The Solo Leveling anime series is recently trending even more because of the beginning of the Jeju Island arc. The arc features a raid, which is one of the most significant moments in the history of Solo Leveling’s story and for all hunters, especially those from Japan and Korea. However, the one issue with the Jeju Island arc is that it portrays Sung Jinwoo in a negative light in the beginning.
The reason behind this is that he initially rejects the raid and willingly lets other hunters face the dangers of the monstrous ants, which ultimately leads to the death and injury of most of them. And while he eventually joins the raid and saves the hunters of Korea, it doesn’t justify him letting others die when he could have easily saved them all and avoided the casualties that happened in Solo Leveling.
Because of this, a lot of Solo Leveling manhwa fans criticized him, and the same criticism has followed Sung Jinwoo to the anime series, as the anime fans feel the same about Sung Jinwoo’s contentious decision. But what fans don’t realize is that Sung Jinwoo’s decision to avoid the Jeju Island raid had four valid reasons that not only justify his actions but also make him undeserving of the hate that he has been getting from Solo Leveling fans.
1. Sung Jinwoo was not watching the broadcast
The raid on the Jeju Island to destroy the monster ants was one of the most important issues for the hunters’ association of Japan and Korea. As it caused the deaths of many civilians, the authorities decided to broadcast it live in order to gain trust from the general public and also keep track of what was going on.
While the idea of broadcasting the raid was understandable, it didn’t really work the way they planned as the attack of the King ant on the hunters of Korea became the main concern of the people in Solo Leveling. They saw their strongest line of defense get killed and defeated by a monster.
However, while the people were watching the dreadful incident, Sung Jinwoo was away from it. He was not watching the broadcast and was seen sitting on a roof of a building alone. This means that he was unaware of the events of the Jeju Island raid and thus couldn’t save the hunters who died.
2. Sung Jinwoo was unaware of Min Byung-Gyu’s death
Out of the many hunters who sacrificed their lives in the Jeju Island raid, the one death that affected Korea the most was Min Byung-Gyu’s. Min Byung-Gyu was the only S-Rank healer in Solo Leveling, and his efforts helped the team win against the most dangerous situations in the raid.
In fact, when the King Ant attacks the hunters, Min Byung-Gyu is the one who keeps them alive and heals them from their injuries. There were speculations that if he had stayed alive a little more, maybe the hunters would have had a chance against the King Ant.
He was the first Korean hunter in the raid to sacrifice his life, and he was also the only one who didn’t have one of Sung Jinwoo’s soldiers in his shadow. If Sung Jinwoo had placed a soldier in Min Byung-Gyu’s shadow, he would have instantly found out about his death and shadow exchanged with one of his soldiers to save the rest of the crew.
3. Goto’s death was the first alarm for Sung Jinwoo
While Sung Jinwoo rejected the request to go on the Jeju Island raid, he did place a bunch of shadow soldiers in the shadows of other S-Rank hunters in case something went wrong. However, he probably didn’t do the same with the hunters from Japan.
As they were the first ones to die, Sung Jinwoo had no clue that the raid had gone south, and they had essentially lost the battle. He only found out about it when Goto Ryuji, the strongest S-Rank hunter in Japan, was killed by the King Ant along with the rest of his team members.
Goto Ryuji had a gigantic aura as he was one of the strongest hunters in the history of Solo Leveling. Thus, when he died, Sung Jinwoo felt his presence fading away and instantly understood the situation of the Jeju Island raid and decided to take part in it.
4. Sung Jinwoo had still not mastered his connection with his Shadow Soldiers
Although Sung Jinwoo could exchange places with his shadow soldiers using Shadow Exchange, he has not yet fully mastered the connection with them. He can feel the situation around them, but he cannot see anything using his Shadow Soldiers in Solo Leveling.
Thus, when the Jeju Island raid turned out to be a suicide mission, Sung Jinwoo had no way of knowing it. If he could have seen it all through the eyes of his Shadow Soldiers (which he will be able to do in the future), he would have instantly exchanged places with one of them and saved everyone.
All of these reasons are quite valid, considering the current growth of Sung Jinwoo as the main character in Solo Leveling. Still, the raid causes a lot of deaths in the story, and nothing justifies the death of a character.
That really doesn’t matter, because Jinwoo’s inaction led to the uneeded deaths of many people.
His mom said she liked his tendency to help people. But 90% of the time, his inaction just lewds to more deaths.
— ZimMappleleaf (@maplesky1998) March 16, 2025
In some ways, fans’ criticism towards Sung Jinwoo is valid, but they have to understand that he was able to interact with his mother after four years and, thus, wanted to spend a little time with his family.
Solo Leveling is available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
