In the last two years, it’s been easy to see how quickly Solo Leveling took the anime sphere by storm. The anticipation for the series’ January 2024 premiere was palpable, with the anime community making it Crunchyroll’s top series of the year. The second season was similarly the top anime series on the platform in the first quarter of 2025.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline, Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini talked about the series’ explosive success. He generally gave credit to the strength of the source IP; the manhwa version of the series was already very popular and had a strong following online thanks to the crisp and colorful visuals and the striking art style, which A-1 pictures managed to capture for fans in the anime adaptation.
Solo Leveling's Success Has Crunchyroll Looking for Next Video Game-Like Smash-Hit
However, Purini also noted that Solo Leveling also features gaming and video game-like mechanics throughout its story; given that plenty of anime fans are also likely to be gamers, Purini believes that this connection is another major strength that allowed the series to resonate with viewers so strongly. «The most important thing is the theme of the story, it has lot of themes from gaming. If you are an RPG player, or play first-person-shooting games, you understand it. When people see those themes in a narrative story format like this, it is new and it is different, and it is a language they speak and that makes it much more compelling,» he said.
Purini went on to say that the massive success of Solo Leveling has pushed the trajectory of Crunchyroll’s wider programming strategy for the future. For example, Crunchyroll recently announced the Ghost of Tsushima: Legends anime, based upon the successful Ghost of Tsushima video game developed by Sucker Punch. Perhaps more specifically, the game also includes a multiplayer experience that uses the Ghost of Tsushima: Legends title. «It definitely makes us want to take more experiments. Ghost of Tsushima is an example. It is a game IP that we know gaming fans love, and that’s one of the reasons we want to bring it to anime; to see if we can recreate that same phenomenon,» Purini said.
The new Ghost of Tsushima: Legends anime is a joint production between several Sony Group companies, including Crunchyroll, Aniplex, Sony Music and PlayStation Productions, and is currently set for a 2027 release. The series has Gen Urobuchi credited for the series composition, with direction by Takanobu Mizuno, the director of Episode 1 of Star Wars: Visions, «The Duel.» When talking about the project, Asad Qizilbash, Head of PlayStation Productions, said «Ghost of Tsushima’s rich, immersive world and its fantastical Legends mode based on Japanese mythology provide the perfect canvas for this project, and Aniplex is the perfect partner to translate Sucker Punch Productions’ hit video game into a stunning new anime series.»
Crunchyroll moving in this direction matches up with older statements from Purini. In a 2024 interview with Rest of World, Purini said that Crunchyroll planned to expand its IP options for anime into India for Indian characters, themes and stories. At the same time, he also reaffirmed his position that while Crunchyroll wanted to expand their scope of series outside of Japan, anime needed to remain inherently Japanese, saying, «We want more anime, more diverse stories, and it’s important that Japanese creators continue to be involved in them.» It was that line of thinking that led to the creation of the Solo Leveling anime, pulling in a series from Korea that was largely made by A-1 Pictures, a Japanese animation studio.
Hopes remain high that Solo Leveling will continue with a third season, but as of writing, there has yet to be any official confirmation of production. The upcoming Ghost of Tsushima: Legends anime will be available on Crunchyroll when it premieres in 2027.
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Solo Leveling
TV-MA Action Adventure Animation Fantasy 8 10 918
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Taito Ban Shun Mizushino (voice)
Genta Nakamura Kenta Morobishi (voice)
In a world of gifted hunters and monsters, a weak hunter Sung Jin-Woo gains extraordinary powers through a mysterious program, leading him to become one of the strongest hunters and conquering even the strongest dungeons.
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Ghost of Tsushima
Action Adventure
The player controls Jin Sakai, a samurai on a quest to protect Tsushima Island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan. Jin must choose between following the warrior code to fight honorably, or using practical but dishonorable methods of repelling the Mongols with minimal casualties.
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