Solo Leveling: From Korean Web Novel to Global Anime in 8 Years

In January 2024, A-1 Pictures premiered the anime adaptation of Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll. The show was, almost immediately, the most-watched new anime of the season. The Korean webtoon it was based on had already been one of the most-read manhwa in the world. The Korean web novel beneath that had been one of the most popular fantasy novels on Korean publishing platform KakaoPage. The franchise had been building for eight years before the anime aired, and the anime was the moment all that accumulated readership consolidated into a global pop culture event.

This is the structural pipeline that made Solo Leveling possible, what the franchise represents for the broader anime/manhwa landscape, and what it tells you about how content gets built in 2026.

The 2016 web novel

Solo Leveling started in 2016 as a free serial on KakaoPage, written by Chugong (a pseudonym for the South Korean author). The web novel ran for two years, ending in 2018 with 270 chapters across 14 collected volumes. The premise — a weak hunter in a world of hunters becomes the world’s most powerful through a mysterious “leveling up” system — is the canonical Korean power-fantasy template.

What made the web novel commercially successful wasn’t the premise specifically. The “weak protagonist becomes strong” template was already common on KakaoPage. What made Solo Leveling stand out was the pacing. Chugong calibrated the leveling system to give readers a satisfying sense of progress per chapter without making the protagonist’s increasing power feel boring. Each chapter delivered a small power-up while teasing the next. This is the same engagement mechanic that mobile games use, applied to serialized fiction.

The web novel was free to read on KakaoPage’s standard tier. Monetization came from “chapter unlocks” — readers could pay to access new chapters ahead of the free-release schedule. This is the platform economics that drives most Korean web fiction. Chugong’s serial was one of the platform’s biggest revenue drivers during its run.

The 2018-2023 manhwa adaptation

In 2018, KakaoPage commissioned a manhwa adaptation of Solo Leveling. The art was by DUBU (a pseudonym for the Korean illustrator Jang Sung-rak; sadly, DUBU died in 2022 during the manhwa’s production). The script adaptation was by Chugong himself, with editorial support from KakaoPage’s manhwa team.

The manhwa adaptation ran from March 2018 through December 2023, finishing at 200 chapters across 20 collected volumes. It was, in commercial terms, one of the most successful Korean manhwa of all time. The international English translation (officially via Tappytoon and other platforms) accumulated massive readership in markets where the Japanese manga industry didn’t have strong presence — particularly Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

What’s worth understanding about the manhwa specifically is that DUBU’s art style established the visual language for the Solo Leveling franchise. The character designs, the action choreography, and the specific aesthetic of the “monster hunters in armor” world all originated in the manhwa rather than in Chugong’s web novel descriptions. When A-1 Pictures later adapted the anime, the visual reference was DUBU’s manhwa, not the web novel.

DUBU’s death in 2022 was a structural loss for the franchise. The manhwa’s final arc was completed by his studio (REDICE Studio) and Chugong, but the visual identity of the work is tied to DUBU’s specific approach.

The 2024-2025 A-1 Pictures anime

A-1 Pictures (Aniplex’s primary in-house animation studio) commissioned an anime adaptation of Solo Leveling in 2021. The first season aired from January through March 2024, covering roughly the first six volumes of the manhwa. A second season aired in early 2025, covering the next major arc. A third season has been announced for late 2026.

The production decisions for the anime are worth understanding because they have specific implications for how manhwa-to-anime adaptations work going forward.

A-1 Pictures used the manhwa’s color palette and character designs. Unlike adaptations that “anime-ify” their source material’s visuals, the Solo Leveling anime maintained close visual fidelity to DUBU’s manhwa work. The character poses, the color choices, and even some of the specific composition choices were preserved from manhwa frames.

The pacing tracked the manhwa rather than the web novel. This was a critical choice. The manhwa’s pacing was already calibrated for visual consumption (vs. the web novel’s pacing calibrated for chapter-by-chapter text reading). Following the manhwa meant the anime inherited a pacing structure that worked for animation rather than having to re-derive it.

The action animation was kept in-house at A-1. Many studios outsource action sequences to Korean and Philippine subcontractors. A-1 Pictures kept most of the major action scenes in-house, with senior animators (including some who had worked at Wit Studio on Attack on Titan) handling key sequences.

The English-language voice cast was hired before international release. Solo Leveling shipped with full English dubbing for the simulcast — a relatively unusual decision in 2024, but one that reflected the show’s pre-existing international readership. The dub was widely praised, particularly the casting of Aleks Le as Sung Jin-Woo.

The combined result was an anime that, by the end of the first season, was the most-watched new anime of 2024 on Crunchyroll worldwide. The show beat Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen S2 in viewership metrics, despite being a manhwa adaptation rather than a manga adaptation. This was, structurally, the first time a manhwa-based anime had decisively outperformed the major manga-based shows of its season.

What Solo Leveling represents

Looking at the franchise’s eight-year arc, Solo Leveling represents several specific things about the 2020s media landscape.

Web novel pipelines work. The Solo Leveling case is the canonical demonstration that the Korean web novel → manhwa → anime → global hit pipeline can produce work at the scale of major Japanese franchises. The same pipeline is now being deployed for other Korean web novels (The Beginning After the End, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Tower of God, Eleceed). Whether the same scale of success can be repeated remains an open question, but the structural template is established.

Manhwa is now “anime source material” alongside manga. Before Solo Leveling, manhwa was treated by Western anime fandom as a separate (and often less prestigious) category from manga. Solo Leveling’s success normalized manhwa as part of the broader anime ecosystem.

Global audience matters more than Japanese audience for some properties. Solo Leveling’s primary readership during its manhwa run was not in Japan. The audience was Korean, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian readers. The anime adaptation has been calibrated to those audiences as much as to Japanese viewers. This is structurally new for the anime industry, which has historically prioritized Japanese audience first.

The “leveling” or “power-fantasy” subgenre is now mainstream. Before Solo Leveling, the leveling-fantasy framework was associated with second-tier Korean web fiction. Solo Leveling’s success has made it a major franchise category, and multiple other titles in the same subgenre are now in active anime adaptation.

How to read Solo Leveling in 2026

The franchise has three main entry points, each with different content and pacing.

The anime is the most accessible entry. Two seasons available, third season scheduled. The visual quality is high and the pacing is calibrated for serial viewing. If you’ve never engaged with the franchise, start here.

The manhwa (on Tappytoon and similar platforms) is the comprehensive version. 200 chapters across 20 volumes, with art that captures the franchise’s full visual identity. Best if you want the canonical experience.

The web novel (now translated by various platforms) is the longest-form version. 270 chapters of text, with more interiority and worldbuilding than the manhwa or anime. Best for readers who want the deepest engagement with the world.

A new sequel manhwa called Solo Leveling: Ragnarok began publication in 2024, written by Cheong-A Yoo with art by DUBU’s studio. The new series is set 10 years after the original’s events. Reception has been mixed but readership remains strong.

The Otakira encyclopedia covers all versions of the Solo Leveling franchise with publication history and licensed availability across 15+ Arab markets.

What Solo Leveling means for the next decade

If the Solo Leveling pipeline holds — and there’s no structural reason it shouldn’t — the next decade of anime production will increasingly include manhwa-source adaptations and Korean-property-first storytelling. The Japanese anime industry’s traditional position as the primary source of “anime” content is being challenged by the success of properties like Solo Leveling.

This isn’t a replacement. Japanese manga and original anime concepts will continue to dominate seasonal anime production for the foreseeable future. But the “anime” category is becoming more diverse in source material, more international in audience targeting, and more inclusive of non-Japanese creative work.

Solo Leveling is the specific franchise that made this expansion visible. Whether it remains the canonical example of “manhwa becomes major anime” or gets replaced by something larger is the question for the late 2020s.