The episode before Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” gave us a bloody start to this anime. And on the very first episode too, as you can tell by the title of this review. As you might expect, this second episode gives us a bloody finish to the events that began in said first episode. Fortunately, even at this bloody end, there’s still hope.

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”: Details

Solo Leveling textless key art.
This scene seems to be a long ways away though. First, he’ll have to wipe off all the blood. His blood, that is.

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” is the second (you can read a review for Ep. 1 here) and the latest episode of this first season of the anime. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the South Korean web novel and webtoon series of the same name by Chugong. A-1 Pictures (Black Butler, Blue Exorcist, Sword Art Online) is the animation studio behind this anime.

Yūya Horiuchi is the director and storyboarder. of Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”, with Fuuka Ishii writing. Shunsuke Nakashige is the director of Solo Leveling overall, with Noboru Kimura also being the writer for the same. Hiroyuki Sawano is the composer of the music you hear in the anime.

Speaking of music: the opening theme music for Solo Leveling as a whole is “Level” by Sawano and Tomorrow X Together. Meanwhile, “Request” by Krage is the ending theme music.

Voice Cast

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” features the voices of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jin-woo and Haruna Mikawa (Dani Chambers in English dub) as Lee Joo-hee. The other notable voice role for this episode is Haruna Mikawa (Rebecca Wang in English dub) as Sung Jin-ah.

When and Where to Watch

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” made its streaming debut on January 13, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this anime as a whole only on Crunchyroll for now.

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”: Synopsis

Oh, Sung Jin-woo isn’t at this level. Not yet.

Normally, this would be where I give you all a spoiler-filled plot summary of Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”. However, this is the spoiler-free version of my usual reviews. You know, since this anime only came out about 2 weeks ago. Thus, you will all be getting the official synopsis from Crunchyroll instead. You can read that below:

Jinwoo and his party appear to have cleared a low-level dungeon, when a hidden path to an unfamiliar temple is revealed. There they encounter a set of commandments and a group of monsters that cause them absolute despair.

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”: The Good

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 "If I Had One More Chance" screenshot showing Jin-woo leaking out blood all over a circular altar.
Well, it’s not good for Jin-woo at the moment.

So far, the story of Solo Leveling, even in Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”, doesn’t seem particularly complex. The main character walks into a dungeon. The main character’s party is annihilated along with him. Then our main character seemingly survives at the very end. How? Alas, we’ll have to find out in the next episode. However, you can already tell that this is not a particularly thought-provoking story thus far.

However, I feel it’s in the execution of that simple story is what Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” is good at. The animation for the battle is very fluid and high quality, and the scenes are appropriately creepy and dramatic. In particular, I would give kudos to the big god statue. This thing is definitely the star of the show. If it weren’t for that overpowered statue boss, this entire battle wouldn’t nearly be as horrific and as dramatic as it currently is. Correction: did I say “battle”? I meant “one-sided massacre”.

In some ways, Solo Leveling reminds me of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Neither of them has particularly complex overarching plots at first. What’s important is how that plot is carried out, and the strength of its characters. Thus far, Solo Leveling is doing a decent job with Sung Jin-woo. Let’s hope they give us some more main characters to work with.

All this set to an incredible soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano. This is the same guy responsible for the beautiful music you hear in such anime series as Attack on Titan, Blue Exorcist, and Kill la Kill. Thus, you know you’re in for an auditory experience with Solo Leveling.

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance”: The Bad

Solo Leveling Ep. 2 "If I Had One More Chance" screenshot showing the God statue with a slasher smile.
When something gives you a slasher smile like that, you know you should run.

Arguably the one criticism I would make of Solo Leveling Ep. 2 “If I Had One More Chance” is that there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of cast so far. Indeed, much of the potential cast just dies in this episode to add to the body count of the previous episode. In this aspect, I feel like this anime is inferior to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. That anime also started us off with a bloody slaughter, but at least we get some permanent cast members out of it. Again, let’s hope Solo Leveling gives us that additional cast members beyond Jin-woo soon.