One Classic Anime Fixed Solo Leveling's Biggest Problem Years Before Its Anime Debuted
Solo Levelinghas one big flaw that turns many would-be fans away—and which one classic anime fixed years earlier. Solo Leveling follows Sung Jinwoo, a boy in a world where hunters are contracted to take down monsters festering inside gates that sporadically appear. Hunters are typically divided into ranks based on their power levels, and it's very rare for those power levels to change at all. That's not the case for Jinwoo, though, who awakens to a bizarre set of RPG-inspired abilities and obligations like inventories, quests, and leveling up after a mission gone wrong.
As people are eagerly awaiting Solo Leveling's third season, there's another anime worth checking out. Solo Leveling shares many surface-level similarities with World Trigger. Both are predicated on the idea of paranormal gates which present an existential threat. However, the thing that most sets World Trigger apart also shows its avoidance of a huge problem Solo Leveling locked itself into early on.
Solo Leveling's Biggest Problem Has Always Been Its Writing
Solo Leveling Loses Itself Almost Immediately, Thematically And Narratively
It's easy to feel alienated by Solo Leveling's writing. Especially if one is used to the MMORPG gimmick, its presentation feels over-explained. More importantly, Jinwoo's relative isolation presents a creeping thriller-like feel at times when his secret is discovered (or when that even comes close to happening), but it also prevents his relationships from having much depth. The characters fans feel like they're supposed to care about (like Lee Joohee) are under-explored because of the anime's singular emphasis on Jinwoo.
This is particularly a problem when it comes to the first season. Some might even characterize Solo Leveling as "style over substance", abusing flashy animation to cover a story that's all too narrow. Although the second season has demonstrated more depth with the start of the beloved Jeju Island arc, and the manhwa does correct this by showing there's more to the gates than meets the eye, some of Solo Leveling's core writing problems remain.
World Trigger Rewards Every Solo Leveling Fan Who Gets Through The Early Slog
World Trigger Becomes A True Competitor For Solo Leveling
Fans (or would-be fans) of Solo Leveling will find a great counterpoint in World Trigger. Where Solo Leveling focuses primarily on Jinwoo and the struggle with the invading magical beasts, World Triggerconsiders the daily lives and relationships of its characters as much as anything else. Furthermore, World Trigger's counterpart to Solo Leveling's magical beasts, called Neighbors, have more complexity. One of its leads, Yuma Kuga, is a Neighbor himself—whose ultimate desire is to live among, and be understood as, human. World Trigger makes up for something Solo Leveling struggled with from the start: giving its other characters due time, making the relationships that feel like they're supposed to be important actually important.
World Trigger matches Solo Leveling in the feeling of hard-earned growth for which fans love the series. The biggest payoffs in Solo Leveling are when one gets to see the real-time rewards of Jinwoo's struggles, and although World Trigger disperses this bounty among its entire cast, the interplay of suspense and payoff is definitely there. World Leveling has a slow start, but it doesn't take all too long to pick up, improving tremendously after the first season. Although World Trigger seems less dark than Solo Leveling on the surface, it tackles darker subject matter by virtue of being willing to give its characters more definition than Solo Leveling gave itself room for.
