As the newly announced Winter 2024 anime lineup captivates the public gaze, all eyes are fixed on one highly-anticipated title— Solo Leveling. Buckle up because the anime world is about to shift from Japan all over to South Korea.
While it has become a norm for successful and popular manga to get anime adaptations to bring awe-inspiring stories to life, Manhwa is now joining the adaptation fray too. For the unversed, Manhwa is a style or general term for South Korean comic books and graphic novels. The fantastical survival story of Sung Jinwoo was first penned eight years back as a web novel by Chugong, serialized in Kakao’s digital comic platform KakaoPage.
After first spawning a webtoon adaptation in 2018 and inspiring a role-playing video game currently in development at Netmarble, A-1 Pictures has embraced the mantle of turning the action-fantasy Manhwa and webtoon into an anime series. Testifying the brilliance of the narrative, a Korean drama adaptation is also in development, along with a spinoff webtoon Solo Leveling: Ragnarok set to premiere in 2024.
As anticipated, the premier anime haven, Crunchyroll has seized the reins of streaming the webtoon’s anime adaptation. After first being announced at the Anime Expo 2022, Crunchyroll has finalized the dates to unleash the captivating story of Sung Jinwoo to the audience. Tower of God Season 2 and True Beauty were also announced at a recent Crunchyroll panel at Anime NYC and are set to air in 2024.
But for now, here’s the official release date and time you can enter into the enchanting world of Solo Leveling on Crunchyroll.
Solo Leveling Crunchyroll release date and time
The official accounts for the Solo Leveling anime announced bright and early on Dec. 10, 2023, that the series will make its global debut on Crunchyroll on Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024.
The first episode is titled “I’m Used to It,” and the season is expected to have somewhere around 25 episodes. However, no official announcement has been made about the series’ episode count. But with the original manhwa totaling 14 volumes and 270 chapters, the creators have enough material to work from.
The exact time of the premiere is set to be 10:00 am EST. For viewers across the world, here’s when you can catch the first episode:
- Pacific Standard Time (PST) – 07:00 am Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Central Standard Time (CST) – 09:00 am Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Eastern Standard Time (EST) – 10:00 am Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) – 03:00 pm Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Central European Time (CET) – 04:00 Pm Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Indian Standard Time (IST) – 08:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Philippine Time (PHT) – 11:00 pm Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024
- Japan Standard Time (JST) – 12:00 am Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024
- Australian Central Standard Time – 12:30 am Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024
Four trailers for Solo Leveling have been released by Crunchyroll so far. Cuts from the first episode have also found their way to the internet, fueling the excitement. The series will be available in Japanese, English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu languages.