Summary
- Red Gates in Season 2 are treacherous alternate dimensions, trapping Hunters inside with powerful monsters.
- Red Gates pretend to be normal, stopping others from entering, present harsh environments, and conceal danger levels.
- A-Rank Hunter’s tragic misjudgment led to deaths in the Red Gate, showing the lethal nature and time distortion inside.
Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow-, which premiered its first two episodes as part of the Solo Leveling ReAwakening compilation film on December 6, was an amazing start to the upcoming season that hit the ground running, presenting the concept of the near-impossible-to-escape Red Gates.
Initially masquerading as normal Ranked Gates, the Red Gates lead to immensely dangerous alternate dimensions that are different from the regular ones, as Hunters who venture through them find themselves unable to turn back once in. What are the Red Gates, and what makes them so different from the normal Gates that emerged in the Solo Leveling universe?
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Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Episodes 1 and 2 Serve Up an Incredible Start
The Solo Leveling: Reawakening compilation film also featured the first two episodes of season 2 – and they were brilliant.
The Difference Between Red Gates and Normal Gates
The Point of No Return
As you probably already know, Gates in Solo Leveling are magical portals that lead to dungeons that Hunters enter in order to defeat the Dungeon boss and prevent a Dungeon Break – a situation in which the magical beasts that inhabit the space beyond the Gate come over to the world of humans and cause havoc. Dungeon Breaks take place when a Gate has not been conquered for several days since its opening.
A Red Gate; however, is a terrifying concept, because while the regular Gates are assessed for their potential danger and difficulty and ranked accordingly, Red Gates masquerade as normal Gates and only reveal their true nature once the unlucky Hunters have already entered. It also prevents those on the outside from entering, making it the perfect death trap. This happened in the first episode of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- when Sung Jinwoo wanted to show Jinah’s friend, Han Song Yi, just how dangerous being a Hunter can be, and invited her to observe the White Tiger Guild’s raid of a C-Rank Gate.
Once all the participants had entered, the Hunters found themselves in an unforgiving tundra, where they were immediately attacked by sadistic ice elves. Jinwoo managed to briefly turn back and tell Mr Ahn Sangmin, the chief of the White Tiger Guild’s 2nd Division Management Department, to call for help as the Gate gave him the same kind of eerie feeling he got when he and several unsuspecting Hunters arrived at the Cartenon Temple, where they were decimated by the Statue of God.
Beyond the obvious risk of being killed by the monsters found within a Red Gate, which are guaranteed to be B-Rank or higher, the environments that Hunters encounter upon entering a Red Gate are incredibly harsh, ranging from scorching deserts to icy ones, meaning that Hunters who are unfortunate enough to encounter a Red Gate also have to survive inhospitable environmental conditions and hazards on top of the powerful magical beasts. Once a Red Gate has revealed itself, it also stops radiating mana, which means that Hunter’s Association officials can’t accurately measure the potential danger and Rank of the beasts found therein.
An Illustration of Unfathomable Danger
An A-Ranker Was Absolutely No Match
When the White Tiger Guild members realized the danger of their situation, the A-Rank Tank Kim Chul took it upon himself to be the leader of the group, deciding that he will only work with those who are of higher ranks, condemning the low-ranked Hunters to wait right where they were while Kim Chul attempted to take down the boss. Unfortunately for him; however, the ice bears and ice elves had a great time ripping apart his little advance squad, while E-Rank Han Song Yi, B-Rank Mage Park Heejin and C-Rank Hunter Yoon Kijoong had a very comfortable time reaping the benefits of being protected by Sung Jinwoo.
The realization that those he had considered to be “weaklings” had survived without so much as a scratch on them, enjoying the benefits of gear like warm winter coats and decent shelter, drove him over the edge. Out of anger and spurred on by the traumatic experiences he had, Kim Chul decided that Jinwoo deliberately hid crucial gear and thus condemned him and the other high-ranked Hunters to die, going as far as to attempt to kill Jinwoo. Overall, the entire ordeal lasted a week, but time inside the Red Gate flows faster than time outside, so when Jinwoo took down Barca, the leader of the ice elves and the Dungeon Boss of this particular Red Gate, it turned out that only a few hours had passed in the outside world. Due to Kim Chul’s terrible decision-making, of the twelve members of the White Tiger Guild who stepped through the Gate, only three came back alive.
A-1 Pictures’ Solo Leveling is an anime based on Chugong’s popular web novel. Set in an unforgiving fantasy world where hunters explore dungeons filled with monsters, the vulnerable Sung Jinwoo gains a significant power boost after he is picked to be a solo player by the System.