Should we love him or be scared of him?
Summary:
- The Solo Leveling anime adaptation pays more attention to side characters.
- Choi Jong-In is one of these characters.
- He’s an S-rank hunter and the strongest mage in Korea.
Solo Leveling (Ore dake Level Up na Ken) manhwa readers have been praising the anime adaptation for its attention to details and side characters a lot. The adaptation introduces various characters earlier than it’s supposed to and pays more attention to them, which is a good thing.
Choi Jong-In
One of the characters that seems very mysterious but important is Choi Jong-In, the red-haired hunter, often dressed in a white or red suit and wearing glasses. But who is he really, and how important is he for the story?
Choi is a Korean S-rank hunter, and that’s all you need to know to understand that he is not to mess with. The anime makes him look very mysterious and even like a sort of mastermind sometimes, but in reality, you shouldn't really be that scared of him.
It’s true that Choi is rather sly and intelligent — he often has his own agenda and is quick to catch on to things. But he’s also quite friendly and calm, and prefers to stay positive no matter what.
How strong is he?
Well, he’s an S-rank hunter, so you might expect him to be pretty strong. However, he’s not the most powerful among other S-rank hunters. For example, Cha is significantly stronger than him. And we don’t even think we should say anything about Jinwoo, who is on his way to becoming the strongest hunter in the series.
But that doesn’t mean that Choi is completely weak. He is the strongest mage-type hunter and the best fire user in Korea. Choi’s flames are so powerful that he’s capable of destroying skyscrapers or hordes of monsters with a single spell.
He can also use his fire magic to create weapons and other useful items. Choi can create fire spears to launch at his enemies and a fire prison that can come in handy both when he needs to attack and defend.
On top of that, his flames can also form a small dragon that is able to burn any targets that are near Choi.
Although manhwa readers say there isn’t much of Choi in Solo Leveling, the anime adaptation seems to want to change that. There have already been extra scenes added with him, and we keep seeing him in various episodes.
For example, the scene at the beginning of Episode 1 with Choi commanding a group of hunters and charging a fire attack wasn’t in the original source. So it feels like we’ll see more of him in the anime than we did in the manhwa.