Solo Leveling's New Webtoon Clone Is The Beginning Of A Dark Era

Despite only recently having made its debut as an anime, Solo Leveling has quickly become one of the biggest anime franchises, and it's only going to get bigger with its upcoming movie. That said, even before the series could find mainstream success as an anime, Solo Leveling was already a majorly popular webtoon and web novel.

Naturally, over the years, many series have attempted to emulate Solo Leveling's success, making the dungeon fantasy genre as a whole much more popular. That said, at the same time, this has also given rise to many series that come across as straight-up Solo Leveling clones, and it's starting to become a problem.

Solo Leveling Has A New Webtoon Clone, And It's Almost Embarrassing

Tappytoon and Webtoon both recently welcomed a new series titled Shadow System: Harnessing Shadow Power to Become the Ultimate Hunter, and it's already garnering attention, albeit not for the best reasons. Created by SnapStudio and MoeMoon, Shadow System was released on Tappytoon on February 16, 2026, and recently also made its way to Webtoon on July 9, where the series has since caught even more eyeballs with over five hundred thousand views and counting.

The series is set in a world where rifts filled with monsters known as Aberrants have begun to appear. Along with these interdimensional rifts, there are also a handful of individuals who have awakened special powers known in Shadow System as Vanguards. However, the series' protagonist, Li Yiben, is just an unawakened miner left with mountains of debt after the untimely death of his parents.

That said, his life takes an interesting turn in the face of an unexpected Aberrant attack at work one day. His colleagues all but betray him, and at the cusp of death, Li's body is taken over by a shadowy spirit within a statue. This leads to his awakening as a Vanguard, along with the titular shadow system that helps him develop his newly attained shadow powers and level up.

Right off the bat, Shadow System's premise and synopsis bear many apparent similarities to Solo Leveling. The series evidently swaps out dungeon gates for rifts and hunters for vanguards, and while Solo Leveling wasn't the first or only series to implement these concepts, Shadow System still comes across as derivative due to the many other similarities between the two series. For one, the rifts in Shadow System began to appear ten years before the start of the series, which is the exact time frame as when the dungeon gates began to appear in Solo Leveling.

Secondly, Li Yiben's character design is immediately reminiscent of Sung Jinwoo with the cut and color of his dark hair and the very similar art style of the series. This is also consistent with MoeMoon's other works, such as Soul Pact: Working for an Evil God to Pay Off My Debt, another recent launch on Webtoon, which also features a protagonist who closely resembles Sung Jinwoo.

Of course, not every dark-haired protagonist is instantly a clone of Sung Jinwoo, but in Shadow System's case, there are also story parallels between the two. Much like Jinwoo at the start of Solo Leveling, Li starts out as a miner, faces betrayal, and essentially has an awakening of sorts. While Jinwoo starts out as an E-rank hunter and then experiences a reawakening, Li starts the series unawakened and then awakens as an E-rank Vanguard before leveling up.

The differences are minor, but the similarities are impossible to ignore. Shadow System even has its own version of the smiling statue from the Double Dungeon in a moment that is almost identical to Solo Leveling. Just as this statue turns out to be the Architect behind Jinwoo's powers, this statue in Shadow System is also responsible for giving Li his powers, which also closely resemble Jinwoo's Shadow Monarch abilities.

Action Fantasy Webtoons Are Headed For The Same Fate As The Isekai Genre

As critical as it may be to call Shadow System a Solo Leveling clone, the similarities are almost too embarrassing to ignore. Even if Shadow System's story takes a different direction down the line, the beginning of the series still does not leave the best impression or convince readers to stay until it establishes itself.

Sure, Shadow System may appeal to readers looking for something similar to Solo Leveling just to scratch the itch while the sequel is on hiatus. But, in that case, it's far better to just re-read Solo Leveling or the myriad of other webtoons that use the same concepts as Solo Leveling with far more ingenuity, such as Saviour of Divine Blood, Tomb Raider King, or The World After The Fall.

Even if the premise is just a hook to reel readers in, it's unfortunate that only something similar to Solo Leveling can garner attention. The bigger problem at hand here is that it's getting harder and harder these days to find an action fantasy manhwa that isn't like Solo Leveling. In the 2024 documentary, The Leveling of Solo Leveling, Jang Hye-Kyung, the International Print Publishing Manager of D&C Media, even revealed how the series had created, or rather popularized, an entire subculture of manhwa surrounding the word "solo" and the general concept of leveling up.

However, since then, Solo Leveling-esque stories and protagonists have utterly taken over the genre as a whole to the point that it's on the brink of oversaturation. If so, the action fantasy webtoon genre could be headed for very much the same fate as isekai manga and novels. For years, the latter has been devolving into the same old, tired tropes, and now it's gotten so bad that even major publishers like Kadokawa have admitted that it's affecting sales and performance.

And, it isn't too long until action fantasy manhwa suffer the same fate unless they stop trying to chase Solo Leveling's success. Readers are desperately looking for something fresh and new to read, and it's evident in the success and praise of unique titles like Omniscient Reader, Got Dropped Into A Ghost Story Still Gotta Work, and The Painter Who Paints Dungeons.