Have I mentioned that I love the music in this series? The opening song for the new season – “ReawakeR (feat. Felix of Stray Kids)” by LiSA – is a banger. As for the ending – “Un-Apex” by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure – it’s my favorite song of the year so far (not that we’re very far into 2025 yet). The excellent audio is just one reason why Solo Leveling is getting more and more enjoyable to me.
Anyway, it may take me another week to get fully caught up to the current episodes, but here are my notes for Solo Leveling episodes 15 and 16 (AKA Season 2 episodes 3 and 4).
Episode 15: Still A Long Way To Go
Episode Rating: 8/10
After clearing the nineteenth dungeon together, Jinho Yoo and Jinwoo Sung celebrate with yakiniku (fancy cooked beef) and beer. Although Jinho is grateful to Jinwoo, he is afraid that the cool Hunter dislikes him in the same way as his older brother. Jinho can’t help wishing that Jinwoo was his big brother, and he says as much after downing a beer. There’s an incredibly sweet moment where Jinwoo says he will now think of Jinho as his little brother. I sometimes forget that Jinwoo can be such a sweetheart.
Jinho is a likeable character, if a bit silly sometimes. Before long, he passes the written exam, becoming officially qualified as a guild master. After negotiating with his father, Jinho is granted the temporary right to run the Yoojin Guild. The one condition is that he must must recruit Jinwoo rather than let him go to another guild. (The White Tiger Guild is also trying to recruit Jinwoo after hearing about his survival record.)
For most of the episode, Jinwoo was off solo leveling in a huge dungeon called the Demon’s Castle. Besides that, the other main event of this episode was the appearance of Il-Hwan Sung. He claims to be a Korean Hunter who was trapped inside a Gate for ten years, only to emerge in a random city in the USA. The the authorities in America think he might be a magical monster in human form, so they detain him and ask an S-Rank Hunter (Dong-Su Hwang) to interrogate him.
During the interrogation, Il-Hwan warns of a coming catastrophe so devastating that not even an army of strong Hunters will be able to stop it. Dong-Su ignores the warning because he realizes something from the paperwork in front of him. This man is none other than the missing father of Jinwoo. When Dong-Su (incorrectly) says that Jinwoo is dead, Sung loses his temper. He and Dong-Su are both S-Rank, so their momentary fight destroyed the whole building and some surrounding parts of the city. The winner was Sung, who disappeared without a trace.
Meanwhile, Jinwoo spends several days in the Demon’s Castle, killing demons and steadily progressing. This was the most boring part of the episode for me, since I’m not excited about most anime fight scenes. But thanks to the epic music from Hiroyuki Sawano and the vivid visuals from A-1 Pictures, I was able to stay focused. Jinwoo conquered 75 floors and retrieved a bunch of useful items, including two of the three ingredients for the Life Elixir. To be continued.
Episode 16: I Need To Stop Faking
Episode Rating: 8/10
I don’t have a lot to say about this episode other than it was entertaining. My notes will probably be even more brief than usual for this one. Deciding that he doesn’t want to keep faking forever, Jinwoo retakes the Hunter evaluation and places as S-Rank. Everyone immediately wants to recruit him, including Jong-In Choi from the Hunters Guild. Jinwoo quickly shoots him down and leaves. I’m not entirely sure why he rejected the offer without hearing it out. Maybe it was because Choi is a bit conceited.
Gun-Hee Go tries to recruit Jinwoo for the Hunter Association, but he declines since that group mostly takes on low-level dungeons. Jinwoo seems to respect Go, but he’s in too much of a hurry to level up in strong dungeons. Later that night, Jinwoo browses the internet for powerful artifacts. In order to buy one, he will have to sell an item from the Demon’s Castle. Since people might wonder how he got the item, Jinwoo decides he needs to visit a high-ranking dungeon right away as his cover story.
Thus, Jinwoo goes with a mining team into an A-Rank dungeon. Since he doesn’t have an S-Rank license yet, he’s still pretending to be E-Rank. (That’s ironic considering the title of the episode.) With his amazing strength, Jinwoo is extremely helpful to the team of lower ranked workers. Meanwhile, Choi fights the dungeon monsters with his OP fire magic. Hae-In Cha is also there helping.
Elsewhere, Dong-Su Hwang wakes up in the hospital. He’s determined to get revenge on the person who defeated him. He also tells his supervisors that Il-Hwan Sung was indeed a magical monster, which might technically be true, if he lost his humanity in the same way as Jinwoo. Then again, I don’t really care if Jinwoo and his father are not technically human. They still have thoughts, feelings, and human dignity.
While the other workers are on breaak, Jinwoo goes deeper into the A-Rank dungeon alone. He wants to “poke” the final boss and see what it’s like without killing it. (The gate would close if he killed it, resulting in a major loss for the hunters who are present.) Before he can progress far, however, Jinwoo gets caught by Hae-In Cha. Oh no! Jinwoo must really hate being caught by such a hot lady who we know will basically worship him! 😛 Anyway, that’s all for today.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
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