Solo Leveling Ending theme hides a creepy Easter Egg most fans miss out on

Episode 2 of Solo Leveling satisfied the manhwa fans by animating the "creepy face" and got praise from every other fan. It also released the video for its ending song request by krage. After closely looking at this video song, it can be said that there is something else more terrifying than the "scary smile" in the episode.

In Solo Leveling's end song's video, fans saw the protagonist, Sung Jinwoo, sitting on a chair in a mysterious facility monitoring a screen with surveillance camera footage. As the video progresses, some haunting starts in the facility as elevator doors open on their own.

This haunting, surveillance cameras, and other stuff in the ending song of Solo Leveling resemble a popular horror/mystery game called Five Nights at Freddy's (FNAF). However, it seems like most fans haven't noticed that yet.

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The eerie similarities between Solo Leveling Ending Song and Five Nights At Freddy's

Five Nights At Freddy's (FNAF) is a horror game released in 2014 and has received 9 sequel video games after the first part. While some of them are the continuation of the story others are spin-offs. The story of FNAF surrounds Mike Schmidt, a security guard who starts working the night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

Soon, Mike realizes that this job will not be as easy as the animatronics or the mascot group of this restaurant start moving during the night. They kill anyone they see and stuff their dead body into a spare mascot costume until no one is left.

The key figure of this mascot group is Freddy Fazbear (as the name of the game suggests), a teddy bear with a creepy face. Mike has to survive five nights alone at this pizzeria, with the assistance of the previous guard (who is on call) and security camera footage.

Sung Jinwoo watching the screen (left). Mike's POV in the game (right) (Image via A-1 Pictures & Scottgames)

Oddly, this gameplay is reminiscent of what happened in the video of the ending song of Solo Leveling, where Sung Jinwoo is monitoring a mysterious facility with the help of some cameras. The reason for this similarity hasn't been officially revealed, but it can be speculated that both series share a common theme.

Solo Leveling comprises Sung Jinwoo, the protagonist, raising his hunter level alone by overcoming challenges. Similarly, in FNAF, Mike, the security guard, is alone inside Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and has to figure out a way to stay alive for five nights.

So, the "solo" theme both Solo Leveling and FNAF share might have inspired A-1 Pictures (the animation studio for this series) to pay homage to this horror game as an ending song.

A mysterious creature approaches Sung Jinwoo's room (Image via A-1 Pictures)

As the ending video song progresses, fans see something approaching Sung Jinwoo's room. Even though he cannot see anything on the security cameras, something is closing in on him, and it even takes a peek inside his room.

This is similar to the gameplay of FNAF, where Freddy and the other toy mascots are trying to invade the security room where Mike is staying, so he has to remain alert throughout the night.

The inside view of the elevator (left). The door opens as the song ends (right) (Image via A-1 Pictures)

Some other details in the ending song of Solo Leveling directly resemble FNAF. The first one is the elevator, shown at the start of the song, looking like Sung Jinwoo entered the facility through it. In every FNAF gameplay (except FNAF 4), the game's starting point is the elevator, and the player enters their room through it.

The other is at the end of the video, where the door of Sung Jinwoo's room opens, and no one is standing there. This happens a lot in FNAF as Freddy (the teddy bear) can enter the security room by opening the door, but when Mike looks at the opened door, he sees no one standing behind it.

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A famous singer is behind the ending song of Solo Leveling

A fan explaining how TK composed the lyrics of this song (Image via X/Twitter)

The singer of Solo Leveling's ending song is krage, a singer not that well-known in the community. It is interesting to know that she only performed the song and the person responsible for the composition, arrangement, and lyrics is the famous "TK from ling tosite sigure."

TK is the person who performed the iconic opening song of Tokyo Ghoul season 1 named unravel, which has crossed 70 million likes on YouTube. When listening closely to the lyrics of this ending song, it becomes evident that he is responsible for this song because it features a variation of highly high-pitched and mellow notes.

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Final thoughts

As accurate as these details might sound, none of this has been officially disclosed by the production team of Solo Leveling. However, if this easter egg is genuine, A-1 Pictures deserves praise for doing so because they paid homage to a game from such a different genre in the anime series.