March 4 is a Monumental Day For Solo Leveling Fans

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Fans should circle March 4th on their calendars! While the first two seasons of the Solo Leveling anime have made Sung Jinwoo a popular character, it all began with the original manhwa – a truly classic and influential series that started it all.

The popular manhwa series Solo Leveling began on the Korean platform KakaoPage eight years ago, on March 4, 2018. It was based on a light novel by Chugong, who felt a mix of excitement, nervousness, and worry about the adaptation. He knew he was handing over his story to h-goon and the artwork to DUBU of Redice Studio, and couldn’t have predicted just how successful Solo Leveling would become – it’s now considered the most successful manhwa series ever.

8 Years Later, The Solo Leveling Manhwa Remains the Definitive Adaptation of Jinwoo’s Story — Even Over the Anime

I remember when this series first came out in 2014 – everyone was talking about how well the fantasy world was created and how exciting the action was. It quickly gained a lot of attention, and in 2016, D&C Media decided to publish it. That led to an even bigger step in 2018 when it was adapted into a webtoon for KakaoPage.

The story of Solo Leveling was transformed into a webtoon by the artist h-goon, whose true identity remains a secret, and whose previous work is unknown. They collaborated with Jang Sung-Rak, known as DUBU, a talented illustrator and the CEO of Redice Studio, a company specializing in adapting Korean web novels into webtoons. Over four years, from March 2018 to December 2021, their combined efforts turned Solo Leveling into a massive cultural success, significantly raising the profile of webtoons as a medium.

The original Solo Leveling novels started it all, and the anime has dramatically increased the series’ popularity. However, many fans still prefer the manhwa by h-goon and DUBU, considering it the best version of Sung Jinwoo’s story. This is understandable, as DUBU’s striking artwork has become widely recognized as a prime example of Korean manhwa for audiences around the world.

Even before Solo Leveling came out, manga was well-liked in the West and anime had become a major part of American culture. But manhwa, with its full-color artwork, felt like the perfect combination of both, and Solo Leveling was a prime example. Each week, DUBU consistently delivered exceptional quality and incredible detail, vividly bringing Chugong’s characters and creatures to life with striking designs and unforgettable scenes.

DUBU’s artwork was truly the driving force behind the series’ success. However, h-goon played a crucial role in adapting the original story into a compelling webtoon. They made subtle but important changes to the manhwa, both to clarify the narrative for readers and to enhance the themes from the light novel with added details.

A memorable moment, like when Kang Taeshik warned, “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you,” wasn’t actually in the original story. Small additions like this allowed the manhwa to create powerful scenes, such as the chilling image of Jinwoo’s eyes staring down Taeshik in Chapter 33. This scene later became famous in Solo Leveling Season 1, Episode 9, “You’ve Been Hiding Your Skills,” with Taeshik delivering the now-well-known line, skillfully added by h-goon.

Solo Leveling Is a Modern Masterpiece That Popularized Manhwa in the West

When the English translation of the first Solo Leveling manhwa volume was released in 2021, it quickly became a huge success. By the time the anime’s first season aired in 2024, 5 million copies of the manhwa had already been sold, and sales have continued to climb. In 2023, Volume 13 of Solo Leveling reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller list for graphic novels, surpassing popular titles like Batman and Jujutsu Kaisen.

I’m a huge fan of manhwa, and honestly, Solo Leveling completely changed the game! It didn’t just make manhwa popular over here in the West, it seriously influenced how stories are told in Korea too. Now you see those cool video game-style interfaces everywhere in Korean manhwa, but Solo Leveling was the one that really established that look. Before it, that wasn’t common at all! It took this idea—which was already inspired by things like isekai—and just blew it up. It wasn’t just copying those older tropes, though; it gave them a fresh, exciting twist that the genre really needed.

I’ve been completely blown away by Solo Leveling. It’s truly a modern graphic novel masterpiece, and so much of that is thanks to the incredible art by DUBU. It’s heartbreaking to learn that he passed away shortly after the series finished, from a cerebral hemorrhage. Apparently, he’d been battling an illness for five years. Thinking about it now, it’s amazing – and incredibly sad – that he created such a lasting hit while fighting such a difficult battle. It really feels like he poured everything he had into his work, and thankfully, his phenomenal art will live on forever.

The anime adaptation of Solo Leveling has brought the series to a much larger audience, but its success is built on the original manhwa and the incredible artwork of DUBU. As the Solo Leveling franchise grows in popularity alongside its main character, Sung Jinwoo, fans can celebrate the manhwa’s release anniversary on March 4th and appreciate how far the series has come – from a simple light novel to a major anime hit.

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2026-03-05 00:14