Title: Solo Leveling Vol. 1
Author: Dubu (Redice Studio), Chugong (Original Story)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
The Story
Solo Leveling is a full-color (yes, FULL–COLOR) compilation of the Korean Manhwa (or Webtoon if you prefer) which also received a light novel adaptation! (Anime adaption when!?)
The story centers around a boy by the name of Jinwoo Sung. He is known throughout the land as The Weakest Hunter on Earth. Even E-Rank dungeons, which are the lowest difficulty, prove to be a problem for him. He always comes out of these dungeons with injuries… some of them life-threatening. If it weren’t for a healer in his party, he would have died many times by now.
Yes, he is that pathetic.
So, despite coming out of an E-Rank dungeon injured, he’s partaking on a raid inside of a D-Rank dungeon. A group of adventurers head in and clear the dungeon and, yes, Jinwoo gets hurt again but thanks to the magic of one of their healers, Joohee Lee, he manages to survive. After the dust settles, the raid’s leader, Chiyul Song discovers another door. Thinking that this is a double dungeon that contains a boss with rich spoils, he puts it to a vote to see if they want to proceed. It’s a tie; however, Jinwoo breaks it by saying to proceed since he wants to try and prove himself and stop being the world’s worst hunter.
Big mistake.
About ¾ of the raid gets slaughtered by a room filled with statues. Jinwoo recognizes that there are rules to this “boss encounter” and he begins to instruct the remaining members what to do. They listen for a while until they just get fed up, stressed out, or are overcome with a feeling of helplessness. Whenever they are presented with a chance to escape, they take it leaving Jinwoo alone in the room. Jinwoo ends up passing the trial on the verge of death and undergoes what some have considered a “second awakening.” Only Jinwoo can see this game-like menu in front of him. Overcoming the trial has deemed him the title of “Player” and so, his new adventure as a solo player has begun!
Characters
There seem to be three main characters here so let’s start with the obvious!
Jinwoo Sung is, as described before, the weakest hunter in the world. It is explained through him that the world suddenly had these gates appear to another world. When this happened, people awakened with powers and became known as hunters. Hunters form raids and enter these portals to defeat dungeons and bosses so that the gate can close, thus sparing the world from the gate’s inhabitants from entering. Jinwoo is one of the ones who awakened but his mana and power are virtually non-existent. After completing the trial, he has a “second awakening” but his power never increased. Instead, he’s given video game-like quests in order to power up and I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at ONE of them.
In order to level up, he has to do 100 sit-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 squats, and run 10 km every single day. If he does, maybe can PUNCH his way through a dungeon and finally become a MAN.
As far as personality goes, Jinwoo is pretty vanilla. Yes, he has determination and yes, he feels sorrow for himself and wishes he could improve but he doesn’t have any outstanding qualities about him. So far, he just seems like a plain main character that you can find in just about any fantasy anime or isekai series today. Still, it works for what is being presented so far.
Next up we have Joohee Lee… the obvious love interest. It’s evident right off the bat that she has taken a liking to Jinwoo. She has a bit of a tsundere attitude about her but it’s not glaring and over-exaggerated. She cares about Jinwoo to the point where she put her own health at risk by expending all of her mana to heal him. She’s even looking forward to Jinwoo taking her out to dinner once all of this is over. If that doesn’t scream love interest, then I don’t know what does.
Despite her brashness, though, she also has her fears. Her reservations about going into the boss’ lair were quite evident of that. Her regrets afterward show that even at B-Rank, she has a long way to go as an adventurer. Jinwoo’s presence really helped her cope with it and even when it came time to choose between completing the trial or escaping, she resisted all because of Jinwoo. Her emotions were all over the place but it was a controlled chaos. You understood why she swayed from emotion to emotion and actually sympathized with her. Can’t wait to see more of her in future volumes!
Next up we have the raid’s leader Chiyul Song. Honestly? He was there but kind of felt more in the background than anything. Of course, he did have a somber moment when they understood the third phase of the boss fight as requiring a human sacrifice. He was prepared to lay down his life in order to take responsibility for the lives lost due to his desire to come in here and kill the boss. His greed led people to their deaths but despite his daring attitude, he isn’t heartless. You could feel his compassion and regret his actions which makes him a pretty solid character. What will happen from here on out is anyone’s guess as the results of this little adventure left him a changed man in more ways than one.
Final Thoughts
I have heard good things about this series from those who had read the Webtoon so I was interested in checking it out for myself. Sometimes things don’t live up to the hype for me (as was the case with Jujutsu Kaisen) but I have to say that this one definitely was worth the hype it received. I love fantasy adventure stories with a dungeon-crawling aspect to them so I was already hooked. Not really sure if I like the video game trope they threw in there but at least the character isn’t super overpowered like Kirito from Sword Art Online or Satou from Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. We’ve got something to work with here and through Jinwoo’s eventual power-ups, we’ll get to experience actual character growth beyond screaming Starburst Stream!
The story did start off as rather generic but that’s to be expected in a setting such as this. There is only so much you can do with a fantasy adventure setting but Solo Leveling made it work and work well. It introduced you to the main characters, it explained the world and why things are the way they are, it established the journey for the main character, and it made you felt connected all while entertaining you. That’s what any good first volume should do and Solo Leveling achieved that.
Also, can we talk about how gorgeous this looks in full-color? Can we also talk about how I’m now spoiled and I want every manga I read from here on out to be in full-color, too? The only problem I had with the artwork though was that whoever drew this was a little inconsistent in one part of the book. Upon entering the D-Rank dungeon, Jinwoo had two bandages on his face… then in a couple of panels, they were gone. This was after Joohee healed him so I figured he just didn’t need the bandages anymore and took them off. Then in the panel after that, they were back.
Oops.
Outside of that little slip-up, the art was fantastic. In fact, it gets a chef’s kiss for how good it looked. If you want a new adventure that’s kind of like an isekai but not? (Think GATE without the military aspect), then you should definitely give this one a try!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
