Debuting this week on Crunchyroll in North America is the second season of last year’s breakout anime, Solo Leveling. This time, though, fans of the series that made the trek out to cinemas last month to watch the limited release of Solo Leveling: ReAwakening have already been treated to the first two episodes of the new season as part of that film recap. The regular streaming debut of the series starts on January 4th.

We continue following the story of Sung Jinwoo (voiced by Taito Ban in Japanese/ Aleks Le in English) after the events of the season 1 finale where he rose to a new role of necromancer. There is no mistake as to why the first episodes were packaged together to launch the second season as they perfectly encapsulate the extent of Jinwoo’s new powers. 

Jinwoo embarks on a new raid party. He tags along in the hopes of convincing his sister Sung Jinah’s (Haruna Mikawa/ Rebecca Wang) friend Han Song-yi (Miyu Tomita/ Emi Lo) to back off of raiding due to the dangerous nature of the job. However once through the gate, it turns red immediately, locking the entire party into the surroundings of an S-Tier boss that outranks everyone. But as the first season has shown, the E-ranked Jinwoo has levelled up significantly, and this is the perfect way to explore his new powers of necromancy.

Having watched the first season of the anime, and not read the original manga, I wasn’t quite prepared for the vast step in power that Jinwoo’s new power would present. An already overpowered hero becomes even more insanely strong, with no signs of slowing down. One of the best takeaways from the first episodes of the series is the gloriously animated battle sequences and that the level of animation has not declined in any manner from the first season. The creators pack the first two episodes with action, while introducing us to some new characters like Heejin Park – a female hunter that’s part of Jinwoo’s raid party and instinctively sees his strength – and more. I hope Park reemerges throughout the season.

Strong animation and voice work, in both the dub and the original Japanese, get the second season of Solo Leveling off on the right foot. Plus the arrival of Hwang Dong-soo into the mix. The S ranked hunter arrives looking for vengeance for his brother, who was killed in the first season after he attempted to kill Jinwoo and his compatriot Yoo Jinho on a raid. Hwang Dong-soo will not be appeased until he has blood on his hands and should be formidable for Jinwoo, ultimately being the one that outs Jinwoo’s abilities to the entire world I suspect. Solo Leveling – Arise from the Shadow looks like it will deliver a truly satisfactory follow up to an excellent first season that ranked among 2024’s best series.