Solo Leveling just set the worst record on Crunchyroll

Solo Leveling is setting records, just not the ones anyone wants at the minute. A recent episode managed to set a standard on Crunchyroll the show’s creative team might be hoping gets usurped before too long.

As one of the anime hits of the year, Solo Leveling has garnered a large and dedicated fanbase already. You have the massive audience from Chugong’s manhwa, which was a huge export, and then the fans who’ve jumped on because of how captivating Sung Jinwoo’s narrative has been.

Within just a few weeks, it was clear this would be one of the biggest anime shows of the year, if not one of the best.

After Episode 7, it was revealed we were getting a recap episode, in order to give the production team a break as they continue animating the manhwa’s chapters. Fans didn’t love this change, leading to a spot of review bombing.

Solo Leveling Episode 7.5 is the worst rated episode ever on Crunchyroll

At time of writing, Solo Leveling Episode 7.5 has managed to receive the most bad ratings of any episode of anime on Crunchyroll. Currently, the episode rests at over 62,000 dislikes, compared to under 29,000 likes.

There are a couple of reasons here. The first is that people are annoyed at getting a recap episode so early in the first season. It likely seems pointless to a lot of viewers and just disrupted their viewing.

The other, and one that shouldn’t be discounted, is fan entitlement and toxicity. A week’s break isn’t very long, and considering it’ll help the animators stay on top of their workload, is a tolerable inconvenience. However, try and explain that to fans on the internet, where reason gets shoved aside pretty quick a lot of the time.

“We live in a world of toxic narcissism and weebs are by far the worst,” one commenter states. The Reddit thread on the topic became a discussion on negative attitudes held by anime fans around the world.

“Obviously nobody is happy with skipping a week of content, not the fans but also not the studio,” adds another comment. “They wouldn’t do it just to spite their fans, they will have their reasons for it. And since they bought the time slot for Japanese TV, they had to air something, which was a recap episode. If you don’t like it, then just don’t watch it.”

Wise words. If you ever find yourself annoyed by something that happens in Solo Leveling, check out our best anime like Solo Leveling list. It’s more productive than leaving a toxic comment, I promise!