![Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down On My Guys”: Peanut Gallery Time [Review]](https://thathashtagshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Solo-Leveling-1280x640.png)
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” marks a return to the classic story formula for the anime. It’s a return so classic that it’s a bit of a downgrade from the previous episode. Here, the band of potentially interesting side characters is now reduced to being a peanut gallery audience for Jin-woo. Oh well, at least the fight scenes are still as entertaining as always.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys”: Details
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” is the sixth episode (you can read my review of the anime film containing Ep. 13-14, and then Ep. 15, Ep. 16, and Ep. 17 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
Takayuki Kikuchi is the director and storyboarder behind Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys”, with Fūka Ishii as the writer, and Hirotaka Tokuda as the chief animation director. 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. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jinwoo.
Other notable voice roles in this episode include Reina Ueda (Michelle Rojas in English dub) as Cha Hae-in, Makoto Furukawa (SungWon Cho in English dub) as Woo Jin-chul, and Daisuke Hirakawa (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Choi Jong-in.
When and Where to Watch
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on February 8, 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. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys”: Synopsis
Alas, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- only recently premiered on Crunchyroll. In fact, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” only 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:
The Hunters Guild strike team is confronting the high orc shaman Kargalgan when Jinwoo crashes the fight.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys”: The Good
The main draw of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” for the vast majority of people will definitely be the action. After all, this whole anime is best-known for its amazingly fluid action scenes. All thanks to A-1 Pictures and their animation teams, who clearly worked hard to make the action in this episode look as good as it does. Seriously, when you’re watching the whole area turn into a sea of fire, you can almost feel the heat yourself. The fact that you can clearly follow Jin-woo’s moves when he’s fighting that orc shaman if a nice plus.
Speaking of which, we also get a bit more in the way of worldbuilding. Alas, it’s just a glimpse of a larger plot taking place through the eyes of that orc shaman. Even more alas, he dies to Jin-woo before we get anything more than a glimpse. Maybe if Jin-woo ever stops to actually ask his Shadows some questions, we might get some more plot here. Plot that Chugong seems intent on teasing, and revealing to us only very, very slowly.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys”: The Bad
Alas, if you’re looking for a complex story, then Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 18 “Don’t Look Down on My Guys” isn’t for you. There’s barely anything resembling a story here. The whole episode is basically a big fight scene almost devoid of story and characterization, even when there should be plenty of opportunities to have some. The most egregious example is Cha Hae-in, who gets this massive amount of buildup, and then spends the rest of this episode as a passive audience. It’s more than a bit annoying, and only tempered by the fact that everyone else gets the same kind of audience treatment.
Fortunately, there are anime series that have both great action and great stories and characters. I suggest checking out 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 scratch both your story and action itches in some fantastic ways.
Tune back in to THS to find out more about Solo Leveling and other anime when we do.
