![Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character [Review]](https://thathashtagshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/project_20250304_1208311-01-1280x640.png)
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” has a new female character be the focus of this episode. Alas, she’s not really the focus of the story. Rather, her entire character seems built up to be a new satellite love interest character for Jin-woo. Which is really a crying shame because she could’ve been a fascinating character all on her own if only the episode had taken the time to explore that instead of wasting her potential.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: Details
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” is the eighth episode (you can read my review of the anime film containing Ep. 13-14, and then Ep. 15, Ep. 16, Ep. 17, Ep. 18, and Ep. 19 here) of the second season of this dark urban fantasy and portal fantasy action anime, and the 20th episode overall. You can read my reviews of all 12 episodes of the first season here.
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
Tatsuya Sasaki is the director behind Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”, with Noboru Kimura as the writer, Yuka Kuroda and Yoshihiro Kanno as the storyboarders, and Hiromi Ogata, Tomoko Katasho, and Yukiko Busa 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. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jinwoo.
Other notable voice roles in this episode include Riho Sugiyama (English voice unknown) as Esil Radiru, Banjō Ginga (Kent Williams in English dub) as Go Gun-hee, and Satoshi Mikami (English voice unknown) as Goto Ryuji.
When and Where to Watch
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on February 22, 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. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: Synopsis
Alas, Solo Leveling is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” only made its debut six days ago as of this writing. Thus, I shall give you the official synopsis from Crunchyroll in place of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can check synopsis that out below:
Seeking the remaining ingredient for the Elixir of Life, Jinwoo continues his conquest of the Demon’s Castle.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: The Good
Alas, I have to give credit where credit is due. The action of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out” is still pretty good. It’s all the same fluid action sequences as in the action-heavy episodes of previous times. It’s easy to follow and aesthetically quite pleasing to watch. This episode even has a twist in it in that the newly introduced side character girl Esil actually helps Jin-woo defeat the big boss. It’s a small but undoubtedly significant way, made all the more significant by the fact that up until now, Jin-woo has needed zero help in defeating his enemies whatsoever. Well, zero help outside of his Shadows, but they almost don’t count given how they’re under his direct control and have little to no characterization.
The other reason why that action looks so good is due to A-1 Pictures. Their animation team has once more produced a very good-looking anime. High quality animation and crisp lines does tend to smooth over quite a bit of roughness. Now if only the story was as good to match that animation.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: The Bad
Okay, now time to get to the heart of the matter of what’s bad about Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 20 “Looking Up Was Tiring Me Out”: the story. The primary reason why that story is bad has to do with the way Chugong wastes a perfectly good character: Esil Radiru. She literally drops story bombshell after bombshell on top of Jin-woo, from the revelation that at least some of his enemies are sapient people to the revelation that she has a family that she’s protecting. And yet, Jin-woo ignores everything about her revelations. He makes a token attempt to question Esil about her motivations, and then stops the moment he gets a very small amount of info (at least partially due to some very creepy glitches happening with Esil that stops her from speaking any further) without making any attempt to learn any more.
Objectively, Esil is the most story-relevant character Jin-woo has ever encountered thus far. However, he’s just ignoring all of it. Everything. All because he’s so focused on “getting stronger” and getting medicine for his mom that he’s ignoring even plot-critical info to achieve those goals. Even when that info is directly related to and would help with said goals. This is the point where Jin-woo is becoming rather unlikable for me, and why this episode is getting such a low score from me. That’s not even going into Esil falling in love with Jin-woo because he spared her life. That’s not a good basis for a relationship, in my honest opinion.
If you want some good anime that actually explore their stories to an engaging level, then I strongly advise 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 will engage you both in terms of action and in terms of story.
Tune back in to THS to find out more about Solo Leveling and other anime when we do.
