The most highly-anticipated anime of the Winter 2024 anime season, Solo Leveling, finally arrived on Saturday, January 6, and according to fans, they are unable to view the premiere episode of the series. A-1 Pictures, the animation studio known for its work on popular titles such as Fairy Tail, Sword Art Online, Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and Mashle: Magic and Muscles, is animating the series based on a South Korean webtoon written by Chugong and illustrated by Jang Sung-rak (aka Dubu).
Solo Leveling Episode 1 titled I'm Used to It arrived on the streaming service today, and the amount of people trying to watch the anime must have overwhelmed Crunchyroll's servers, causing it to crash. We've seen crashes like this happen before when it comes to big titles such as Attack on Titan, but it goes to show the hype of this new anime as it's having a similar effect to the popular streaming service. Solo Leveling gained so much hype before its premiere thanks to its compelling storyline, character designs, and brutal battles.
Check out what fans said about not being able to see Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll:
This fan is not even surprised that Solo Leveling caused Crunchyroll to crash.
One fan is going to see it tomorrow
Solo Leveling broke his Crunchyroll
What is Solo Leveling anime about?
In a departure from its South Korean source material, the Japanese anime adaptation of Solo Leveling is set in Tokyo, Japan instead of Seoul, South Korea. The story follows Jinwoo Sung, who acquires a rare ability to level up in power as he hunts down monsters threatening people.
You can read the official synopsis from Crunchyroll below:
It’s been over a decade since the sudden appearance of the “gates”—the paths that connect our world with a different dimension. Since then, certain humans have awakened to supernatural powers. We call these individuals “hunters.” Hunters make their living by using their powers to conquer dungeons inside the gates. In this world of tough customers, the low-ranked hunter Jinwoo Sung is known as “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” One day, Jinwoo gets fatally injured when he runs into high-rank double dungeons hidden within a low-rank dungeon. Just then, a mysterious quest window appears in front of him. On the verge of death, Jinwoo decides to accept the quest and starts leveling up… while the others aren’t.
The source material was serialized in Kakao's digital comic and fiction platform KakaoPage beginning on July 25, 2016, and D&C Meida later published it in full under their Papyrus label on November 4, 2016.
Solo Leveling's webtoon adaptation was first serialized in KakaoPage on March 4, 2018, and it was illustrated by Jang Sung-rak (aka Dubu), the CEO of Redice Studio, who passed away on July 23, 2022. The first season of the webtoon concluded on March 19, 2020, and its second season started on August 1,2020, ending in December 2021 with its 179th chapter. D&C Media collected and published its individual chapters, and as of February 2023, seven volumes have been published. Yen Press licensed the novel and webtoon in English.
New episodes of Solo Leveling Season 1 are scheduled to premiere weekly, every Saturday on Crunchyroll, and it will run in two consecutive cours (25 episodes).
