Hello everyone! This is my first post in this community. I'm an anime fan and I'm currently watching Solo Leveling, Dragon Ball Daima, and Dr. Stone. This post is about Solo Leveling and will contain spoilers up to episode 4 of season 2 and up to chapter 64 in the manhwa.
When I started watching Solo Leveling, already a year ago, I didn't know what to expect, although I did have a general idea of the initial plot.
I was hooked right from the start. I honestly believe it is impossible for any person who likes anime and RPGs not to love this. The first season was my favorite anime of 2024. We're still in January and only four episodes in, but I'm already thinking it won't be easy to surpass it.
Recently I also started reading the manhwa to accompany the anime. It's very tempting to continue reading but I have been able to control myself. It will be harder when the season ends though.
There are some differences between the manhwa and the anime. That's normal and I don't think it's bad. The anime is an adaptation and what works well in one might not work as well in the other. There have been some changes across all the episodes. Some of the biggest ones are related to some actions by Sung Jin-Woo, which make him a slightly less dark character in the anime. But that's not the type of change I'll be talking about.
Episode 3 of season 2 introduced a surprising new character. Sung Jin-Woo's father, Sung Il-Hwan! Yes, the main character's dad in an anime is not out of the picture, after all. We had never heard anything about the father but apparently, he was stuck inside a dungeon for 10 years. When a party entered a A-rank dungeon and found no monsters except for him, he knocked them out. They couldn't communicate because he's Korean and that gate was in the USA. Just for context, the gate was classified as A rank because of the amount of energy that was coming out of it but since there were no monsters left, all that energy was coming from him.
They decided to call a Korean S rank Hunter, Hwang Dongsoo, who works in the USA to translate for them because sending regular translators would likely not go well. We already know him and he's a terrible guy who won the free murder lottery by being an S rank. He wants to kill Sung because of an incident with his brother. He doesn't know what happened and still believes Sung is an E-rank. Sung did kill that guy but in self-defense, although as an order from the "system". Not surprisingly, the questioning between these 2 powerful hunters turns violent after he discovers the relationship between the MC and this person. Hwang Dongsoo lost very quickly.
This was all in episode 3. The important change happens in episode 4. After getting destroyed, he wakes up in a hospital and thinks/dreams about the whole event. In the anime, it happens as in the 2 images above but in the manhwa, it happens as in the following panel:
The manhwa shows us that Sung Il-Hwan clearly knows his son can raise the dead to work for him. Of course, Hwang Dongsoo takes it as a threat but we know exactly what it means. In the anime, Sung Il-Hwan doesn't imply anything like that, it's just a threat. It is possible for the viewers to interpret it as "You're gonna die, become a shadow, and get killed again by me" but I don't think that's it. Maybe they don't want us to know that he already knows his son's abilities.
This is one situation where I believe the manhwa delivered it better. Regardless, I am so hyped for the next episode and it's fun to look at both versions and see the slight differences. That's it for this post. Please feel free to discuss this or other Solo Leveling topics in the comments. Please don't post spoilers for episodes/chapters after these. Thanks for reading.
All images belong to A-1 Pictures for the anime and Yen Press for the English publication of the manhwa.