Solo Leveling is king of the genre the way Sword Art Online is king of Isekai. The biggest, most popular, most influential in some ways. None of those have anything to do with the quality of the content.

 

True. But it's enough considering the competition.

Whoa there. I get that you like it and I'm also a fan of it, but that's very much not true lmao. It's not the best and definitely not 'firmly'.

 

The art in the manhwa is really nice, but the translated writing is still pretty bad. Maybe not the story, but the actual text is not enjoyable and often cringeworthy. I might just be too sensitive to that stuff, since it also prevents me from enjoying most anime.
The writing in the webnovel is completely unreadable for me.

 

I've checked most of those out and the only ones I'd describe as above decent are Omniscient and Legend of the Northern Blade. Low expectations eh?

 

I personally feel as though Solo Leveling and Legend of the Northern Blade have the exact problem, where although the art is exceptional, the story and characters just don't match up at all. For Solo Leveling I found the early stuff really interesting and enjoyable, and it was fun seeing how he'd figure out a clever solution to a problem, but fairly quickly it just reached the point where he was just god tier and better than everyone else, and the story just ended up reduced to showing off how cool and awesome he was. As for Northern Blade, it also suffers from the same lack of tension, but not to the same extent yet as Solo Leveling.

 

Literally none of the stories of this type are innocent of this though. SSS-class certainly isn't.

 

Legend of the Northern Blade has an extremely by the numbers overall plot, but decent enough moment to moment writing and absolutely drop dead gorgeous and fairly unique art. SSS almost feels the opposite on the writing side; the overall arcs are far stronger than the moment to moment writing.

Omniscient can be a bit smug in the writing but there's some willingness to let the main character screw up you don't see as often elsewhere. Also the Dokabis are cute, and I hope the studio's new one brings back it's equivalent

 

Really enjoyed the comic. As others have said, the premise is a little unbelievable, and only drawn on when wanted (e.g. nothing is made of the endless repetitions, it's just hand waved to rewind to exactly where he wants to), but fun enough despite it. The genre shifting is also nice, if unexpected. (Is it ever revealed who the traitor was on floor 12?)
4/5

Also, is there a way to subscribe to updates of the comic? Or do I need to just check back every now and then?

 

Depends on where you're reading it. Some sites have updates.

 

If you read on your phone then I highly recommend Tachiyomi. It lets you save manga from different archives/sources and will automatically check for updates.

 

Look at that. A very satisfying end to this arc. Or at least I hope this is the end of this arc.