Solo Leveling: Crunchyroll President on Anime, Season 3 Hopes & More

Solo Leveling is a huge hit on Crunchyroll. It was the streamer's most popular show through 2024, and its second season, which premiered in  January, became Crunchyroll's top series in the first quarter of 2025. Fans are now clamouring for a third season, and if they've read the manhwa, how many seasons would it take to reach the end of the story? Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini talked recently about the prospect for more Solo Leveling and the latest on the new Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba feature film trilogy of movies, as well as the anime series adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima, the PlayStation game.

Purini discussed the appeal that propelled Solo Leveling to the top spot in Crunchyroll's hits. The manhwa was already a hit as a webtoon that tens of millions of readers worldwide had read, and the anime featured some of the most ambitious quality work from A-1 Pictures under director Shunsuke Nakashige. But there's more – the series is steeped in gaming lore, and most anime fans are gamers who would relate to how the heroes get and level up their powers.

"The most important thing is the theme of the story; it has a lot of themes from gaming," said Purini. "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."

As for the prospect of Season 3? "We hope so," Purini said when asked about a third outing. "The series creators want to work on a 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."

Solo Leveling, Ghosts of Tsushima & Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Purini said the success of Solo Leveling is shaping Crunchyroll's wider programming strategy, highlighting the upcoming Samurai anime adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima, based on the Sucker Punch-produced PlayStation videogame that Crunchyroll, Aniplex, Sony Music and PlayStation Productions are co-producing, slated to bow in 2027. "It definitely makes us 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."

Sony has also been behind the hit Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba movies. Sony is releasing Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle in U.S. theaters in September. Hopes are high for Haruo Sotozaki's adaptation of the Koyoharu Gotouge story after previous Demon Slayers notched strong openings. 2021's Mugen Train debuted to $21.2 million, and 2023's Swordsmith Village opened to $ 10.1 million.

"The trilogy movies are the final arc of the story, and, for fans, if they want to finish it, they have to watch it," Purini said. Asked about the following chapters, he added: "The production teams have not announced the exact release date."