‘Solo Leveling’ Is One Step Away From Becoming the First Anime to Hit 1 Million Ratings on Crunchyroll
Few anime series have reshaped the streaming landscape quite the way ‘Solo Leveling‘ has since Sung Jinwoo first stepped into that fateful dungeon. Based on a South Korean web novel by Chugong, the series dropped onto Crunchyroll in January 2024 and immediately became one of the year’s biggest anime releases, earning widespread praise for its compelling premise set in a world where humanity’s survival depends on ranked hunters battling deadly monsters. What followed was not just a hit debut but the beginning of something the platform had never quite seen before.
Produced by A-1 Pictures, the series returned for its second season and continued to dominate Crunchyroll in a way that left even seasoned observers speechless. In the process, it overtook both ‘One Piece’ and ‘Demon Slayer’ to claim the title of most-rated title on the entire platform, maintaining a near-perfect average of 4.9 out of 5 stars across its growing pool of user reviews. For a series still in its early seasons, that achievement alone was remarkable.
Now, ‘Solo Leveling’ is closing in on territory no anime has ever entered on Crunchyroll. The series sits just 15,000 ratings away from crossing the 1 million mark, a milestone that would make it the first title in Crunchyroll’s history to ever reach that threshold. For context, the second highest-rated series on the platform is ‘One Piece,’ which sits at over 760,000 ratings. The gap between them makes ‘Solo Leveling’s’ achievement all the more staggering, especially considering the show has only 25 episodes to its name.
The series’ dominance has been formally acknowledged at the corporate level as well, with Sony confirming during its Business Segment Presentation that ‘Solo Leveling’ ranked number one in Crunchyroll’s all-time view count history as of the end of March 2025, also setting the record for the most streams in the platform’s history. At the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, the show swept the ceremony and became the first manhwa-based series ever to win Anime of the Year.
Despite all of this momentum, Season 3 has yet to receive an official confirmation. Crunchyroll’s Head of Theatrical and Distribution, Mitchel Berger, addressed the situation, saying the platform is confident fans will continue to see Sung Jinwoo’s story unfold, even if a specific timeline has not yet been announced. In the meantime, the franchise is expanding on multiple fronts, with a live-action Netflix adaptation confirmed and starring Byeon Woo-seok as Sung Jinwoo alongside Han So-hee as Cha Hae-in.
The million-rating milestone feels less like a question of if and more like a countdown at this point. With fan enthusiasm showing no sign of cooling and the franchise growing across games, Blu-ray releases, and now live-action territory, ‘Solo Leveling’ has turned Crunchyroll into its personal proving ground. Now that Sung Jinwoo is this close to making platform history, the real question is whether you think any other anime could ever come close to matching what he has built.
