Solo Leveling

Review (S1):

Recommended by my coworkers and my friend, and found thru the hype behind it while airing.

This anime is awesome. From the concept, the animation, and the overall hype in every episode, this anime was very, very well done.

I really love the concept of a person being put into a "game", and this is by far the best execution of such a concept that has been done in an anime. The character progression of Jin-woo was really fun to watch, but it's mainly the cool details of the game system that were really interesting to me. The rules and functions of the "game" are just really cool to me, with the established world being so disconnected from it. It also strikes me as a having lots of potential for lore and cool revelations later on in the story, which can make it very in-depth narrative-wise. 

I think the characters are the weakest part of this show, as the supporting cast is very weak, but Jin-woo himself is an awesome main character. He is easily in my top 5 favorite main characters already, just from season 1. His progression and overall attitude are just so badass and I'm really excited to see more from him. However, because this show is so focused on him and pretty much him only, I can't really put the characters rating much higher because I think a perfect 10/10 rating would definitely need a lot more characters and character interactions. The most interactions Jin-woo has besides mindless enemies are his family and Jin-ho, while a lot of other shows make their stories pop with the deep character connections.

The pacing of this show was amazing, the only times I was bored were the slower talking scenes of random higher-up dudes, but otherwise it was constant action. This show, especially for a first season that's mainly setting things up, has incredible consistency and pacing.

The audio and visuals were also very impressive. The music was actually really fitting and epic at times, complimenting the scenes perfectly. The visuals were movie-quality, and the camera work was awesome. The only reason the visuals aren't higher is because other good looking shows on this list kind of cap it where it is right now.

Overall, this show blew my already high expectations out of the waters. I enjoyed every minute of this season, and I will be reading the manhwa (manhwa bias! rehe)