Solo Leveling (Episode 5) – A Pretty Good Deal
Jinwoo Sung has been discharged from the hospital and is keen to start putting his new skills to use. He’s got bills to pay after all. However, he’s got to be careful, people might get suspicious of someone who can level up!
Solo Leveling (Episode 5) – A Pretty Good Deal
What happened?
With all the training Jinwoo has been doing he’s starting to look like a different person altogether and the nurses at the hospital have noticed. One even asked to exchange contact details before he checked out, not that Jinwoo understood her intentions. Anyhow, he’s home now and that means he’s got bills to pay. The rent is late so he’s got to find some work. However, if he wants to get the big drops he’s got to enter the harder dungeons, but no one is going to let an E-ranked hunter anywhere near one. He could get reappraised, but with his unique ability to level up, he could face more scrutiny. Best to keep his head low until he knows he can defend himself.
Then, he gets a call out of the blue. A group of hunters needs some extra bodies to meet the quota for a C-ranked dungeon. They’re willing to pay Jinwoo to carry the bags as a non-combatant. The final member of the group is Jinho Yoo who is on his first-ever raid. He’s excited and nervous but promises to protect Jinwoo. Upon entering the dungeon, they discover that there are no monsters and no light. Jinwoo realises that they are facing insect monsters and is able to warn the group of an attack seconds before it happens. That probably saved them all.
Hwang Dongsuk is impressed by Jinwoo’s instincts. It certainly saved his bacon. They continue further into the dungeon, however, instead of finding more insects ready to attack, they continue to encounter injured or dead ones. There must be something bigger that is killing them. Most likely it’s the dungeon boss. They continue down a path covered with webbing and soon emerge into a large cavern filled with mana stones. Even split seven ways, they must be worth billions. However, Jinho speaks up for Jinwoo and suggests that mana stones were not mentioned in his contract and that he should be entitled to a split. Dongsuk agrees and then discovers that they left the equipment to carry the stones out in their cars. They turn and head back, leaving Jinwoo and Jinho to keep an eye on the dungeon boss – a giant spider, sleeping at the top of the cavern.
As soon as they’ve left the cavern, they cause a cave-in, trapping Jinwoo and Jinho inside. Jinho doesn’t know what to do. This is his first raid and it would appear that they have been double-crossed by the party. Jinwoo had a feeling something was up and had been watching them. He noticed them ready to attack him and Jinho at a moment’s notice and now he knows why they needed extra party members. Jinwoo steps forward and tells Jinho to stay back. He plans on slaying the dungeon boss alone!
What did you think?
Just brilliant. While it’s kind of annoying that we didn’t see the conversation between Jinwoo and Song when he warned him about criminals working in the dungeons before this episode, I understand that it would have been too much of a giveaway. That said, I picked up on what was going on instantly. The question now is how many times have they done this and what are they hoping will happen? Will they just clear out and leave the dungeon for another? Seems unlikely. Are they going to break back in and kill the dungeon boss once they believe that Jinwoo and Jinho have been killed so that they don’t have to split the mana stones? That seems like the most likely outcome, so I can’t wait until they come in and find Jinwoo still alive, especially when he then kicks their asses!
I’m enjoying all the little scenes where we get a glimpse of the other hunters and how they go about their lives. There’s bound to be a point where they are integrated fully into Jinwoo’s story so this makes sense to me. I’m excited for the next episode as we’re likely to go straight into an epic fight and then hopefully a little bit of a revenge fight between Jinwoo and Dongsuk. I’m guessing the Jinho will become Jinwoo’s ticket to get into harder dungeons as he’s higher ranked and will likely owe Jinwoo his life in the very near future. This series is getting better and better.
One final thought. I noticed that Jinwoo never appeared to collect his rewards for his day’s training. I wonder if this will become important as he has a full recovery. Maybe, he’ll need it to defeat the boss or fight the party when they return. I think it’ll be worth remembering in the next episode.
Episode highlights
Other posts in the series
Series Information
| English Title | Solo Leveling |
| Japanese Title | Ore dake Level Up na Ken |
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Fantasy |
| Demographic | Seinen |
Manwha
| Series | Solo Leveling |
| Author | Chugong |
| Artist | Dubu |
| Volumes | Ongoing |
| 1 | The Weakest Hunter of All Mankind |
| 2 | The Lizards |
Anime
Season One
I had a good chuckle at all of the nurses thirsting after poor, innocent Jinwoo. Dude got ripped. I’m loving this show. Can’t wait to see the spider action!
Yeah, Jinwoo had no idea. Poor kid! The spider fight is going to be epic.
Well, it’s not like he’s used to it. Yet. Heheh.
That had to be one of the most believable instances I’ve seen in anime of the “oblivious male” trope.
Absolutely, he had no idea what was going on and it made perfect sense given how quickly he’s changed. He’ll get there…
Hmmm. Picture this:
They defeat the spider monster. They use his inventory to claim all the treasure for themselves. The traitors come back in, expecting to do the same – kill the spider, claim the treasure – but there’s nothing there. No spider. No treasure. No trace of their latest victims. (side-note: they’re clearly used to doing this, so the number of people they’ve murdered is probably not small) They’re confused. They’re lost. And, as it happens, they are racing the clock. Because once the spider dies, the portal only remains open for so long. So our heroes find their way through another tunnel back to the portal before it closes. But will the villains make it out in time? Or will they just have a mighty shock when they see the ones they betrayed to die standing outside the portal, perfectly fine and healthy and somehow much richer than they were before, with the authorities on hand to make half a dozen arrests.
I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out! 🙂
Not gonna lie. I like the sound of that. As long as they get what’s coming to them, then it’s all good.
I can see Jinwoo sticking with Jinho and allowing him to take all the credit for “saving” him. He’s going to need a higher ranked ally to take the heat off his unusual ability.
Despite being a “low priority” episode, it still has good animation quality when they had to fight a nest of ants in that C-rank dungeon. Anyhow, now you can understand why this series has a large female fanbase (and some of either gender from the bisexual ones) if that’s true for other certain battle shonen series. Jinwoo is obviously becoming a fanservice mascot though hopefully majority of the fandom should be able to see that he’s more than just a pretty face with a ho–(ahem!) I mean, muscular physique. (hehe) I can accept his obliviousness of the sexual attention he’s getting being a bit more grounded in realism as his mind is too busy levelling up as that’s the only way to finding out the origin of his powers.
It’s ashamed that they’ve to tone down the comedic banter for this adaptation, but I can understand the need to do so since this is still a dark fantasy theme. Just that I wish to see Jinwoo’s facial expressions be more aligned with the webtoon’s visual comedic timing when talking with Jinho. I still appreciate how we get some info on some magic terminology or workings through Jinho being the inexperienced hunter asking questions from Jinwoo.
As for the user above this comment wanting poetic justice (since that’s a suitable term to describe our feelings on those betrayer characters) in the next episode, it will happen except they’re only half-right for such action to happen will, let’s say… be leave an unpretty side. Literally. Brace yourselves when that happens.
I feel like there’s something for almost everything with the characters that we’ve been introduced to so far. Obviously Jinwoo has had quite the glow-up and given how quickly he’s changed, it feels natural that he hasn’t realised that he now a Chad! I’m most looking forward to seeing more of Cha Hae-In.
I can’t speak to the comedic elements in the manwha, but when you mentioned it just now, I got flashbacks of the comedic whiplash in Demon Slayer. I wouldn’t want that forced into anything dark, especially shows like Solo Leveling (and Demon Slayer).
I’m excited to see what happens in the next episode which is today, if I’m not mistaken…