Episode 12 (Episode 24 overall) of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise From the Shadow- was a love letter to multiple styles of combat and an excellent adaptation of the fight between the ant king and Jinwoo in the manhwa. This episode has been promoted quite a bit, both explicitly in its marketing and via the anime itself building up so much towards this particular battle.
Last week ended with Jinwoo aura farming on top of a building before finally issuing the command to switch places with one of the shadows he’d planted on the Korean S-rank Hunters during their training session two episodes back. This came after the newly born king of ants absolutely annihilated the S-ranks, demonstrating yet-unseen power in the world of Solo Leveling and one-shotting nearly every one of the Korean and Japanese S-ranks on the island, consuming some and gaining their powers in the process.
Even more, it added constant parallels between the ant king and Jinwoo. The same song played during Jinwoo and the ant’s brutal murder of Hunters, the ant king grows stronger as it fights, and they even quickly dispatch those much weaker than them in similar ways. There was also juxtaposition between the two; the ant king was born to be the strongest and was at the top of pedestal to begin with while Jinwoo rose up to it, putting the evolution of man against the evolution of magic beasts.
Episode 12 shone in its combat and the strength of the adaptation of the manhwa. At multiple points the anime not only adapted scenes but enhanced them, bringing through new abilities for the ant king and additional angles and facets to the fight between it and Jinwoo. While the non-combat scenes felt a bit slow, this may have just been in comparison to an otherwise extremely fast pace of scenes. Personally, I think this episode may have been hyped up to a point where even the incredible work we got seems like only at the bar for “good.” But, in absolute terms, it more than outperformed what good action anime looks like. I think it’s important to recognize how high of a standard has been consistently set here.
Jinwoo Arrives
The first few minutes of the episode is dedicated to transition and buildup. This is where I felt the most whiplash from the episode. Last week’s episode ended on such a high octane cliffhanger that it felt a bit jarring to go from it, to some light combat from Jinwoo’s strongest, then finally to a somewhat slow introduction of Jinwoo to the battlefield as he tended to and healed the other S-ranks. However, there may have been no real way around that.
I think what I would’ve liked to see was more combat integrated into the scene where he heals them. At this point, all sounds of combat stop and it oddly felt like there was no fighting happening at all. I think having sounds of destruction in the background would have eased around this somewhat.
After those first few minutes though, we got some good action from shadows like Igris and Iron. Seeing as it was explicitly stated that the later generations of ants were around the level of an S rank and that a lot of the common ants are in the B to A range, these short scenes demonstrated how strong Jinwoo’s average shadows have become and how his top shadows have reached nearly S-rank if not outright becoming it.
The anime opted not to have Jinwoo summon shadows from the corpses of the dead ants as well. This change is more consistent with some other actions he takes down the line, but it also has the effect of making his current shadows seem as strong as the ants.
King vs King
The ant king’s arrival was excellent and I appreciated how well the other Korean Hunters conveyed their obvious horror and concern at Jinwoo walking casually up to the monster that brutalized them mere minutes prior. What I appreciated even more though were the two fighters immediately literally going aura for aura and sizing each other up.
In many ways, it felt like the pace of the battle matched the pace of the episode. The two started off with basic blows, testing their strength and seeing how much damage they could deal with simple punches. Jinwoo’s section of this, making use of his telekinetic powers, was well animated, but the entire punch phase was quite satisfying to watch.
I’ve noted in previous reviews that a lot of the combat was missing impact; blows would be shown as flashes of light on screen but we really weren’t seeing fists connect. This wasn’t the case with this episode and Solo Leveling delivered an amazing slugfest to start off the fight right. Music was slight here too, giving full focus on the sound of blows. No complaints here.
The ant king’s poison provided a natural intermission to the fight and, ironically, confirmed that it felt backed down enough to resort to a more covert tactic rather than its own strength. This gave us a good opportunity to check on the remaining (and PTSD-addled) Japanese Hunters and their leadership as they realize their very best got absolutely annihilated. Unlike the other break, this one felt a lot more organic and didn’t seem to mess with the tempo of the battle quite as much.
And luckily, things moved quickly back to the fight before the energy could wear off. Everything from this point on was cinematic. Even something as simple as Jinwoo summoning his daggers felt very intentionally animated with extra emphasis on the particles as the weapons appeared. Choreography as Jinwoo’s daggers clashed against the ant king’s claws was quite well done, emphasizing the quick movements of both fighters without reducing them to so much of a blur that it was impossible to track with the eyes.
I loved the sound design of this fight as well. The clinking sound of daggers isn’t anything new to Solo Leveling at this point, but I especially appreciated the sounds of the ground breaking up and practically exploded as the two fought. And as always, Taito Ban was stellar here, bringing through constant intensity with grunts and noises from Jinwoo.
All told, this fight was amazing. If I had to rank it amongst the other major fights across both seasons of Solo Leveling, I’d say it falls short of the battle against Igris, but easily brings itself up to what we saw in Episode 6 during the brawl against Kargalgan and the high orcs and stands out as one of the best fights across the entire series.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Jinwoo tackles saving Hunter Cha (using the elixir of life is already something new that the anime added) and seeing how the world reacts to his newly shown abilities. Solo Leveling topped our weekly rankings for the first time this past week. You can now vote for the anime again to rank in our final weekly poll (poll open until Friday).
Images via Crunchyroll
© Solo Leveling Animation Partners
