Solo Leveling is about to change anime forever – here’s how

The series picked up nine awards in total out of 13 nominations, including everything from Best Action and Best Score to three separate voice acting wins in the English, Brazilian Portuguese and Castilian Spanish categories.

The night ended with Solo Leveling taking the biggest trophy too for Best Anime, beating out critical darlings such as Dandadan and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

This wasn't exactly a surprise, however. As Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini told us ahead of the awards: "Solo Leveling is the number one show on the platform in almost every single region that Crunchyroll operates in."

Season two performed even better than the first, toppling the ratings of mainstays like One Piece while also dethroning Chainsaw Man, which previously held the record for single most-viewed episode on Crunchyroll.

Why is Solo Leveling so popular?

The anime, an adaptation of Chugong's South Korean Webtoon, doesn't come with a particularly original premise. Sung Jin-woo, once deemed "The World's Weakest Hunter," becomes the only Hunter who can increase in strength after a mysterious power levels him up in the wake of a near-death experience.

This kind of fantasy world, which essentially follows the rules of a standard RPG (role-playing game), is the foundation of many other shows before it, including everything from Sword Art Online to I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World. The difference here is that Solo Leveling comes with a humongous built-in fanbase who were already obsessed with the original manhwa (South Korean manga) long before A-1 Pictures started production on the anime.

Since its launch in 2018, the online comic has recorded over 14.3 billion views worldwide, making it one of the most popular Korean Webtoons to date. That success has now been expanded on by the Solo Leveling anime, which regularly goes viral while the show is airing due to its hi-octane fight scenes.

Speaking to Indiewire, A-1 Pictures producer Atsushi Kaneko revealed that Episode 24 included 17,000 frames, as opposed to the usual 7,000 to 8,000 frames that a typical anime episode would usually contain (and 10,000 if especially action-heavy). It's this attention to detail in the show's unparalleled animation that's become a huge draw for Solo Leveling. But that's not all.

Purini describes the Anime Awards winner as "a really special show" on a streaming service full of them, explaining that: "A-1 Pictures did an amazing job with the visuals, the quality of the show, but what we hear from fans and why we believe it's resonating with them is, yes, it's the characters, it's the visuals, it's the storytelling, it's the pace, but it's also the theme itself."

Beyond the action and spectacle, Solo Leveling possesses an appealing wish-fulfilment factor that hooks you before the mystery at the heart of it pulls you in. It's a perfect storm of accessible and hype-worthy, just deep enough to intrigue but not too convoluted or niche for newcomers.

The result is a show that doesn't need to be overly original when each individual component is crafted this well and comes out this entertaining. But where Solo Leveling is going next certainly does tread new territory, not just for show but anime at large.

And the Emmy goes to?

The Emmy Awards, TV's most prestigious trophy, has recognised animated programs since 1979, yet for the majority of that time, anime wasn't even eligible to compete. That's because the rules state contenders must be produced at least partially by an American company. As a result, this uniquely Japanese medium has been shut out of the race for Outstanding Animated Program, showing up instead in the international category for Best Kids Animation.

Six Japanese-produced shows have been nominated in that area since 2012 with just one winning: Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter in 2015. That makes Gorō Miyazaki's series the only anime to win an Emmy Award to date. Until now, that is.

As a co-production between Japanese entertainment company Aniplex (which operates Crunchyroll as a joint venture with Sony Pictures) and animation studio A-1 Pictures, Solo Leveling is eligible to compete in the Outstanding Animated Series category this year. Crunchyroll has already begun campaigning, and if successful, that would make it the first anime to move beyond the international categories and break into the Primetime Emmys.

Whether Solo Leveling ends up securing a nomination or not, this awards campaign is a historic one regardless, marking a shift that reflects anime's growing reach and dominance in a global market beyond its native Japan. And even if recognition doesn't come at this particular point, a win voted for by a Western body like the Primetime Emmys is practically guaranteed at this point, a matter of "when," not "if".

Solo Leveling redefines what anime can be

The success of Solo Leveling is also a win when it comes to broadening the scope of what anime can even be. Unlike other heavy hitters that competed at the Anime Awards this year, Solo Leveling is based on a South Korean property, rather than Japanese. The animation is still produced by a Japanese studio, however, which is why Solo Leveling can still technically be defined as anime, rather than "eni" or "hanguk aeni" (which would be the correct terms for a Korean animated production).

That makes Solo Leveling the first anime based on a Korean story to take the top prize at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. Korean media such as The Korean Times are already celebrating this historic moment as a win for their own country as well as Japan, and don't be surprised if more achievements in this vein soon follow.

Just as protagonist Sung Jin-woo regularly visits other worlds in search of something more, the success of Solo Leveling has managed to widen the already considerable scope of source material that anime can draw upon. That means along with the countless Japanese manga always in production, South Korean manhwa is on the cards for adaptation now too.

Whether these productions retain their Korean identity or mostly homogenise it like Solo Leveling has done remains unclear, although Netflix did just release their first Korean original animated film this week, titled Lost in Starlight, which is unmistakable Korean in setting and context.

Solo Leveling is just the beginning

Either way, anime continues to level up on the global stage, as proven just this past week at the Crunchyroll Anime awards, which attracted more attention than ever before.

"The 51 million votes," said Purini, "is a reflection of not only the growth of anime and the popularity of anime, but also a recognition of how much fans are invested in telling creators how much they like those shows".

That message has been heard loud and clear by the creators of Solo Leveling who are working hard on season 3, even as that universe expands online too, in a spin-off web novel released just last year. Solo Leveling: Ragnarok focuses on Jin-woo’s son, Su-ho, after the events of the original series, which means that the franchise could theoretically continue on screen for generations.

But even if the bubble eventually bursts and Solo Leveling becomes less popular than it currently is now, the changes it has inspired will still be felt as a ripple effect for everything that comes next, inspiring the two billion fans Purini and Crunchyroll predict will soon engage with anime by 2030.

For more anime shows to try once you've finished Solo Leveling, check out our best anime of all time picks here and how to watch them via Crunchyroll's streaming service here.

Start your 7-day free Crunchyroll trial. Sign up to Crunchyroll at Amazon Prime Video

Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.