Solo Leveling Season 2 is the most popular anime of Winter 2025. It debuted on January 4th and has currently aired two episodes. Set in a world where the appearance of mysterious gates endangers public safety, the story follows Sung Jinwoo’s rise from an E-rank hunter known as the weakest hunter in mankind to the strongest of them all. After the appearance of the gates, humans started gaining extraordinary abilities to combat the threat. Since modern machinery doesn’t work on the monsters residing in the gates, humans awaken magical powers to fight them.
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However, hunters can’t upgrade their skills no matter how hard they train, making Jinwoo the only exception thanks to the mysterious system. Solo Leveling Season 1 ends with Jinwoo gaining the ability of a Necromancer. Not only does he continue to level up, but he has an entire army of the undead at his beck and call. After getting considerably stronger than before, Jinwoo can rise against any threats. The first two episodes adapt the Red Gate Arc from the manhwa. However, the anime has considerably faster pacing than the manhwa, making it exclude a few scenes from it.
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Solo Leveling Season 2 Excludes Scenes For Faster Pacing
The first season of Solo Leveling adapted 45 chapters from the manhwa in 13 episodes, which makes up for pretty good pacing. However, the first two episodes of the second season have already adapted ten chapters of the manhwa. Since the pacing is faster, it’s understandable that the anime will exclude a few scenes. In Chapter 46, before going to Jinah’s school for a parent-teacher conference, Jinwoo stops by a bank to make a debit card and update his account. The employee is astounded by the enormous money in Jinwoo’s possession.
Later, another scene was removed where Jinwoo meets Jinah’s teacher who complimented him for his looks. He’s seeing the teacher for the first time despite graduating from the same school. The manhwa also included a scene in Chapter 48 where Woo Jinchul is driving Hwang Dongsoo to the Red Gate where the latter asks about his brother’s funeral. Additionally, in the anime, we don’t see the scene where Jinwoo is completing his daily quest inside the dungeon.
He even told the other hunters that there would be a penalty if he didn’t do it, making them speechless. Another example is in Chapter 55 where Jinho misunderstands Jinwoo’s relationship with Songyi. In the anime, Jinho doesn’t ask Jinwoo if he should call Songyi “miss” as a way of acknowledging their relationship. We also didn’t see Jinwoo attempting to clarify the misunderstanding by explaining that Songyi was just his little sister’s friend.
While the anime isn’t excluding major scenes, it’s subtly removing parts of the conversations to progress the story faster. The fight scenes also seem a bit shorter compared to the first season, but it’s still well-adapted nonetheless. This second season aims to adapt several arcs such as the Red Gate, Demon Castle, Retesting Rank, Hunters Guild Gate, Return to Demon Castle Arcs, and maybe even parts of the Jeju Island Arc.
