Solo Leveling breaks yet another record, proving the Anime of the Year title was truly deserved

Since its release in anime form, Solo Leveling has become an international phenomenon, after it turned Chugong’s webtoon into one of the most powerful cultural references of the season. The series received the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards in the Anime of the Year as well as nine other categories, including Best New Series, Best Score, Best Action, Best Main Character (Sung Jinwoo), and Best Ending Sequence, which further increased the global publicity and triggered a wave of viewer response. This advertising and critical buzz directly carried over to platform metrics, i.e., viewership, streaming hours, and user ratings, which resulted in Solo Leveling being one of the most spoken-about titles of the year.

The success of Solo Leveling has just reached a new milestone on platforms, as the anime has become the first to gain more than 900,000 user ratings on Crunchyroll. The same benchmark was reported following the success of the series in awards and indicates continued interest globally in the series in both release windows and regional feeds. The milestone is significant as the number of ratings in Crunchyroll is a result of the voting and reviewing of an extremely wide fanbase across the globe, an essential predictor of mass consumption.

The explosion of Solo Leveling reaching this record did not occur in a vacuum; the Anime of the Year and other technical-based awards gave the show an extra push to have new audiences sample it. The Crunchyroll nomination campaign and award ceremony generated spikes in platform traffic and a wave of social sharing, which consequently generated thousands of new ratings within short periods. These massive spikes can be observed in the tallies of platforms and third-party trackers.

Solo Leveling has also received a very high average rating on Crunchyroll, which has increased in number, not only in terms of volume but also in terms of continued favorable consideration. Previous levels recorded Solo Leveling as higher than it had been recorded before (even higher than the high-water mark of One Piece), and the new 900 thousand figure gives it a significant margin. To industry observers, a combination of ratings, viewership, and awards illustrates that a perfectly-timed adaptation with high production values will turn an inherent fanbase into streaming hegemony.

Solo Levelling: Why the 900 Thousand Milestone Matters

The fact that Solo Leveling achieved a 900,000 rating is significant, as this is a volume and a cross-market indicator. The ratings on Crunchyroll include ratings of North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia; hence, a record on such a scale indicates global penetration and not a record restricted to a single territory. In the case of Solo Leveling, with the awards season and the resultant media cycle, the positive critical attention translated into quantifiable viewer action, as seen by the number of user ratings and platform interactions.

The reason is that this milestone also validates the abnormally expansive demographic that the Solo Leveling has. The large production budget, use of action choreography, and adaptation decisions made the show reach new audiences beyond the target market of the original manhwa. After engaging with the anime, a huge percentage of those viewers also posted ratings and reviews, making the title cross the 900 thousand mark and establishing a new platform norm. According to analysts, this form of conversion of exposure to awards into a quantified form of engagement is becoming more and more the way modern anime gauges commercial success.

The results in the industry are quite logical: distributors and licensors can now have a better idea of what to base increased home-video runs, overseas licensing, and investment in merchandise. The record of Solo Leveling provides partners with tangible proof of long-tail value; a show attracting almost a million ratings on one site is likely to be profitable in various other related channels. In the case of studios, the numbers support the idea that a blockbuster adaptation of well-known IP can become a tent-pole franchise in international markets.

Lastly, the 900 thousand benchmark modifies the competitive environment in upcoming seasons and upcoming adaptations. The performance of the anime sets another precedent that requires big-screen adaptations of webtoons and foreign IP. It has also made the promotion strategy and platform engagement of award seasons even more difficult, as the way to nominate to ratings surge is now well-documented in the case of Solo Leveling. To creators and executives, the takeaway is that coordinated release plans, awards campaigning, and quality production could be used to achieve quantifiable and record attendance results.

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To sum up, the fact that Solo Leveling has reached a new benchmark of above 900,000 Crunchyroll ratings is an objective, verifiable fact after the success of the series and the bunch of awards. The number indicates the involvement of viewers all over the world and the continued good response, and it has some real implications in licensing, sales of products, and planning of the next season.

Being both a cultural and a commercial success, the record of Solo Leveling proves that modern anime has the ability to turn cultural drive into an industry standard.

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