Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” really gives us a look at the current mental state of Sung Jin-woo. In short: it’s not a good state for him. Especially since he shows off just how truly furious he is at his previous title of “World’s Weakest Hunter”.

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”: Details

Solo Leveling textless key visual.
Don’t worry. That frown turns into a scream of rage.

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” is the fourth episode (you can read reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, and Ep. 3 here) of the first season of this kinda sorta urban fantasy action 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.

Toru Hamasaki is the director and storyboarder of Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”, with Shingo Irie returning for this episode as the writer, and the team of Ikurō Morimoto and Yoshihiro Kanno doing the storyboard. 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. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jin-woo. The only other notable voice role in this episode is Rina Honnizumi (Dani Chambers in English dub) as Lee Joo-hee.

When and Where to Watch

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” made its airing and streaming premiere on January 27, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this entire anime only on Crunchyroll for the moment.

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”: Synopsis

He’s still not nearly at this level yet.

Unfortunately, Solo Leveling is still a very recent anime. In fact, Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” literally only just premiered 2 days as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis of this episode from Crunchyroll instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that below:

Having entered the instance dungeon located inside the subway, Jinwoo levels up time and time again by fighting waves of magic beasts. As he gradually makes his way forward, he finds a long stairway leading deeper underground.

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”: The Good

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 "I've Gotta Get Stronger" screenshot showing Jin-woo with eyes glowing and hair whipping.
You can tell just from that face that he’s on a roll…a rolling rampage.

When you finish watching Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”, you are left with the distinct impression that the action is the best thing about this episode. You would be quite correct on that part. A-1 Pictures did a magnificent job here with the action sequences. Not only is the animation itself of very high quality, but the action is extremely fluid and follows a very logical pattern. You can easily see just how it is Jin-woo makes every move that he does, no matter how insane those moves are. Again, this reminds me of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. That anime too has a similar feel with its action scenes. It’s good to see some well-animated action scenes in any anime.

Not only that, but we also get to see a bit of plot development in between the action. Specifically in regards to the mysterious System that’s helping Jin-woo as much as it’s hurting him. I won’t go into details for spoiler reasons, but the implications of the revelations of its functions are very interesting. Especially since they raise quite a few questions about its very nature.

And then of course, there’s Jin-woo himself. There’s something darkly humorous about watching this guy just blindly take risks like a newbie. In many ways, he shows off that he hasn’t really learned from his mistakes. Yet at the same time, we also get a look into his psychological profile, especially given his previous title of “Weakest Hunter”. We can only hope that either he does eventually learn, or he fails in some truly situationally ironic fashions.

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger”: The Bad

Solo Leveling Ep. 4 "I've Gotta Get Stronger" screenshot showing the Blue Venom-Fanged Kasaka coiled to strike.
No matter how you look at it, a giant snake is bad news in most stories. A pity there.

One of my complaints for Solo Leveling Ep. 4 “I’ve Gotta Get Stronger” has to do with Jin-woo himself. Specifically: the fact that he seems to be the only main character in the whole anime. I mean, look at him in this episode and in the previous. For him, the entire world outside of the System might as well not even exist. He barely interacts with anyone outside his magic video game. He talks with his little sister once, and that seems to be it. Heck, he doesn’t even talk to Joo-hee, despite how Ep. 1 implied that they were in a relationship. What kind of relationship is this when he’s ignoring someone he knows and has a close relationship with who has the same trauma he does? It does make me want to imagine a scenario where he does help her out, but hey, that’s what fanfiction is for.