Solo Leveling cleared 900,000 ratings in November 2025, the first anime ever to do so, and crossed 950,000 by March 2026 . At every threshold, it widened its lead over the second-place title.
The million-rating achievement didn’t appear overnight. It was the predictable result of momentum that had been building since the series debut.
At the 10th Crunchyroll Anime Awards on May 23, 2026, Solo Leveling Season 2 - Arise from the Shadow won Best Action and Best Animation . While My Hero Academia Final Season took the top Anime of the Year honor, Solo Leveling remained competitive in production craft categories, building on its nine-award sweep the previous year
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The million-rating milestone wasn’t driven by a new season’s launch. It arrived months after Season 2 concluded in March 2025, demonstrating that the fanbase continues to engage and rate the series long after the initial broadcast window closes . This pattern of sustained audience activity strengthens the already strong business case for greenlighting Season 3. A franchise that grows its user ratings without new episodes is a rare asset for any streaming platform
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Solo Leveling is the first manhwa-based anime to win Anime of the Year, which it did at the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2025 . Combined with the all-time viewership and rating records on the world’s largest anime streaming service, the series proves that Korean webtoon IP can not only compete with established Japanese manga franchises but outperform them
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The commercial implications extend beyond one franchise. Industry reporting has already pointed to an acceleration of Korean IP anime adaptations as studios and investors recalibrate their expectations . A-1 Pictures and Crunchyroll’s parent Sony demonstrated that a well-produced manhwa adaptation can achieve global cultural dominance in a fraction of the time it takes legacy shōnen titles to accumulate their audiences
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