Get ready to level up, as the Solo Leveling anime adaptation has received its first full trailer and an official release window. The hit webtoon is now slated to land in winter 2024, instead of the original 2023 premiere as announced at Anime Expo 2022.
The new video shows protagonist Sun Jin-woo in the moments just before he gets his powers, along with some slick animation of the beginning of the story. A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online, Nier: Automata Ver 1.1a) is in charge of animation production, with Noboru Kimura (select episodes of Gangsta, Amagami SS) and Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Kill la Kill) serving as writer and composer respectively.
Crunchyroll will stream the series, describing it as such:
It’s been over a decade since the sudden appearance of the “gates”—the paths that connect our world with a different dimension. Since then, certain humans have awakened to supernatural powers. We call these individuals “hunters.” Hunters make their living by using their powers to conquer dungeons inside the gates. In this world of tough customers, the low-ranked hunter Jinwoo Sung is known as “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” One day, Jinwoo gets fatally injured when he runs into high-rank double dungeons hidden within a low-rank dungeon. Just then, a mysterious quest window appears in front of him. On the verge of death, Jinwoo decides to accept the quest and starts leveling up… while the others aren’t.
Solo Leveling began as a web novel series written under the Korean pseudonym of Chugong in 2016, and was later adapted into a manhwa (general Korean term for comics and print cartoons) illustrated by the late Korean artist DUBU in 2018. It has gained millions of fans over the course of its serialisation, and ended its run in December 2021.
Yen Press is publishing the web novel and manhwa in English, while Tapas Media is releasing it digitally. This leaves plenty of time for newcomers and interested parties to catch up on the story, before the anime premieres sometime in winter 2024.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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