There was a good idea here. Good enough to like the film, at least, even if the idea was misleading. I’m not sure I’m ever going to love battle-themed anime, but Solo Leveling: Reawakening gave me something to think about other than endless seizure-inducing magic battle power mano a mano masturbation.
Yeah, that’s exactly what most anime fight scenes feel like to me.
“Solo Leveling” is a series examining a future world in which D&D is a thing and select members of the population have powers enough to combat monsters. This is how they earn a living. When you get your powers, they give you a caste. (Who gives? How do they determine? Don’t ask me; all I saw was a movie and I can only tell you what I understood from the movie I saw.) The castes rank from super hunters in A to the Elmer Fudds of the anime world in E. Theoretically, an A hunter should never lose a battle with a B hunter, a B hunter should never lose to a C hunter … and, well, you get the idea.
Our hero is a level E hunter. He is dubbed “the weakest hunter of all mankind.”
This is a good premise. Seriously. I like the idea that we’ve given our hero the desire to fight monsters with powers so feeble it is as if he’s just a normal human. Theoretically, that means he’s going to be winning battles with his mind, which – on film- is so much more intriguing than winning with a super set of skills. This is why we like Batman better than Superman, knowwhatI’msayin’?
Unfortunately, I got there too late. There have already been like twenty episodes prior to Solo Leveling: Reawakening, and in those episodes, Sung Jin-woo (voice of Taito Ban) has leveled up a bunch. You can be E caste, level 1 and get experience and move up to E caste level 200, theoretically. It will make you a stronger E, but still susceptible to any caste higher.
Here’s the thing: Jin-woo is not limited in his power, so when he levels up, he actually gains abilities capable of defeating members of higher castes, but on the surface, he continues to show E caste. This isn’t quite as intriguing a gimmick; it basically means that everyone Jin-woo encounters will be underrating him, which -as I say- is worth watching, just not quite as good as a player with a weak skill set constantly winning battles against superior opponents but out-thinking them.
How does this play out? Jin-woo needs cash, so he searches the hunter forums. There’s a C-level dungeon raid going on. The dungeon requires 8 players, so 6 C castes who think they can handle all the danger by themselves have requested two lower level players (Jin-woo and a D) to carry equipment and share a lesser amount of spoils while facing no danger.
However, in this case, the C castes are DICKS. They leave the two lesser players locked in the boss room while they raid the res
t of the dungeon for treasure. When the firetruck-sized spider kills the lesser players, the Cs will act out self-disparaging behavior while pocketing all the treasure. Honestly, this is pretty low, even for animated characters.
While I quibble with having the group find the boss level first – name anything where that happens. Go on, name anything, anywhere, at any time. It’s like having access to the President by walking down the street. I like the part where Jin-woo kills the spider by himself and then takes on the group of C castes, all of whom cannot believe an E caste was capable of looking the monster in the eyes, let alone taking it down.
Solo Leveling: Reawaking has the trappings of standard anime battle yawnfests: the fights are flashy and boring (to people like me). And the story line is fairly one-dimensional: foe underestimates E caste dude. Foe learns valuable lesson, but too late. Yet, I enjoyed just enough of the gimmick and the minutiae of this future world (like Penalty Zones) to enjoy the film. OTOH, I have zero desire to go back and follow Jim-woo’s evolution from the start of his hunting career, so take all that as a E caste recommendation.
There once was a hunter named Jin
With a skill set decidedly thin
But he worked all along
And leveled up strong
Now he takes crap right before the big win
Not Rated, 121 Minutes
Director: Shunsake Nakashige
Writer: Chugong (my favorite college drinking game)
Genre: Bringing a knife to a giant spider fight
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anime fools
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Does it always have to be fighting?”
