Mohsin Lag 
Sixteen Climbs Worth Taking, Ranked
Solo Leveling works because it understands one thing perfectly: the climb. Jinwoo doesn’t start strong — he starts as the weakest hunter alive, and the show makes you feel every step from E-rank to Shadow Monarch. If that’s the itch — weak-to-strong done with momentum, systems with numbers, a protagonist who earns the power fantasy — these sixteen shows are the best versions of it.
I rebuilt this list from the ground up because, frankly, half of what gets recommended for this itch is garbage. Everything below either has the system, the grind, the betrayal-fuel, or all three at once. Ranked by how satisfying the climb actually is.
Quick match — what you loved about Solo Leveling:
- The weakest-to-monarch climb → Tower of God, The Beginning After the End
- System windows and numbers going up → So I’m a Spider, Re:Monster, Shangri-La Frontier
- Betrayal as the starting gun → Shield Hero, Arifureta
- The do-over advantage → A Returner’s Magic
- OP swagger once you’re done climbing → Misfit of Demon King Academy, Eminence in Shadow
1. Tower of God
The manhwa twin. Bam enters a structure the size of a solar system where every floor is a rank, every test is a gate, and the only way to find his friend is to keep climbing past people who have been climbing for centuries. The rank anxiety is the same one Solo Leveling weaponizes — watching someone judged as worthless out-earn their ceiling. Start here if the climb itself is the addiction. (The webtoon’s volume 1, if you want the source.)
**Because you loved:** hunter ranks that actually mean something. **Skip if:** you need a single protagonist — this is an ensemble.
2. The Beginning After the End
A king reincarnated as a boy in a world of mana cores and adventurer guilds, deciding to do childhood right this time — until the world reminds him kings don’t get retirements. Mana core stages are the closest thing to Jinwoo’s rank system in animation, and season 2 aired this year, so the climb is actively producing new episodes.
**Because you loved:** the weakest-rank start with an earned monster ceiling. **Skip if:** academy pacing bothers you — the early episodes are school-shaped. (Volume 1 here.)
3. A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special
Desir dies at the end of humanity’s last stand, wakes up as his younger self at the academy, and gets one do-over to fix everything — with a tower of escalating dungeon exams standing between him and the apocalypse he already lost to once. Regression plus ranking plus a ticking clock. Season 2 starts October 2026, so the window to catch up is perfect.
**Because you loved:** the system knowledge advantage — Jinwoo’s game-like edge, Desir’s future memory. **Skip if:** you hate academy politics.
4. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
The cozy version of the power fantasy: a slime eats skills, names monsters, and accidentally builds a nation. The numbers-go-up dopamine is identical to Solo Leveling’s, but the mood is warmer — and by the time the war arcs arrive, you realize you’ve been watching a nation-level power fantasy wearing a very cute face the whole time.
**Because you loved:** watching a weak start compound into an empire. **Skip if:** you want the isolation and edge — Rimuru has a family from episode one.
5. The Rising of the Shield Hero
Betrayed in episode two, hated by the world, forced to grind a support class into a war machine — Naofumi’s arc is Solo Leveling’s emotional half: the part where the world already decided you’re nothing. The rage-to-respect pipeline is one of the most satisfying in the genre, and season 4 is airing now.
**Because you loved:** starting from the absolute bottom with the world against you. **Skip if:** slave-purchase framing in early episodes is a dealbreaker — it’s rough.
6. Re:Monster
Reborn as the weakest goblin in a hostile forest, Gobrou eats his way up the food chain — literally, his power is consuming enemies and taking their abilities, level by level, evolution by evolution. It’s the purest ‘numbers go up’ grind on this list, unapologetically. The 2024 anime is brutal, pulpy, and weirdly hypnotic about the grind loop — the episode-to-episode rhythm is basically a checklist of abilities acquired.
**Because you loved:** the daily-quest loop and the slow monster accumulation. **Skip if:** you want polish — this is raw grind comfort food.
7. Arifureta
The class gets isekai’d, and the weakest member gets betrayed and left to die in a dungeon — so he eats monsters, forges a gun, and comes back as something the world should have been nicer to. It’s the trashiest entry here and somehow still essential to the itch. The dungeon-craft progression (eating abilities, building weapons from monster parts) predates and mirrors Jinwoo’s grind beat for beat.
**Because you loved:** betrayal into power and a party that assembles around the monster you became. **Skip if:** you can’t enjoy a rough-edged production.
8. Shangri-La Frontier
A connoisseur of bad games enters a genuinely great one and starts speed-running its soul. No death stakes, no revenge — just a player so good the game itself has to take notice. It’s what Solo Leveling would be if the System respected you back, and the boss fights are genuine event television — the weather-monarch duel in the first cour made half my feed lose its mind.
**Because you loved:** the game-interface polish — menus, bosses, hidden classes, all animated with actual joy. **Skip if:** you need real-world stakes; this stays inside the game.
9. The Eminence in Shadow
Cid trains until he can beat anyone, then LARPs as a shadowy mastermind fighting an evil cult he invented — which turns out to be real. It’s the power fantasy turned into a comedy, and the action still absolutely delivers.
**Because you loved:** the shadow-army aesthetic and one-man-army moments. **Skip if:** you want the hunger — Cid was never weak, and that’s the joke.
10. Sword Art Online
The grandfather of the genre: if you want to see where the ‘stats, skills, and dying is banned’ language came from, this is the source. Uneven, occasionally rough, and still the reason half this list exists — and say what you want about Kirito, the original Aincrad arc understood scale and dread better than most of what came after it.
**Because you loved:** game systems taken seriously. **Skip if:** you’ve already outgrown it — the newer entries on this list do its ideas better.
11. The Misfit of Demon King Academy
The demon lord reincarnates after 2,000 years and enrolls in the school for his own descendants — who are now dramatically weaker than him. Anos isn’t a climb; he’s the ceiling checking in on the ladder. Pure swagger food, and the show knows it — every episode is an excuse for him to be absurdly, calmly overqualified.
**Because you loved:** Jinwoo when he finally stops losing. **Skip if:** you need tension — Anos has never been in danger a day in his life.
12. So I’m a Spider, So What?
A class reincarnates as humans; the unlucky one wakes up as a spider in the world’s deadliest dungeon with a literal RPG system in her head. Watching Kumoko theory-craft her skill tree mid-fight is the most ‘System window’ fun on the list — and she carries entire episodes on internal monologue alone, the funniest narrator in the genre.
**Because you loved:** the interface — levels, skills, skill points, all narrated by a girl losing her mind. **Skip if:** the CGI spider puts you off; push through episode two and it clicks.
13. Failure Frame
The goddess summons a class, ranks them, and bins the ‘failure’ skills — except Touka’s apparent trash abilities are quietly the most broken in the world, and the class that discarded him is about to learn that. Colder and crueler than the others here; the revenge is slow-cooked, and the show enjoys making you wait for every single payoff.
**Because you loved:** being underestimated by the ranking system itself. **Skip if:** you want warmth — this one’s bitter.
14. Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles
Two souls in one body — a reincarnated martial artist and a murdered boy — growing into the strongest spirit user on the continent while untangling both pasts. The progression is quieter, more earned-feeling, and the twin-memory mystery keeps it from being pure power fantasy.
**Because you loved:** a protagonist whose growth keeps surprising the people who judged him. **Skip if:** you want constant escalation — this one breathes.
15. The God of High School
A tournament show dressed in Solo Leveling’s clothes — same manhwa DNA, same studio appetites, gods and borrowed power escalating fast. Jin Mori’s late-show turn is one of the biggest single power spikes in modern action anime, and every fight is animated like the studio was told it was their last episode ever.
**Because you loved:** the animation peaks and the ‘what is he hiding’ energy. **Skip if:** compression rage — it adapts a long manhwa at brutal speed.
16. Cautious Hero
The parody that accidentally qualifies: a hero so traumatized by the idea of losing that he overtrains absurdly before fighting anything. If your favorite part of Solo Leveling was the grind itself — the caution, the overpreparation — this is that impulse as comedy.
**Because you loved:** the preparation loop. **Skip if:** you’re here for the edge; this is a smile, not a knife.
Where to Start
Only have time for one? Tower of God if you miss the ranks, The Beginning After the End if you miss the underdog, Shangri-La Frontier if you just want the game-feel done beautifully. And if you’re fully caught up on all sixteen: here’s everything real about Solo Leveling Season 3 — no fake dates, no wishful thinking.
That’s the full ladder. If your exact flavor wasn’t covered here, don’t guess your way through app stores: feed the Anime Finder with Solo Leveling as the seed and it hands you ten matches with the reason each one fits — the WHY, not just the title.
More from the same vein: our 18 best level-up anime, the isekai with OP MC rankings, and if you’d rather read ahead, the manhwa list is waiting. (Solo Leveling volume 1, if this whole list just made you want to run it back.)
Disclosure: this post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BakaBuzz earns from qualifying purchases — it costs you nothing extra and keeps the recommendations coming.
FAQ
Which of these is closest to Solo Leveling?
Tower of God for the rank climbing, The Beginning After the End for the weakest-to-strongest arc, and Re:Monster for the pure grind loop. If you want the emotional betrayal fuel specifically, go Shield Hero first.
Do any of these have the same “system window” aesthetic?
Yes — So I’m a Spider, So What? runs a full RPG interface in the protagonist’s head with levels, skill points and evolution trees; Re:Monster tracks evolution stages like a status screen; and Shangri-La Frontier does menus, loadouts and boss health bars better than most actual games. If the interface itself is the dopamine, those three are the holy trinity.
Is The Beginning After the End Season 2 out?
Yes — it aired in 2026, so both seasons are available right now. A Returner’s Magic season 2 arrives in October 2026.
Where can I watch these?
Crunchyroll carries almost the entire list; Shield Hero season 4 and Solo Leveling itself are on Crunchyroll depending on your region, with SAO and Slime split between Crunchyroll and Netflix. Dub-first viewers: Solo Leveling, Slime, Shield Hero and SAO all have solid English casts.
