Since the start of the Summer season, Crunchyroll has been streaming an anime that has been dubbed an anime like Solo Leveling due to its similar appearance and premise. As new episodes of Tomb Raider King continue to be released, the anime has proven itself to be a worthy replacement for Solo Leveling in its absence, one that fans of the original will no doubt appreciate if they love Solo Leveling. While Tomb Raider King doesn’t have the same charm as Solo Leveling and its execution is not as precise, the anime has been building its own narrative. Although Tomb Raider King essentially inherits Solo Leveling‘s foundation, particularly its power system centered around leveling up, the anime has also established its own identity.
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In Solo Leveling, the main protagonist’s journey begins with the goal of achieving greater power and wealth, and when Jinwoo gets the opportunity, he continues working toward those goals. In the process, Jinwoo also becomes ruthless due to the actions of other humans. While it takes Jinwoo time to mature, what Tomb Raider King does better is feature an older protagonist, Seo Jooheon, whose second opportunity sends him 15 years into the past, where he begins plotting his revenge against those who wronged him. Now, the latest episode reveals that this revenge trope, which makes the journey more personal, also applies to other characters, essentially forming a group of characters with the same revenge motive and giving greater meaning to their stories.
Crunchyroll’s Solo Leveling Replacement Continues to Make Its Revenge Trope Its Driving Force
The revenge trope in Tomb Raider King helps justify Jooheon’s extreme steps to take down his enemies, including killing some of them, from the very beginning, something that took Solo Leveling much longer to establish. Yet, Jooheon’s actions feel more compelling than Jinwoo’s because his pure instincts establish him as a ruthless protagonist driven by revenge, without trying to appear cool at all, unlike Jinwoo, who gradually becomes more of a celebrity after gaining his powers. Now, Tomb Raider King takes this revenge-driven foundation even further by introducing another character, Yoo Jaeha.
After his fight with Kwon and breaking multiple relics, Jooheon seeks Jaeha’s help, remembering him from the future as someone capable of restoring relics even when they are destroyed at their cores. However, Jaeha wasn’t simply going to form an alliance with him, and Jooheon earned his trust by becoming the person who helped him pursue his own revenge as well. This makes it clear that Tomb Raider King‘s main driving force isn’t solving the mysteries behind the tombs’ appearance or having its protagonist emerge as a savior. Instead, Jooheon is purely driven by revenge and seeks the help of others who find themselves in similar situations.
This helps show that the anime, which fans have been comparing to Solo Leveling because of its similar premise and main character’s appearance, is actually very different, as its new episodes continue to highlight. With this notion, Tomb Raider King, currently streaming on Crunchyroll, continues to emerge as better than Solo Leveling in at least one way, and it seems this aspect will continue to help Tomb Raider King establish its own identity and potentially emerge as its own franchise in the anime industry.
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