Solo Leveling Episode 5 Review

Picking Up Girls in the Hospital

Solo Leveling Episode 5 featured Jin-Woo’s first time entering a C-Rank dungeon. But, let’s talk about something more important before getting to that. Let’s talk about picking up cute girls in the hospital.

The start of Episode 5 is pretty wild if you look at it from an American perspective. What happens to Jin-Woo after he wakes up from his coma in the hospital is pure fantasy. From an American perspective, it’s just as much of a fantasy as anything else in the series.

If I had a hospital stay like that, I’d expect inter-dimensional gates to exist.

So, what exactly am I talking about? Is it that fantastical that a cute nurse asked Jin-Woo for his contact info? No, that sort of thing happens to me all the time. I’m literally him. What’s fantastical is the fact that he stayed in the hospital for so long.

Okay, yes, obviously, in the US, staying in the hospital for as long as Jin-Woo did would bankrupt him. Healthcare costs aside, though, how long was he there? I forget if he was in a coma for a few days or a few weeks. But, I’m talking about after that.

Pretty much as soon as he woke up, Jin-Woo was healthy. He was back to his usual self. And yet, he stayed in the hospital. He seems to have stayed in the hospital for weeks. How is this possible?

Like, he turned his hospital room into his personal gym. He even left the hospital at one point to explore an instance dungeon. So, he doesn’t need to be there. And yet, he returned and appears to have been living there for weeks. This is a hospital, not a hotel. What’s going on? Why is he still there?

A Pretty Good Deal

Let’s move on to the less interesting part of the episode: The dungeon. Somehow, Jin-Woo gets an invitation to participate in a C-Rank dungeon. We don’t see how this actually happens, though. So, it’s a bit unclear — at least in the anime.

We saw Jin-Woo scrolling through a dungeon party recruiting board. But, he comments on how none of these parties are going to hire him because of his rank. At least, none of the parties planning to tackle higher-ranked dungeons. And, that makes sense when you consider the risks involved.

So, did Jin-Woo contact this group and get accepted, for some reason? Or, did this group reach out to him first? To me, it seemed like the latter is what happened. But, again, we don’t know. The thing is, regardless of which was the case, this is a red flag.

Why would a party want to bring an E-Rank Hunter like Jin-Woo into a C-Rank dungeon? Technically, there is a logical reason for this. They tell Jin-Woo that he’s not a combatant and his only job is to be a pack mule. Fair enough. But, they also say that because he’s not fighting, he gets paid a flat rate.

That’s the above-board reason for bringing someone like Jin-Woo along. If the party is confident in its ability, it can come out of the dungeon with larger shares of loot per person. Instead of splitting the loot eight ways, they only have to split it seven.

In the end, though, this is still a good deal for Jin-Woo. Sure, he’d make more as a combatant. But, this pack mule role comes with less risk and still pays a decent amount. Unfortunately for Jin-Woo (and Jin-Ho), this “pretty good ideal” is actually a trap.

Betrayed in a Dungeon

If you don’t fully understand what happened to Jin-Woo and Jin-Ho, join the club. It’s obvious that the other members of their party betrayed them. They left the boss room and sealed those two inside to fight the boss on their own. But, why?

Jin-Ho believes that he and Jin-Woo are being sacrificed. He believes that the others are doing this so that they can have more shares of the loot. Instead of splitting everything seven or eight ways, they’ll only have to split it six ways. That makes sense. But, is it the truth?

My assumption is no. And, it looks like Jin-Woo recognizes that’s not what’s going on, as well. So, what is going on here? Why were those two sealed in the boss room? What does the rest of the party stand to gain from doing this to them?

There are six members of the core party. Then, there’s Jin-Ho and Jin-Woo, who were recruited to fill mandated party slots. These two are weaker than the rest of the party (on paper). So, if something were to happen in the dungeon, the main party should be able to handle these two.

That assumed weakness is exactly why Jin-Woo is here. They recruited an E-Rank Hunter (the weakest in the world) because he can’t stop them. But, what about Jin-Ho? Jin-Ho is the mark. He’s the one the rest of the party always intended to kill.

Why do they want to kill Jin-Ho? His gear. He’s a weak newbie with extremely expensive gear. Why does he deserve that gear? They’re the ones who have been working as Hunters for years. They deserve it more than him. That’s the logic. They view Jin-Ho as some rich kid whom they can profit off of.

Final Thoughts

What do you think of Solo Leveling Episode 5? Are the hospitals in your country free hotels full of cute girls? If so, I’ll have to visit. Would you take a pack mule job in a dungeon? And, do you agree that it appears Jin-Ho is the mark? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 6 is available now.