Summary
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Perhaps one of Sung Jinwoo’s most iconic powers inSolo Levelingis his ability to turn his defeated foes into shadows that will fight alongside him. As long as Jinwoo has mana, he can summon these shadows next to him, who will fight as immortals by his side while retaining the skills they had in life.
However, in the series so far,Sung Jinwoo seems not to be using this abilityto its fullest extent. Perhaps one of the best examples of this was his decision not to resurrect any of the Japanese hunters after the Jeju Island raid. Why didn’t Sung Jinwoo do this, given that they would have been strong additions to his collection of shadows inSolo Leveling?
Sung Jinwoo Doesn’t Like Resurrecting Allies
One Possible Explanation
Sung Jinwoo likely hasa moral or emotional aversionto resurrecting slain humans as shadows in most circumstances. During the Jeju Island raid, he brought the S-rank healer Min Byung-Gyu back to life as a shadow toheal Cha Hae-In’s deathly injuries caused by the Ant King. However, after Min Byung-Gyu’s shadow used its powers to heal her, Jinwoo instantly released him from his service. It seemed like Jinwoo only used his shadow out of necessity for the situation.
This seems to suggest, at the very least, that Jinwoo is in some way opposed to using former allies after their death. During a previous incident, Jinwoo resurrected the A-rank hunter Kim Chul to help him in his fight with the dungeon boss in the red gate dungeon. After the fight was over, Jinwoo still decided to keep Kim in his shadow army, renaming him Iron.
Compared to his resurrection of Min Byung-Gyu, this may seem like a contradiction. However, the circumstances were different. Kim Chul had actively betrayed Jinwoo,meaning that the leveling hunterdid not see him as a comrade. Also, Jinwoo was under pressure from the tough boss at the same time. This could have prompted Jinwoo to create a shadow of Kim Chul in this circumstance, when he might not have if the boss wasn’t strong.
Given what we have seen with Kim Chul, this should mean Jinwoo would be willing to resurrect the Japanese hunters. After all, the Japanese hunters planned to betray the Korean hunters and leave them for dead after they killed the queen. Also, none of the Japanese hunters were particularly friendly with Jinwoo. Goto Ryuji attempted to kill Jinwoo in their sparring match just before the Jeju Island raid.
This means that, while Jinwoo has some aversion to resurrecting human hunters as shadows, this reason is not enough to explain why Jinwoo didn’t use his shadow powers on the Japanese hunters after the raid.
Beru’s Rampage Made Shadow Extraction Impossible
The Most Likely Explanation
Another, more likely reason Jinwoo might not have created shadows out of the Japanese S-rank hunters is thatBeru’s attacks made it impossible to raise them from the dead. In the anime, this is only hinted at, but in the manhwa, it is better explained that the Ant King can absorb the powers of anyone he eats due to his gluttony skill.
He demonstrates this by talking in the voices of human hunters he has slain, including Bin Byung-Gyu and Goto Ryuji. We see that Beru is the one responsible for killing all the Japanese hunters by presumably eating all their heads. This could mean that Beru absorbing the Japanese hunters’ essences and creating incomplete corpses could hinder Jinwoo’s shadow abilities in some way.
“The unique skills are shadow extraction and shadow storage. One lets me drain mana to create shadow soldiers, and the other lets me hold those soldiers to summon whenever.” -Sung Jinwoo explaining his shadow extraction ability in Episode 12.
Also, while Jinwoo doesn’t explicitly mention any restrictions around the state of the corpse that shadow extraction is used on, he does say that the chance of success goes down the more time that has passed after death. It’s possible that using the Japanese hunters as shadows was something he didn’t think of until he had already left the island, and by that time, it was too late.
Whatever the reason, it’s a shame that the cool character designs and the powers of the Japanese S-rank hunters weren’t reused in some way. They were introduced and killed off rather quickly, and it would have been a great way to have still some remnants of their characters persist inSolo Leveling.Even if they merely become mute servants of Sung Jinwoo and his shadow army.
Solo Leveling
Cast
A-1 Pictures' Solo Leveling is an anime based on Chugong’s popular web novel. Set in an unforgiving fantasy world where hunters explore dungeons filled with monsters, the vulnerable Sung Jinwoo gains a significant power boost after he is picked to be a solo player by the System.
