Solo Leveling just gave fans the fight they’ve been waiting for all along, and it was nothing short of stunning. In fact, the latest episode featuring the battle between Jinwoo and the Ant King has already become one of the top-rated episodes of Season 2 and is breaking all kinds of streaming records on Crunchyroll. Having said that, while Episode 12 no doubt delivered in every possible way in terms of the animation and the action, the anime did leave out one scene from the manhwa, which, though insignificant at first glance, could end up changing a big upcoming reveal in the anime about Jinwoo’s powers.
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Season 2, Episode 12 of Solo Leveling cuts out one specific scene from Chapter 101 of the webtoon, wherein, before the Ant King can return from killing Goto Ryuji, Jinwoo uses his shadow extraction powers on the corpses of the dead ants, adding them to his army. In the webtoon and the novel, this whole scenario is also caught on camera and broadcast live to the entire nation. Though minor, this scene effectively sets up the big reveal that Jinwoo has necromancer powers, which, until that point, had been a secret to the rest of the hunters. The larger implications of the anime cutting out this scene are that Jinwoo may not have the shadow ant troops at all unless the scene is somehow added into the final episode during the big reveal when Jinwoo eventually uses his powers on the Ant King, the Queen, and Byung-gu.
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Solo Leveling’s Anime Cuts Out Jinwoo Turning the Ants Into His Shadow Soldiers
In the webtoon in Chapter 101, Jinwoo’s arrival is caught on camera, and the director of the broadcast channel immediately decides to go live as soon as he arrives on the scene, not caring for the 10-minute delay. Soon after Jinwoo arrives, he deals with a huge chunk of the ants. Iron then taunts the rest of the ants with his skill, and after killing a few more, Jinwoo uses shadow extraction on the dead ants, and it is only then that he gives the S-rank hunters the healing potions and fights the Ant King or Beru. The cameraman clearly catches Jinwoo using shadow extraction on the ants and confusedly remarks on the ants fighting each other when the broadcasting station asks him to explain what is going on and explicitly states the entire country is watching.
The webnovel makes this fact even clearer than the webtoon, with the cameraman describing the ant soldiers as statues of the ant monsters carved out of black dry ice in Chapter 119. Even Baek Yoonho expresses his shock at seeing the new summons, and the webnovel clearly states that it is with these new ant soldiers added to his army that Jinwoo manages to turn the tides against the remaining ants and finally get the situation under control. However, in the anime, Jinwoo does not use shadow extraction on the dead ants at all, dealing with the swarm of ants with his current number of shadow soldiers alone. Instead, Episode 12 sees Jinwoo consider turning the ants into his shadows, but he quickly decides not to do so because too many people are watching. The episode then directly cuts to Beru’s arrival, and this creates two problems for the anime.
Solo Leveling’s Season 2 Finale Has To Fix a Huge Continuity Error
While the fact that Jinwoo can turn the dead into his soldiers is no secret to readers and viewers, the same can hardly be said of the characters within the story. Until the Jeju Ars most of the S-rank hunters did not even know the vast extent of Jinwoo’s summons much less the fact that he was a necromancer. This fact is explored soon after the battle against the Ant King, and though it is kept secret from the public, seeing Jinwoo resurrect the dead ants prefaces this reveal, which is quite the bombshell for the Korean S-rank hunters. While the fact that Jinwoo manages to initially overwhelm the ants with the current size of his shadow army is somewhat justifiable, the anime will inevitably have to add a scene of Jinwoo using shadow extraction on the ants in the finale or risk having a huge continuity error on its hands.
This is because they are an indispensable faction of his shadow army and play a huge role in helping Jinwoo clear the rest of the dungeon break after defeating the Ant King. However, it is unclear when the anime will get the chance to naturally integrate this scene back into the story. It would have to be before Jinwoo uses shadow extraction on the Ant King and the Queen, as the presence of the ant shadows explains why Jinwoo cannot turn the Queen into one of his shadows as well. All that said, while Solo Leveling’s anime has made many changes from the source material and added many original scenes, the absence of this particular moment could have major consequences for the series. This only goes to prove that, though the latest episode was stunning, Season 2 of Solo Leveling does indeed suffer from pacing issues, and hopefully upcoming seasons will find that pacing sweet spot.
Solo Leveling is available on Crunchyroll.
