Story Blog: What Makes This Series So Captivating?
In Jan 2024, Crunchyroll launched Season 1 of a series called Solo Leveling. Based on a Korean web novel, the story is set in a fantasy version of modern-day Korea where portals allow magical beasts to enter our world. When the portals first appeared, certain humans discovered they had special abilities to fight the magical beasts. These humans became known as hunters.
Whenever a portal opens, the hunters enter to fight the beasts inside and close the portal. But hunters are not ranked equally. Some are extremely powerful, while others are so weak they can barely survive the fight.
Jinwoo has such a low power level, he’s earned the title, The Weakest Hunter of All Mankind. But he fights anyway, because his mother is in a magic-induced coma, and someone needs to pay for her medicine. And whether strong or weak, every hunter faces one limitation: they can’t change their power level. No matter how much they fight, none of them will get any stronger than they already are.
This is where Jinwoo’s story begins.
Although he has plenty of courage as a fighter, Jinwoo’s attacks are so weak that he nearly gets killed by the lowest-level monsters. But as long as he can survive the fight, he’ll get paid with the rest of the hunters.
Everything changes when Jinwoo’s team finds an unexpected extra dungeon within the portal they’re clearing. Enticed by the possibility of a bigger payoff, they decide to venture in. But it turns out to be trap. The next scene is both engrossing and terrifying as inhuman statues wreak havoc on the team, and what was supposed to be a routine raid turns into a bloodbath. Although Jinwoo is the weakest hunter, he is the only one able to solve the dungeon’s riddles and help some of his fellow hunters survive. In the end, too severely injured to flee, he sacrifices himself so that the remaining survivors can escape.
Just before his heart stops, he sees a strange message: Would he like to become the Player?
He accepts.
And just like that, everything changes.
In the next scene, Jinwoo awakens in a hospital bed. All of his wounds from the dungeon are gone. He soon learns what it means to be the player. He is the only hunter who is able to change his power level.
He can get stronger, and he does. He now has access to special portals where he can fight monsters alone, and he gets more powerful with every fight.
Season 2 started in Jan 2025. When last week’s episode dropped,there were so many people downloading it right away, it crashed the server. They brought the server back up, and it crashed again.
What makes this story so captivating?
Relatability
For starters, both the story and the character are relatable. People of the 2020’s find common ground with the idea of being surrounded by evil and feeling powerless to do anything about it. For many, it does feel like we’re stuck at a low power level. Who wouldn’t want to grow stronger and be able to fight back?
Watching Jinwoo go through this transformation is fun and inspiring. It’s also well-handled in the series. He doesn’t get strong right away, and even has to do daily, physical workouts, or the game sends him to a penalty zone. In his first solo fight, he’s not much stronger than he was at the beginning. He’s able to defeat the lowest level beasts for the first time, but the next ones still give him a run for his money.
During that first fight, there’s one moment where Jinwoo deftly flips a knife in his hand. It’s small, but significant. The old Jinwoo didn’t have even that much skill. It’s the first hint that something has changed, with a subtle promise of more to come.
Story Structure
The series also does a good job following classic story structure. Jinwoo’s situation at the beginning is one that you want to see him get out of. He’s likeable, but if something doesn’t change, he’s likely to die a pitiful death in some low-level dungeon.
The inciting incident is not only nailbiting and — seriously, terrifying — but it reveals more about Jinwoo that makes us want to root for him. He solves the puzzles, he’s chivalrous despite his weakness, and he’s as scared as anyone else but still has guts. All of this proves that he’s a character worth following.
After that, we enter a new world where Jinwoo no longer has to be weak. Although the inciting incident was something that happened to him, it was his choice that landed him where he is now. In the new world, it’s still his choices driving the action. He chooses to enter the solo dungeon and take on the boss when he probably isn’t quite ready. He chooses to keep getting stronger, but also decides to keep his rare power a secret because fame would get in the way of his goals. And just when it seems like he’s starting to figure things out, the story will throw in some new element that raises the stakes again.
Moral Complexity and Setting
It’s been said (probably) that power amplifies a person’s character. Bad character will translate to more powerful evil. Jinwoo demonstrated noble character in the beginning, but as he gains more power, the moral dilemmas he faces become more complex. He fights not only magical beasts but also murderous humans. His new skills carry a different weight when he’s forced to kill in order to save his own life.
The setting aids this complexity, because it has one very interesting character – the game. This faceless, godlike entity that is both setting and character is a constant reminder that Jinwoo is not in total control, no matter how strong he gets. Is the game a good guy, or a bad guy? Although it’s the reason that Jinwoo survived episode one, it’s also the reason that his life was endangered in the first place, and it serves as an unpredictable antagonist.
Throughout season one, Jinwoo strives to keep his unique power a secret—officially, he’s still ranked as a low-level hunter. But keeping his anonymity becomes more difficult as his power grows. This applies additional tension to the plot.
All of these story elements put together, plus some quality artwork and high-action fight scenes, create the kind of show that can crash a server.
Now that I’ve spent several paragraphs raving about it, a brief disclaimer: This is an adult series, and there are some bloody scenes on occasion, particularly in the beginning. It’s not a Christian show either, and there are some elements of game magic that are typical in a LitRPG type of story. This is one thing I myself am sensitive to, but Jinwoo fights with a sword and for the most part can’t use magic at all. For those characters that do use it, there are no spells, pentagrams, or witch hats, and it comes across more like superhero powers. But if you’re already a fan of the genre, you’ll find nothing objectionable.