Crunchyroll announced today that Grammy nominated Reggaeton artist J Balvin will voice a key role in the English and Spanish dub for the ongoing Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise From the Shadow-. It has not been announced what role he will be voicing.
“I’m beyond thrilled to join the cast of Solo Leveling! This series has such a passionate fanbase and getting the chance to be part of the anime world, after being a fan for such a long time, is an absolute honor,” says J Balvin. “I can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve been working on!”
The anime’s second season first premiered in Japan on January 4, 2025 and will air for 13 episodes. The first season aired in Japan on January 6, 2024 and ended on March 31, 2024. A compilation film titled Solo Leveling -ReAwakening- screened in Japan from November 29, 2024 to December 12, 2024 and in North America on December 6, 2024.
Many of the staff members from the first season are returning to work on the second season, including Shunsuke Nakashige as director, Noboru Kimura as series screenwriter, Tomoko Sudo as character designer, Chiaki Kozumi as sub-character designer, Hirokatsu Maruyama (Season 1 co-main animator et al.) and Yoshihiro Kanno as action director, and Hirotaka Tokuda as monster designer. A-1 Pictures is handling the animation production.
Meanwhile, the anime’s returning voice cast stars:
- • Taito Ban as Jun Mizushino/Jinwoo
- • Reina Ueda as Shizuku Kousaka/Cha hae-in
- • Daisuke Hirakawa as Shin Mogami/Choi Jong-in
- • Hiroki Tochi as Taiga Shirakawa/Baek Yun-ho
- • Banjo Ginga as Kiyoomi Gotou/Go Geon-hui
- • Makoto Furukawa as Akira Inukai/U Jin-cheol
- • Genta Nakamura as Kenta Morobishi/Yoo Jin-ho
- • Haruna Mikawa as Aoi Mizushino/Sung Jinah
The anime is based on the 2016 South Korean web novel written by Chugong and illustrated by the late Dubu (Redice Studio). A webtoon drawn by the latter was released afterwards in 2018, releasing 13 volumes as of November 2024. H-Goon later took over adapting the series in the webtoons’ recent volumes being published in Japan after Dubu’s passing.
Crunchyroll is streaming Solo Leveling Season 2 worldwide, along with bilibili and Netflix. The former describes the main synopsis as:
It’s been over ten years since gates that lead to another dimension have begun appearing across the world. The battles between the magic beasts inhabiting the dungeons through the gates and the human hunters who have awakened the abilities to fight them show no signs of ending. Ordinarily, a hunter’s abilities do not change upon awakening, with their rank never increasing. However, the low-ranked Sung Jinwoo, known as “The Weakest Hunter of All Mankind,” gained the ability to level up through battle during a raid on a double dungeon.
Having completed a job-change quest that earned him the job “Shadow Monarch” and command over an army of shadows, Jinwoo heads into battle seeking the ingredients for the Elixir of Life to save his sick mother.
Source: press release
