Solo Leveling has been cooking since its release in the winter 2024 anime drop on Crunchyroll and has recently taken this to the next level, winning no less than nine awards at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 for its second season. Solo Leveling has also been nominated in a variety of categories for the Astra Awards 2025, and the producers have rallied for the series to be a contender for a Primetime Emmy.
If you’ve watched the show, it’s not hard to see why everyone is so hyped about it. The studios constantly produce a stream of solid anime episodes that have good story beats, compellingly delicate character development, wonderfully smooth animation, and gorgeous base art. But which of the episodes within the released seasons are the very best and why? Which are the episodes that have really grabbed the audience by the balls to make sure that Solo Leveling leaves a mark even with a reportedly long gap coming up before the release of the next Season?
Below, you’ll find a list of five of the very best, along with reasons why you should dip your toes into Solo Leveling if you’re not already a die-hard fan. As the characters in the iconic 1932 cult classic, Freaks, chant: ‘One of us, one of us.’
#1: Season 2 Episode 24: Are You The King Of Humans?
It’s going to be hard pressed to find episodes better than those that mark the climax of the season, but this one stands apart, not only from other Solo Leveling episodes, but from other anime episodes period. The episode covers Sung Jinwoo’s engagement with the Ant King following his rescue of the S Rank Hunters. It includes some wicked banter, hypes up Jinwoo’s skills as he faces off against a foe that has been built up for several episodes at this point, and the resulting combat between Jinwoo and the Ant King is some of the most beautiful animation we’ve seen since the insane moves that Captain Levi showed us in Attack on Titan.
Atsushi Kaneko, Creative Producer for A-1 Pictures, told IndieWire in an interview:
Action-heavy anime might go above 10’000 frames for an episode. For episode 24 of Solo Leveling, there were more than 17’000 frames.
With this in mind, it’s no wonder that the animation was so smooth for the encounter between Jinwoo and the Ant King. The combat movement is insanely fluid, each nuanced facial expression is taken into consideration, and there is a hairy, gasp-worthy tribute to the first moments that Jinwoo was chosen to be a ‘player’ as the Ant King’s sharp talons come hair-raisingly close to Jinwoo’s eye.
Not only is the animation top-notch for this episode of Solo Leveling, but the sound design is spot on as well. As the Ant King takes to the air to transform and make Jinwoo’s life more difficult, the song Howl by Hiroyuki Sawano (the undisputed god of epic anime soundtracks) begins to play, and there is a heightened sense of awed anticipation because you know stuff’s going down if the background music has lyrics.
The Ant King’s transformation utilises beautiful colour palettes, lasts only long enough to make the villain more terrifying, and adds so much weight to the clash that comes, with Jinwoo bathed in the cold blue of his Shadow Monarch pathway and the Ant King battling it out in the contrasting red corner.
#2: Season 1 Episode 11: A Knight Who Defends An Empty Throne
Once again, another Solo Leveling climax episode, but what can we say? These are the best of the best. This one covers the jaw-dropping clash between Igris and Sung Jinwoo as Igris defends the dungeon’s empty throne.
The episode does a stellar job of building up Jinwoo’s convictions to get stronger, as well as giving an oppressive atmosphere of loneliness to the whole occasion. As Jinwoo comes face to face with Igris, his face tells the story of how outmatched he feels, which is a far cry from the facial expressions he makes at the end of Season 2 when fighting the Ant King.
The fight is an explosion of stunningly choreographed fighting, including some electric moments such as when Jinwoo recalls his knife into his hands to get in a second, swift stab that ultimately does nothing to Igris’s impenetrable armour. Once again, the opposing blue and red color palettes are used to enhance the clashing nature of the opponents, and this is played on throughout the exquisitely animated sequence, which culminates in the glorious moment where Jinwoo’s actions are depicted through heavy-lined sketches as he finishes Igris off.
If all that isn’t enough to have this episode at the top of the list, Jinwoo’s running commentary to himself re-affirming his convictions, his tenacity and his desperation are all pique character growth statements and they are a delight to compare to the trash talking that goes on between the Ant King and Jinwoo at the end of Season 2.
It’s so satisfying to watch these two episodes one after the other, without the wider context of the events of Season 2 to see just how far Jinwoo has come, and just how much his character has changed overall. The contrast is stark, but the development has been so subtle that it’s easily missable until you’re slapped in the face with it.
#3: Season 1 Episode 2: If I Had One More Chance
The purpose of any set of first episodes within an anime is to hook an audience and keep them watching. Solo Leveling certainly does that with its unassumingly gradual introduction to the lore of the world within that first episode, and then the explosive expansion of that world within Episode 2.
At the end of the first episode of Solo Leveling, the statue in the double dungeon that Sung Jinwoo and his party are currently raiding comes to life to attack them in a brutal fashion reminiscent of the irreverent violence seen in the likes of Attack on Titan. The stakes suddenly jump up to being shockingly high, and this tension is carried over to Episode 2, which covers the party’s navigation of the various tasks the statue sets out for them to complete to leave alive.
The Episode fully introduces the audience to Sung Jinwoo, not just his circumstances as an E Rank Hunter, but his philosophies and base personality traits that will be expounded on and manipulated as the series progresses. He is depicted as altruistic, smart, and cool under pressure, all things that accumulate in his eventual decision to sacrifice himself most heroically for his friends.
Of course, once everyone is gone and Jinwoo is alone, his monologue changes. He berates the selfish for their self-beneficial cowardice, wails about how he wanted to go home to his sister and his mother too, and as that final sword falls towards him to end it all, he says: ‘If I had one more chance…’
This is where the message from the System appears in front of him, giving him his first and most important choice. The gravitas of that choice is outlined by the lack of a killer soundtrack, the ominous silence stretching into a weighty void. The sheer brutality of this episode, the horrifying stakes and Jinwoo’s raw philosophy make this something special and carry the audience through those early episodes where Jinwoo fumbles through his new abilities, pushing himself always to get stronger to protect those he loves, of course, but also to live the life that he was so desperate to live with that one more chance.
#4: Season 2 Episode 21: It Was All Worth It
This is the Solo Leveling episode where all of Sung Jinwoo’s efforts pay off. He has finally acquired the Elixir of Life, and in a tense moment, he lets himself express his anxiety that all his hard work may have been in vain. After all, the doctors haven’t found the cure for the Eternal Sleep disease, so why should this potion be any better?
The moment is marked with another Hiroyuki Sawano masterpiece, Reviver, and heightens just how important it is for both Sung Jinwoo and Sung Jinha, Jinwoo’s sister. The episode is expertly timed. With Jinwoo’s constant level-ups, he’s been feeling more and more distant, particularly with the introduction of the head-turning S Rank characters in Season 2, but this moment pulls the audience back in and re-invests them in Jinwoo’s humanity.
Watching him cry as he’s embraced by his mother, reflecting on how hard he worked and pushed himself, you’re reminded that he’s still so young and still moving forward with thoughts of his family first and foremost, despite what he’s done to get where he is.
The episode of Solo Leveling also marks a mini-climax to this Season and is a wonderful reminder that not everything has to be action-based or horrifying to make an impact. The artistic attention to Sung Jinwoo’s facial features as he breaks down, as well as the soft blue color that offsets this entire interaction, immerses the viewer in the bittersweetness of the moment.
It’s wonderful that Jinwoo can see his mother again, that he managed to save her like he always wanted to even though the situation looked dire, but the shadow of what he is actively becoming hangs over him, never so starkly seen as in him as it here and then later in the apartment scene when Jinwoo briefly mentions how different things are.
#5: Season 1 Episode 6: The Real Hunt Begins
Another episode of Solo Leveling where the gravitas of the material is highlighted by a Hiroyuki Sawano track. This one is Dark Aria Lvl 2, and it plays when Jinwoo makes the decision, following the prompting of the System, to murder the Hunters that planned to do the same to him. This is a pivotal moment for the character of Sung Jinwoo. Up until now, he’s been shown to be a benevolent protagonist Hellbent on protecting his family and not squandering his second chance at life.
This is the first time the System has forced him to make a decision that goes directly against the philosophy we saw him show off in Episode 2, the philosophy that prompted the System, through the ‘Courage of the Weak’ achievement, to offer Jinwoo a chance to become a ‘player’. Jinwoo takes to the murders with a surprisingly chilling attitude that seems shocking.
Though the deaths of his former companions are merciful in that they are quick, Jinwoo doesn’t hesitate to inform the boss that he’s been leveling up this whole time, imparting intimidating wisdom before finishing him off so the man dies in a state of awed horror. This is the moment where fans really get to see the split pathways ahead of Sung Jinwoo as he continues to grow, and where his increasingly stoic attitude becomes less cool and more concerning.
As of the end of Season 2 of Solo Leveling, it’s still not obvious where his leveling-up journey is going to take him. Reaching Level 100 and gaining the title Shadow Monarch, as well as the events that took place in this particular episode, suggest he could be a formidable villain, yet his endearingly relentless pursuit of the cure for his mother, as well as the way he chose to step in to fight the Ant King to save the S Rankers, as well as releasing Min Byung-Gyu’s shadow after using his ability to heal Cha Hae-In points to Jinwoo walking the path of a hero.
Perhaps Season 3 will have the answers as to which way Jinwoo is really going to go, and just how far he is willing to push himself to achieve his own ends at the expense of others.
What is Sung Jinwoo’s Best Power?
Sung Jinwoo’s abilities have truly grown beyond all expectations within Solo Leveling, but which of his abilities, outside of the obvious being able to level up thing, is his most formidable? During the Ranker Retesting, it was suggested that Jinwoo was a mage type, though his other abilities were nothing to sneer at, and indeed, Jinwoo relies a lot on his ‘reanimate the dead’ capabilities to raise a shadow army befitting the Shadow Monarch.
At the end of Season 2 of Solo Leveling, he was able to acquire the soul of Beru, the Ant King, and this time, his new acquisition was able to talk. It does give rise to the question, will Jinwoo’s later conquests be able to talk as well? If so, Jinwoo might be able to use them to start strategising his battles like a proper war general, which will change up the face of combat significantly for him and will eradicate that sense of loneliness that dogs Jinwoo’s footsteps as he continues to improve and play a game that no-one else can contribute to.
