There is a tower that summons chosen people called "Regulars" with the promise of granting their deepest desires. Whether it be wealth, fame, authority, or something that surpasses them all—everything awaits those who reach the top.
Twenty-Fifth Bam is a boy who had only known a dark cave, a dirty cloth, and an unreachable light his entire life. So when a girl named Rachel came to him through the light, his entire world changed. Becoming close friends with Rachel, he learned various things about the outside world from her. But when Rachel says she must leave him to climb the Tower, his world shatters around him. Vowing to follow after her no matter what it takes, he sets his sight on the tower, and a miracle occurs.
Thus begins the journey of Bam, a young boy who was not chosen by the Tower but opened its gates by himself. They call his kind "Irregulars"—beings that have shaken the very foundation of the Tower each time they set foot inside it.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Inferno792
The anime adaption of Tower of God was met with a lot of hype, both from the fans of the webtoon as well as a good portion of the anime community in general. It was the first real adaption of a Korean manhwa (disregarding the couple OVAs Noblesse got. It’s getting a proper anime adaption later this year too) and its success could likely open the floodgates to a world of new content that’s ready to be adapted from manhwa. So, did the adaption of Tower of God live up to the hype? I would honestly say it did not. In fact, it falls way short.It’s nowhere near how good it could’ve and should’ve been considering the content that was to be adapted. Most of the reception to the anime as a whole has been fairly positive over the internet, but for someone who’s been a fan of the webtoon, it turned out to be a massive disappointment. When I first read the webtoon, I was sucked in by the dark environment, intriguing character motives, the ruthlessness of the world and the massive and unexplored world that was the tower. One of the selling points of the webtoon is the mystery surrounding everything and the fact that details and lore are revealed bit by bit in a complex manner without any sort of spoonfeeding to the audience.
The anime lost most of this and more.
Even after complaining so much, why have I given it a rating of 7? Well, even though I am extremely let down by the adaption, it still is a pretty decent anime. Yes, it’s not nearly as good as it could’ve been but it still entertains for the most part, and if I look at it from the eyes of someone who hadn’t read the manhwa beforehand, it’d be a very enjoyable show.
The story starts off with Rachel wanting to go up the tower to see the stars that she’d always dreamed about and Bam following her like a dog follows his master. But I can understand why Bam does this. Rachel is such an amazing person: tender, selfless, compassionate, kind and to top it off, she’s pretty cute in the anime too. Why wouldn’t anyone not want to follow this Goddess?
On a more serious note though, she’s the only person Bam has known his entire life so when she enters the tower wanting to fulfil her dreams, he follows after her. Simp is a word that’s been associated a lot with Bam these past 3 months. Tell me, do you call a child who’s crying for her mother and only smiles when he sees her close by, a simp? If you do, then I think you have more important things that you need to get sorted first. Anyways, Bam is that child whose mother has left him, and he’s trying to go after her. An understandable objective I believe.
Once Bam enters the tower in pursuit of Rachel, we’re introduced to the rules and workings of the tower along with Bam. The floors, the tests that are supposed to be passed in order to climb them, the hierarchy of the tower and the motivations of the characters wanting to climb this dangerous tower are revealed little by little. As Bam learns more and more about the tower, so does the audience. But this is also where one of the major problems with the anime begins to surface. Some of the explanations about the concepts and functionality of the tower are either cut-short or in some cases, completely omitted. This leaves a viewer who hasn’t read the webtoon and doesn’t have a clear idea about these things, confused. The webtoon explained these things in a much more comprehensible manner. Oh, and I’m not talking about the mysterious lore here. I’ve heard a few complaints about people saying answers are not provided immediately. Well, those are important mystery elements that are answered bit by bit as we move further along in the story and something that I consider one of the charms of the series. So, don’t expect every secret of the tower to be just told to you right then and there.
Even though the anime does sacrifice the dark atmosphere of the first season of the webtoon, I felt that they still did a fairly good job of creating tense situations, especially in the first half of the season. They retained the ruthless vibe of the tower during the first few tests and even though there were elements that were left open to criticism, they did a good job of it by and large, for the first half, bar the first episode of course. The first episode was a mess. The pacing was all over the place and the less I talk about the directing, the better. After the first 6 episodes, I was feeling hopeful that this would turn out to be a pretty good adaption because episodes 2-6 had been pretty good and almost every episode was turning out to be an improvement over the last. However, this all changed in the following episodes. There were some very important character interactions that were left out, some that were replaced by anime-only scenes which served no purpose but to enrage the source readers, and one of the most hyped and compelling tests in the webtoon to date, was but a mere shadow of what was expected and what it should’ve been. It was plagued with all the issues that I have with the anime all at once: bad pacing, important dialogues being cut and changes made to some of the best parts of the test that were uncalled for.
When it was first announced that the first season was only going to be 13 episodes, doubts had already begun to surface in the minds of most of the readers. The first season of the webtoon had 78 chapters and there was no other stopping point except the end of the season. So, everyone knew that there was going to be content that was going to be removed. And that would’ve been acceptable. Not many would’ve complained if they only cut some of the less relevant content and dialogues, but they didn’t only do this, they also removed some of the best and most important scenes that play a major part in the development/decisions of the characters, not only in the first season itself, but also later in the further seasons. To add to this, they put in some anime only things that enhance nothing in the anime at all. If anything, some of the anime only scenes contradict the personalities of the characters. This is purely bad directing and there’s no excuse for this. Cutting some parts in order to fit the season in the limited number of episodes? Absolutely understandable. Removing important moments while adding in some irrelevant and stupid scenes? I’m sorry, Telecom Animation, but that’s not gonna cut it.
Yeah, the anime as a whole suffers from pacing issues, but I genuinely feel that there was a much better way of handling it. Some things being sacrificed was inevitable given that they were adapting 78 full length chapters into 13 episodes, but this is where intelligent directing was required. Alas, good directing was asking for too much, I guess.
Yes, Bam is a blank-slate MC and he doesn’t really have a personality. I won’t even argue if you say that he’s bland to begin with. But then again, what do you expect from someone who’s only known a single person his entire life and has been living in a cave which has nothing. His personality is shaped with the experiences he has in the tower, and it changes over time into something that turns out to be relatable. Yes, his naivety is annoying at times, but it’s very understandable why he acts the way he does. He’s just a genuinely nice guy who doesn’t know any of the evil in the world. He doesn’t even understand his own actions. He’s seen as the odd one because of how kind-hearted he is, and is the source of self-reflection for some of the people around him. That innocence is what leads to him being so pivotal in shaping the characters and influencing their decisions.
And the first person with whom that happens is Khun Aguero Agnis: the star of the first season of Tower of God. The genius from one of the most prominent families in the tower who was abandoned because of an incident in which he betrayed someone close to him, only to be betrayed by the person whom he gave up everything for. His backstory reveal in the anime is honestly one of the very few things that I thought that the anime actually enhanced from the webtoon. It’s what’s eats up at him and what influences a lot of his early season decisions. He’s the most interesting character in the season. His intellectual brilliance paired with unshakeable confidence (apart from a couple moments) and the change in his mental state from lacking trust in others to having faith in certain individuals around him, make him a delight to watch.
“What? Is it his mating season? Bring him here! I’ll pull out his banana!”
Who else could say this but Rak Wrathraiser or Alligator/Crocodile as Khun likes to call him. A ruthless, proud hunter who picks Bam as his ultimate prey. But on the inside, he’s a big softie and is likely the second most “innocent” character in the season next to Bam. His eyes see everyone as a turtle and his love for chocobars has no end. He’s one of the primary sources of humour in the first season and while they changed some of his gags in the anime, it still didn’t stop him from being hilariously entertaining. I will say though, some of his most humorous moments were cut short or changed. Unfortunately, that quote I’ve mentioned above is from the webtoon and was removed from the anime.
Shibisu, the other comedian, Hatz the chivalric swordsman, stupidly powerful lizard girl Anak, the cold-hearted yet beautiful Endorsi, round off the rest of the main cast. They all have goals that they wish to achieve by climbing the top of the tower and some of them are prepared to do so no matter what kind of cruel or underhanded tactics they might need to use. All of them had their characters explored through the season. To an extent, at least. But for Endorsi, some of the defining scenes that fleshed out her character even more in the webtoon, were once again, cut. I will never understand why because they play such a major part in season 2. Another thing that I disliked later in the season was some friendship crap that was pulled. The webtoon is mostly devoid of the power of friendship shit. Though it can be a good addition at times in anime, the use of it towards the fag end of the show was not just pointless, it actually contrasted the personalities of those characters, in the anime season as well as what we have in the source. It was pulled out of nowhere and I imagine it was done to appeal to the younger audience more. And they couldn’t have handled it any worse if they’d tried.
I hated the changes in character interactions that they made and that’s one thing that happened mostly throughout the season. I was more forgiving and willing to overlook these in the beginning, but as the season went on, the changes became more and more apparent, and a lot of them were absolutely cringeworthy.
The artstyle at the beginning of the season had mixed reception, with some people loving the different feel as compared to other anime while some just couldn’t get used to the change. I, for one, liked that they stuck with the original artstyle of the webtoon. It could have been more polished at times but it wasn’t too bad. The animation doesn’t leave much to speak of. It was solid without being spectacular. If I was to put in on a level, it would be on a higher level than most anime that come out every season yet wasn’t at the level of things that I’d call had great animation.
One thing that stood out all through the season regardless of how the other things were handled, was the OST. Kevin Penkin just keeps enhancing his reputation. Whether it be during the intense fight sequences or the emotional moments, the soundtrack simply kept delivering without fail. If I was to be critical though, it would be about the use of the OST. Sometimes, the tracks used didn’t fit the scenes, but that’s more to do with the sound directing. And the overall directing of the anime was subpar. As for the OP and ED, both of them are fabulous to listen to. Helps that one of the best K-pop bands, Stray Kids, provided them. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the ED “Slump” but it kept growing on me until I began to dig it.
I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible while writing this review. Because if I compare the anime to the first season of the webtoon, I can’t help but wince at how badly they’ve adapted it. Make no mistake, as an adaption, Tower of God is a failure. The oversimplification of some of the concepts and character interactions as well as motivations makes it a watered-down version of the source. While the changes they made might not always look like a problem when looked at individually, the amalgamation of all of them deviate from what made Tower of God great in the first place. Minute details like the addition of single line or scene which contradict what a character is about can make a huge difference to the overall experience.
That’s the reason that I said that the anime as a standalone isn’t bad for someone who hasn’t read the source and isn’t aware of what the changes mean. In fact, I’d say the anime would be a pretty good watch. Most of the people that watched it for the first time are of the opinion that it’s a good anime. But that says more about the quality of the source than the adaption itself. That even an adaption as weak as this one can be called good should be a compliment to the webtoon.
Anyways, I hope that the staff take note of the criticisms people have had of the anime and improve in the second season. Because if they adapt it well, it’s gonna be a banger! I will say though that if they continue to do it in the same way as they did with season 1, I don't have much hope left as a source reader.
2life
This is the a train wreck on fire diving straight off a cliff. And we all watch it because its interesting to see things fall so hard. Tower of god, heavily promoted and even more praised for the only fact that it is a webtoon. I went in with high hopes but its not just disappointment that brought me to a score of 4. The only redeeming point is that the opening and ending is kinda catchy. ••••• ART ••••• This looks like more paper drawn art style, close to the webtoon. I think this was a bad choice because the animation looks lazy by the lackof movement, action and detail. The art felt underwhelming and rather boring. It didn’t make the characters pop out or made the Shinshu (their magic?) enchanted. I would say it is easy to look at because the calm colors and easy going detailing.
The lighting of this is subjected to this low detailing. It either feels to bright or to dark. Characters don’t have much shadows, the shadows feel muddy or it is simply to bright. At one of the tests the whole thing in general was to dark to see clearly. To actually make an almost black scene and giving the impression of being dark are different things. In terms of lighting it fails to make the surrounding more appealing and thus lacks depth.
••••• SOUND •••••
Well this was terribly hyped up by the fact that Kevin Penkin composed it. The soundtrack is indeed fitting and feels warm. The soundtracks are well coordinated and fits the timing of actions. It creates an relaxed/calmed sphere where all the characters act al happy and friendly. And that is exactly the downside to it. The tower, presented as a heavy task to climb, didn’t make me tense or hype me up for anything. It really misses a theme song or upbeat mix to make you sit closer to the screen.
••••• STORY •••••
I would say that the story is one of the two main factors why this anime was such a dumpster fire. The pacing is so off, even as a non-manhwa reader I feel that it is wrong. The beginning starts without any explanation of the situation or world. While this may seem as “explore the world with MC-kun” it left an awful after taste in my mouth, because we didn’t explore anything at all. Bam (mc) just pop in a new environment and is told to “climb” in order to find his lost girl Rachel. He doesn’t question it, prepare for it or anything an OP isekai mc would do. But Tower of God is not comparable to isekai so I’ll leave that out. In the end after 13 episodes I’m still puzzled by most of the things that happened so quickly in episode 1-3 without explanation.
Then again, going in totally blind, I don’t know the amount of test and how the test will be more difficult each time. So some test pass by, mostly battle royal with (forced) teamwork. Most people who take the test are called regulars. Someone who isn’t born from the tower is called an irregular. So it is understandable that Bam doesn’t know anything at all, but it seems so weird to see that the regulars aren’t that knowledgeable of their world. Test may differ, but if you know that you have to get violent, learn to estimate people’s power and get some killer moves. Sadly enough the real combat prowess was left at exactly 5 people for comic relief. Waisted potential and not world immerging.
As far as world building goes, it is almost non-existent. The commentary alone is not enough, the mc doesn’t discover things on his own and there is basically no explanation how anything works at all. The feeling of world discovery is killed off by some humor and that makes the world feel underwhelming. The anime show several times the image of a tower, practically reaching heaven, as an image of the tower but how the areas are set up simply doesn’t add up. The commentary and sloppy flashbacks don’t add anything either. At the end of the whole 13 episodes you’ve to accept that “oh there is a world and they happen to be in a (test) space”.
The introduction of “whatever you desire is at the top of the tower” makes me think that the test should be hard and the participants even harder. Oh boy, never did it let me down deeper after I had my hopes high.
Oh and there are some powerful weapons. No explanation what so ever. They simply exist. Good to know. Except that the “regulars” are a bit ignorant of this.
The fights feel rather boring to watch. The outcome is 110% predictable. I guess I don’t have to say who continuously pass the tests after you’ve seen 4 episodes. I expected a lot from the second test. It was supposed to be a bloody battle royal. Alas we get to see boring anti-climatic encounters. This scene feels underwhelming because the defeated are only announced, thus missing 99% of the real action. ToG is consistent, because the rest of the fights feel exactly the same. Underwhelming, disappointing and tensionless. It feels disappointing because the other regulars are so unbelievable weak. The fall pit of ToG is that it wanted to show how strong the main characters are by making the rest unrealistic weak. This does not only feel bland, but takes away all risk and tension. You don’t start to question IF Bam would succeed his test, but with what ass-pull. The tags action and adventure are heavily abused.
There are multiple hints of a vast amount of lore for ToG. It acts like the backbone for most explanations and surprises. This includes the rankers, the princesses of Jahad and shinshu. And again, all explained to little about. These topics leaves to much questions open. While these concepts should be very familiar with the “regulars”, surprisingly it isn’t. Shinshu is said to be a building block of the tower, yet it remains unused and to mysterious. It would have done a great service if at least the commentary about it gave a bit of information about it.
In the end it feels like Bam is wearing full heavy armor suit. Plot armor. Anything and everything he does, he pulls off somehow. While it is the intention that Bam would successfully climb the tower, it doesn’t feel believable or realistic in anyway. You get all the events shoved up your throat and you have to swallow it all, believing it is the “natural” route.
The subtle hints towards his great hidden power to his comrades till death are simply not satisfying to watch. There is no hardship to overcome. It feels like nothing is at stake. The connections between the characters feel as flimsy as the line “I want to see them all smile”. To contribute to this, all characters are very willingly to go with this madness.
In short, Tower of God fails miserably to present an appealing, dangerous and adventurers world. The concept of the tower feels like a lame excuse to keep the characters going. ToG doesn’t give me the slightest feeling of world immersion.
••••• CHARACTES •••••
The second main factor why this animated webtoon flopped hard. The cast was so weirdly put together. I can see the good intention of adding bold, goofy, sleepy, silent, loud and tsundere characters, but that is exactly the problem here. All the main characters can be summed up in few words. The wacky flashbacks don’t really add to character bonding for the viewer. It simply shows something sad and then blatantly moves on. There is no edgy to the seemingly mysterious characters nor is there a really funny moment with the clowns. The way characters react to each other is often being surprised or angry (in a comedic way). I would ask myself, are there no normal reactions?
Another weak point is the incredible bad character development. All characters feels simply not serious or really interesting. Khun may be a bit interesting, but that is mainly because almost anything relevant is left out.
BAM – pronounce it as yohru. he is the most boring mc I’ve seen. No grit, no courage (stupidity doesn’t count) and no likeable or relatable character traits. Seeing Bam on the level of a caveman is pretty sad. He has no way to actually fight. He has no strength nor the knowledge of wielding a weapon. That’s why it feels like extra thick plot armor to have the best shinshu output.
In short, he is the quiet ever-smiling and optimist mc who magically knows how to bind everyone together. Bam also feels very passive and way to relaxed about climbing.
RACHEL – pronounce it as raah-hel. If I have one fully loaded gun and I sat in a room with Myne of Shield Hero and Rachel, I would shoot the whole clip in Rachel. For some reason Bam yearns for Rachel. I don’t understand why, again because his relationship with Rachel is so weakly explained.
Whenever Rachel showed up, it was in one way or another plan annoying. Just seeing her being passive aggressive against Bam is irritating. Her selfish excuses don’t really back this up or rather is so badly presented, it doesn’t feel like a legit reason.
RAK – so he is supposed to be a hunter. I don’t see him as anything else than a clown. He doesn’t make jokes, his character is a joke. We see him exactly 2 times in action, other than that I think he is only there to be there. He adds a bit of balance in the party without being a character himself.
KHUN – a more mysterious character. Set up as a mastermind and schemer, he acts like the smart guy of the group. He might be an interesting character. He has a sad back story and now he is back on his feet for I think revenge. He looks like a half decent character.
LERO-RO – the only likeable character in the anime. Unlike any other character we get to see some of his thoughts and opinions. He is seemingly the only one who question things which aren’t clear and tries to do his job. Its sad that we don’t get to see more of his character or his character traits.
••••• AFTER WORD •••••
This feels like the worst anime of 2020. I went in with high hopes of spectacular battles, teeth gritting scenes or get some chills. Tower of God lacks in interesting character bonding and world building. I think the amount of praise and love for this is to much for something of this “quality”. I won’t recommend this to anyone. You’re better of picking up anything else like Children of the Whales or Dorohedoro which does everything better.
anime-prime
This review may contain vague spoilers but it is mostly spoiler free. Scenario: You need to write an extra test to give to the main character Bam. What would you think is the best test to give to him? A: Give him a trial to do only by himself, thus strengthening his character and showing what he is capable of without others helping him? B: Give him a trial to do mainly by himself, thus still showing what he can do and at the same time rounding out other characters? C: Give him a trial to do nothing, where his only job is to stand still and havehis friends protect him?
If your answer is C, then you might not mind some of the others problems in the show, but if A, B, or another option, you might have a rough time making it through the series without many questions about things that don't completely make sense (yes, I know that the test was done that way for a spoiler reason, but I am talking about the writer needing to at some point develop the main character).
Tower of God is the new adaptation of a Korean Manhwa by the same name (which I haven't read) animated by Telecom Animation Film (a subsidiary of TMS Entertainment previously called Tokyo Movie Shinsha) well known for the anime Orange and for its recent dive into the Lupin III franchise (Lupin has always been attached to the studio but this newer sub-studio took over some of the projects).
They generally do a decent job. However...
The directing for this series is lackluster, thus causing the show to feel lackluster. The director, Sano Takashi had almost no prior experience in full series directing before this (he has only directed one full series and the majority of one other, neither of which you have probably heard of), so it is a mystery as to why he would be chosen to direct a property as popular and complex as this one. The storytelling is unfocused and the narrative is choppy. The decision (probably from the production committee) to pack so much into 13 episode definitely didn't help either.
Another possible detrimental component is the music/OST. While normally a soundtrack by the legendary Kevin Penkin would be a welcomed addition, it doesn't matter how good a soundtrack is if it isn't integrated properly into the right scenes. To be fair, this probably wasn't his fault, but more likely that of the sound director Yamaguchi Takayuki, the same person responsible for the infamously bad Index III sound effects. While I can't say for certain who messed it up, I wouldn't be shocked if they told Kevin Penkin to read the source material and make an epic soundtrack, then it was just placed wherever the sound director wanted. The soundtrack features some amazing epic soundtracks similar to Lord of the Rings, but are used in such random scenes that it is almost comical. Some scenes like the silent atmospheric ones work, but then the same ones are used for action sequences and those just really don't work at all.
The OP and ED are both average. Nothing special and even a little lazy. Having a quarter of the OP being a sporadic black screen with credits seems like an odd directing decision. Though a few shots are gorgeously animated. The songs get better after a few listens but neither of them are that great.
One really neat thing about Tower of God is that they focus a lot on the side characters, giving them unique personalities and plenty of development...if only it did the same to the main character, Bam. Of course, you wouldn't know he was the main character if the series didn't make it obvious from the start since Bam has less screen time than many of the side characters and is so boring and flat that he really shouldn't be the main lead. The show would be much better and have a lot more focus if they removed him and made Khun or one of the Princesses of Jahad the main character. Most of the side characters are likable enough and detailed enough to have their own side series, which is a good thing for any series. Of course, I am sure that later on, he will have more screen time and be more important, but for this season alone Bam is very underwhelming and an annoyance whenever he is on screen...which thankfully isn't a lot.
This could have been another great example of Baccano, Durarara, or Fate/Zero where there are many main characters and there isn't one obvious one to rally behind, thus making the stakes more thrilling, but when Bam is the obvious main character, it slightly lessens the impact and importance of the other characters backstories, which shouldn't be the case of a show that is so determined to flesh out as many of them as possible. In the end it seems to go the Hunter X Hunter route of having a lot interesting side characters, but at least Gon wasn't a bland character like Bam is and Gon has plenty of screen time.The characters would have been a perfect category if Bam had been more developed this season.
Returning to the opening paragraph, even the tests seem to take for granted that Bam shouldn't do anything to stand out as the main character. The narrative of the show thus far, and even the scene itself, made it seem like Bam would finally have a crucial role in a test, setting up a perfect chance for his character to grow, even if just a little. Instead of that however, they just give him the luxurious role of doing nothing while being protected by his friends. Of course, maybe that was the intention of another character, but it would have been better if used as an opportunity to do at least something with his character. Even earlier, when that character gets injured by another character, he isn't even angry, which he should be. He is just like "why did you do that?". There should definitely be more of a reaction there.
The Japanese dub does a good job voicing the characters, except for Bam of course, which is where the saving grace Johnny Yong Bosch steps in for the English dub to give Bam more personality from the line deliveries alone. He conveys way more emotion and charisma than the original dubs voice work for Bam. Of course, that might have been the idea, to make him sound like a lost puppy, since he is, but the blandness of a voice can still make a character seem too boring, which is never good for a main character.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really like the art and animation for this series. Of course, if it looks like Lupin (come on, the close up shoe shot in the OP is straight out of a Lupin scene) then of course I would, but I think that it is a unique enough art style to set itself apart from its shounen peers. The series has colorful characters and backgrounds and the animation, while not always consistent, never looks too lazy. There are some nice looking fights in the crown game and a few other spread throughout. While it isn't top tier shounen fight material, the animation delivers a solid showing and definitely isn't the weak link.
The weakest link would belong to the pacing of the story and the effect that it caused to the story itself. This season is really similar to the hunters exam arc from Hunter X Hunter, but while that arc was able to effortlessly glide through the tests at an even pace, thus making the tests themselves fun, many of the towers tests are so rushed that not only do you not fully understand the rules, the tests themselves with the exception of the crown game aren't enjoyable to watch.
The rushed story is also all over the place and many things are unclear, from character motivations to tower mechanics/explanations. Some episodes compete to see which one can jump around to the highest number of scenes the most amount of times. There will be an epic fight scene, just to randomly cut to a boring scene, to randomly cut to a random not important fight scene, done multiple times within one episode using the same musical piece. While a good director might be able to pull off those transitions with competence, it just didn't work out well here.
These types of shows are tough to rate, since while it is entertaining (if you like these type of shows) and I did get enjoyment from it, there are a lot of flaws to point at. I am already re-watching it in English and I will definitely watch season 2 when (if) it airs, but the apex example of a show for me is when I am not questioning the show but rather just enjoying the watch.
Overall, this show in entertaining but has many flaws. It has great side characters, mystery, and a intriguing world, but it's also poorly directed, has a bland main character, and stops at a weird spot.
Score 8: Good and had some great elements
(There is a possibility that I might bump it up to a 9 after the dub finishes airing, but I doubt it.)
Stark700
Watching Tower of God unfold every episode is like reading a comic book. Starting from the first page, you read and flip each page to see what's new. From every one of those pages, you may find something that catches your eye, or something that gives you an underwhelming sigh. Tower of God unfolds its plot with principles that seemed intriguing at first. But as more and more pages are turned, the anime slowly dies and leaves me with little to get excited about. Helmed by Crunchyroll as one of the leading projects of the Summer lineup, this is not an anime that deserves suchamount of hype.
First, I do want to say that I am an anime original viewer so coming into this show is a fresh new experience. On my first viewing, Tower of God reminds me of the classic Hunter x Hunter as the protagonist is faced with challenges to overcome. It’s the sort of adventure that chronicles how much our characters can achieve or fail. We follow their journey to climb the mysterious Tower and the awards that await them at the top. From his journey, we meet protagonist Bam, who had been searching for his friend Rachel. The show pits him into a deadly challenge but promises the answers of his desire should he succeed. Now the question arises how much should we care about his desires or in fact, his journey to reach the very top.
Crunchyroll has been heavily promoting this show and I actually do praise them for the effort. It’s a Korean webtoon adaptation after all and this is one of the first full TV anime. Making an impression is important as more webtoon adaptations are coming in the future. Tower of God stands with a lot of genres that combines elements of fantasy, adventure, mystery, and action. While there’s also drama in the mix, I would say it falls short but I’ll get to that later. For now, understanding what Tower of God is important so you’ll have a reason to watch the show as the plot follows Bam and his adventures. Throughout this adventure, he encounters many new faces. Whether friends or foe, he responds to them cautiously to avoid consequences. Remember, this Tower contains mysterious properties almost no one understands and what awaits with each step to the top is a new challenge. From my initial impression, Bam seemed like an outsider that needs an immense amount of character development. He’s part of this world where no one knows who he is except his friend Rachel. And searching for his friend is used as a plot element rather than exploring more of his own character. At its base, Bam is a kind person but with little social skills. To put it simply, he is like a lost child that needs guidance, someone that needs a helping hand. He also has a distaste for loneliness and desires to be with Rachel.
Now of course Bam isn’t the only character carrying the show. Soon, we meet the intelligent Khun, a young man with a complex personality as compared to Bam. He is almost like his foil, a character who is independent and knows how to play his cards to get what he wants. Throughout the series, he uses his strategic mind to manipulate others and is someone difficult to read. No one knows his true endgame goal although he has a keen interest in Bam. Based on the author’s interview, he is perhaps the most human character we encounter as his actions are realistic and often methodically planned ahead. To me, watching Khun’s character role is far more intriguing to see what cards he’ll play. And of course, let’s not forget Rachel, the best friend of Bam and his source of motivation to climb the tower. After finding her, Bam vows to help her reach the top to fulfill her desire. With that desire, it’s clear that Bam treasures Rachel as a special friend. That’s to say, Tower of God tries its best to get us invested into its character relationships. It unifies their relationship as a character pair built on trust and friendship. But does it really work? On some levels, it has an emotional impact but from this season alone, it is not enough. Bam and Rachel’s relationship doesn’t undergo much change or development after the two are united. Despite being prominent characters of the story, I find myself more invested into other supporting characters such as Annak and Endorsi. In fact, the anime actually devotes efficient amount of storytelling on Anaak’s background story. Even Rak and Yuri are worth watching for their personalities. The lack of charismatic traits for both Bam and Rachel drags this show down and their relationship exemplifies mediocrity.
Let’s not forget the ultimatum of Tower of God. We have to always remember the story is an adventure and each step along the way is similar to a phase of a long test. From the beginning, our characters are being tested to see who is worthy. Bam, Khun, Annak, Endorsi, and Yuri are just a few examples. Questions emerge on how much these tests are worth watching and although the stakes are high, it’s not easy to always get invested into them. Let’s face it, most of the action in this show feels the weathered down and the studio (even with Crunchyroll backing up the production), didn’t fully capitalize on its choreography. The visual quality is subpar at best that looks similar to an animated comic book. It has sketchy visuals without much shading and the character designs looks less detailed than I had anticipated. This all comes down to preferences but Tower of God isn’t a show to praise for its art.
But for the soundtrack, I do give praise Kevin Penkin’s music composition. The OST is not just worth watching but does hype up various episodes and important moments in the show. Let’s not also forget the OP theme song with its lyrical tune and effective usage of its cinematography. However, it’s a shame the voice acting of the main characters can’t compare to the music composition. Even characters like Annak and Endorsi hardly sound appealing despite their more lively personalities.
Tower of God is one of the most talked about show of the Spring season but with 13 episodes, you know this isn’t the full story. What it tries to set up is a story of adventure, challenges, relationships, but none of them really justifies its hype.
SingleH
Tower of God is a hideously ugly, embarrassingly incompetent, grossly corporatist shitstorm built upon a trite mess of an overhyped SAO fan-fiction which doesn’t even have the creativity or sensationalism to be outrageously offensive or unacceptable beyond its hysterically unfounded popularity. Having heard nothing but its alleged excellence over the years, I desperately sought out the manga in light of the anime’s shocking lack of any quality whatsoever only to be immediately nauseated by the exact same brain-numbingly amateur storytelling and vacant dialogue which the anime had just assaulted me with. Drowned in the confused vapidities of a writer who couldn’t possibly have escaped theclutches of puberty, supported by ESL internet stans lacking even the tiniest modicum of emotional maturity, and delivered by an understaffed and underfunded animation studio contracted by an American licensing company comprised of SJW marketeers and money-hungry *** ******* utterly unfamiliar with industry practices and deluded enough to think slapping a genius musician and a six figure advertising budget on a project is enough to make it worth anyone’s time, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Tower of Gaud.
This did not feel like a genuine story birthed of imagination or inspiration. Rather, it felt like the work of a moody teenager so frustrated at his own lack of talent, he just up and re-skinned his favorite fantasy isekai light novel in order to live in this illusory reverie wherein he actually created his favorite work of art, whether or not that work of art was actually worth imitation nor whether his rendition of it was actually fucking decent in any way, shape, or form. I welcome you to judge me for having read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I have, indeed, read that book, and of all the media I’ve ever consumed, it alone reminded me of Tower of God the most, and it’s the reason I began this review calling it a borderline SAO fan fiction. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey began as a Twilight fan fiction, and if you read the book with this in mind, it becomes abundantly clear. The characters in Tower of God are so empty in personality and motivation because they are so obviously caricatures of other characters from other stories, and the plot line is so undefined yet paradoxically derivative because it’s so obviously an emulation of another narrative, so at no point is the show really doing anything other than presenting you with cardboard cutouts atop a stage of papier-mâché and expecting you to care about anything they’re doing for any reason other than the fact both you and its braindead author are drooling fanboys of selfsame works who can get off on familiarity alone. Everything is just trying to be a plot; the characters just sit around and talk about the plot, yet never is there a sense of them being real people who are interesting or who I wish to see do anything. From where I’m standing, wholeheartedly caring about some plot when the lifeless drones lobotomizing me with it are archetypical, mass-marketable, self-insertable Barbie Dolls and Ken Dolls so mechanical and uninspired as to be existentially dreadful is simply daft.
Even if you are happy to slurp down the same generic mass of media sludge devoid of even a beating heart to pump the corporate oil through its veins, I still can’t see you investing in a show where NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS! The amount of episodes which passed over my dried, reddish eyes before someone actually SAID SOMETHING was so depressingly unbelievable I repressed it from memory. Now, I don’t mean to say this show is literally without speech. In fact, no one ever shuts the fuck up, but nobody ever says anything substantial. “Reach the top, and everything will be yours.” “I must reach the top, whatever it takes.” “At the top of the tower exists everything in this world, and all of it can be yours.” “The tower can give you all you desire.” Every single line of dialogue in this show takes the mocking irony of the word “chuunibyou,” accepts it with pride, and then attempts to become even more cringeworthy and intellectually worthless than the last, and each successive line of vagueness serves only as a shameless carrot on a stick leading anyone without the foresight to notice down a contextless rabbit hole where creativity and artistic innovation go to die deplorable, pitiful deaths. The nonexistent sense of time and place combined with the equally absent sense of mystery and intrigue makes said lack of contextual knowledge not only unengaging, but downright infuriating. You’re expected to give a single shit about wooden characters getting thrown in and out of contrivance after contrivance, episode after episode, fighting battle after battle with a totally undefined and nonsensical magic system until the show finally ends, the end goal is no less hazy, and you’re finally relived of your suffering. The tone is utterly nonexistent, cutting from people getting their brains blown out from a sniper bolt to some goofy looking monster twisting that very same sniper like a spoon and letting its rifleman run free in a cloud of dust like a scene out of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, or interspersing would-be intense battle sequences with chibi art comedy only to continue on as if nothing happened and assume the little tone initially there decided to stick around even after their kindergarten sense of humor had made its embarrassing appearance.
The show only bothers to hide its absolute technical incompetence under a veneer so thin, it inherently relies on the complete and total ignorance of the viewer to actually obfuscate any of the blatant cost-cutting at hand. It’s riddled with enough post-processing effects to make a ufotable show look cel animated, but whereas that studio will at least put in the time and effort to build a cohesive aesthetic around how abundantly digital their anime are, this show used these effects to merely get by. These digital crutches which this passionless cripple of an anime used to parade its garish color design and equally thoughtless slapdash character designs ultimately did little more than make the former even more blown-out and migraine inducing and the latter even more bizarre looking given the fact nothing about the character art is hand-drawn except for the linework itself. And if the designs weren’t outlandish enough on their own, the incessantly off-model frames and flatly shadeless facial gradients which I hesitate to even call art make every character look even more gawky and retarded than their non sequitur dialogue already does. The staff animates movement, I mean, because they have to, but they never dare animate propulsion. A character will brace for an impact, but the second they’re hit and launched airborne, the animation immediately stops dead in its tracks, and the most recent frame proceeds to be pathetically clicked-and-dragged across the pseudo-artful, harshly colored, Microsoft Paint looking background art as a still image. Even if you’re so new to the medium of animation and so blind to the technique behind its craft to actually think any among these meager scribbles to be presentable, I still can’t see anyone with legal vision standing in approval of the downright abrasive CGI and its unabashedly poor compositing which was vomited over any scene which required any level of intricate effort to draw. Hilariously begun with a Korean Linkin Park music video for an opening theme, every episode is just as horrific as the last, as there is simply no redeeming qualities to be found in this show’s visual presentation whatsoever, and if you were hoping Kevin Penkin’s soundtrack saved it, prepare yourself for the most inept sound direction in the history of television.
But first thing’s last. Can a corporation really buy your approval, and will you, Mister or Miss Cash Cow, continue your patronage upon the realization they tried to do so? This is the real question at the heart of Tower of God and the real reason I’m here seeking your attention. Many spheres of entertainment have had to ask this grim question in the past when they, too, became populous enough for corporations to see their fandom as healthy investments, but with Funimation now holding seats of influence on Japanese production committees, it’s time for us in the anime community to ask the same. Tower of God is a crushingly uninspired mess of trite ideas and vapid elements stacked atop one another so high, even its stature as a pile of artistic shit starts seeming impressive, but it feels it can get away with its countless offenses not out of a sense of confidence in itself, but out of a sense of confidence in you. Using your technical blindness and unshakable genre loyalty as insurance, it bets it can make a profit despite being awfully made, pointlessly directed, and vacantly written not because it thinks the critics will love it regardless, but because it knows you will buy it regardless. And as far as I can tell, it made the right call. This isn’t just, “Oh, look. A-1 Pictures is cheaply adapting another best selling light novel, Bones is cheaply adapting another hit in Weekly Shounen Jump, and both adaptations will be wildly successful despite all.” This is different. This is a foreign entity penetrating the industry and using their knowledge of your domestic consumer habits to pitch a feigned project at the lowest cost margin it can specifically manufactured to milk impressionable fans up to the highest profit margins it can, and they did it by gaining industry clout with a popular subscription service you pay for to support the anime you love, but which they use, instead, as a hedge fund for an American convention and their own original productions. Industry is a machine, and you are its fuel; this is okay, because capitalism and the free market are good things. But this isn’t about economy, this is about identity, and if you want to identify as an enabler of the creative death of your favorite form of entertainment, then by all means, go ahead. Crunchyroll Originals™ await you with open arms.
Thank you for reading.
Karhu
I remember it well. Back in 2011, when webtoons were starting to get popular, there were two names that echoed louder than the rest: 'Tower of God' and 'Noblesse'. The debate was real as everyone was arguing over which one is better. And here I stand, 9 years later, trying to decide which one is worse. Tower of God is essentially Korean Naruto with Bleach-swords. The entire first act is a fast paced exam-training-rescue arc hybrid, and that's pretty much how it differs from classic Japanese shonen, which take their sweet time doing each of these one at a time. The idea for the story canbe figured out by reading the title: Reach the top of the tower and you will become something of a God. The motivation for our main character to attempt this very thing is to rescue a girl. The means that allow him to do so are a different deal and that deal is rather lame.
This is how it goes: Certain princess is "feeling bored" so she gives our hero a sword, and this sword is actually alive - at least in some sense - and "it" happens to be kind of a shotacon so she (the sword) gives our main character undeterminated amount of power which he can now use in certain situations when the convenience is due. And all of this happens because he is "kinda handsome", at least according to the sword-shotacon-spirit. I guess kudos for the author for not even trying to hide the lameness that exist among this work. Of course, friends are also very important and just so happens to be, this exam side of the act forces our main character to form a team consisting of two other nakama (whom he has never seen before), so naturally, Sasuke-Kurapika edgy guy - who is also a walking keikaku doori with tragic past story - joins the team along this 3rd dude who is flamboyant, arrogant, GAR and very loud - and plays the role of a comedic gag guy. Together this powerful trio do some highly predestined stuff and thingies as we, the audience, are watching them advance while the not-so-great mystery unfolds.
To more thoroughly cover the character section: Yoru -our hero- has almost no presence and his resolve is pathetic when considering his reasoning, Khun is apparently super genius but all he does is succeed at everything and anything so effortlessly that it comes off as bullshit (excluding that one scene where he can't figure out a riddle and instead experiences random PTSD flashbacks because it wasn't his time to shine due to a joke the series wanted to deliver..), Rahk's entire existence is so comedic that he has no real value as a person, and Lahel (the girl that needs no saving but Yoru still wants to save) has no personality because she is essentially a mystery element who needs to be "kind of a cold bitch" and cannot ever make logical sense, rational decisions or explain herself because otherwise the story falls apart.
What the series does well are the side characters. By no means are they very strong and fascinating individuals from stand-alone perspective, but what the author does with the side casting is smart because they end up serving the entertainment factor of the show. Many side characters have gone through thorough planning to make them appear fascinating from the first glance. Their design and small tweaks in behavior give the series heart and personality to surprising extent. This is done in a manner that were you follow these characters for a long period of time in a long journey, you'd end up realizing they aren't amazing at all, but when they have insignifant roles in small parts of the story, they are right in their element.
The animation and art style is certainly the only thing those who consume shonen series have never seen before. Most of everything else varies from copy-pasted formula and overused trope to downright macro-filling as things such as originality and fresh, new ideas are absent entirely. Naturally, that's not to say that the series is doomed to fail and cannot be entertaining. The execution among the nu-art certainly make the series stand out from majority of classic shonen titles that have come out in the recent years, but that's exactly all the newness there is to experience. Other factors massively bottleneck its art style which impact isn't given in the first place. Personally, I enjoyed the art style and art directing a great deal - even in all of its simplicity - but those who do not approve of it will have much less anything to look forward to as the story and character factors have little no praise-worthiness in them, rather, they appear very flat and contain much fewer strong points to hang onto - entertainment wise.
Speaking of entertainment, the series seems to have been build with one single request in mind: "Whoever is watching this, just please try to have some fun with it." This is the message I got. Many things are entirely forgotten, such as the main characters actually forming bonds. It just happens for some reason and by the half way mark of episode 03, these guys are already prepared to take a bullet for each other. If you ask questions like how, why and when, be prepared to receive nothing but "yeah, iunno" *shrugs* as a reply. The series doesn't seem to think that such things are of importance. It isn't afraid to cut at any corner or cop-outs its way towards whatever it wants to do next. This serves the pacing and perhaps makes the show more easier to get into and digest, after all, it asks practically nothing from the audience and 0 efford is required as there isn't much substance to follow nor are there things you need to actually wait to get. On the downside, the series only aims to be mediocre and hopes you will enjoy it regardless. There is no great reward you can get by continue watching it onward, but it will consistently give you the same level of fun that it can.
By the way, when I imply it comes with good pacing, I specifically mean the flow of the individual episodes. One massively important thing to note is that there is hardly any plot progression or character development to be seen at any point in the series. Moreover, the series doesn't really try to build anything or foreshadow the next step it's going to take. Heck, it doesn't really even seem to fully plan the current step that it's already taking. If you look at it in that way, then the pace is quite horrid. Basically, the more you zoom out, the bigger the picture you look at is, the worse the series appears. Zoom in and you might as well find at least something worth your while.
One thing the series does quite well is use its comedy to paint scenes that would be entirely stupid if taken seriously, as comedic. I already mentioned the series doesn't try to hide its lameness, but it does hide its own immaturity rather well, if you will. For example, I don't really like riddles, but it took me about 7 seconds to figure out how to solve the beginning of this part of the exam. The raw idea for that scene was entirely idiotic, but at the same time, the actual conclusion end up being that only a total idiot could figure it out. This was a real hilarious 'ouch' moment for me as I figured it out and instantly claimed it idiotic. After that, the show tells me if you knew the answer, you're also an idiot, and I actually end up laughing at it and at myself. Alas, I can't agree with the statement, but that don't mean I can't enjoy its attempt at wit. :^)
To conclude the previously mentioned: The art style leaves more room for different interpretations whereas the story and characters come as they are and they really aren't much. It's common criticism to say that anyone could have written Tower of God's story, but to be more accurate here: many already have written it. The series is such a huge deja vu experience that watching it for the first time feels like rewatching. I guess it feeling familiar and welcoming are among its pros if you want to look it that way, but overall I wouldn't give it much credit for achieving something like that.
Overall, to make my point stand out even more: This series has very limited amount of good going on, but for me personally, its pros were enough to keep me entertained for most part and actually made me care for the series on some level. It's still pretty shitty tho, so be warned, but that don't mean it can't be fun for what it is. Do keep in mind that it's supposed to be brainless fun aimed for teenagers. All things considered, I conclude this series is not as good as average anime and therefore it's bad.
abystoma2
Tower of God anime is one that is full of build-ups and with no pay-off. Should the pay-off ever be realized, it’s going to take another dozens of (hypothetical) episodes to even start getting to that point. The story of Tower of God is not an interesting one, but it tries to hide this by posing as a sort of “saga”, spamming tons of characters, new concepts and “world building”, seemingly trying to do something similar to One Piece level of setting, but in the case of ToG it’s just a red herring serving to keep the audience from finding out that the story sucks. Forthose who might wonder if it’s even fair to compare this to One Piece, I’d say it’s a simple way to demonstrate the core failing of ToG. In One Piece, the world is vast and so is the cast and various powers. The difference is, the audience is on the journey of exploring this world together with the protagonists, so as the workings of the world is being explored by them, it is also explained to the audience this way. It also actually gives answers through the plot progression, not keeping all of them for later. Imagine if Devil Fruits were only explained 70 episodes in. Now, back to Tower of God. It does the exact opposite of that. We’re thrown in a world where everyone seems to already know how most of this shit works, leaving the audience confused about what is even going on, what are the rules here and why these people are doing what they are doing. Any sort of explanation is scarce and laconic. The only characters that is in the similar state of not knowing as is the audience is the protagonist – Bam. Now you would expect that it would be through his eyes and actions that we get to explore and understand this world. Nope. Bam isn’t here to explore, Bam isn’t here to have fun, Bam only cares about following this randomly picked girl that we are given no reason to care about. There is no adventurous drive in his motivation and consequentially there is no exploration of this new world. This isn’t how to keep the “mystery” going, it’s how to keep the boredom going. This isn’t a good worldbuilding, it’s just spamming random shit with seemingly no intention of explaining most of that.
As mentioned above, the protagonist is dull, uninteresting and unrelatable unless you relate to blindly chasing after a girl. What about rest of the cast then? Well, let’s say that unique design of the characters is the only thing interesting for most of them. With the exception of perhaps the froggo girl and maybe the resident “I am four parallel universes ahead of you” strategic genius (which would at least be a better protagonist than Bam) they are one-dimensional with like one character trait at most and completely forgettable. Should they have more regular designs I bet you’d forget most of them instantly.
Only 13 episodes in and the story is already getting repetitive. Enter a floor, attempt a test, somehow pass, repeat. It’s a tournament arc but if the tournament arc was the whole damn anime. And no, it does not get better in the webcomic. In fact, the story is so uninteresting and forgettable that when I was watching new episodes my video player played and older episode after it due to filename sorting. It took me over quarter of the episode to realize that “wait, I’ve already seen this one weeks ago”. That’s how much the episodes blend together and how little difference there is. And how much “random” and disorganised the plot is that this didn’t even seem out of place. It is also very hard to feel anything during the fights as there is no way to determine how high the stakes are. The power system isn’t explained and various characters just do random shit, so there is no way to determine the what the winning chances of those characters are. It’s like watching a chess match but at one point the opponent suddenly picks up the queen, hurls it at the other guy and the referee is like “yup you could have always done that”.
There is one major thing that the anime adaptation fixes though – the overall watchability. It’s still not great, but at least it’s not that painful. You see, the this part in the original webcomic looked like it was made in MS Paint and it was confusing to even guess what was going on before trying to guess why is it going on. If the anime wanted to be faithful to the original in this aspect it would need to be done as a bad flash animation. Thankfully at least this part was fixed, so while it leaves much to be desired regarding the script and characters, it is still technically more enjoyable then the original work. At least when comparing to the part this adapts. That said, it has one of the laziest openings I’ve seen in years. It’s more of a powerpoint presentation/clipshow than an opening.
Overall, it would seem that most of the praises this anime is getting stems from people being fans of the webcomic and attributing the (supposedly) good parts to the anime even though those parts are not present in the anime purely because this anime only adapts the very beginning of the comic. So don’t get tricked into thinking this is worth watching.
TakaCode
In your mind what's makes a good epic fantasy anime. Massive World-building? Well, detailed power system? Interesting lore? High and impactful stakes? Engaging politics? These are the elements that make a worthwhile fantasy anime. Vinland Saga, The Heroic Legend of Arslan and Hunter x Hunter are great example of fantasy series that follow the requirements of an epic fantasy setting. Sadly now and then we get a handful of bad fantasy anime that fails to have elements however very rarely do we get a downright horrendous fantasy series that not only is incapable of doing at meeting the basic requirements of a fantasy anime but also frequently treats the viewer like idiotswith its inept writing and directing.
That's Tower Of God a broken, unpolished and cringy pile of waste that fails to achieve anything.
Let's address the ugly elephant in the room the visuals.
This may very well be the most unpolished modern I've seen. This show came out in 2020 yet looks like it came out in the early 2000s with its messy camerawork, uninspired background scenery, ugly as sin Microsoft Paint character designs are not appealing in the slightest and the animation is messy that is filled with mediocre to bad fight choreography.
Combined with the poor lighting and jarring use of CGI and you got yourself a visual nightmare.
"Hey, viewer do you remember Hunter's Exams arc in Hunter X Hunter and how good it was. Well, let's make the whole anime about it expect to strip everything good about it, and we are going to heavily advertise it on social media like as the second coming of Hunter x Hunter"
Random Crunchyroll employee.
That's the Tower Of God story in a nutshell.
It's hollow, poor written and devoid of substance.
Worldbuilding is frankly non-existent in this series. It's labelled an Epic Fantasy series yet the show doesn't bother to establish its world. It just shamelessly dumped us the world without explaining shit.
What's the power system in the universe?
What's the lore of the world
What are the main characteristics of passing each test?
What's the mystery of the world and the tower itself?
The show never tackles any of these things of theses as it rather spends showcasing its poorly directed fights and abuses the luck factor where the Bem would pass the exam with ease due to dumb luck. No skill, strength, no strategy, nothing. This is only made more jarring by the atrocious writing in the series.
Right from episode 1, the show wastes no time showcasing how atrocious the writing in the series is. Cardboard Beta kun I mean Bam loses his potato love interest, Rachel, because of reasons. Due to this Bam decided to enter the tower so he can save Rachel. Then for whatever bizarre reason he receives the most overpowered weapon in the series by this plot device woman starting that the reason why gets the sword because I was not making this up, he looks cute... After watching episode 1 I knew I was watching to be plot armoured written shitshow featuring a one-dimensional beta protagonist that will pass at everything due to his disguising plot armour. Right after episode 1 the writing quickly deteriorates to a point where it started to on par with really bad fan-fictions from the mid-2000s.
The best example of this show's compete disregard of writing happens in episode 7. Anak and Endorsi are fighting and at the same talking about their issues. Typical fight shounen stuff I have no complaints. What happens next is so unbelievably dumb it makes me wonder that this show was written by human beings. Endorsi high heels break, and she falls but she was able to grab arm then if this horrendous written and directed piece of tripe wasn't bad already the show decided to do an over the top tone shift thank frankly killed off the mood and tension that the fight had for no reason. It has truly been a long time since I watch a series this incompetent. That fact, that putrid writing was allowed to be pitched infuriates me to end. I know we get just in the new decade of anime and all but Tower Of God has the worst writing I've seen from this decade.
What's pushes Tower of God into beyond awful territory are the characters.
Bam is overpowered beta cringelord.
Now I usually like my beta protagonist as they can be interesting and compelling characters e.g. Nagisa Shiota, (Assassination Classroom) Saika Totsuka (Snafu), and Elliot Craig (Trails of Cold Steel) but Bam is anything but that. He spends the majority of the anime being an overpowered beta for sake of it. He's boring, has no character development and he's just annoying site from beginning to end.
Rachel may very well be the worst female characters I've encounter in recent memory. She's bland, a plot device has she has a personality of potato and she's a hypocrite. I will never forgive what she did in episode 12 as she efficiently made the contrived journey worthless.
Aguero Agnes Khun is lame. He may not be as insufferable as Bam and especially the plot device thing that is Rachel but he still a subpar character overall. To his credit, he is the most entertaining character as he kept me awake while watching this amateur hour but his still, not a good character in the slightest.
He's a Killua/Nagisa/Karma knockoff that lacks depth, development and substance.
The rest of the characters just exist because why not. Forget character development just, have the rest of the characters either be plot devices or background noise. Frankly, the characters in Tower of God are just interesting as potatoes.
The only decent to come out in this scrapheap is the soundtrack done by which is alright but, it wasn't enough to redeem the anime from being a garbage fire. You can go on youtube and listen to the soundtrack and OPs/ENs from there. You don't need to commit to 13 episodes of unpolished poorly written gibberish to listen.
Tower of God is just pathetic.
It's a series that fails to do even the basics required for a fantasy series. It's a series that has ugly as sin production values, It's a series that features empty characters who are a void of personality and creativity. It's a series that can't even entertain the viewer due to its bad fan-fiction tier writing.
It is a series that gets nothing right yet Crunchyroll think this is the second coming of Hunter by hamfistedly promoting the series on social media.
Crunchyroll listen I understand you want to make money by promoting a popular series please do not shove a series right down our thoughts in social media especially when some people such as myself don't like this series.
You did the same crap with Twin Star Exorcist back in 2016 as you promoted as this epic, complex shounen show yet, in reality, is a half-baked anime adaptation that doesn't adapt the source material correctly. If you didn't hamfistedly advertise the series then I would have been less harsh about it heck, I would have dropped it after episode 4 and left it alone.
The damage has been done and for that, I hate this series and everything that its stands for! One of the worst shows I've ever watched in recent memory and I recommend you to avoid this amateurish series that has no passion and creativity like the plague.
Marinate1016
If the 2010s were the decade of isekai, the 2020s very well could be the decade of awesome manwa adaptations. Tower of God is the first of what promises to be an impressive couple of years for Korean webtoons. ToG mixes together top class world building along with top class fights. If that weren’t enough, the series boasts impressive art, animation, a diverse and fun set of characters and an OST by Kevin Penkin(Made in Abyss, Tate no Yuusha, etc.) Coming into the series having no exposure to the source material, I felt the show did a good job of fleshing out the world and characters’ motivations.The intrigue of the tower, the concepts of irregulars and regulars and the general lore of the series really does suck you in and keep you excited for new episodes. It really does feel like you’re on a journey with these characters and becoming attached to them is relatively easy, at least it was for me.
My only real complaint about the show is that it’s so damn short. 12 episodes is a good appetiser of sorts for what ToG offers, and it really felt like the studio wanted to gauge interest before going into a longer series. Based on the ratings, I don’t believe that’s too far off.
From a technical standpoint, the show is very impressive. I’ve never quite seen an art style like the show has. It has a unique blend of Japanese anime and Korean webtoon styles that form a really aesthetically pleasing look. The fight scenes are extremely well choreographed and animated. Lastly, as you’d expect from any Kevin Penkin OST, ToG’s soundtrack is superb. The musical choices bring a lot to various scenes and should not be overlooked. Definitely one of my favourites in a long time.
Overall in my opinion, Tower of God is the start of a new and promising era in anime powered by Webtoon adaptations. Sure, we’ve had anime based on non Japanese source material before, but I can’t think of one that’s ever been this well done before. With God of High School, Noblesse and more on the horizon, the future looks very bright. Tower of God gets 9 blue turtles out of 10 from me.
Ondine_chan
I don't even know what to think about this anime. Theoretically, it should be a 10, but it really left a lot to be desired. Starting with Bam, the main character, for me, he was completely forgettable, the most indifferent main character I have ever seen in an anime. It bothered me that everyone who met Bam liked him because it seemed like the audience was being forced to like Bam for no reason. He lacks personality and seems like a person without ambition, without motivation, and with a lot of mommy issues. In an anime like this, you would expect incredible world-building, but it feelslike they mixed 40 different worlds and spat them on the screen. What do I mean by this? Basically, you see different races, people who look like they're from different eras, a world that seems religious and medieval but with 21st century technology, which MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. Issues: 1) in the first season, you will only learn the lore of 1-3 characters, 2) they don't explain anything, they don't even leave things implicit, like a guy who lived in a cave—why? Nobody knows, A girl who seems to take care of him but no one knows where this girl came from?. There are no answers to absolutely anything, You LITERALLY just know there is a tower and whoever goes up gets whatever they want, and it feels like they just show you a bunch of information that isn't connected to anything, and senseless fights where you don't even know why they are evaluating these people. How many floors does this tower have? Is the guardian the same as the administrator and the king? You won't get answers to anything in this anime.
In conclusion, the characters have no depth or lore, the protagonist is simple, and you are forced to like him for no reason, the world has an absurd construction that they won't explain, and you will hate Rachel, I think that's the only certain thing about this anime.
Anyway:
Animation: 8/10
Characters: 4/10
Music: 8/10
Story: 6/10
World-building: 5/10
ProxyProx
Started out fairly promising but never really got any better, only continuously more confusing. I haven't read the Manwha but i get the feeling so much of the world of this manwha was left out in the anime. The whole anime is almost lacking of any substance or context. Things just happen and appear without any explanation. Motives for characters are not revealed at all for all 13 episodes except for the Green Lizard girl who is really the only one with any background and even hers is kind of vague. Idk it just feels like an anime that was rushed and probably missing alot of major character development that may be in the source material. The idea is great the execution is poor.....it feels like an anime that is trying to appear to be deeper and more intellectual than it actually is. In a word if i had to describe this entire anime it would be "RANDOM". 5/10 wouldn't recommend unless you enjoy an aimless story with even more aimless characters.
HellLyter
If I made it to the top of the tower, I would wish for a more coherent testing system where things were actually explained so that climbing the tower didn’t give everyone a massive headache due to how poorly it’s conceived. But some wishes just aren’t meant to come true. Tower of God is an anime that’s grown in popularity due to the unique fact that it’s one of the first Korean web comics to receive a television adaptation. And with the added bonus that the source material is highly revered, what could possibly go wrong? Bad direction apparently. Despite having several upsides and what I believeto have the potential to actually be something great, there’s one major flaw I have with this anime that kept it in the realm of mediocrity in my eyes.
I just don’t get it.
Now at the time of writing this review, I have not read the source material. And as an anime only watcher, I expect this and any adaptation to be able to properly present a story that’s concrete, understandable, and doesn’t require prior knowledge of the source material to actually comprehend. This is where Tower of God failed miserably for me. From the presentation of episode one alone I knew that I wasn’t going to like the direction of the anime. Things are constantly being thrown at viewers literally every episode without nary an explanation on what they mean in regards to the narrative. I’m still perplexed about seemingly basic things such as what the heck this tower is and how it fits into the world of Tower of God. Yeah, I know I’m not the brightest bulb in the batch, but I’m usually not this confused. I mean for example, how do people exactly get chosen to participate in the tower? Do they all come from the same planent, or different ones since there are multiple (and horribly designed might I add) species present? Is the tower just a training ground for people to rank up, or is it actually its own little world since there seem to be sentient lifeforms living in it? Can someone please explain ANY of the numerous powers that the characters have and why? Who the hell thought a fisherman was a good title for a class? Why the heck is Bam the most generic character in existence?
Ok, the last two are more personal gripes, but you get the idea. And it isn’t just these broad ideas that have their issues, but many smaller ones that really detract from the anime, which usually comes in the form of trying to explain who characters are and their motivations. The most insight we’re ever given are brief backstories for some characters that are so abrupt that they didn’t really leave much of an impact. Now I understand that it’s good to have mysteries surrounding one’s story. It’s usually a good thing to keep a lot of information in the dark and to casually reveal parts of it to viewers over time for an enhanced effect. However, Tower of God doesn’t do this properly as it’s such an expansive world with a lot of details yet has basically neglected to explain ANYTHING of any importance until the 13th episode which…was actually really good. But too little too late honestly.
I know one common argument against this is “Hey, just read the source material! It wil fill in the blanks and make you enjoy the anime more.” No, it unfortunately won’t for me. In my mind, an anime has to be able to get by on it’s own merits without having to rely on the source material for viewers to fall back on, and Tower of God fails at this. And to the shock of no one, it is in fact possible to make an anime adaptation of a lengthy story that works perfectly well on its own. HunterXHunter, an anime that Tower of God seems to get compared to, did this just fine among others. Then again, Tower of God’s direction is so bad that it actually makes me want to read the web comic just to see if it’s better like many claim, so maybe the anime accomplished what it set out to do in my case!
Anyway, the narrative itself is pretty simplistic. It’s set up sorta like a battle royale where a group of characters must rise through the levels of the tower and enhance their abilities, all while losing the weaker contenders along the way. I’m a sucker for tournament themed shows, so I’ll admit that I have been entertained throughout watching the anime. Bam is your typical super overpowered protagonist who doesn’t actually understand his powers, and the story revolves around his journey. Bam face several test along the way, such as some crown game and a variant of tag. These tests honestly aren’t the most exciting, but they generally serve their purpose. The real highlight of Bam’s quest and one of the better portions of the show would be character relationships.
Yes, I don’t like Bam. But there were some characters that I actually thought were appropriately handled. Khun is the cool bro character, and while I wasn’t really impressed with his “schemes” since I don’t really find them to be all that impressive, I still ended up liking the dude nonetheless. The two characters who I thought were the best were Anak and Endorsi. I just really liked their chemistry and enjoyed watching their development over the course of the anime. Speaking of development, I’m a sucker for when a group of characters are at odds with each other in the beginning but end up forming close bonds in the end, and this was handled quite well in Tower of God. I guess I’ll give Bam credit for something, as he was the cornerstone that really brought this group together.
The final character that I want to mention is Rachel. Now the vast majority of people seem to hate Rachel. I for one really like her. Of course what she does to Bam wasn’t really a surprise since just about every web comic reader spoiled it in every single forum, but it was still interesting and I really like what it did for her character. Episode 13 ended up being far and beyond the best episode for me simply because it took Rachel’s perspective, showed her true persona, and actually explained some things. Yeah, that last part really came as a shocker. So hats off to Rachel for actually being a layered character! (*cough* unlike Bam *cough*)
I did really enjoy the soundtrack and it was probably the highlight of the anime for me. I just have a thing for eerie chanting I guess. Stray Kids performed the opening theme, and it went straight to the TOP of my favorites for the season. They also did the ending theme, which was definitely no SLUMP like many EDs tend to be. The visuals are definitely unique, but not to my liking. A lot of the character designs felt really laking to me. Battles were often short, but the animation used for them seemed to flow just fine in my mind.
Tower of God ended up being a mixed bag for me. The last three episodes were actually pretty good, but they were just brought down by their mediocre, and in some cases bad, predecessors to the point where I was beyond really caring, which is unfortunate. And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but holy crap, the comedy is abysmal. Jokes were often cringe and horribly timed. Sorry Rak, but you just didn’t do it for me! Of course comedy is subjective, so you might enjoy it, but…I just thought it was unredeemably bad. This anime was definitely saved by character interactions, and I honestly did enjoy watching the characters bond throughout the episodes. But in the end, the direction and world building were completely botched up, which unfortunately ruined this show for me. It's a shame, because this issue could have been completely avoided with some better decision making. Why did the directors do this?
I just don’t get it.
YESTORAKS
"The writing is unfortunate, attempting clever repartee between the attractive stars, but just succeeding in making everyone slightly embarrassed with rushed and perfunctory." -YESTORAKS, GeeKon Magazines Arguably, expectations may have been set a bit too high for The Tower of God, the first cinematic adaptation of Webtoon celebrated series, a self-proclaimed magnum opus which began with a webtoon actor, SIU. A project which was taken years to reach realization, the distinction would eventually fall to Japanese writer, Erika Yoshida who famously (not really) be as a Scripter in Double Decker and be as a Series composition in Namu Amida Butsu, etc. Having broken out into international acclaim asa director, Sano Takashi (who be as a key animation of Detective Conan) seemed an inspired choice to helm such monolithic material, which professes to condense ideas from SIU series and meld them into a boiled down sequel of sorts to the whole endeavor. Never fear, those who haven’t taken the opportunity to wade through SIU lynchpin of a multiverse (which bleeds into his expansive and illustrious bibliography) shouldn’t have a hard time keeping up with this somber palette.
Unfortunately, what Sano and contributing writer, Erika Yoshida. What could have been a unique franchise to be shouldered by an effective Sano Takashi crashes and burns all around in him in this rendering, which falls significantly short of the epic scope SIU conceived.
Synopsis:
Troubled brown-hair kid Twenty-Fifth Bam (Voice acted by Ichikawa Taichi) who has spent most of his life trapped beneath a vast and mysterious Tower, with only his close friend, Rachel (Voice acted by Hayami Saori), to keep him company. When Rachel enters the Tower, Bam manages to open the door into it as well, and faces challenges at each floor of this tower as he tries to find his closest companion.
Just imagine....
3 season, more than 300+ chapters and a multitude of exotic settings and alternative realities entered by two near-mythic protagonist, are here transformed into turgid cinematic slop. This anime has a considerable amount of source material to fall back on but we never got a sense of this here. Of course there is more material than any one anime could possibly cover but this one could have done a better job, especially since this is the first manhwa of what will probably be a series. This particular anime threw us right into the story without explaining too much. The answers are on the periphery, however, the anime never gets there as viewers are kept at arm’s length so fans of the manhwa series may be disappointed.
The Special effects light up the screen like gloopy video game flourishes, while a handful of action sequences fail to contribute to the epic scope of what’s meant to be a staggering palette, but instead each tableau looks like just some other place on earth.
Although not the misfire it could have been, Takashi's treatment of The Tower of God is perhaps more sacrilegious than an utterly tone-deaf train wreck because, to be blunt, it’s boring.
Swaheelee
It's a story about a simp. This story defines what a simp is. What a simp will do. This could be the definition of simp when someone googles it. The story is "simple" it's about a simp named Bam. He will do anything for this girl, this girl doesn't even like him, she abandons him at any moment, will kill him, will do nothing for him, but bams just steady being a simp. I realized that this story of this simp was about a simp on the first episode. The only good thing about this anime, are the other character's who aren't bam or rachel. People like KhunOr Rak-san. They aren't simps, it's very refreshing to watch them not be simps, but then you're plunged back into the simpness with bam being a simp at every waking moment. It's dreadful. I wish he'd just kill rachel. It'd instantly be a thousand hundred million times better.
I can not rate this any higher then 3. It is not good, It's just a plain old story of a simp.
RIP.
Dukino
This show is one I became very disillusioned by towards its end. It's decently easy to get wrapped up in the genuinely good moments of this show and overlook the gaping holes it presents imo. Because at the start it was all so just crazy to see that I became awestruck. However over time especially this last arc in the anime things evened out so to speak. Those holes became bigger. Certainly garnered a lot of hype when the anime was announced from the webtoon readers which I also think worked to its detriment. I very much like to separate fanbases from the work itselfbut here I feel an exception here, just like with fgo players, simply because they really worked certain angles and pushed agendas that drug the series down a ton. The whole hating Rachel thing is so fucking lame. I mean come on. Honestly I felt that with the finale she was the most complex and well thought out character. Her motivations were completely understandable. I empathize with her a great deal. Now is that somewhat out of spite since webtoon readers couldn't learn to shut their mouths, maybe, who knows, but undoubtedly Rachel is more complex and interesting that Bam ever was.
That boy was a real wet noodle. At first it was kinda of interesting since maybe he'd open up being around the others but he stays the same the whole way through apart from learning Shinsu. He's repeatedly handed victories from others, from Yuri, Endorsi, and Khun, and Bam kinda just is wisked up the tower. Hell the best arc of this anime with the Crown Game he literally just sits there until the very end when he does a big Shinsu blast that he doesn't even conjure up of his own will. It's just used as a plot device to end the test.
Which is another thing that's a big hole here. The way too convenient writing. Shinsu is hardly explained, which again normally wouldn't be so bad but it leads to other massive problems, so when every someone needs something done they just go "oh well it's Shinsu it can do that". I mean again come on, it's just too convenient. Shinsu on paper is really cool but the execution is dogshit. It's used far too willy nilly imo to be taken seriously as some all power. Shrinking people? Really? That's what we're using this all mighty energy for, get outta here.
The characters, apart from Bam and Rachel, were pretty good. Khun by far the best part of the show, kinda until the end. I really enjoyed his character and what he brought to their team. His cunning and smart head proved very valuable to Bam across all the tests. Carried the hell out of them for most of it. Rak I also really loved. His big energy always made me grin. Still don't get the turtle thing but it's cool so whatever. Endorsi absolutely best girl, her personality is very captivating. Others like Hatz, Shibisu, Lero Ro, Anaak, Yuri and even Quant were characters I liked seeing too. The princesses of Jahad are a neat story I wished me learned more of but were still fun to see. Lots left on the table and questions needing answered about many things within the tower.
Without question best part of the show as the music. Good God did Kevin Pinkin knock this out of the park. Knew it'd be good once he was announced to be composing. So many tracks that would swell with the moments we were watching. Animation and technical side were well done. Have little complaints about how it looked. From what I've briefly seen of the webtoon art is a drastic improvement from those monstrosities.
Overall this was a show I enjoyed but over time became less enthusiastic about. Certainly good merits at points and some of the tests were cool. But as things concluded I felt a discontent with not only how my fellow audience members saw things but a disconnect from how the story itself presented itself. Would still recommend this to people whom want a cool mysterious kind of show to see. But really there's a good bit left undone and I won't fault the show for being as short as it was but if they don't continue the anime and fill in these gaps I don't see it aging well. For now thought there's certainly some amazing moments with these characters and I did enjoy my time with it.
8/10
BigZain
Before I get into the review, I just wanna say two things. First, I’m a big fan of the Tower of God manwha, and I had high expectations for this anime adaptation. Second, this is my first review, so yeah... Let’s just jump into the review now Story: 4/10 Tower of God is supposed to be an epic adventure with great world building that should make the reader want to know more and more about its world. However, the anime fails to accomplish this, mainly due to cut content, changed dialogue, and horrible pacing. The anime is very, very rushed. This was to be expected however, asthey had 13 episodes to adapt a whopping 79 chapters, averaging out to about 6 chapters per episode. That’s way more than other shows with long source materials. To give you an idea of how absurd 6 chapters per episode is, One Piece is about 1 chapter per episode, Hunter X Hunter is about 2 chapters per episode, Yu Yu Hakusho is about 1.5 chapters per episode, you get the idea. From the start, it was absolutely ridiculous to believe that a good adaptation would be possible when they’re cramming 79 chapters into 13 episodes which resulted in a good amount of cut content that is important for the world building of Tower of God, such as completely removing the Phantaminum incident from the anime. Pacing and cut content isn’t the only issue either, the rules of the games were poorly explained and confusing, resulting in the viewers not knowing what the characters had to do in order to win. The dialogue when explaining the rules was modified in a way that just made the already complex manwha rules even more confusing in the anime.
Art/Animation: 4/10
I should give the anime props for wanting to make the characters look like they’re straight out of the manwha, but the animation itself is very poor. Some of the fight scenes just look plain ugly and the rest of the show isn’t exactly visually pleasing either. The animation does look very nice for a certain scene on episode 12, but that’s just one scene out of many
Sound: 8.5/10
Now this is definitely the best part about this show. Kevin Penkin, also responsible for the ost in Made in Abyss and The Rising of The Shield Hero, did a phenomenal on the ost for Tower of God. The opening and ending songs were also very nice.
Characters: 6/10
The characters are one of the bright spots in Tower of God. The cast is full of likable characters that each seem to have their own motives and somewhat selfish reasons to climb the tower. Some want revenge, some want power, and some want something that transcends all of these things. The reason why the characters are still a 6/10, which is still above average by the way, is because season 1 doesn’t allow the characters to get enough development and the bad pacing comes up here again to speed up some of the backstories and thus making them less impactful. I should also mention that the main character Bam comes off as extremely obnoxious in the anime.
Overall: 5/10
Tower of God is an anime that ends up being just about average, despite its tremendous potential. It could have kickstarted a new era of anime in which webtoon adaptations become common, but its pacing, animation, and the director himself, let it down. If you wanted to get into the series, I’d personally recommend the manwha over the anime. If you made it to the end of this review, thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this :D
Koumazoku
There is a phrase Japanese which directly translate to the Poop of a Goldfish (金魚の糞). The phrase refers to 'a hanger-on' or someone who persistently sticks around. This anime is about a boy named Yoru (Also known as Baam) who climbs the 'tower of god' to find Rachel. The Tower of God is a completely unique tower that has many environments inside it, and to climb to the top of the tower you must defeat these monster things which test your strength. Story - 2/10 Literally about Yoru being an absolute simp. He climbs the tower to see Rachel and becomes powerful to find her.The tower concept isn't anything really new, but it isn't exactly a ripoff or a generic fantasy action-adventure anime.
Art- 3/10
It's not bad but it's not good. Just average. Not really my style, it's kinda new I guess? The animation is kinda really flat and seems more like an animation YouTuber art with mute colors and bland layers.
Sound- 1/10
The intro was a Japanese cover of K-pop.
Character- 4/10
Everyone is a good/decent character besides Yoru. As I said before Yoru is just a big simp and it kind of gets really really annoying.
Enjoyment- 2/10
I watched this series because of the hype and wanted to be with the community. I can't really recommend it.
Overall- 1/10
Honestly, if this anime wasn't this hyped I would not give an overall one, maybe a three or a four at max.
RebelPanda
Tower of God is an awful clusterfuck of anime cliches haphazardly stitched together. Somehow its pseudo-deep story has tricked thousands of people into thinking it’s good. I’m in awe that this miserable fanfiction got an anime adaptation. Becoming popular is the reason why ToG was adapted. Crunchyroll milked it because it was their prized cash cow, more interested in money than creativity. It recycles familiar anime tropes, plot points, and character archetypes to create the anime equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster. Tournament arcs are successful, so the entire show will be a tournament arc. Superheroes are trendy, let’s add superpowers. People like comedy right? Let's add nine orten comic relief characters, they'll love it! We'll even shoehorn a school into the Tower. Fantasy stories make tons of money too, so we'll say outside of the tower is a sprawling fantasy world. That way we won't have to write it, instead, we'll just call it a mystery. Genius. Perhaps I may be mistaken. I've heard it gets better later on, but I don’t care how long it takes to become worth watching. I’m not reviewing chapter 400 of the manhwa. I’m reviewing this season.
The premise is simple, but the execution is threadbare. Those attempting to climb the Tower strive for riches, influence, and the power to become a God. They've been living inside it forever. How has it shaped their lives? I have no clue what the world is like outside of the tower. Maybe it will be explained in the next season. Constantly it is implied there is a huge fantasy world out there, but it’s never actually shown. Rather than organically introducing the setting, characters, and politics, the show haphazardly drops names and exposition onto the audience. Thankfully, the author knows how poorly explained everything is, so he writes blog posts to fill in the blanks because he doesn’t know how to integrate information into the story. The paper-thin plot is played up to be mysterious, but the biggest mystery about ToG is how the hell it got so popular.
This UNIQUE and ORIGINAL story follows a boy named Generic Male Protagonist, his Cool Guy friend, and a Comic Relief character. Our hero embarks on a quest to find the Generic Girl. Where did she go? She entered the tower, the Tower of God! Despite being told not to pursue her, Generic Male chases after her anyway! For as long as Generic Male, AKA Bam can remember, he has lived in a cave beneath the tower. One day, Rachel the Generic Girl found Bam. For better or worse, she taught him about the world. She became a mother figure to him and his love interest. Uh-huh. I have no clue what her perspective on their relationship is. Does she love him too? Or did she just pity him? I have no idea what Rachel's life was like before she found Bam. How did Bam live before being “saved” by her? How long was he trapped? The show wants us to sympathize with him, but it's impossible. He is a potato with arms, legs, and a face. Despite trying to leave him, Rachel groomed him to be loyal. She told him, “Betraying a girl’s trust is the same as betraying the whole world,” but Bam is a brainless mouth-breather so he believed her. This is how he became the world's biggest SIMP.
At the beginning of his journey, Bam is granted superpowers. Out of nowhere, one of the Tower’s Princesses of Jahad meets Bam at the first level. She presents him with a mighty sword. Why? Because she’s bored. When it's convenient for the plot, she reappears to remind us she exists. Ingenious character writing. Luckily for Bam, a ghost babe is living in his sword and she grants him even more power. Why? Because she thinks he's “cute.” Do you see the trend? Bam gets everything he needs without putting in any effort (almost like the author). He is a Deus Ex Machina magnet because using cheap plot devices is easier than writing character development. The longer Bam is on screen the more he looks like a human-shaped punching bag. Bam is the audience’s avatar. He doesn’t need a deep personality, but it would've been nice if he had one. The story follows an ensemble cast and we learn about the world through him. Throughout the season Bam and his ‘friends’ take various tests administered by Rankers, people who’ve climbed the tower before. The tests vary from a fight to the death to making friends with competitors. There's never a sense of urgency in any of the challenges.
At the end of the season, Bam announces, "I have changed so much." Except, he never does. The only thing he changes is his outfit. For the entire show, he is an amnesiac with no personality or memories. His only reason for living is to chase after a girl even after she said not to. I’m honestly more interested in why Rachel’s trying to avoid him. She wanders through the anime with an expression that seems stuck somewhere between disapproval and boredom. You never get a sense of what she’s thinking because she’s so… dull. Her motives are so wishy-washy and her relationship with Bam makes no sense. She ditches him, then avoids him, then helps him. Rinse and repeat. It’s no wonder why ToG fans hate her guts. When she tries to avoid Bam, she does nothing to change her appearance. She wears the same hideous outfit that she wore when she first met Bam. If she didn't want him to find her she would’ve at least cut her hair. They’re always close together yet he’s too dimwitted to figure it out. While in Tower school, they’re in the same class, but Bam can’t even see through her lazy disguise. Their whole relationship is so unbelievably stupid. How did someone above the age of fourteen write this?
Wrapped layers thick with plot armor—Bam embodies the “Chosen One” archetype. As though the author realized how bland Bam is, he introduces tons of side characters to distract us. The less bland deuteragonist, Khun, carries Bam through this season’s challenges. There’s not much to him (yet) aside from being the quintessential Cool Guy™. When he is first introduced, he suddenly gets a convenient flashback to his family. It’s vague, of course, but at least it’s something. From what I could discern, he was expelled from his family because his sister disappointed his parents. I’m assuming his personality and motivations were deemed unimportant because he has neither in this season. Maybe the author was kind enough to blog about Khun so we can fill in the blanks. One thing I find remarkable about Khun is his magical briefcase. Not only can it hold a couple of people, but it can also duplicate anything. While it’s an awesome idea, it doesn’t make much sense. If we’re supposed to believe this fantasy world has modern technology like electricity, televisions, phones, and the internet, then it would probably also have guns. Why can’t Khun just clone a bunch of AR15’s and plow his way through the tower? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we can look forward to that in the fifth or sixth season.
Rather than integrating exposition into the story organically, the author uses Bam’s amnesia to lampshade exposition dumps. Random characters spoon-feed him plot points as if he’s a toddler. Sometimes people will just start monologuing their backstory out of nowhere. Throughout this season, we get random flashbacks to develop side characters. Two of them stood out far more than any others: Anaak and Endorsi. As princesses of Jahad, their rivalry to one-up each other is the most enjoyment I got from the show. Anaak, a green lizard-tailed girl, at least has a reason for climbing the tower. Revenge. As for Endorsi, her entire personality revolves around her vanity. She explicitly says she wears makeup and high heels to use her beauty for her benefit. Though this is just the ‘woman manipulates men with beauty’ cliche we can at least sympathize with her. The King views his princesses as beautiful tools only he may use, which explains Endorsi’s obsession with her appearance. The King’s prejudice towards women isn’t challenged by the author, which is likely because the author shares those ideals. As if unintentionally, certain lines of dialogue reveal the author’s regressive view of women. I wish the show was about Anaak and Endorsi rather than Bam and Rachel. There’s so much more to them. In future seasons, I hope to see more focus on them.
All the other side characters are cardboard cutouts. Their personalities can be summarized with one word each. Annoying, confrontational, tired, loud, hungry, etcetera. Way too many of the fight scenes are from the perspective of these forgettable characters. There is no reason to care about any of them if you haven’t read the manhwa. Some of the character designs fit the enigmatic fantasy setting they’re going for, but others just make no sense. Some people wear typical 2000s fashion like tracksuits, sneakers, and cargo shorts but others are in ninja outfits. And that’s not even to mention the dozens of different fantastical races. Just the character designs imply so much about the world, I wish he fleshed out the world or its inhabitants. But he didn’t. It’s a mess of disjointed tropes stuck together with Gorilla Glue.
If all you want is action and eye candy, you’ll probably be disappointed. Most of the combat revolves around strategic games, but rules are never clear, or where the contestants are in relation to each other. Despite the skilled animators they hired for certain fights, it all feels completely weightless. The director can compose a shot fine enough, but he otherwise seems bored to be here. Each scene lazily collides into the next; transitions are rushed and ugly. To make this trainwreck worse, the art quality is inconsistent as hell. The animation is stiff and the background art is unimaginative.
It's as if the director didn't know how to even script a TV series because every episode ends abruptly. In the middle of dialogue, it cuts to the credits. The next episode picks up right where it left off. They rarely ever tried to surprise us with a cliffhanger. It feels like they wrote the screenplay for a four-hour movie rather than a thirteen-episode TV show. Traditionally episodes conclude a chapter and setup to the next one, not just suddenly cut to black. The only buffer we get is the OP and ED, which are both average pop songs. For a high budget series, they put so little effort into designing the visuals for the credits. Within the series, the music is much better. The piano and the orchestral soundtrack is beautiful, as expected of Kevin Penkin, but it's not suited to this series. Admittedly, it's difficult to tell what tone Tower of God is going for. I doubt even the director always knew what emotion he was trying to evoke. In the rare action scenes when the music and artwork sync up well, it's pretty entertaining. All of a sudden, someone will interject with an unfunny joke and the pace comes to a screeching halt. The art style will suddenly swap to chibi and comedic reaction faces are thrown in at random too. Even out of combat, the comedy is just cringy as hell. I was expecting it to go away as the plot progressed, but it only got worse.
Everything in Tower of God is a mystery. It is predicated on mythology, the setting is very vague, the protagonist is an amnesiac, and the rules of the Tower are unclear. For a show that’s at least 80% exposition, impressively it didn’t explain much this season. While watching ToG, questions like these will fill your mind: Who or what created the Tower? How does it grant people power? What is the outside world like? When the final episode ends, you still won't have answers. The Tower is a mystery to everyone, even the author. Like an unplanned fanfiction, the direction is unclear. There is some vague foreshadowing. New characters are endlessly added in favor of developing current ones.
Tower of God suffers from inherent problems that are deeply structural, not just superficial, and they run right down to its core. If you build a tower on a weak foundation, it is bound to collapse. You cannot write a fantasy epic with no bones, and that's why this season was a trainwreck. It has been a long and tedious climb, and apparently this is only the prologue. There’s nowhere to go from here but up, so as the fans say,
“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”
WDUNE
An Ambiguous Climb to Redemption Kami no Tou, also known as Tower of God, is an anime series that takes you on a journey filled with mystery and hidden truths. The initial 10 episodes may leave you underwhelmed, with a plot that fails to impress and numerous unanswered questions about the world in which the story unfolds. However, the series manages to redeem itself in the latter part, offering a more engaging plot, improved storytelling, and surprising twists. One of the drawbacks of the early episodes is the lack of a captivating plot. The story fails to establish a strong foundation, leaving you wanting more depth andsubstance. Additionally, the world in which the tower stands remains enigmatic. The mix of humans, beasts, and various creatures raises questions about the backstory and the rules governing this world. The absence of explanations about the tower's origins, selection process, and the first person to reach the top adds to the frustration.
The characters, both secondary and main, struggle to make a lasting impression. Aside from notable exceptions like Khun and Rack, many of the characters lack depth and fail to leave a lasting impact. The art style of Kami no Tou also receives criticism, with overly broad outlines and pale coloring that hampers visual appeal. The lack of color harmony and inconsistent shading can be distracting, detracting from the overall aesthetic experience. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that Kami no Tou introduces characters who initially appear wise and ambidextrous, suggesting a significant role in the story. However, as the series progresses, it becomes clear that these characters are merely pawns in the grand scheme orchestrated by a larger, more cunning mastermind. This revelation adds an element of surprise and intrigue, leaving you questioning the true nature of the tower and the motives behind those who control it. The manipulation of these characters by the mastermind adds another layer of complexity to the story, further enhancing the sense of suspense and mystery.
Animation levels in the series can be disappointing, not reaching the high standards expected from contemporary anime. However, as the series progresses toward the final three episodes, there is a noticeable improvement in storytelling quality. The plot becomes more intriguing and starts to offer some answers while presenting captivating plot twists and surprises. This shift in the narrative compensates for the shortcomings in earlier episodes, making the viewing experience more enjoyable.
While the fights in Kami no Tou may not be consistently impressive, certain characters manage to inject depth and excitement into the story through their unique powers and potential showcased during these battles. These characters bring a sense of agitation and anticipation to the narrative, capturing viewers' attention and leaving them eager to witness the extent of their abilities.
One of the standout elements of Kami no Tou is its exceptional music. The opening and ending themes by Stray Kids are fabulous, and beautiful, and exude a captivating vibe. These songs enhance the overall atmosphere of the series, adding depth and emotion to pivotal moments.
In conclusion, Kami no Tou initially stumbles with a lackluster plot, unimpressive characters, and a questionable art style. However, it manages to redeem itself in the latter part, delivering a more engaging plot with intriguing twists and improved storytelling. While the animation levels may not meet expectations, the exceptional music elevates the overall experience. If you can endure the initial shortcomings, the later episodes offer a more satisfying and captivating narrative.
Ratings:
- Plot (6/10): The plot of Kami no Tou is decent but lacks the depth, complexity, and clarity needed to make it truly impressive.
- Art style (6/10): The art style of the series has its flaws with broad outlines and inconsistent coloring, but it still manages to capture the essence of the story.
- Animation (6.5/10): The animation quality is average, not reaching the level of excellence expected from modern anime, but it does the job of conveying action and storytelling.
- Main characters (6.5/10): While the main characters have their moments and contribute to the story, they could have been developed further to create a stronger impact and connection with the audience.
- Side characters (4/10): The side characters lack depth and fail to leave a lasting impression, with their roles feeling somewhat underdeveloped and unremarkable.
- Action (6/10): The action sequences in Kami no Tou provide entertainment, but they don't consistently deliver the high intensity and excitement expected in a series focused on climbing a treacherous tower.
- Fights (6/10): The fights in Kami no Tou have their moments, but they lack consistency in delivering impressive visuals and intense action, falling short of expectations in terms of choreography and excitement.
- Music (9.5/10): The music in Kami no Tou is exceptional, with fabulous opening and ending themes by Stray Kids that add depth and emotion to the series, creating an immersive and captivating atmosphere.
- Sounds (6.5/10): The sound effects and overall audio quality are decent, although they could have been more impactful and polished to enhance the viewing experience.
- Attraction (7/10): The series manages to generate a certain level of attraction through its intriguing premise and the gradual unfolding of the tower's secrets.
- Enjoyment (7/10): While not extraordinary, Kami no Tou offers an enjoyable experience, particularly in the later episodes where the story becomes more engaging and the plot twists elevate the suspense.
Overall (6.5/10): Kami no Tou falls slightly above Fine, offering a decent but not exceptional viewing experience. While aspects such as plot, art style, and animation have room for improvement, the series manages to capture some attraction and enjoyment. The standout music and occasional moments of excitement contribute to its overall rating, making it a reasonably normal experience.
