Solo Leveling's Next Series Officially Unveils Its New Cast
Merlyn De Souza is a freelance writer and anime enthusiast based in Goa, India, with a Bachelor's in English Literature. When she isn't writing, she can be found exploring various realms of entertainment, including, but not limited to, K-dramas, novels, and even the occasional manhwa. She also enjoys all things creative, like sewing and makeup.
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It's coming up to two years since Season 2 of Solo Leveling's anime aired at the start of 2025, and despite being the absolute whirlwind that it was, things have been relatively quiet for the franchise since. Instead, much like Jinwoo, Solo Leveling has seemingly also been making moves in the shadows, with multiple huge releases lined up, such as the Solo Leveling: Beyond the System movie, as well as games like Solo Leveling: Karma.
The latter was recently met with an unexpected delay, while the movie, the much-awaited next installment of the anime, has yet to officially lock down a release date, though multiple reports place it sometime in 2027. All that said, amidst all this uncertainty, one of Solo Leveling's upcoming releases is sailing ahead at full speed, and it just dropped its most exciting update yet.
Solo Leveling's Netflix Series Drops A Major Casting Update
First officially announced by Netflix back in July 2025, Solo Leveling's live-action series has finally dropped a new official update after over a year. As previously announced, Byeon Woo-seok is still set to take up the lead role as Sung Jinwoo. Over the past year, there have been multiple reported castings, though it is only now in a new announcement that Netflix has officially confirmed additional cast members for the Solo Leveling live-action series.
These new confirmed cast members include Han So-hee, who will be playing Cha Hae-in; Kang You-seok, who is set to play Jinwoo's trusty companion, Yoo Jinho; Lee Sung-min as Chairman Go Gunhee; Sung Joon as the fan favorite A-rank hunter Woo Jinchul; and, most excitingly, Jung Ji-hoon, or Rain, as Baek Yoon-ho, the leader of the White Tiger Guild.
Woo Jinchul's casting is the newest of the lot, though the most exciting part of the new update is the confirmation of Rain's appearance as Baek Yoon-ho. Rain has been a fan favorite among K-drama audiences since Bloodhounds Season 2, and between Rain, Han So-hee, who recently made a splash in the new hit remake of The Intern, and the Lovely Runner star Byeon Woo-seok, Netflix has got its hands on quite an exciting cast for the Solo Leveling live action.
Solo Leveling's Upcoming Series Could Be Netflix's Next One Piece Level Hit
All in all, while the live-action Solo Leveling series has yet to lock down a release window or unveil a sneak peek of any sort just yet, the adaptation does seem very promising for now. Given that the series just began filming in May 2026, it will be a while until fans get a preview of the adaptation, but the project appears to be moving forward very smoothly so far.
With how huge Solo Leveling's anime was, there's a huge chance that the live-action adaptation will be just as big of a sensation. As things stand, it might even be the only live-action adaptation capable of challenging the One Piece live-action's throne on Netflix. Granted, the latter is a Hollywood adaptation with more mainstream appeal than Solo Leveling, which is getting a South Korean adaptation, though there's no denying that K-dramas are also currently more popular than ever.
From E-Rank Hunter to Shadow Monarch · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Solo Leveling? “Arise.”
💻The SystemQuest update
👑Shadow MonarchArise
⚔Hunter AssociationS-Rank ascension
👈Gate DungeonsDouble dungeon
👾IgrisKnight of the Shadow
01
Solo Leveling’s protagonist is a Korean E-Rank hunter widely mocked at the start of the series as “the world’s weakest” — before a near-death experience in a double dungeon transforms him into the Player. Name him (Korean original).
✓ Correct! Sung Jinwoo — the “world’s weakest hunter” who supports his ailing mother and younger sister Jinah on D-Rank gate raids until a near-fatal raid in the Cartenon Temple double dungeon makes him the Player. The Japanese-localised anime adaptation renames him Shun Mizushino, but the original Korean novel/webtoon name is Sung Jinwoo.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Sung Jinwoo. Cha Hae-In is the South Korean Hunter Association vice-guildmaster and S-Rank swordswoman (and Jinwoo’s eventual love interest). Yoo Jinho is his loyal best-friend chaebol-heir teammate. Baek Yoonho is the White Tiger Guild’s S-Rank guildmaster. The protagonist is Sung Jinwoo.
02
Solo Leveling didn’t start as Japanese manga or anime. It originated in 2016 as a Korean web novel on KakaoPage, was adapted into a colourful vertical-scrolling webtoon (drawn by Jang Sung-rak / Dubu) and only later became an A-1 Pictures anime in 2024. What term describes its native Korean comic format?
✓ Correct! Manhwa — Korean comics — specifically a webtoon, the vertical-scroll, full-colour mobile-first format dominated by KakaoPage and Naver. Solo Leveling’s webtoon adaptation began in 2018 and concluded in 2021; its breakout success internationally helped establish the broader “Korean tower-climber/hunter LitRPG” pipeline that now feeds shows like Tower of God, The Beginning After the End and Eleceed.
✗ Wrong. The answer is manhwa (webtoon). Manhua is the Chinese equivalent. Doujinshi is Japanese fan-comic self-publishing. Manga is the Japanese term. Solo Leveling is Korean — manhwa, specifically a vertical-scroll webtoon adaptation of a 2016 web novel.
03
The original Solo Leveling web novel ran from 2016 to 2018 on KakaoPage and was written under a single mononymous pen name. The author is famously private, with very little known about him — but he’s widely credited with single-handedly resetting global expectations for what Korean web fiction could be. Name him.
✓ Correct! Chugong (추공) — a deliberately mononymous Korean web novelist whose real identity has never been publicly confirmed. His original 2016–18 novel ran 270 chapters and was translated into English, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish via KakaoPage’s international expansion. The webtoon adaptation by Jang Sung-rak (better known as Dubu) was the version that broke through globally; Dubu’s death from cerebral hemorrhage in 2022 was a high-profile loss for the medium.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Chugong. SIU is the creator of Tower of God. TurtleMe is the author of The Beginning After the End. Singshong is the author of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint. The Solo Leveling novel is Chugong’s.
04
In Solo Leveling’s world, mysterious gates have appeared on Earth and only awakened “hunters” can enter the dungeons inside them. Hunters are evaluated by the Korean Hunter Association on a letter-grade scale from the lowest to the strongest. What rank does Sung Jinwoo start with, before becoming the Player?
✓ Correct! E-Rank — the lowest assigned tier in the Hunter Association’s grading scale (E-D-C-B-A-S, with S as the absolute peak). At E-Rank, Jinwoo barely earns more from a raid than the medical bills the raid produces, which is why he keeps going on dungeon runs despite being the “world’s weakest hunter”: he’s funding his mother’s medical care and his sister Jinah’s tuition. The Player System fast-tracks him from E-Rank to S-Rank-and-beyond over the course of the series.
✗ Wrong. The answer is E-Rank. F-Rank doesn’t exist in Solo Leveling’s scale (E is the lowest). D-Rank is one tier up — where Jinwoo’s teammate Yoo Jinho sits. “Unranked” isn’t a category. Jinwoo starts the series as an E-Rank, the bottom of the recognised ladder.
05
After the Cartenon Temple double-dungeon massacre, Jinwoo wakes up in a hospital and begins seeing a personal RPG-style HUD that nobody else can see — daily quests, stat windows, level-ups, Notices written in glowing blue text. The franchise calls Jinwoo’s unique designation what?
✓ Correct! The Player. Sung Jinwoo is the only individual in his world who has access to the System — the personal RPG-style interface offering quests, stat allocations and level-ups. Late in the series it’s revealed that the System was given to him by the Architect (a tool of the Rulers) specifically to forge him into a vessel for the dying Shadow Monarch Ashborn. Becoming the Player is the prelude to becoming the new Shadow Monarch.
✗ Wrong. The answer is the Player. “The Awakened” is the general term for any human with hunter abilities — not unique to Jinwoo. “The Vessel” and “The Heir” aren’t official labels. Jinwoo’s unique status as the System’s sole user is named the Player.
06
The Solo Leveling anime adaptation premiered in January 2024 to record streaming numbers on Crunchyroll — the most-watched debut in the platform’s history. The animation studio is the same Aniplex-affiliated house behind Sword Art Online, 86 and Lycoris Recoil. Name it.
✓ Correct! A-1 Pictures — the Aniplex-owned studio behind Sword Art Online, Fairy Tail (later seasons), 86, Lycoris Recoil, KonoSuba (S1–2), Kaguya-sama and 7 Deadly Sins. Director Shunsuke Nakashige and a Hiroyuki Sawano-led score made the action centerpieces (the Cartenon Temple double dungeon, the Igris fight, the S-Rank arena duel) some of the most-discussed sequences of any 2024 anime.
✗ Wrong. The answer is A-1 Pictures. MAPPA does Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. Studio Bind does Mushoku Tensei. Madhouse did the original Hunter x Hunter (1999) and One Punch Man S1. A-1 Pictures is the SAO/Lycoris-Recoil studio that adapted Solo Leveling.
07
As Jinwoo levels up he unlocks the Shadow Extraction skill, which lets him raise the corpses of defeated foes as loyal shadow soldiers. The first major shadow soldier he raises — a red-armored knight extracted from the Job Change dungeon Knight Captain — becomes one of his signature fighters. Name him.
✓ Correct! Igris (sometimes Igrit) — the Knight Captain Jinwoo defeats and raises during the Job Change quest. Igris is one of the highest-ranked named shadows in Jinwoo’s army (an Elite Knight tier) and personally serves as his bodyguard during the Jeju Island arc and the Monarchs War. Other named shadow soldiers in the army include Iron (orc warrior), Tank (steel-fanged Lycan), Tusk (Lycan mage), Beru (Ant King) and Bellion (the Grand Marshal).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Igris. Iron is the orc warrior raised from the Demon Castle quest. Beru is the Ant King raised at the end of the Jeju Island arc — one of the most powerful shadows. Tank is the Lycan from the same arc. The first major named shadow knight Jinwoo extracts is Igris.
08
Late in the series, the System reveals that Jinwoo isn’t merely the Player — he’s the chosen successor of the dying ninth Monarch of the Shadows, who sided with the Rulers against the other eight Monarchs. Jinwoo inherits his title and his power. Name this previous Shadow Monarch whose mantle Jinwoo takes up.
✓ Correct! Ashborn, the Monarch of Shadows. He betrayed his fellow Monarchs of Destruction in the ancient war and aligned with the Rulers, but at the cost of being mortally crippled. Working with the Rulers’ tool the Architect, he engineered the System over centuries to find a worthy human vessel — ultimately Sung Jinwoo — to inherit his throne. By the series’ end, Jinwoo wields the full power of the Shadow Monarch and uses it to rewrite the timeline.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Ashborn. Antares is the Monarch of Destruction (the King of Dragons) and the series’ final-fight antagonist. Bellion is Ashborn’s Grand Marshal — one of Jinwoo’s strongest shadows but not a Monarch. Querehsha is the Monarch of Plagues. Jinwoo’s predecessor as Shadow Monarch is Ashborn.
System Notification · Final Tally Your Hunter Standing
👑
/ 8
Shadow Monarch — or still E-Rank?
In fact, Korean shows like Teach You A Lesson even outright beat One Piece in terms of sheer viewership on Netflix's rankings for the first half of 2026. So there's no reason why a franchise as huge and established as Solo Leveling can't achieve something similar, if not even greater success with a good adaptation.
- Release Date
- 2024 - 2025-00-00
- Network
- Tokyo MX, Gunma TV, BS11, Tochigi TV
- Directors
- Tatsuya Sasaki, Toru Hamasaki
- Writers
- Shigeru Murakoshi, Shingo Irie, Fuka Ishii
-
Taito Ban
Sung Jin-woo
-
Genta Nakamura
Yoo Jin-ho
Solo Leveling follows Sung Jin-woo, the world's weakest hunter, who gains extraordinary powers through a mysterious program after surviving a brutal monster attack. As he navigates his newfound abilities, Jinwoo embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets of his powers and the dungeon that altered his fate.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.