What were they expecting?
Summary:
- Solo Leveling Episode 7.5 is a recap.
- It became the lowest rated episode on Crunchyroll.
- Such a reaction was not unexpected.
As you may have noticed, there wasn’t a new Solo Leveling (Ore dake Level Up na Ken) episode on February 24, 2024. Instead of Episode 8, we got Episode 7.5, which is a recap of everything that happened in the first seven episodes.
Lowest rated episode
Whether it was due to production issues or the illness of the main voice actor, the fact remains: there was a delay and fans were fairly unhappy about it. So unhappy that Crunchyroll’s rating for the episode broke the anti-record and became the lowest rated anime episode ever.
The dissatisfaction is not surprising in the slightest, since recap episodes are a thing that so many viewers hate. And Solo Leveling Episode 7.5 was never meant to become an exception. However, such a “record” is still a bit puzzling, but why?
Most of the disappointment comes from those who missed the news about the delay of Episode 8. They did not expect the series to broadcast a recap and such confusion led to a strong reaction.
Solo Leveling is one of the most popular anime series currently airing, so viewers are naturally excited for new episodes and want to learn how the story progresses as soon as possible.
And instead of that, they were forced to wait for two weeks between the actual episodes. That’s why even those who knew what to expect from the broadcast got upset.
Just a marketing strategy?
Seven episodes aren’t that many, so there was no real need to do a recap episode. That’s why fans believe that it wasn’t planned, and there aren't any conspiracy theories, there was really a production issue.
However, they think it would have been better not to release an episode at all. Such a reaction to recaps is rather obvious and could have been predicted, and fans think that viewers would have taken the delay much better if there hadn’t been a recap.
It would also have got rid of the confusion for those who didn’t know about the delay. So basically everyone would be happier.
Still, we can’t deny that the delay and the recap episode fulfilled their marketing purpose, and Solo Leveling did get a little more buzz in the past week. We just hope that wasn’t the intention of the animation studio.