mchensan

Before starting, yes, I can see that the overall actually doesn't add up to the scores I gave to the individual scores I gave the aspects of the story because I would 100% recommend this webtoon to anyone who asks. I would give my enjoyment of this story easily a 9/10.

This manhwa (so far) is the epitome of an unbalanced story. But before we get into the bad stuff lets get into the good stuff.

The Good

1. The art. The art is really just incredible. It's clear whoever is the illustrator for this webtoon has a really bright future ahead of them and I can't wait to see what they do next.

2. The paneling. This is related to art but I think this is important to single out because it's a big part of what makes this webtoon shine. The best I can say about the paneling is that its set almost like a movie. It's like the beautiful cinematography and style of the movie Hero by Zhang Yimou but in webtoon form.

3. The experience of reading it. This is a bit stranger but I would say that this is what makes people love this webtoon so much. Reading it is an experience. The story pacing has this really great rhythm to it that keeps you looking for more and the catharsis of Jin Woo overcoming obstacles and defeating enemies is quite amazing.

If you haven't read it yet, I would actually recommend not reading it and waiting for it to finish to jump on this rollercoaster of a story and finish it in a single go.

4. The elegance of the story. This is a good and bad thing. The story is elegant in the sense that it has no extra frills. It has this simplicity to it that pretty much no other similar story has. It knows what you read it for and it gives it to you straight up. No extraneous bullshit to bog it down like a dumb unironic harem. 

The Bad

1. The World Building. Now the world building of this webtoon is just... kind of bad and nonsensical in a lot of ways.

Now this is actually an issue with the premise itself because the story relies really heavily on the reader to understand tropes from MMORPGs and Tolkienesque fantasy and its effect on the modern fantasy rpg genre but to simply point out some of my main issues with the world building.

- Everything is Western Fantasy-Themed. This story is set in Korea and everyone essentially uses medieval western fantasy armor. The magic is Western-inspired. This just brings up so many questions from a metaphysical and historical point of view. To just briefly get into it. In this world... western pagan religions are actually just facts? Like people's heads would just explode from the reality of ORCS, ELVES, AND WESTERN DRAGONS coming through portals and killing people.

- People just apparently learn skills. Like it's not explained why people have RPG skills at all. They just yell out heal and buff and people get healed and buffed and shit. Like it would make sense if everyone was like the MC and had an RPG menu but it's implied that he's special in that regard. Like... people just know magic. They just know. It's not explained how or why or how they learned or what it is or anything. It just happens. It would be more ok if it was a part of society from the beginning but the phenomenon of the premise is our world getting hit with gates that pour out western fantasy monsters.

- We rarely see the sociopolitical effects of having highly gifted people and the effects of MAGIC ITEMS on society. We're expected to believe that magic crystals are this highly sought after commodity but we rarely see, if ever, how it effected society in a major way. We see plenty of rich people but never see how or why magic crystals matter. We also don't see people essentially own places. We see the general status quo of the world as we know it now but with people supposedly as strong as entire countries. People being that powerful don't just sit around on their ass and do nothing, they could literally become an emperor. Why care about money or anything like that when nothing can stop you. Actually nothing.

2. The characters. The characters are paper thin facades of personalities. The only thing that matters is Jin Woo, the MC. The character's job is to get highly aroused or surprised when our boy Jin Woo passes by and saves them. There's pretty much no depth to any character in the webtoon, sadly, Jin Woo included. They're all, sadly, enslaved by the plot that caters to the MC. Like I just read a chapter, and I can't even tell you who was in each scene, I don't even remember or care. All I know is that my boy Jin Woo is about the whoop some ass and save some people because that's what he does.

3. The lack of themes. Now this can be good or bad depending on what you're looking for in a story but I think this is a big deal because it makes the story feel like a soulless husk. After reading 117 chapters of this story, I don't know what I'm supposed to take away from reading this. Some of the most memorable moments don't come from character growth but rather just this strange experience of Jin Woo swooping in and just winning in a badass way. Zorro defending the strawhat crew, Goku becoming super saiyan for the first time, Rachel pushing off Baam, the Agni Kai between Zuko and Azula, the battle of helms deep. These are all examples of huge moments in stories with big thematic and character moments.  In solo leveling, there's no character or thematic driven depth to any of the big moments... just a big beautiful scene, with no emotional depth. Even the moment where he cures his mother feels so thin because the story essentially doesn't build up his relationship with his mother at all. Just that he wants to cure her and that she's apparently a very nice woman. 

For One Piece I can say it's about adventure and friendship, for Dragon Ball it's about training until you overcome any obstacle, for Avatar it's about living up to responsibility, for Tower of God it's about giving up your humanity for your dreams, for Lord of the Rings its about the struggle of good and evil. What makes Solo Leveling tick? At best it's about struggling till you succeed but that ends about 50 chapters in. At worst it's about being gifted the ability to be the best in a world where people are physically and mentally limited to being lower than you.

The Conclusion

To simply conclude I will say this. Read solo leveling and get dazzled by the spectacle of it all. Don't expect anything more than that.