The webtoon series Solo Leveling has a large fan base due to the series’ remarkable art style, action-oriented plot, and fantastic characters. The webtoon series is based on the web novel, "I Alone Level Up," written by Chugong and it wholesomely depicts the rise of the once weak & obscure protagonist to worldwide fame as a powerful S-Rank Hunter.
Ever since the conclusion of the webtoon in 2021, Solo Leveling fans have been excited at the possible prospect of the anime adaptation of the series. While unconfirmed rumors are flying around about the inception of the Solo Leveling anime adaptation, there are possible hurdles the adaptation may face before appearing on screens. What are the possible reasons?
The Non-Success of Popular Webtoon Adaptations
While Solo Leveling doesn’t have an anime adaptation yet, there are popular webtoon series with an anime adaptation. The animated versions of webtoons peaked in 2020 & 2021. Opening this development in 2020 was Tower of God. The hit manhwa series has over 500 chapters featuring an interesting mystery saga. When the news of Tower of God's anime was announced, fans were visibly excited at the prospect of seeing their favorite series getting an anime adaptation. Unfortunately, even though the anime's visuals were up to standard, it had problems ranging from cutting off crucial plot events to underwhelming pacing.
A year later, God of High School made its appearance. This martial arts-inspired series had the potential to be something great; however, after a few decent episodes, the show felt simplistic and rushed even to the non-readers of the webtoon. Fans that awaited this adaptation were left disappointed and had to return to the source material for a better version of the story. Noblesse seemingly rose above these common challenges with the anime's sterling visuals and well-paced developments. However, fans who have gone through the manhwa were disappointed at the skipping of crucial events and developments present in the original webtoon. With these issues at the rear, studios considering the Solo Leveling adaptation has a big hole left by the failures of other webtoon adaptations to fill.
Relatively, Solo Leveling has a decent number of chapters, so keeping to plot points should be a given; however, few studios are willing to place a high-stake budget on a new series. Solo Leveling may get an anime adaptation, but with the setbacks the webtoon adaptation industry has faced, it won't be anytime soon.
Fans Desire To Experience A Sterling Anime Adaptation
Solo Leveling has a breathtaking art style. Every battle scene in the series is filled with well-drawn fights using the perfect shade of colors. Unlike the usual black-and-white manga, where animators just need to colorize the source material and make slight adjustments to the original source materials, Solo Leveling features bold character designs. Consequently, animating the story in a manner that satisfies the expectation of fans is going to be quite the task.
Animation studios would have to consider factors like the highly-detailed fights, the right effects to complement the story, the perfect musical themes & more. Undoubtedly, this won’t be an easy task. Studios are always faced with the default fan expectation of producing an even better version of the original source materials. Consequently, considering that Solo Leveling is already successful as a webtoon, creating an even better anime will put a strain on most studios. One can only hope Solo Leveling is animated in the right studio because all it takes is a single mishap for the series to come crashing down.
High Budget
In all aspects of movie production, animations & adaptations, budgeting is a crucial factor that cannot be overlooked. Most anime series like Fate, Kimetsu No Yaiba: Demon Slayer, & One Piece with great animation are all backed up by a large financial budget. In other words, for Solo Leveling's anime adaptation to kick off hitch-free, a large budget needs to be part of the production formula.
By default, good budgeting is an important factor for any series focused on animation quality. However, in Solo Leveling's case, the standard anime budget won't do since the series has scenes that will require a lot of funds to animate.
Solo Leveling Doesn’t Put The Japanese In Favorable Light
While this is more of a cultural issue, it is still important. Anime is a crucial part of Japanese culture. Japanese use anime to portray their culture and history in subtle ways. Solo Leveling may not be anti-Japanese, but it heavily focuses on Korean culture. Furthermore, almost all anime are produced in Japan, so they have unhindered control over what they choose to animate and reject.
Solo Leveling subtly puts Japan in a bad light, using the likes of Goto Ryuji, the S-Rank Hunter. For non-Japanese viewers, this may seem like an unimportant development, but for the Japanese, it is an important one. Solo Leveling will probably perform better as a Netflix animated series, but the industry also has its own problems.
Solo Leveling is among the categories of manga, manhwa & comics fans desperately want to see animated, but requires high budgeting due to high expectations. Still, if Solo Leveling manages to get an anime adaptation sooner than expected, fans can only hope that the show matches or surpasses the webtoon version.