he’s missing a foot, and Joohee can’t walk because her legs go out due to all the healing she’s done. So the leader has to be the one to carry Joohee out to safety, leaving Jinwoo to face the full wrath of the statues. It’s here where I had to particularly suspend my disbelief, as the amount of blood coming from his body looks like a lot more than the 1.2 to 1.5 gallons that should be in there…

However, he is still barely alive when he falls on the altar just as the final blue flame goes out. A pop-up dialog box tells him he’s passed the secret quest called “Courage of the Weak.” His reward is the qualifications to be a “Player,” and he’s given a choice: accept and live, or don’t accept and die. Obviously, accepting is the choice here.

Solo Leveling – 01 (First Impressions) – The Least of Us

One night ten years ago, gates to another dimension started opening. This dimension was full of magical beasts who could only be defeated with magic, or weapons imbued with it. Magic then awakened in various individuals, who became Hunters who go on raids defeating monsters and acquiring loot.

Hunters are ranked by their magical power, the most powerful are S-Rank and the weakest are E-Rank. Our protagonist Sung Jinwoo barely makes that rank, as he’s affectionately known as the “World’s Weakest” Hunter. He arrives at a gate for a raid still bearing the wounds from a previous one.

Jinwoo doesn’t fare any better on this newest raid, and were it not for his friend and B-Ranked Healer Lee Joohee, he’d have certainly lost his life to a goblin’s blade. Joohee doesn’t understand why he keeps throwing himself in to such dangerous situations.

She doesn’t have access to Jinwoo’s inner monologue, which reveals he no choice. His father is missing, his mom’s in the hospital, and his sister’s in college. He goes on raids to support his family; apparently a conventional job not involving monster hunting won’t cut it.

In this world, S-Ranked Hunters like the acrobatic Cha Hae-In are treated like celebrities, whether she wants to or not. Even while not on raids, she can use her ability to fight petty crime. There’s also an entire association that assesses, ranks and signs Hunters.

In the cold open we watched a lower-ranked party get torn to ribbons by an army of giant ants, while S-Ranked Hunters swoop in and handle the ants with ease. The Hunter Association’s chairman, Go Gunhee, wishes to harness the power of essence stones and mana crystals dropped by beasts as a clean energy source.

Chairman Go also impresses upon new recruits that the most important piece of advice he can offer is Be Afraid. When they find a tunnel to a boss dungeon, half of the party Jinwoo and Joohee are a part of want to press on and half, including Joohee, want to go home. Jinwoo breaks the tie by voting to press on.

Considering he just almost died, Jinwoo really shouldn’t have gotten a vote. As expected, the dungeon they end up in turns out to be a deadly trap filled with giant killer statues. One statue cuts a Hunter in half for trying to escape, while another statue fires an energy beam that incinerates another.

As the episode ends, it doesn’t look like a matter of if Jinwoo and Joohee are killed, but simply how quickly and painfully. Of course, I doubt he’ll be dying in the second of twelve planned episodes, so someone will either have to save him, or he’ll have to use his weakness as an asset somehow.

Based on South Korea’s most popular manhwa/webtoon, Solo Leveling is one of the most anticipated releases of the Winter season. I’d never heard of it, but it’s a solid enough start. A-1 Pictures and composer Sawano Hiroyuki’s score lend polish and gravitas to the production. The exposition can be clunky, there’s little action, and I’m not quite sold on Jinwoo yet, but it’s early. I’m intrigued enough to see where this goes.