North American anime fans eager for the continuation of the smash-hit Solo Leveling anime may need to brace themselves for a potentially extended wait.
In a recent interview, Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini addressed the series' immense popularity and offered a cautiously optimistic outlook on the arrival of season 3.
Pinpointing the anime's unique appeal, Purini stated, "The most important thing is the theme of the story, it has lot of themes from gaming. If you are an RPG player, or play first-person-shooting games, you understand it."
"When people see those themes in a narrative story format like this, it is new and it is different, and it is a language they speak and that makes it much more compelling." This connection to gaming culture has undoubtedly fueled the series' global success."
However, when directly asked about a potential season 3, Purini tempered expectations. "We hope so," he offered, before adding that the production staff at A-1 Pictures likely want to explore other creative avenues before returning to Solo Leveling . "The [series] creators want to work on lot of shows. Anime is really popular, so there’s a lot of demand, and so we have to find the right time to get started on the next season."
Given the typical production timelines for high-quality anime – with Solo Leveling's first two seasons (January-March 2024 and January-March 2025) likely consuming the A-1 Pictures team's efforts for the past two years – the A-1 staff may be feeling a little burnt out.
While the wait for Solo Leveling season 3 might be longer than desired, Purini offered a glimpse into Crunchyroll's exciting future anime slate. He highlighted the upcoming anime adaptation of the popular video game Ghost of Tsushima, slated for a 2027 release.
On the video game adaptation, he stated that Solo Leveling's success makes the company want to, "take more experiments. Ghost of Tsushima is an example. It is a game IP that we know gaming fans love, and that’s one of the reasons we want to bring it to anime; to see if we can recreate that same phenomenon."
Additionally, Demon Slayer fans have much to anticipate with a forthcoming trilogy of movies concluding the current arc.
Purini revealed that these films, picking up after the Entertainment District Arc, will be released relatively close together following the first installment, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - To the Hashira Training, which hits US theaters this September.
"The trilogy movies are the final arc of the story and, for fans, if they want to finish it, they have to watch it. The production teams have not announced the exact release date, but they will be fairly evenly placed right after the first movie.”