Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” is basically a chance for the side cast to get their moment of awesomeness. Alas, they get exactly one episode to be awesome, and it’s not even the entire episode either. Near the end, they encounter the typical too-overpowered boss enemy that causes mass casualties. Which, as typical for this anime, only Jin-woo is able to defeat yet again.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”: Details

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- NA key art
Alas, there is a reason why Jin-woo is basically the only character who matters in this story.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” is the 11th episode (you can read my review of the anime film containing Ep. 13-14, and then Ep. 15, Ep. 16, Ep. 17, Ep. 18, Ep. 19, Ep. 20, Ep. 21, and Ep. 22 here) of the second season of this dark urban fantasy and portal fantasy action anime, and the 23rd 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

Kento Toya is the director and storyboarder behind Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”, with Yoshikazu Tominaga as the writer, and Tomoko Sudo as thechief 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.

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. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jinwoo.

Other notable voice roles in this episode include Hiroki Tōchi (Christopher R. Sabat in English dub) as Baek Yoon-ho, Reina Ueda (Michelle Rojas in English dub) as Cha Hae-in, Daisuke Hirakawa (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Choi Jong-in, Akio Otsuka (Brent Mukai in English dub) as Ma Dongwook, Junya Enoki (Lee George in English dub) as Min Byung-Gyu, Kohsuke Toriumi (Johnny Yong Bosch in English dub) as Lim Tae-Gyu, 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. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on March 15, 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. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”: Synopsis

At the risk of spoilers, this is the moment when things start to go horribly wrong.

Alas, Solo Leveling is an ongoing anime series despite nearly reaching the end of the season. In fact, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” only just made its debut three 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:

“As the S-Rank hunters continue fighting, they’re confronted by a new magic beast resembling a humanoid ant.”

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”: The Good

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 "It's Going to Get Even More Intense" screenshot 1
Enjoy this moment, Cha Hae-in. It won’t last, but then again, it never does in this anime.

As you might expect from this anime, it’s the action sequences of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense” that’s the best part about it. All in large part thanks to artist Dubu (RIP) and A-1 Pictures. The combination of art from the original artist and the animation team makes all the fight scenes in this episode quite the eye candy to watch. In fact, you can easily notice the big jump in animation quality whenever the fight scenes go on, which is all the more noticeable in this episode due to the sheer amount of them present.

And despite the flaws in it, there are some good things about the story. Chugong knows how to build up tension pretty well, giving us a pretty dark and tense story that only ratchets up even higher whenever the Ant King makes an appearance.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”: The Bad

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 "It's Going to Get Even More Intense" screenshot 2
And then the story quality goes back down again.

That said though, that story is also the weakest part of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 23 “It’s Going to Get Even More Intense”. Characters are just being killed off left and right by the Ant King throughout the episode, with little to no character exploration to make those deaths meaningful. It’s hard to feel anything for the dead characters when they get basically no chance to develop or even explore their personalities. It comes off as though the deaths are purely for the shock value and little else.

Also, the way Jin-woo only shows up at the end after numerous people have died makes him come off as being…callous? Yeah, it makes him feel like he really doesn’t care about all the people who died because he…decided that the island invasion meant to protect his nation from the ant monsters wasn’t worth his time? Yeah, this is the part of the story that makes Jin-woo look like an idiot and an a-hole at the same time.

Fortunately, there are action-packed anime with much better story and characters than this anime. You can check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, and/or Blue Box to see what I mean by that. Trust me, you’ll get a much better anime as a result.

Do you agree with me on the subject of Solo Leveling‘s story? How about my opinion of Jin-woo? Do you think he’s as stupid as the anime makes him out to be? Leave your replies below in the comments section.

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