11 Binge-Worthy Anime Like Solo Leveling to Conquer Next

Finished Solo Leveling and feel the hole it left behind? Plenty of anime like Solo Leveling deliver the same rush: the climb from weakest hunter to one-man army, the hidden System handing out quest rewards, the dungeons full of things that want you dead. None are a perfect clone of Sung Jinwoo's rise, but the closest ones hit the same nerve from a different angle.

The wait is what makes a watchlist worth building now. Season 2, Arise from the Shadow, wrapped in March 2025, and the next chapter is a movie, not a season. Crunchyroll and Aniplex announced Solo Leveling: Beyond the System with no release date yet, while Season 3 sits in a rough 2027 to 2028 window. So what to watch after Solo Leveling is a gap measured in years, not weeks.

We ranked these from closest match to loosest, judged on one thing: how much each shares Solo Leveling's actual build, the game-like System, the solo climb from weak to overpowered, the dungeons. There is a quick table up top, and honest notes at the end on the anime similar to Solo Leveling that get recommended constantly but are really theme matches, not build matches.

11 anime like Solo Leveling at a glance

If you just want the fast read, here is the whole roster. Go past the usual top 10 anime like Solo Leveling and there is a pick for every specific craving. The Similarity column is our call on how close each one gets to Solo Leveling itself, not how good the show is on its own.

Streaming rights shift by region, so these are a starting point. Check what is available where you are before you commit.

The anime most like Solo Leveling, ranked

Here are the best anime similar to Solo Leveling, ranked from the closest build match to the loosest. The Similarity Rating is our read on how near each one gets to Solo Leveling specifically, not how good the show is overall, and we kept the stars to whole numbers. These are the good anime like Solo Leveling that actually share its skeleton: a game-like System, a solo climb, and a world of monsters to grind through. Every pick here earns the label anime like Solo Leveling by build, not just by vibe.

1. Sword Art Online

Similarity Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Kirito is one of thousands of players trapped inside a VRMMO where the log-out button is gone and dying in the game means dying for real. To escape, someone has to clear all one hundred floors of a brutal tower, and he mostly chooses to do it alone. Later arcs jump to new game worlds and new threats, with the stakes shifting each season. The early death-game run remains its most gripping stretch.

The build is the thing Solo Leveling fans came for. A visible leveling System, numbers that climb as you grind, floors and bosses that work like gates, and a solo player who would rather carry the weight himself than lean on a party. Kirito powering up alone through a game that wants him dead is the closest anime has to Jinwoo's early climb, which is exactly why it is the first comparison longtime fans reach for. If you want to jump in without second-guessing the order, our Sword Art Online filler list maps out what matters.

2. The Rising of the Shield Hero

Similarity Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Naofumi is summoned to another world as one of four legendary heroes, handed a shield, and almost immediately betrayed and branded a criminal. Cast out with nothing, he levels up the hard way, building strength and a small, fiercely loyal party while the world keeps throwing catastrophes at him. Each Wave is a countdown to a massive monster invasion that only the heroes can hold back. His arc is a slow burn from the most hated man in the kingdom to the one everyone needs.

The build lines up almost point for point. There is a literal leveling System with stats and skills, the hero grows measurably stronger over time, and the Waves work exactly like Solo Leveling's gates: tears in the world that spill monsters until someone strong enough shuts them. Most of all, it shares the weak-to-respected spine, a protagonist the world writes off who grinds his way to the top. The bitterness in Naofumi's early climb gives it an edge a lot of isekai lack.

3. Shangri-La Frontier

Similarity Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Rakuro Hizutome, known online as Sunraku, is a specialist in beating notoriously terrible games, so he dives into Shangri-La Frontier, a near-flawless VRMMO, to see how far his skills really go. He tears into the game's toughest hunts, chases unique monsters, and stumbles onto secrets the developers buried deep. The world is enormous and the boss fights play like intricate puzzles. It is one of the sharpest action VRMMO series in years.

For the game-mechanics side of Solo Leveling, this is a near-perfect match. The leveling, the gear hunts, and the boss encounters built like high-skill gates all scratch the same itch as watching Jinwoo optimize his System. Sunraku taking on monsters far above his level and winning through sheer skill mirrors the thrill of Solo Leveling's hardest dungeon runs. The tone is lighter and the stakes are not life-or-death, but the dopamine of a skilled solo player cracking an impossible fight is right there, and the fights are gorgeous.

4. DanMachi

Similarity Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll, HIDIVE

Synopsis: Bell Cranel is the weakest adventurer in Orario, a city built on top of a vast, deadly dungeon, blessed by a goddess nobody respects. Driven by a crush and a dream, he dives deeper than he should and grows faster than anyone thought possible. The gods of this world grant adventurers a Falna, a literal status screen that tracks levels, stats, and skills. Bell's rise from laughingstock to prodigy is the beating heart of the show.

Of everything on this list, this is the most literal “watch the numbers go up” experience outside Solo Leveling itself. There is a real leveling System with visible stats, a sprawling dungeon with deeper and deadlier floors, and a hero who starts at the absolute bottom and claws upward run by run. The structure, a measurable System plus a dungeon plus a solo climb, is Solo Leveling's exact skeleton wrapped in a warmer, more adventurous world. Bell even gathers allies and a summon of his own as he grows.

5. Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest

Similarity Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Hajime Nagumo is pulled into a fantasy world alongside his whole class, except he draws a weak crafting skill and gets mocked for it, then is betrayed and left to die at the bottom of a monster-infested dungeon. Instead of dying, he claws back up through the depths, devouring monsters, transmuting weapons, and remaking himself into something ruthless and overpowered. He emerges cold, scarred, and far stronger than the classmates who abandoned him. The tone is dark, and the power trip is the point.

The build is pure Solo Leveling: a status-and-leveling System, a protagonist who starts at rock bottom, and a brutal solo grind in the dark that forges him into a one-man army. Hajime leveling up by surviving a dungeon that should have killed him is Jinwoo's Double Dungeon turned into a whole series. It even shares the shift in personality that comes with power, the quiet nobody hardening into someone who no longer flinches. If you loved the ruthlessness of Jinwoo's rise, this leans all the way into it.

6. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

Similarity Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: A middle-aged office worker is stabbed on the street and wakes up reincarnated as a slime in a fantasy world, armed with a skill that lets him copy abilities and a wise inner voice guiding his growth. As Rimuru Tempest, he evolves from the lowest monster imaginable into one of the most powerful beings alive, absorbing skills and allies as he goes. Rather than conquer, he sets out to build a nation where monsters and humans can live side by side. It is cozy, funny, and quietly epic.

Strip away the warm tone and the build is right at home here: a skill-acquisition System, a clear progression from weakest to strongest, and a hero who gathers a loyal army that would follow him anywhere. Rimuru's evolutions work like Solo Leveling's level-ups, each one unlocking new powers and new summons under his command. The slime starting at the literal bottom of the food chain and climbing to demon lord is the same weak-to-overpowered spine, just told with a grin instead of a grimace.

7. Overlord

Similarity Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Momonga logs in for one last session before his favorite game shuts down, and instead of logging off he stays trapped as Ainz Ooal Gown, a skeletal overlord ruling a fortress full of devoted, terrifying servants. Finding himself fully inside the game world with god-tier power, he sets out to understand it and, slowly, to dominate it. He schemes, bluffs, and occasionally erases entire armies without blinking. The series is honest about how unsettling a protagonist like that really is.

If the pull of Solo Leveling was the game-world logic and the shadow army that would die for you, this is the darker, more strategic cousin. Ainz operates inside literal game mechanics, classes, skills, and levels, and he commands an army of loyal undead the way Jinwoo commands his shadows. The fantasy of a single overpowered figure reshaping the map by force, backed by servants who worship him, is dialed all the way up. It trades the underdog grind for starting at the top, which is the one place it parts ways with Jinwoo.

8. Log Horizon

Similarity Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Thousands of players wake up stuck inside the MMO Elder Tale, unable to log out, and have to figure out how to live in a world that now runs on game rules. Instead of a lone swordsman, the hero is Shiroe, a brilliant strategist who wins through planning, politics, and a deep understanding of the game's systems. He works to build order out of chaos, founding a functioning society among the stranded players. It is the thinking person's trapped-in-a-game story.

The connection is the game-world logic itself: classes, levels, skills, and a System that governs everything, the same scaffolding Solo Leveling runs on. If you liked puzzling out how Jinwoo's System actually worked, the economics of a dungeon run and the logic of the rules, this treats all of that as the main event. It is slower and more cerebral, trading the solo power climb for strategy, which is why it sits a little lower on closeness. For fans who loved the mechanics more than the fights, it is a gem.

9. The Eminence in Shadow

Similarity Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: HIDIVE

Synopsis: Cid Kagenou is obsessed with being the mastermind who lurks in the shadows, so he invents a fake evil organization to roleplay against, builds a secret order called Shadow Garden, and acts out his fantasy. The joke is that the world-ending conspiracy he made up is completely real, and he happens to be the single strongest person alive without grasping how serious any of it is. His followers take his improvised nonsense as gospel. It is a comedy that keeps paying off its own absurd premise.

The closeness here is less about a System and more about the power fantasy at Solo Leveling's core: a protagonist who is secretly the strongest, operating alone, with a loyal shadow army at his back. Shadow Garden is a clear cousin to Jinwoo's shadow soldiers, and the moments where Cid drops the act and flattens a room carry the exact satisfaction of watching Jinwoo stop holding back. There is no leveling grind, which is why it ranks mid-list, but the overpowered-and-in-the-shadows flavor is unmistakable.

10. Tower of God

Similarity Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Synopsis: Bam follows the only person he has ever known into a mysterious Tower, where each floor is a deadly trial and those who climb highest are granted near-godlike power and status. He is tested, betrayed, and forced to grow fast just to keep climbing. The Tower is full of ranked climbers, hidden rules, and a slow-drip mystery about what waits at the top. It began as a hugely popular Korean webtoon before the anime.

It shares Solo Leveling's DNA at the source: a Korean webtoon turned anime about a boy who starts with nothing and climbs a ranked structure that measures everyone's strength. The ranking of climbers mirrors the hunter grades you already understand, and the floor-by-floor trials rhyme with clearing progressively harder gates. There is no personal stat screen, so it leans more “ranked climb” than “leveling System,” but the weak-to-powerful progression and the shared webtoon roots make it feel like a sibling.

11. Hunter x Hunter

Similarity Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

Anime Overall Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watch on: Crunchyroll

Gon sets out to become a Hunter, a licensed elite who can take on the world's most dangerous jobs, partly to find the father who left him behind. The journey starts with a punishing exam that weeds out the weak and opens into one of the most carefully constructed power systems in all of anime. Nen, the ability framework, has rules you genuinely have to learn to appreciate the fights. It is deeper and darker than its bright art style suggests.

The link is progression as a discipline: a licensing exam that filters the weak, a rule-based power system you level up by mastering, and arcs that make every gain feel earned, much like Jinwoo studying his System to get stronger. The “Hunter” framing and the climb from unknown to feared both echo Solo Leveling, even without a literal stat screen. It is longer and more complex, so it sits lower on pure closeness, but for the sense of methodical power growth, few do it better. Our Hunter x Hunter filler list trims the fat so you can reach the best arcs faster.

A few anime similar to Solo Leveling that watch differently

Search around and you will see the same big names suggested as anime similar to Solo Leveling, usually because they are dark, flashy, or built on an underdog. They are fantastic shows, and we would happily point you to them. We just want to be clear that they are theme matches, not build matches.

Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man share the dark, monster-hunting mood and a lead thrown into a lethal hidden world, but neither runs on a leveling System or a solo power climb. Black Clover and Demon Slayer both give you an underdog grinding toward the top, yet the engine is bonds, breathing styles, and magic ranks rather than quests, stats, and a game overlay. All four are worth your time. Just go in knowing they scratch a different itch than Jinwoo's System-driven rise does.

Build the watchlist before Jinwoo's next rise

The wait for Beyond the System is long, but it is the perfect excuse to finally clear the backlog of anime like Solo Leveling you kept meaning to start. Begin at the top with Sword Art Online or The Rising of the Shield Hero for the purest System-and-leveling fix, drop into a dungeon with DanMachi or Shangri-La Frontier, and let the darker climbs of Arifureta and Overlord carry you the rest of the way. When you want even more anime like Solo Leveling, these picks will keep you busy until Sung Jinwoo returns to the big screen.

While you are queuing all of it up, come hang out with us at Kaminari, where our weekly newsletter rounds up the anime worth your time, the news that actually matters, and takes that treat you like a fan instead of a pageview. We will keep you posted the second Beyond the System gets a real date, so you never miss the next climb.

FAQs

Is there an anime exactly like Solo Leveling?

Not a perfect twin, but a few share the build closely. Sword Art Online and The Rising of the Shield Hero both run on a leveling System and a solo climb from weak to overpowered, and DanMachi adds a literal dungeon with a real status screen. Each nails the core of Jinwoo's rise rather than copying all of it.

What to watch after Solo Leveling Season 2

If you want the smoothest landing, start at the top of this list: Sword Art Online, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Shangri-La Frontier, or DanMachi. They carry over the System, the leveling grind, and the solo power fantasy that made Season 2 so addictive.

Is Solo Leveling getting a Season 3?

A third season is expected but not dated, with industry reporting pointing to a rough 2027 to 2028 window. Before that, the announced next step is the theatrical film Solo Leveling: Beyond the System, which picks up right after Season 2 and has no confirmed release date yet.

What is the newest anime like Solo Leveling?

Shangri-La Frontier is the freshest pick on this list, a recent, great-looking VRMMO series, and both The Rising of the Shield Hero and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime have new seasons out. All three are among the best new anime like Solo Leveling to start right now.

Where can you watch anime like Solo Leveling?

Most of these stream on Crunchyroll, including Solo Leveling itself, and a few also sit on HIDIVE. Streaming homes shift by region and over time, so double-check what is available where you are before you settle in.