Pacing issues aside, Solo Leveling’s anime has, for the most part, done an amazing job of adapting the original beloved webtoon. The anime has even taken parts of the light novel into consideration and expanded on the webtoon with various stunning anime-original scenes. From giving the S-rank hunters more screen time to setting up the Jeju Island Raid in advance and giving the Ant King’s transformation an entire dedicated sequence, A-1 Pictures has taken creative liberties that have so far worked in the anime’s favor. That said, the latest episode gives the series’ new fan favorite villain one unexpected anime-original power, and it’s causing quite a bit of confusion among fans.
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In the climactic fight between Jinwoo and the Ant King in Season 2 Episode 12 of Solo Leveling, the Ant King, or Beru as he will later be known, notably uses Ice Magic against Jinwoo. This use of Ice Magic during the fight is completely absent in both the manhwa and the original web novel, and suggests that Beru likely ate the Japanese hunter named Kei, who possessed this ability and obtained it from him. While this is only a minor addition in the anime that arguably helps make the fight a bit more interesting as a whole, despite the confusion among fans of the series, it proves the anime’s creators paid very close attention to the web novel.
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Solo Leveling’s Anime Gives Beru Ice Magic
Firstly, although the anime does not explain it all too clearly, one of Beru’s skill’s named Gluttony, allows him to obtain the skills and abilities of whatever living thing he consumes. This includes normal aquatic creatures, which is how the Ant King obtained his poisonous stinger, and thus the only way for him to have obtained Ice Magic would be through eating the Japanese S-rank hunter named Kei, who was killed in Season 2 Episode 11 while trying to protect himself by encasing his body in ice.
Though the webtoon and the anime are vague about whether Kei was eaten by Beru, the web novel does make it far more clear. In both the webtoon and the anime, when Goto Ryuji finds Kei’s corpse, his head is mostly intact with part of his jaw missing. However, in Chapter 115 of the web novel, it is stated that Goto Ryuji found all of the dead Japanese hunters with their heads missing and their necks cleanly bitten off by the Ant King. This means that even though Beru does not use the dead Japanese S-rank hunters’ skills and abilities very often, he does very much possess them.
This completely recontextualizes the scene of Beru using Ice Magic in the anime, as while it is still an anime-only scene, it proves the anime’s creators paid very close attention to the original source material, the web novel, other than just the webtoon itself. Though a minor addition to Beru’s skill set, having him use Ice Magic against Jinwoo also arguably helps make the fight much more dynamic and interesting. Overall, other than the slightly rushed pacing of Season 2, A-1 Pictures has done an amazing job with the anime adaptation of Solo Leveling, and things will likely get even better from here on out.
Solo Leveling is available on Crunchyroll.
