Solo Leveling Watch Order: Both Seasons, ReAwakening and What Comes Next (2026)

The Solo Leveling watch order is refreshingly short: two TV seasons, 25 episodes, one recap special and one recap film, all released in story order. The real decisions are what to skip and where to go once the anime runs out. Below, we cover both seasons arc by arc, what the ReAwakening movie actually contains, where Season 2 stops in the webtoon, and what Solo Leveling has officially announced next as of October 2026.

Solo Leveling in order at a glance

#	What to watch	Length	Released (Japan)	Webtoon chapters	Verdict
1	Season 1	12 episodes (1-12)	7 January to 31 March 2024	About 1-45	Essential
Skip	How to Get Stronger (episode 7.5)	1 recap special, 23 minutes	25 February 2024	Recap of episodes 1-7	Skip
Optional	Solo Leveling: ReAwakening (film)	116 minutes	29 November 2024 (US and Canada: 6 December)	Season 1 recap plus episodes 13-14	Skip if Season 1 is fresh
2	Season 2: Arise from the Shadow	13 episodes (13-25)	5 January to 30 March 2025	About 46-110	Essential
Next	Solo Leveling: Beyond the System (film)	Feature film	Announced 3 July 2026, no date yet	Picks up after Season 2	Upcoming

What order to watch Solo Leveling?

Release order and story order are identical. There are no prequel films, no side-story OVAs and no alternate timelines to slot in, so Solo Leveling in order is simply Season 1 followed by Season 2. The official numbering runs continuously, which is why Season 2 opens on episode 13; MyAnimeList files it as a separate entry numbered 1 to 13, which trips up anyone tracking progress there. At roughly 24 minutes an episode, the whole anime is about ten hours: one committed weekend.

Both extras are recaps. Neither contains story you cannot get from the TV episodes, so even a Solo Leveling watch order with movies included treats them as optional.

Season 1: episodes 1-12 (January to March 2024)

Light spoilers for Season 1's structure follow.

A-1 Pictures animated the first season under director Shunsuke Nakashige, with Hiroyuki Sawano on the score. It follows Sung Jinwoo, an E-rank hunter so feeble that colleagues call him the weakest in the world, from a raid that should have killed him to the point where he no longer needs a party. The arcs split cleanly:

• Episodes 1-2, the Double Dungeon. A low-rank raid opens onto a hidden temple whose statues execute anyone who breaks its rules. Jinwoo barely survives and wakes up with a game-style System only he can see.
• Episodes 3-4, learning the System. Daily quests, a penalty zone for skipping them, and solo instant dungeons.
• Episodes 5-6, the Hwang Dongsuk raid. A party leader plans to feed the weaker hunters to a spider boss, and the System hands Jinwoo a quest that answers betrayal in kind.
• Episode 7, Cerberus. Overdoing a daily quest earns Jinwoo the key to the Demon Castle, an S-rank instant dungeon that Season 2 returns to. He goes in chasing a cure for his comatose mother and barely survives its three-headed gatekeeper.
• Episodes 8-9, Kang Taeshik. A raid that pairs convict hunters with Hunter Association staff turns into a massacre when Kang Taeshik, a B-rank assassin from the Association, starts killing the party. Jinwoo, his new strength still a secret, is next on the list.
• Episodes 10-12, the job change. A solo trial against Igris, the Blood-Red Commander, ends with a hidden class that lets Jinwoo raise the dead as shadow soldiers. The extraction fails twice before Igris rises on the third "Arise".

It was a runaway hit: at the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards the season won Anime of the Year, Best New Series and Best Action, and Jinwoo took Best Main Character.

Episode 7.5: the recap you can skip

Between episodes 7 and 8 the broadcast paused for How to Get Stronger, a 23-minute special aired on 25 February 2024 that replays the first seven episodes with Jinwoo narrating. It has no new story, so go straight from episode 7 to 8 unless you need a refresher.

ReAwakening: what the Solo Leveling movie actually contains

Solo Leveling -ReAwakening- played in Japanese cinemas from 29 November to 12 December 2024, and Crunchyroll brought it to US and Canadian screens on 6 December. It runs 116 minutes. Roughly the first 80 compress Season 1 down to its boss fights and turning points; the last 40 or so are the first two episodes of Season 2, shown in cinemas five weeks before episode 13 aired on TV.

Squeezing nearly five hours of television into 80 minutes keeps the boss fights but loses most of the quieter build-up, so newcomers should watch the 12 real episodes instead. If you have seen them, the recap tells you nothing new, and the two fresh episodes are part of Season 2 on streaming anyway. One practical tip: if you did see ReAwakening, start Season 2 at episode 15, the first episode the film did not include.

Season 2: Arise from the Shadow, episodes 13-25 (January to March 2025)

Spoiler warning: this section names the major fights and outcomes of Season 2.

The same studio, director and composer returned, with LiSA and Felix of Stray Kids on the opening "ReAwaker". The season adapts roughly 65 webtoon chapters in 13 episodes, a faster clip than Season 1, and it is where Jinwoo stops hiding what he can do.

Episodes 13-14: the Red Gate

A favour for his sister's classmate Han Song-yi, a teenager working as a hunter, puts Jinwoo in a C-rank gate that turns red and seals the party in a frozen world ruled by ice elves and their chieftain, Baruka. Jinwoo's soldiers bring Baruka down, and Kim Chul, a hunter who leaves the weaker members to fend for themselves, ends the arc as the shadow Iron. These are the two episodes ReAwakening premiered.

Episodes 15-21: the Demon Castle and the S-rank reassessment

Having cleared the 19 dungeons he promised his partner Yoo Jinho, Jinwoo returns to the Demon Castle for the Elixir of Life's ingredients. Around that climb sit his rank reassessment and a side job with the Hunters Guild, home of Cha Hae-In, which ends in episode 18 with him rescuing the strike team's leader from the high orc shaman Kargalgan and raising the shaman as the shadow Tusk. Episode 19, titled "The 10th S-Rank Hunter", makes his new rank public. Episode 20 reaches the castle's 100th floor and the demon king Baran, a fight Jinwoo is losing until the demon noble Esil throws her sword to distract Baran; the king's flying mount becomes the shadow Kaisel. Episode 21 finally uses the Elixir on his mother as the country prepares for Jeju.

Episodes 22-25: the Jeju Island raid

Korea's S-ranks gather for the fourth attempt to retake Jeju Island from an ant colony and kill the Ant Queen, only for her to birth the Ant King, a humanoid ant that outclasses all of them. Episode 23 cuts off the moment Jinwoo, who had declined the raid, triggers Shadow Exchange to reach the island, and episode 24 is his duel with the king. In the finale the Elixir cannot heal a dying Cha Hae-In's wounds, so Jinwoo raises the fallen S-rank healer Min Byung-gyu as a shadow (first time in the anime; the webtoon takes three tries); the shadow heals her, Jinwoo releases it out of respect, then extracts the Ant King as Beru. Our Season 2 recap and ending explainer walks through those episodes beat by beat, and our strongest Solo Leveling characters ranking shows where the S-ranks and Jinwoo's shadows stack up.

Where the anime leaves off in the webtoon and novel

The anime adapts the webtoon drawn by the late Dubu of Redice Studio, which ran from March 2018 to December 2021 across 179 chapters. Season 1 ends around chapter 45 and Season 2 around chapter 110, leaving roughly 70 chapters of main story unanimated. To continue from episode 25, start at chapter 111, or at 108 for a short overlap that catches small moments the anime trimmed. A side story webtoon adapting the novel's side stories followed in 2023.

Behind it sits Chugong's web novel, serialised on KakaoPage from July 2016 to March 2018 and collected in 14 volumes in its first edition. Yen Press publishes both in English. Choose the webtoon if you came for the fights, since it is the version the anime adapts; choose the novel for more of Jinwoo's inner monologue.

Is Solo Leveling finished?

The story is; the anime is not. The novel ended in 2018 and the webtoon in December 2021, so the ending exists and is easy to stumble into online, while the anime has covered roughly three-fifths of the webtoon.

There is also a sequel, Solo Leveling: Ragnarok, written by Daul. Its lead, Sung Suho, is Jinwoo's son (a mild spoiler for how the original ends). It began as a KakaoPage web novel in April 2023, finished in July 2025, and gained a webtoon in July 2024. The webtoon paused after its second season in January 2026, when its artist, JIN, began South Korea's mandatory military service. As of October 2026 there is no Ragnarok anime, and since it opens after the original ending, save it for last.

What comes next: Beyond the System and Season 3

On 3 July 2026, at its Anime Expo panel, Crunchyroll announced Solo Leveling: Beyond the System, a theatrical film that continues the story after Season 2. A-1 Pictures is animating it and Sawano returns for the music. Unlike ReAwakening, this is new story, so it will slot in as step three and is not optional, the same way Demon Slayer's Infinity Castle films continue its TV story (see our Demon Slayer watch order).

As of October 2026 no release date has been announced, although some outlets have floated a 2027 target that no studio has confirmed. A third TV season is murkier: co-producer D&C Media listed it as expected in 2027-2028 in an investment report published in June 2026, but there has been no formal studio announcement or date. Netflix also has a live-action Korean series in the works, with Byeon Woo-seok as Jinwoo, announced in July 2025 and still undated; it is a separate adaptation, not part of the anime order.

Where to watch Solo Leveling

Crunchyroll is the main streaming home for both seasons in North America and many other regions, with subtitles and an English dub; Medialink licenses the series in parts of Southeast Asia, and catalogues vary by country. ReAwakening was a cinema release, but its only new footage is episodes 13 and 14, so a streaming subscription covers the complete story. When you finish, our list of anime like Solo Leveling has your next show.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes is Solo Leveling Season 1?

Solo Leveling Season 1 has 12 episodes, broadcast in Japan from 7 January to 31 March 2024. A 23-minute recap special, How to Get Stronger (episode 7.5), sits between episodes 7 and 8 and can be skipped. Season 2 adds 13 episodes, numbered 13 to 25.

Can I skip the ReAwakening recap movie?

Yes. Solo Leveling: ReAwakening is about 80 minutes of Season 1 recap followed by the first two episodes of Season 2, which aired on TV as episodes 13 and 14. If you have watched Season 1, go straight to Season 2; if you already saw the film, start Season 2 at episode 15.

Is there a Solo Leveling Season 3?

Not formally, as of October 2026. Co-producer D&C Media listed a third season as expected in 2027-2028 in a June 2026 investment report, but no studio has announced a date. The confirmed next step is the film Solo Leveling: Beyond the System, which continues after Season 2.

Is the new Solo Leveling movie a recap?

No. Solo Leveling: Beyond the System, announced in July 2026, is a new-story sequel film from A-1 Pictures that picks up after Season 2. The recap film is the older ReAwakening from 2024. As of October 2026, Beyond the System has no release date.

What chapter does Solo Leveling Season 2 end on?

Season 2 ends around chapter 110 of the Solo Leveling webtoon, at the close of the Jeju Island raid. Start reading at chapter 111 to continue, or at chapter 108 for a short overlap. Season 1 ended around chapter 45.