Monday 22 April 2024

Echo and Solo Leveling (Season 1)

Weak protagonists gaining ridiculous powers.

Echo (Season 1)

This five episode series focuses on Maya, the titular Echo, who is a pretty disabled gangster (being deaf and missing a leg) previously working for Kingpin as was last seen in the Hawkeye series. Probably a good series to practice your sign language knowledge on as there is a LOT of it, but the story is very average and the action scenes and budget are subpar for a Marvel show (maybe just one fight near the start is good). I do enjoy that the protagonist is naturally very easy to sneak up on, and I hope that remains to be the case despite gaining some ancestral super powers, because its a superhero show and apparently because she's not good enough without powers? Mmm, what's your message here Disney? Lol. Only for die hard Marvel fans; everyone else can give this a miss.

Solo Leveling (Season 1)

The setting for this Korean anime is a strange one: present day but with fantasy monsters occasionally warping in from dungeon dimensions and modern equipment has no effect on them. Lucky there are people born as "hunters" who can fight and defeat these to protect the world. Yes, a hunter with a tiny dagger is more effective than a tank or Gatling gun versus a goblin. Just don't think about it.

Further more, hunters are ranked by strength and this never changes or fluctuates. A strong guy will always be that strong, never weaker / never stronger. Except for our protagonist who is the weakest hunter of all. For plot device reasons "the game" decides that he in fact CAN level up, and boy does he make use of it. While the plot isn't very deep the animation quality and fights of which there are PLENTY are very good. It also helps that there's a good amount of blood and gore thrown in there too. Quite entertaining if you just want an action anime. Recommended!

2 comments:

  1. I read the 8-volume Solo Leveling LitRPG book series and quite enjoyed it. I read them a while back, though, so when I tried watching the 1st episode my memory was just enough and yet so spotty that the whole thing just didn't gel well in my mind, so I only watched for a few minutes.

    I admit I'm half-tempted to buy the mangas as well, but ... maybe sometime.

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    1. Well as always, the plus side to reading the manga is that you get more content. I'm going to have to wait for a season two . :P

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