Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need To Stop Faking”: Showoff [Review]

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow– Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” actually has an accurate title this time. However, in this case, it may be just a little too accurate. It’s so accurate that, alas, it may be to the point of being boring. Especially with Jin-woo literally doing nothing but showing off in this episode, even if that’s not what he intended to do.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking”: Details

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” is the fourth episode (you can read my review of the anime film containing Ep. 13-14, and then Ep. 15 here) of the second season this dark urban fantasy and portal fantasy action anime. You can read my reviews of all 12 episodes of the first season here.

*Note that previous reviews have referred to the episodes by their chronological season number. This has been changed to the overall number to avoid confusion.

Said anime series is the anime adaptation of the South Korean web novel and webtoon of the same name by writer Chugong and featuring illustrations by Jang Sung-rak (aka DUBU), with h-goon adapting it into a manhwa form later. A-1 Pictures (Black Butler, Sword Art Online, Lycoris Recoil) is the animation studio behind this anime film. Crunchyroll is the company licensing this anime film for its global release. Save for in SEA region, where Medialink is the company licensing this anime film there.

Production Cast

Makiko Hayase is the director and storyboarder behind Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking”, with Noboru Kimura as the writer, and Tomoko Katasho and Hiromi Ogata both sharing credit as the chief animation directors. As for Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- as a whole, Shunsuke Nakashige is still the director, and Noboru Kimura is still the screenwriter.  Yasuhiro Okumura is the background art director, Yuji Kondo is the editor, Tomoko Sudo is the character designer, Hirotaka Tokuda is the monster designer, Toshitaka Morioka is the CG director, Naomi Nakano is the color designer, Ryo Tanaka is the sound director, Daichi Iseki is the VFX director, Sotaro Shiriaishi is the prop designer, Hiromu Oshiro is responsible for motion graphics, and Hiroyuki Sawano composes all the music we hear in the anime film.

Speaking of that music: the opening theme song for this second season is “Reawaker” by Lisa (feat. Felix of Stray Kids). Meanwhile, “Un-Apex” by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure is the ending theme song.

Voice Cast

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jinwoo.

Other notable voice roles in this episode include Makoto Furukawa (SungWon Cho in English dub) as Woo Jin-chul, Banjō Ginga (Kent Williams in English dub) as Go Gun-hee, Reina Ueda (Michelle Rojas in English dub) as Cha Hae-in, Hiroki Tōchi (Christopher R. Sabat in English dub) as Baek Yoon-ho, Daisuke Hirakawa (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Choi Jong-in, and and Rikiya Koyama (English dub voice actor unknown) as Sung Il-hwan.

On the antagonist side, we have Junichi Suwabe (Matthew David Rudd in English dub) as Hwang Dong-soo.

When and Where to Watch

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on January 25, 2025. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this entire anime series only on Crunchyroll due to it being an exclusive there.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking”: Synopsis

Alas, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- only recently premiered. In fact, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” only just made its debut four days ago as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis of this episode from Crunchyroll instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. Here’s that synopsis below:

Jinwoo realizes that he’ll need to become even stronger in order to clear the Demon’s Castle and decides to have his hunter rank reassessed.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking”: The Good

The best part of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” isn’t the story. No, the animation quality is what takes the cake. Particularly in the action sequences that, for once, doesn’t involve Sung Jin-woo this time. No spoilers, but let’s just say that firepower plays a big role in a dungeon clearance operation here. A lot of firepower, with some pretty high quality flames and their aftermath to boot.

Oh, and not just that either. The overall animation from A-1 Pictures is still as high quality as ever. You can tell that this is the studio behind Sword Art Online, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Lycoris Recoil, and other high quality anime series from them. Especially when we get a look at characters’ auras via Jin-woo’s aura vision ability. Seriously, the roiling clouds that make up Go Gun-hee’s aura are quite the sight.

Lastly, there is some merit to the story given how Chugong does appear to be trying to worldbuild here. We get a more detailed look into how this world works, and how really unbalanced it is towards the Hunters. Even within the Hunters, there’s quite a bit of class discrimination to boot. Quite literally in this case, which makes for a potentially interesting world.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking”: The Good

Unfortunately, this focus on other characters in Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 16 “I Need to Stop Faking” also reveals a big flaw in the anime so far: the fact that Sung Jin-woo is portrayed by the story to be seemingly the only character that matters. In this attempt to expand the world, it also reveals just how…flat everyone else is. Especially Cha Hae-in, who gets a whole lot of focus, and yet virtually no characterization. It’s rather amazing just how that happens in some ways, and disappointing in a lot of other ways. We can only hope that she doesn’t just exist to be Jin-woo’s love interest.

There’s also a distinct lack of action in this episode. There is some, but very little compared to previous episodes. If you want some action to fill in the time, then might I suggest watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, and/or Zenshu? Those anime should have more than enough action to satisfy your inner action junkie until it comes back in this anime. Probably even by the next episode.

Tune back in to THS to find out more about Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- and other anime when we do.

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