Solo Leveling Season 2 has been creating a lot of buzz among the fandom since its premiere. While fans enjoyed Jinwoo’s physical growth in the first eight episodes, they showed disappointment with the events of the ninth episode this weekend. The boy fought a tough battle to get his hands on the ‘Elixir of Life‘ to cure his mother, who had been in a deep sleep for four years. Now that the ninth episode of Season 2 finally featured Jinwoo’s long-awaited reunion with his mother, Park Kyung-Hye, the fans looked heavily disappointed.
Lack of Action in Season 2 Episode 9 Disappoints Solo Leveling Fans
Solo Leveling starts with a weak protagonist named Sung Jinwoo, who gets transformed into the strongest being after catching sight of the Architect in the double dungeon. He becomes a player of the program called ‘The System’ and sees incredible growth in strength and overall personality.
The system trains him by making him go through some of the toughest challenges, and it ends up making Jinwoo the strongest hunter alive. The boy even surpasses the level of the Monarchs, who are the cosmic entities.
Despite gaining god-like powers, Jinwoo’s main goal was to find a cure for his mother’s illness. He knew that only the Elixir of Life could bring back his mother. However, the road to obtaining the holy water of life wasn’t that easy, as he had to fight several bloodthirsty monsters of the Demon’s Castle to get his hands on the magical potion.
Following the fall of Baran’s clone at the hands of Sung Jinwoo, the ninth episode sees the latter adding the Shadow of the former’s dragon to his army. So, the fandom expected to witness some action, but they were disappointed seeing that the episode featured Jinwoo breaking down in tears after waking up his mother from eternal sleep.
The episode had an emotional depth instead of being action-heavy, and while some fans loved seeing the emotional and vulnerable side of the protagonist, some people wondered if it was crucial for the anime.
An X user expressed their disappointment on social media, writing, ‘Filler episodes are always boring and annoying.’ Like them, more than 1000 other viewers who disliked the episode on the streaming platform, Crunchyroll. While they weren’t hesitant to criticize Solo Leveling Season 2 Episode 9, there were also some who found the episode the best one so far. Here are some of the positive reviews:
Who the clowns disliking it lmao dooog he sacrificed his whole life just to save his mom and yall disliking him for that? If that’s the case then none of yall deserve your moms. If you wouldn’t sacrifice your life to protect her then you’re a scumbag.
This proves anime watchers only want mindless action for the shounen smooth brains, they don’t want story, character development, world building… just mindless action.
Over 1k people probably have never cried in their life or lost a close relative, and lack empathy from what I see.
While some fans may consider this a filler episode before the much-awaited Jeju Island arc, this is an important moment in the manhwa and anime. Jinwoo reuniting with his mother shows the boy hasn’t lost touch with his humanity even after killing hordes of monsters and human enemies. The new Shadow Monarch isn’t turning evil but has his humanity intact.
