Crunchyroll confirmed today that Colombian music artist J Balvin will voice the dungeon boss Kargalgan in the English and Spanish dub versions of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow-. His casting in the series was initially announced earlier this month.
The English dub featuring J Balvin as the voice of Kargalgan premieres this coming February 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST. The Spanish dub premieres next weekend on March 1, 2025 at the same time.
“There is immense power in bringing a character like Kargalgan to life — his darkness, his fury, and his strength. Voicing him in Solo Leveling has been an incredible experience and tremendous honor,” says J Balvin.
The anime’s second season first aired in Japan on January 4, 2025 and will run for 13 episodes. The first season aired in Japan on January 6, 2024 and ended on March 31, 2024. A compilation film titled Solo Leveling -ReAwakening- screened in Japan from November 29, 2024 to December 12, 2024 and in North America on December 6, 2024.
Many of the staff members from season one are returning to work on the second season, including Shunsuke Nakashige as director, Noboru Kimura as series screenwriter, Tomoko Sudo as character designer, Chiaki Kozumi as sub-character designer, Hirokatsu Maruyama (Season 1 co-main animator et al.) and Yoshihiro Kanno as action director, and Hirotaka Tokuda as monster designer. A-1 Pictures is the animation production company.
Meanwhile, the anime’s returning Japanese voice cast stars:
- • Taito Ban as Jun Mizushino/Jinwoo
- • Reina Ueda as Shizuku Kousaka/Cha hae-in
- • Daisuke Hirakawa as Shin Mogami/Choi Jong-in
- • Hiroki Tochi as Taiga Shirakawa/Baek Yun-ho
- • Banjo Ginga as Kiyoomi Gotou/Go Geon-hui
- • Makoto Furukawa as Akira Inukai/U Jin-cheol
- • Genta Nakamura as Kenta Morobishi/Yoo Jin-ho
- • Haruna Mikawa as Aoi Mizushino/Sung Jinah
The anime is based on the 2016 South Korean web novel written by Chugong and illustrated by the late Dubu (Redice Studio). A webtoon illustrated by the latter was released afterwards in 2018, releasing 13 volumes as of November 2024. H-Goon later took over the series’ webtoon adaptation in the latest volumes being published in Japan after Dubu’s passing. Yen Press has published both the web novel and webtoon in English print.
Crunchyroll is streaming Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- worldwide, along with bilibili and Netflix. The former describes the main synopsis as:
It’s been over ten years since gates that lead to another dimension have begun appearing across the world. The battles between the magic beasts inhabiting the dungeons through the gates and the human hunters who have awakened the abilities to fight them show no signs of ending. Ordinarily, a hunter’s abilities do not change upon awakening, with their rank never increasing. However, the low-ranked Sung Jinwoo, known as “The Weakest Hunter of All Mankind,” gained the ability to level up through battle during a raid on a double dungeon.
Having completed a job-change quest that earned him the job “Shadow Monarch” and command over an army of shadows, Jinwoo heads into battle seeking the ingredients for the Elixir of Life to save his sick mother.
Source: press release
