Thanks for visiting Anime Rants today. Jinwoo’s mother finally wakes up in episode 21 (AKA season 2 episode 9). I was not expecting Solo Leveling of all shows to make me cry, but this episode brought tears to my eyes. I think this episode did a great job presenting a powerful tear-jerker scene when Jinwoo’s mom woke up. Let’s go over some notes.

---

Episode 21: It Was All Worth It

Episode Rating: 10/10

With the boss defeated, Jinwoo was rewarded with the final ingredient for the elixir of life. After successfully crafting the elixir, he said goodbye to Esil, promising to see her again when he had time. I hope such a thing is possible. There was a system notification that said “dungeon will revert to its original state.” This could mean Esil loses all her memories of Jinwoo. We probably won’t know for a while either way.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the upcoming raid, Yoonho Baek went drinking with his friend, a retired S-Rank Hunter named Byung-gu Mi. Years ago, Yoonho and Byung-gu were both close companions with Eunseok, who died tragically on Jeju Island. The two remaining friends were anxious about the battle, but they were also determined to fight. As Yoonho pointed out, those without Hunter abilities must be hundreds of times more scared. They needed protection.

Interestingly, Byung-gu retired young from being a Hunter and planned to become a public servant for society. He was tired of the stressful, bloody dungeon battles. Yoonhoo speculated that active Hunters like himself were the weird ones for being okay with fighting monsters for a living. Perhaps those who awakened as Hunters were people with the trait that made them suited and eager for battle.

I thought this speculation was fascinating, especially if you consider that wars have probably mostly ceased. The appearance of dungeons and Hunters has led to the world becoming less warlike in general. Everyone must defend their own countries, so there’s no time for fighting among themselves. Magic also helped medical science vastly. So, in the current world, Hunters are the only ones who have to deal with what soldiers previously dealt with. They are the new military.

Going back to Jinwoo, he visited his mother in the hospital to give her the elixir of life. As he prepared to try, Jinwoo recalled a formative memory. When he was a small child, his mom protected him from spilled hot oil, which burned and scarred her neck.

This was an important story for the psychology of Jinwoo, but it also felt directly copied from Parasyte: The Maxim, in which protagonist Shinichi has the same formative memory. (Except his mother got burned on the arm rather than the neck.) Though it felt almost like plagiarism, I was still able to appreciate the story. In fact, I felt like it was the missing piece to my understanding of Jinwoo. With a formative memory of such a loving, selfless mother, his altruistic and patient personality makes perfect sense.

Now we need to talk about the scene where the mother woke up. Jinwoo fed the elixir to the comatose woman. A few minutes later, when Jinwoo was about to give up, she awakened. The music, lighting, and voice-acting were all excellent in this scene, making it absolutely “peak.” The animation was also great as Jinwoo cried and held his mom’s hand. (I haven’t seen a crying animation this good since Aki cried for Himeno in Chainsaw Man.)

This scene made me feel like I was seeing Jinwoo for the first time. It showed him being vulnerable in a way we haven’t seen before. I think it was healing for him to be able to cry like that and have his pain recognized by his mother after four years. It was almost equally emotional when Jinah threw herself into her mom’s arms, crying like a little kid. Imagine the joy and relief felt by Jinwoo and Jinah. Those tear-jerker scenes were effective!

Although Jinwoo was overjoyed by the return to normalcy in his family, he also felt distinctly out of place with them. He worried that in his time as a Hunter, he crossed a line from which he could not come back. Jinwoo was almost certainly thinking about the fact that he killed other humans. This was done in self-defense, so I he doesn’t need to feel guilty – but realistically, it makes sense for the memory to be haunting and isolating. Would his sister and mother be able to understand?

As the raid on Jeju Island approached, ten S-Rank Hunters from Japan arrived. I think there were six from South Korea, but I could be wrong on that number. Gun-hee Go asked Jinwoo to join the raid, but before he could decide whether or not to commit, he sensed powerful magic. Gun-hee led Jinwoo to the source of the sensation. Yoonho Baek (S-Rank) was sparring with another powerful Hunter named Dongwook Ma.

As Jinwoo watched, the tension in the room grew. The Japanese Hunters wanted to fight the Korean Hunters. So they agreed to a free-for-all sparring match where four combat Hunters from each team would fight. Jinwoo stayed out since he was considered a mage type and not a combat type. I look forward to seeing how these fights will go down. This was a terrific episode. Until next time, Sayonara!

~Thanks for reading~

Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants

---

See more posts about Solo Leveling season 2

---