The isekai genre saw its popularity increase exponentially with the release of the Sword Art Online series (the simple fact that they managed to exit the game is completely irrelevant), which easily led to light novels being adapted for anime. Almost immediately, Sword Art Online became the most watched and also the most criticized anime series. The word "isekai", which is translated archaically as "another world", is a subgenre in which the characters are transported to another reality, such as series from other areas such as Narnia. While series like Fushigi Yugi or Juuni Kokuki are "proto-isekais", what Sword Art Online brought with it was an emphasis on video game mechanics.
It didn't take long for other series to imitate the style. Projects like Konosuba and Re: Zero were acclaimed for pleasing both fans and critics of Sword Art Online. However, the manhwa Solo Leveling might be beating it. Since the start of its publication in 2018, Solo Leveling has been ranked as the most popular manhwa on sites like MyAnimeList, with some claiming that Solo Leveling presents the concept much better than Sword Art Online intended.
Basic comparisons
One area where Sword Art Online clearly outperforms Solo Leveling, at least from the start, is the structure of the world. Since Sword Art Online happens within literally a video game, the rules are already defined from the start, while the world of Solo Leveling is less clear. The main character, Sung Jin-Woo has access to a mysterious program, which seems to indicate to him that the game (or the fantastic world) works in the same way as an RPG. This is not unusual in other isekai like Konosuba, where the world is material but the rules are the same as in an RPG.
However, where Solo Leveling certainly outperforms Sword Art Online is in its art. Each page glows with vitality and vibrant colors. The character designs are highly diverse, with some action scenes where they certainly stand out. For many, the main attraction of an action-fantasy series is, of course, art. However, there is something else that makes this manhwa so popular, and art may not be the only thing holding it.
Solo Player and Beta Player
While both series show a variety of concepts, one big difference between the two that makes Solo Leveling stand out so much more than Sword Art Online is the progression of power. In short, Sword Art Online shows the life of an almighty player, while Solo Leveling shows the journey of becoming that type of player.
As the later arcs in Sword Art Online try to reduce the power Kirito acquired in the previous arcs, the character's absurd ability to masterfully learn the mechanics of any game does nothing but reduce the tension of the viewer in the face of any fight in which he participates. There is rarely a real risk that Kirito will be defeated, or that he will at least have any difficulties, making the public less and less interested in seeing him fight.
In contrast, in Solo Leveling, the 20-year-old protagonist, Sung, is just an ordinary boy. In this fantasy world, he is the lowest of the low, being an E-rank adventurer, also known as the weakest in the world. From the bottom of the power ladder, Sung will need to progress upward, growing stronger with each fight. This makes viewers feel more related to a character than a "broken" one.
This upward progression keeps readers interested in the next chapter, waiting to see where Sung will progress now. It's a tactic similar to that employed in the Shounen demographic manga, where viewers want to see characters grow and become more powerful with each new arc. This is something that Sword Art Online can no longer do by now, given that Kirito started out as an almighty character and the only thing he did with this was to stagnate the franchise itself.
