Summary

The showdown between Jinwoo and Barca is one of the coolest fights in Solo Leveling so far for a variety of reasons.
The Red Gate Arc is already a concise, thrilling, and gorgeous start to Season 2, but one key directing choice makes all the difference.
Jinwoo vs Barca is a great example of "Show, don't tell" in storytelling, improving upon Season 1's weakest aspects.

Title	Solo Leveling Season 2: Arise from the Shadow
Director	Shunsuke Nakashiga
Studio	A-1 Pictures
Premiere Date	01/04/2025

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Solo Leveling, Episode 14, “I Suppose You Aren’t Aware”, now streaming on Crunchyroll.

In television and film, the rule of “show, don’t tell” is a guiding light for how to properly convey information in a story, as evidenced no better than the instances where this rule is eschewed. Even the most entertaining shows can suffer from exposition that is wordy or redundant, but one fight from Solo Leveling surprised me with how it rose above one of Season 1’s biggest vices.

Based on the web novel turned manhwa by author Chugong with artwork by the late Jang Sung-rak, Solo Leveling received an anime adaptation by A-1 Pictures starting in January 2024. The story follows Jinwoo Sung, a young man who resurrects to find that he has gained the ability to level up as if in a video game, and uses it to get stronger and support his family.

Solo Leveling Releases Stunning Sung Jinwoo Art

Solo Leveling reveals new illustrations featuring Sung Jinwoo and Cha Hae-in.

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By Suzail Ahmad

Getting Up To Speed on Solo Leveling

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There’s a particular moment in Episode 14 that impressed me and demonstrated an improvement in the storytelling, but it requires some context. See, Jinwoo Sung spent the majority of Season 1 acclimating to his new abilities and steadily gaining strength. All the while, he’s trying to stay under the radar, seeing as how no one else in this world can gradually rise above their assigned rank. Very few people experience a so-called “reawakening” to begin with.

All of this culminates in Jinwoo gaining the ability to raise his fallen foes and build an army of shadows he can summon at the expense of mana, which is where Season 1 ends. Season 2 gets off to the best possible start one could hope for from a hotly anticipated sequel. It delivers a fresh, exciting conflict with plenty of intrigue while simultaneously tying together seemingly disconnected plot threads from before. This is the Red Gate Arc.

The Red Gate Arc Doesn’t Mess Around

Jinwoo - still under the guise of an E-Rank hunter - gets pulled into a serious predicament when the dungeon he and a group of hunters are in turns into a “Red Gate”. The dungeon becomes a frozen forest teeming with ferocious bears and murderous Ice Elves. To make matters worse, Kim Chul, the arrogant A-Rank Hunter present, decides to split the group up, showing very little regard for the lower-rank Hunters caught in this mess.

However, it ends up being a blessing in disguise. The smaller party following Jinwoo ends up benefitting from his large inventory and formidable strength built up over an entire season prior, with the understanding that they’ll keep his abilities secret. Kim, on the other hand, becomes the sole survivor of his group and nearly snaps in the next episode when he finds everyone else warm by a campfire, not that he can do anything stupid before Jinwoo humiliates him.

The Shadow Monarch Versus The Ice Elf

Before anyone can process what’s happened, the arc’s villain, the Ice Elf Barca, has discovered the group. He intends to kill the humans but is willing to spare Jinwoo, recognizing him as something… different. Intrigue aside, Jinwoo declines, and so begins the biggest battle of the story yet. Jinwoo’s knights, mages, and newly summoned bears face off against Barca’s Elves, while the two knife-toting leaders go toe-to-toe in a lightning-fast duel.

It’s no wonder why they put this arc in theaters to capitalize on the hype for Season 2 - they knew it would be worth the price of admission. Like any good large-scale battle, there are a lot of factors at play: the varied types of combatants, the power differential, and how these units combine. Jinwoo is powerful, but his strength is bound by rules, and foes like Barca can still give him trouble, which is why giving him an army adds that needed extra depth.

How Solo Leveling Respects The Viewer

All of this is why the fight is great, but it’s more or less written on the wall and people haven’t exactly been coy about loving it. Upon rewatch, what stood out wasn’t what this fight did, but rather what it didn’t. At the halfway point of Episode 14, Jinwoo is at an impasse; Barca is strong, and he can only spare so many troops from the larger battle, much less spare mana to summon more. But then, Kim Chul wakes up from the hit to the noggin he received earlier and decides it’s the perfect time to murder Jinwoo for no other reason than his wounded pride.

In an unexpectedly brutal turn, Jinwoo has his prized shadow, Igris, kill Kim, and then he raises him from the as one of his shadows. This act alone has crazy implications for the applications of Jinwoo’s power, to say nothing of the moral grays he is stepping into the stronger he gets. Yet, in that moment, the only important thing is that Jinwoo’s newest shadow, Iron, is exactly what he needs to win. In particular, he needs Iron’s special skill: Taunt.

When Solo Leveling Shows Instead of Telling

For as awesome as this show can be, it can fall into the familiar traps that have hindered similar anime, especially when it comes to shows with isekai or video game elements in its storytelling. Namely, an abundance of exposition that can all too often grind the pace down to a crawl as the protagonists learn how to navigate the game-like mechanics through which they interact with the world. See Sword Art Online, Re:Zero, or Log Horizon, for examples.

Granted, not all exposition is the same, and the above-mentioned shows are beloved for valid reasons. Exposition can be entertaining depending on how it is presented, and frankly, any kind that isn’t just verbal delivery set against static imagery already has an advantage if there’s a good visual flow. The worst parts of Solo Leveling Season 1 were the moments when the exposition slowed things down as the story was still finding itself.

So fast-forward to Episode 14. As mentioned before, Iron uses the Taunt skill to grab Barca’s attention while Jinwoo, Igris, and a few mages all get into position to defeat him. What I didn’t mention before is that the anime at no point feels the need to tell the viewer that the Taunt skill is being used, nor explicitly spell out its effect. Instead, the viewer sees the effect, and Barca’s subsequent dialog is diegetic as if he’s unaware he’s fallen under the effects.

Why This Small Touch Matters So Much

Compared to everything else, this might seem like not much of a big deal, but compared to many of Solo Leveling’s genre peers, it’s surprising how common needless exposition can be. Furthermore, it speaks to the larger attention to detail that made Season 2’s opening arc so captivating, and in such a tight, two-episode arc to boot. It was efficient, it was spectacular, and it let the action speak for itself.

Some of the best fight scenes in anime are the kinds where you can rewatch them constantly and still find new details that further an appreciation of the work. The subject of this piece was decided on after having rewatched the fight for the 10th time (probably more), and one can only wonder what little touches are hiding in the rest of Season 2’s fights. Based on the recent episodes, Solo Leveling is only going to get bigger, and its action is all the more begging to be dissected.