The Long Shadow

The comic starts before the novel ends. Chugong’s serial finishes on KakaoPage on 13 March 2018; the webtoon of it, from the same publisher, D&C Media, launches on KakaoPage on 4 March, nine days earlier. Jang Sung-rak, who signs as DUBU and heads Redice Studio, draws it. The scripts are adapted first by Gi So-ryeong (2018 to 2019) and then by h-goon. The webtoon’s first season runs to chapter 110 on 19 March 2020, ending with the Jeju Island raid; the second begins on 1 August 2020; the main story ends with chapter 179 on 29 December 2021.

It travels further than the book. Official English versions arrive in May 2020 on Webnovel and in June on Tappytoon, nine months before Yen Press publishes the novel’s first English print volume on 16 February 2021 (a licensed English translation of the novel had run on Webnovel in 2018 and 2019). In Japan, Piccoma names it its number-one webtoon of 2019 and counts 650 million page views. When Netflix announces its series in 2025, it cites 14.3 billion cumulative views worldwide for the web novel and webtoon together.

What the webtoon does to the novel is compress it rather than rewrite it. The plot holds; the interior goes. By The Escapist’s account (October 2024), the novel keeps details and whole plot points the comic left out, and a CBR explainer on the ending calls the comic’s version “essentially a more rushed version of the one from the original novels.”

The larger change is how everyone looks. The novel describes its people sparingly. The webtoon gave them faces and clothes, Jinwoo’s long dark coat, Haein’s blonde bob and red armour, Igris’s long red plume, and the anime and the games took them. The anime’s official staff list gives its original work as DUBU (Redice Studio), Chugong and h-goon: it is an adaptation of the adaptation. This walk paints none of those designs; its frames follow the novel’s few words and its own ink.

Jang Sung-rak dies on 23 July 2022 of a cerebral haemorrhage linked to a chronic illness. He is 37. It is seven months after the comic’s last main chapter and three weeks after the anime is announced at Anime Expo; he does not see it air. Redice Studio, in its tribute: “He was respected by everyone he worked with.” The side story that follows, January to May 2023, is announced as a tribute to him. It adapts Chugong’s own side stories, scripted again by h-goon, and is drawn by DISCIPLES, artists who learned to paint, colour and line under him. It carries the novel’s bonus stories into the comic: the giants’ war against the shadow army, Jinwoo and Haein’s life together, and their son.

Yen Press prints both books in English. The novel comes out in eight volumes from its Yen On imprint between 16 February 2021 and 18 July 2023. The comic’s first volume follows on 2 March 2021, billed as based on the hit fantasy novel and keeping the novel’s name order, Jinwoo Sung. It runs to fifteen full-colour volumes, latterly under Yen’s webtoon imprint, Ize Press: Volume 13, the final war, on 19 August 2025, which tops the New York Times graphic books and manga list; then two Side Stories volumes, the last on 17 March 2026.

The anime is announced at Anime Expo in July 2022, slated for 2023, and premieres in January 2024, made by A-1 Pictures, directed by Shunsuke Nakashige, scored by Hiroyuki Sawano. Season 1 runs twelve episodes from 7 January to 31 March 2024, from the E-rank hunter in the Double Dungeon to the job change and Igris risen: roughly Volume 1 and the start of Volume 2. Season 2, Arise from the Shadow, runs thirteen from 5 January to 30 March 2025, from the Red Gate through the Jeju Island raid to the Ant King’s rising as Beru, and stops partway into Volume 4. They are walked episode by episode on Season 1 and Season 2, and set against the books on Novels vs. Anime.

It adapts the webtoon, credited to the webtoon’s team and following it chapter by chapter, with scenes of its own. It also exists twice. The Japanese broadcast renames the cast, Jinwoo as Shun Mizushino and Haein as Shizuku Kōsaka; Jeju Island becomes the fictional Kanan Island and Japan a country called “DFN”. The international version keeps the Korean names and setting, and both versions put English on the backgrounds and status screens, made from the start for a world audience. The producer Sota Furuhashi, to Mantan Web in January 2025: “we did two dubs, one for the Japanese version and one for the overseas version.”

It is Crunchyroll’s most-watched anime of 2024. At the Crunchyroll Anime Awards on 25 May 2025 Season 1 wins Anime of the Year, Best New Series, Best Action, Best Main Character and Best Score among others; in May 2026 Season 2 wins Best Action and Best Animation.

Between the seasons it goes to the cinema. Solo Leveling -ReAwakening- opens in Japan on 29 November 2024 and in the United States and Canada on 6 December, released there by Crunchyroll with Sony Pictures: 116 minutes in all, Season 1 recut and then Season 2’s first two episodes, a month before television has them. It opens seventh in the United States and Canada with about $2.45 million from 846 theatres and reaches about $4.45 million worldwide by The Numbers’ count, which carries no Japanese figure. It adds no story. It is a release, not an adaptation.

Season 2 ends on 30 March 2025 with Jinwoo pulled into another red gate. Fifteen months later the next instalment is confirmed, and it is not a television season. At Crunchyroll’s panel at Anime Expo in Los Angeles on 3 July 2026, Solo Leveling: Beyond the System is announced as a theatrical anime film; the official Japanese site’s notice of 4 July calls it the long-awaited sequel to Season 2, made as a film. Anime News Network reports that it continues the story after the second season and is in production. A-1 Pictures animates it again. The director is new: Tao Tajima, also its director of photography, editor and colourist, directing anime for the first time. Tomoko Sudo returns as character designer. Crunchyroll, Aniplex, Netmarble, D&C Media and Kakao Piccoma co-produce.

What has not been announced: a release date, a window, or which part of the story it tells. On 8 October 2026 the official site’s newest item is still the July notice. Season 2 stopped partway into Volume 4, so the next stretch of the novel is the end of that volume and Volume 5, but nobody official has said the film starts there. A September 2027 date circulates because The Numbers lists an untitled Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures film for that month; Screen Rant, which raised it on 24 September 2026, noted there was “no official confirmation from Crunchyroll.” It is a guess.

Season 3 is in the same state: reported, not announced. On 9 June 2026 Screen Rant and Game Rant reported that D&C Media, the webtoon’s publisher and a co-producer, had listed “Anime Season 3 confirmed (expected 2027–2028)” in its investor materials; none of A-1 Pictures, Aniplex or Crunchyroll had announced it. Days earlier, as Collider reported on 3 June, Crunchyroll’s chief executive, Rahul Purini, had told the Radio Times there was “Nothing to announce”, adding: “We know the creators are actively working on it.” A month later what the producers announced was the film. Whether a television season follows it, nobody making the show has said.

Talk of a Korean drama goes back to Japan Expo in 2023, when a D&C Webtoon executive told a French site one was being developed. In January 2025 Kakao Entertainment confirmed a live-action drama in planning, its scripts in progress. On 9 July 2025 Netflix announced it: a Korean live-action series, with Byeon Woo-seok as Jinwoo, produced by Kakao Entertainment and SANAI Pictures, directed by Lee Hae-jun and Kim Byung-seo, the pair behind Ashfall. Netflix described its source as web novel and webtoon and promised “a world-class global VFX team.”

Filming is reported to start in May 2026, when Byeon said he was filming that month. On 4 August he posted photographs from the set during a heat wave. On 7 October 2026 Netflix confirmed the main cast: Han So-hee as Haein Cha, first reported as expected casting in August 2025 and confirmed only now; Kang You-seok as Jinho Yoo; Sung Joon as Jinchul Woo, the first to suspect that Jinwoo has reawakened; and, in special appearances, Lee Sung-min as Gunhee Go and Rain (Jung Ji-hoon) as Yoonho Baek. Han Dong-wook, who directed Worst of Evil, joins as co-director. The Korean reports say the series is filming now.

It keeps the Korean setting and names, as the anime’s Japanese version does not. Netflix has named no writer and announced no episode count or release window. “Seven episodes” is a report, not an announcement; What’s on Netflix, updated on 23 September 2026, guesses late 2027 or early 2028 because of the visual effects. No costume, set photograph or still has been released, so the only frame here is a street at night, a crane and a Gate.

The games are Netmarble’s. Solo Leveling: Arise, an action role-playing game with gacha mechanics developed by Netmarble Neo, launches worldwide on 8 May 2024 for phones and PC with its own original hunters alongside the story’s. In its first six months it passes 50 million installs across PC and mobile and, by AppMagic’s estimate (via PocketGamer.biz, 14 November 2024), $138.9 million in gross mobile revenue, peaking in the launch month. On 13 November 2024 it wins the Grand Prize, the President’s Award, at the Korea Game Awards.

Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is the premium version, no gacha: it reaches PC on 25 November 2025, after a demo and early access, and on 23 April 2026 its PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions, promised since 2025, are dated to the third quarter of the year. We found no report of their release by 8 October 2026; Push Square still lists the PlayStation version as announced. Solo Leveling: Karma, announced at Anime Expo in July 2025, is a roguelite for PC and mobile set in the twenty-seven years of war against the Monarchs near the story’s end. Netmarble targets the second half of 2026; it is playable at the Tokyo Game Show and opens pre-registration in Korea and Japan on 16 September 2026, with no launch date announced. On paper, Ize Press announces Solo Leveling: The Board Game, a cooperative tactical game for one to four players, at Anime NYC in August 2026, undated.

The strangest adaptation is on skates. Solo Leveling on ICE, produced by Live Arena and co-hosted by BIGC, is a musical ice show: idols, musical actors, circus performers and figure skaters playing more than twenty characters, with real-time projection on the ice. It premieres at Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul with ten shows announced for 24 to 31 December 2025, and returns there, revamped, from 7 to 17 August 2026 with the figure skater Cha Jun-hwan as Jinwoo, who also co-choreographs.

Solo Leveling: Ragnarok is not Chugong’s. It is written by Daul, author of Dungeon Reset, and runs on KakaoPage from 10 April 2023, launching with more than a hundred chapters, to July 2025, 375 chapters in all. Years after the original, Jinwoo and Haein’s son, Sooho Sung, whose inheritance as the Shadow Monarch’s heir was sealed away in childhood, is in Yen Press’s words “just an ordinary college student”. His parents vanished just before the Gates began appearing again, three years earlier; when monsters break out on his campus, the System makes him a Player. He becomes a hunter to face the new threat and to find his missing parents.

Chugong cheered it on at launch. Later, in an interview with the Russian service LitRes that CBR reported in October 2025 (in a fan’s translation), he was blunter: “Ragnarok was a spin-off created for fanservice,” one of many possible scenarios, and he was considering writing a sequel himself. Redice Studio’s webtoon of it starts on 31 July 2024 and reaches English readers on Tapas that November; after chapter 68 it goes on hiatus on 31 January 2026, when its artist begins military service. On 8 October 2026 Tappytoon and MangaUpdates still list it on hiatus; one August report of a chapter 69 is unconfirmed. Ize Press publishes the comic in English (Volume 1 on 21 July 2026, Volume 2 due on 20 October) and announced the English novel in August 2026 without a date. No anime of it has been announced.

That is why this walk stops at Volume 8. Chugong’s story ends there, with its bonus stories and epilogue, on his own last page. Ragnarok is another writer’s book, unfinished in English print, and by Chugong’s own account one possible future among many. It may get a walk of its own one day.

Nothing in this record was shot and shelved. What there is instead is a trail of announcements running ahead of the work. As far as the record shows, the Korean live-action is one project, not several: the 2023 remark, Kakao’s 2025 confirmation and Netflix’s announcement are the same series arriving in stages.

Delays are the rule. The anime was slated for 2023 and premiered in January 2024. The Ragnarok webtoon was promised for early 2024 and launched in July. The unresolved items, as of 8 October 2026: whether a television Season 3 follows Beyond the System, or whether the film is in its place; the film’s date and arc; Netflix’s episode count and release window; the console Overdrive; Karma’s launch; and when the Ragnarok webtoon comes back.

The rumours stay rumours here: a September 2027 date drawn from a box-office database, seven episodes for Netflix, a guess of late 2027 or early 2028 for the live action. If they are announced, they become facts. Until then the only finished versions are on the page: the novel, the webtoon, and the sequel in Korean.