How Many Seasons Will Solo Leveling Need to Adapt the Manhwa? More Than You Think

Solo Leveling Season 2 just ended without confirmation of when the new season will drop. Considering that fans only had to wait a year between the broadcast of the first and second seasons, it is unexpected that this confirmation has not come quickly. However, even if it’s just a matter of when Solo Leveling Season 3 will be released, instead of wondering if the series will get renewed due to its incredible success, there’s clear evidence that the franchise is not stopping there.

Naturally, following Solo Leveling Season 2‘s final episode, most fans are intrigued to see how the anime adaptation will tackle the upcoming events of the story. Solo Leveling‘s anime has covered so far the first seven volumes of the webtoon, which brings an end to the first part of the story. That means that there’s still a lot of Jinwoo’s journey left to be explored in the next seasons of Solo Leveling’s franchise.

Solo Leveling Anime Might Have Four Seasons

The Anime Still Has a Lot of Story to Cover

Solo Leveling‘s manhwa was completed with 179 chapters—extended to 200 chapters counting its epilogue—with Season 1 of the anime adapting the first 45 chapters in only 12 episodes. Following a similar pace, Solo Leveling Season 2 covers until chapter 110— which marks the end of the first season in the manhwa—leaving almost 90 chapters to be adapted in future potential installments of the anime. This way, Solo Leveling will need to have at least four seasons in order to properly adapt the rest of the story.

Moreover, the anime so far has covered only 13 of the 22 story arcs in the manhwa, as Solo Leveling Season 2‘s finale skips several scenes teasing new characters and the short Recruitment Arc, which covers chapters 108 to 110 and serves to highlight Jinwoo’s new position now that his powers are known by the public and also set up what is to come in Season 3 as well.

This way, Solo Leveling Season 2 ends at the perfect midpoint of the series, having pending the most exciting part of the story, where Jinwoo finds his new purpose after curing his mother and the conflicts changes from the threat of the Gates to uncovering the mystery of the system and building up the new, luring threat of the Monarchs in the world as the major antagonists.

Are Four Seasons Enough for Solo Leveling?

Solo Leveling Might Get The Demon Slayer Treatment

Considering that the anime has been adapted to around 5 chapters per episode in season 2—which is a pretty high pace considering the standard in anime adaptations is 3 chapters per episode—the following 90 chapters could easily fit in 2 more seasons of 12 episodes each. One of the major concerns of the viewers in Solo Leveling Season 2 was the rushed pacing and skipped content from the source material that delved more into Jinwoo’s relationships and interactions with supporting characters.

Additionally, Solo Leveling Season 3 could avoid skipping scenes to improve the pacing and instead adapt more content from the light novel, which offers a better characterization of Jinwoo and scenes that weren’t adapted in the manhwa, like a part of the Japan Crisis Arc. Moreover, the upcoming seasons could follow the example of other series like Demon Slayer, which included more original scenes to give more depth to the characters, adapting Solo Leveling‘s Final Battle Arc into an anime film. This will avoid the original criticisms that Solo Leveling’s ending felt rushed.

Solo Leveling: Ragnarok Could Be Adapted Next

Solo Leveling’s Epilogue Connects to the Sequel Like Naruto and Boruto

One of the highlights of Solo Leveling’s epilogue is how it features the side stories of many characters, giving them a satisfying ending, and how it sets the start of Solo Leveling: Ragnarok. Because of this, similarly to Naruto’s last film, Naruto: Boruto The Movie—which covers the one-shot that introduces Boruto: Naruto’s Next Generations—Solo Leveling’s anime adaptation could go even further when adapting its epilogue and using it to announce an adaptation of Solo Leveling: Ragnarok as a spin-off series following animes like My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, or The Seven Deadly Sins.

While Solo Leveling: Ragnarok’s manhwa currently has less than 50 chapters so far, the light novel has more than 300 chapters, surpassing its predecessor in length, as Solo Leveling’s web novel only had 270 chapters, and features a more complex and interesting story with even more dangerous enemies. This opens the possibility of Solo Leveling’s franchise not ending any time soon.

Despite its success, Solo Leveling’s Sequels Aren’t Confirmed

Solo Leveling’s Producer Is Being As Vague As Possible

Even though originally Aniplex commissioned the anime adaptation to A-1 Pictures for 25 episodes in 2024, there was an article shared by The Bell: Gateway to Capital Markets—a digital newspaper focused on finance and market movements in South Korea—that mentioned that Solo Leveling’s production will continue until a sixth season. However, this is currently uncertain, as recently the animation producer of Solo Leveling, Atsushi Kaneko, stated that the anime will end for now and its continuation will depend on the public’s support.

Related

Solo Leveling: Where Does the Season 2 Finale Leave Off In the Manhwa?

Solo Leveling’s masterful second season is officially in the books, and for fans who can’t wait for its return, here’s where start in the manhwa.

This is a vague response that could be a marketing strategy to increase the Blu-ray and manhwa sales of Solo Leveling or hint at a possible studio change or temporary break to focus on other projects. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that, thanks to its success, Solo Leveling is being used as a standard work to raise the webtoon market internationally, releasing more anime adaptations in the upcoming years and given that the anime keeps breaking streaming records, it is unlikely that the production team will decide not to renew Solo Leveling while it’s at the peak of its popularity.

Furthermore, although there might be a significant wait ahead to guarantee the quality of the following season, fans should anticipate good news for the franchise in the upcoming months, as shared by Solo leveling’s author in a recent statement which hints at the confirmation of season 3. What is certain is that A-1 Pictures’ adaptation deserves to be celebrated for doing justice to Solo Leveling‘s source material and creating more hype than any other recent anime.

Source: The Bell

Solo Leveling

Release Date

January 7, 2024

Directors

Shunsuke Nakashige

Writers

Noboru Kimura

• 

  Taito Ban

  Shun Mizushino (voice)

• 

  Genta Nakamura

  Kenta Morobishi (voice)

•