Originally a Korean novel, Solo Leveling enjoys enormous popularity in Japan as well. The first season of the anime began exactly a year ago in the winter 2024 season, and after the wait, season two started airing in January 2025. Personally, I feel that Korean-origin anime tend to have more titles with a kind of raw, edgy tension than Japanese-origin ones. Solo Leveling is one of them. The story itself, in which an unfortunate protagonist undergoes a life-changing event one day and gains top-tier physical or special abilities, has an atmosphere close to what we'd call "isekai/narou" stories in Japan. But this anime is set not in a virtual world or another world, but in the real world (though it's a world with fantastical features that set it apart from our actual reality; aside from that, it doesn't stray too far from real life). It makes clever use of that premise, where "a virtual-world-like phenomenon called leveling up, impossible in the real world, happens to me."
In the real world too, if you put in repeated effort you can get better at controlling your body or boost your thinking ability, but you can't have your abilities leap upward through clearly defined level-ups like in a game. It takes a fantasy that anyone who likes anime or games has surely indulged in at least once, "if only I alone could level up," and skillfully works it into the story. But if there really were someone getting visibly stronger by the day like that, it'd be a little scary, right? The main story is largely about how the protagonist gets dragged into one dangerous, troublesome situation after another, being looked at with suspicion, eyed as a curiosity, or provoked by combat-loving types.
Whereas a lot of Japanese narou-style stories tend to focus on the protagonist's physical abilities skyrocketing so they can dominate everyone, a story where the hero gains an outrageous power yet still finds plenty of people stronger than him feels a bit fresh.
The soundtrack, too, is mostly cool and heavy
Some tracks used in season one carry over into season two, but there are also brand-new cues in season two that you didn't hear in the first.
Basically, in season one the protagonist is still weak and often in mortal danger, so in those scenes there's a deep bass tone hovering right at the edge of audibility in terms of frequency, which lent the whole story an extremely strong sense of urgency. Heavy bass is used in season two as well, but it's pitched at a much more audible register than in season one, so here it's built to clearly convey the strength of the enemies to the viewer. That said, since the protagonist is already quite strong from the start of season two, I get the sense they don't use as much of the anxiety-inducing deep bass. On the contrary, season two often uses really cool, exhilarating up-tempo tracks in its battle scenes, so the sense of catharsis while watching feels even greater than in season one.
Of course, the speedy developments and the skillful staging of the battles play a part too, but you're sure to feel that this anime draws out the full power of its soundtrack and uses music exceptionally well. Solo Leveling pulls you in deeper and deeper as you watch. If you haven't seen it yet, I really hope you'll start from season one!
Quoted from the official site https://x.com/sololeveling_pr
