Solo Leveling began premiering on January 6, 2024. Since then it has broken several records and crashed the Crunchyroll site. The manhwa became quite popular, and fans were urging for an anime adaptation. Their wish was fulfilled when the anime was announced almost one and a half years ago. Since then, they have been eagerly waiting for Solo Leveling’s release.
Fans had high expectations from the popular manhwa, and the anime adaptation exceeded the expectations. But it would not have been possible if Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Purini hadn’t taken action. It was due to his efforts that Chugong’s magnum opus got an anime adaptation, and Crunchyroll got its biggest hit of 2024. Rahul Purini had pitched the idea to a Japanese production house, Aniplex.
Rahul Purini Helped Crunchyroll Land Its Successful Anime in 2024
In an interview with The Verge, Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Purini revealed how he had pitched Solo Leveling manhwa to Aniplex and asked them to co-produce the anime. He explained how much the fans loved the manhwa and explained the two-way connection between them. It is the fans who took a massive part in influencing the production of a popular plot to be adapted into an anime.
During the interview, he said,
“Actually, there’s a show that we just launched in January called Solo Leveling. It’s a show based on a Korean manhwa. Our team read the manhwa, liked the IP, and so we actually took it to one of our sister partners in Japan — Aniplex — and co-produced the show with them. We announced the show about a year and a half ago — it’s been really well-received by fans across the world! So that’s one example of where we co-produced a show that we brought to the table based on what we were hearing from our fans.”
Purini explained how Crunchyroll invests in projects that their partners might not be able to produce, with just themselves. Gathering knowledge about the audience and how strongly they believe in it helps in boosting international production.
Solo Leveling Had A Pretty Big Impact on Its Audience
Rahul Purini’s plan worked out. He perfectly read the audience’s minds and launched one of the biggest projects of 2024. A few weeks before its release, there were anime Billboards in several parts of the world, including the New York Times Square. To further boost its popularity, Crunchyroll announced a two-part documentary, The Leveling of Solo Leveling, which captures the behind-the-scenes, premiere, and interviews to give the audience a deeper knowledge about the anime.
All these efforts proved to be successful, and Solo Leveling reached the peak of popularity, having entered IMDb’s top 100 most popular TV series. The Crunchyroll site crashed after the first episode premiered. Overall, Solo Leveling had quite a massive impact on the anime industry. Thanks to Rahul Purini, fans had their wish fulfilled, and Crunchyroll incurred massive profits. Solo Leveling will return to follow the manga in the upcoming episode after its last episode is a recap.
Solo Leveling can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
