Twenty-Fifth Baam

Rak Wraithraiser

Aguero Agnis Khun

Rachel

Endorsi Jahad

Yuri Ha Jahad

Headon

Hatz

Shibisu

Yu Han Sung

Anaak Jahad

Lero-Ro

Evan Edrok

Lauroe Phonsekal

No Rang

Dede Kancho

Announcer

Levin

Serena Rinnen

Inoa Yoran

Sunwoo Nare

Shopin

Riron 3

Catan

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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.


img1000(https://media.comicbook.com/2020/04/tower-of-god-anime-1217305-1280x0.jpeg)
# ~~~ Start placing your bets, ‘cause *Tower of God* (ToG) could very well be the most important hallmark in our anime landscape this decade, ~~~
although the 2020’s have only just begun. For those of you who don’t know, ToG is a Korean webcomic that got its start on WebToon, an accessible online platform that allows individual creators to share their works for free and cultivate consistent readership without interference from publishers. In 2019, Crunchyroll announced that they would be collaborating with WebToon to develop content from the website’s growing catalogue. ToG is the first product from that partnership, and with it comes a whole realm of possibilities. Not only is ToG arguably the biggest Korean IP to receive an anime adaptation, but it also marks the beginning of what could be a new era of anime. Thousands of stories from individual artists can now be brought to our attention further down the line in both webcomic and animated forms. Furthermore, ToG giving Webtoon more mainstream exposure will definitely encourage more people to contribute their stories with the world. ToG is undoubtedly a game-changer and the hype surrounding it has been astronomical. Popularity aside, however, one pressing question remains: Is the show any good? I haven’t seen SIU’s original comic and came into the show blind (apologies for being an anime-only normie). Alas, this will be a (mostly) spoiler-free, newcomer’s perspective on this show. Check out my __Tl;Dr__ further below if you’re short on time. Now, let’s find out how well ToG measures up to the massive expectations on its shoulders.

img1000(https://media3.giphy.com/media/dBCVNNZalCj9J6DEOS/giphy.gif)

># ~~~ “For what do you risk your life to climb the Tower?” ~~~ #

For our protagonist Bam, his goal is to reunite with his close companion Rachel. With little explanation as to why she’s embarking on such a mysterious quest, Rachel leaves him, vanishing into the unknown. Suddenly, Bam is also offered the chance to enter the titular Tower and take part in series of trials, with the promise of incredible power should he make it to the very top. He agrees and sets off to reunite with Rachel, not knowing what lies ahead on his journey. As the story progresses, he is pit against various competitors who are all vying for the prize at the top of the Tower. These individuals, known as Regulars, grew up in a society governed by the rules of the Tower; some have dedicated their entire lives to successfully completing this arduous challenge. While the many tests are conducted, the show shines light on how these characters’ lives have been hardened and conditioned to outlast the competition, showcasing their upbringing and circumstances surrounding their inclusion in the games. Expect some high-octane action and plenty of big-brain strategical plays at every turn, as the obstacles are specially designed to put our cast’s might and intellect to the ultimate test.

img1000(https://media0.giphy.com/media/KCkgKzcDcFSu01DFY6/giphy.gif)

# ~~~ Right out of the gate, ToG gets plenty of things right in its freshman season. ~~~
In my opinion the one aspect ToG absolutely nails is its soundtrack, my GOD it’s amazing! Kevin Penkin brings his A-game to the show, with several bangers that ratchet the tension up to 11. The soundtrack has everything, from choral arrangements reminiscent of his work in *Made in Abyss* to tense, electronic beats. I’m no music expert but I really can’t help but gush over how exceptional this soundtrack is; it absolutely elevates the show’s big moments and is easily my favorite offering from the show. That’s not to say that ToG doesn’t have anything else worth praising, far from it!
# ~~~ The world introduced is fascinating and makes you feel like the show’s 13 episodes are merely scratching the surface. ~~~
We see this realm through the eyes of the Regulars, with glimpses into their lives before they stepped in the Tower. We’re constantly teased the backstories of these characters, learn how they came into the game, and see how their past experiences manifest themselves in their beliefs and actions. We as the audience never step outside the confines of the Tower and thus can only grasp the concept of the surrounding environment through the lens of the Regulars. The plot sometimes necessitates clunky exposition to breeze through material, but for the most part I like this approach to worldbuilding here. Seeing the world the way the Regulars do endears us to them while keeping the outside world shrouded in mystery. The many cast members also keep the games feeling fresh, as their various strategies and incredibly powerful abilities come into play. It seems like the author was aware that these competitors were a vital component to the story’s success, as the tests introduced are written to complement them. What I mean is that some of the more exciting games grant the competitors plenty of room to figure out their own solutions.
# ~~~ This high power balance, coupled with the cast’s out-of-the-box approach to problem solving, gives each test an unpredictable momentum and keeps the experience enjoyable from week-to-week. ~~~

Now although ToG has plenty of things going right for it, there are a few issues that I’d like to bring to light here. Granted, these shortcomings may be attributed to either the short series length or SIU’s relative inexperience as a writer when these initial chapters were released. I figured these circumstances could affect the overall experience and tempered my expectations accordingly going into the series. I want to preface this section by letting you know that I’m not sure whether or not my preconceptions are accurate or if the following criticisms apply to the rest of the webcomic. I am simply sharing my takeaways based solely on the anime, so make of this what you will. With that, let’s begin. 

img1000(https://lostinanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Kami-no-Tou-10-14_thumb_thumb.jpg)

As mentioned prior, one of the strengths of the show lies in its cast. Khun, Endorsi, Anak, Shibisu, and Rak are bound to be fan-favorites; and other Regulars have strong moments as well.
# ~~~ Unfortunately I can’t say the same of our Irregulars, Bam and Rachel, ~~~
at least in this stage of the story. There’s no easy way to say this, but Bam is a paper-thin audience surrogate and the worst element in ToG. The world of the Tower is just as alien to us as it is to Bam, so it makes sense that he is the focal point of our story. However, when lined up against his peers Bam feels underwritten, with every fiber of his being seemingly built solely around Rachel (That’s a WHOLE other story, check it out in the spoiler-filled __“Stray Ramblings”__ section^). He represents a couple of problems in the narrative and is typically framed in contrast to his Regular counterparts to balance things out, for better or for worse. You like interesting and charismatic characters that actually get involved in the games? Bam’s bland and mostly just sits back while the others participate in the challenges. Throughout the series I never learn a single thing about Bam that isn’t related to his friends or Rachel; he’s a blank slate in every sense of the word. What annoys me the most however, is how OP he can get. Due to the competitive nature of our story and the need for our main character to, y’know, survive; he’s a magnet for plot contrivances and is constantly buffed with little explanation. Rey Skywalker may be the new Mary Sue, but Bam looks set to take over her throne soon. He may have been completely unfamiliar with the magic systems in place, yet his power scaling is borderline ridiculous and puts other Regulars to shame. With his bland personality and effortless wandering through the narrative, ToG gives me a hard time rooting for its lead. With all that being said, the later arcs do attempt to course-correct by giving him a little more agency within the narrative. Further addressing this problem in future instalments by adding more personal conflict and developing his character growth would go a long way to justifying why us fans should cheer Bam on.

img1000(https://boundingintocomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020.05.20-11.20-boundingintocomics-5ec5bb273a597.png)

# ~~~ Another aspect that could use some fixing is the writing, as it’s pretty inconsistent at times. ~~~
 ToG does take time to slow down and set up some really clever sequences, but occasionally expects the audience to accept certain moments happening without adequate explanation. In one instance the show very nearly conveys the WRONG information^^, which I only realised after a manhwa reader pointed it out. The tests are also worth bringing up, as most of them feel rather inconsequential. A couple of these games amount to rudimentary tasks (which is made all the more boring ‘cause Bam is OP), and only exist for the show to provide exposition. Meanwhile, two of the show’s biggest arcs end on slightly-sour notes, making the incredible build-up behind it fall a little flat. My guess as to why these writing problems persist is that 13 episodes just weren’t a whole lot for the show to work with. ToG manages its pacing well but cuts a few corners so that all the big story moments to land. Speaking of large moments I think it’s time to talk about the art and animation, and how they factor into the show’s setpieces.
# ~~~ ToG looks really rough around the edges, to the disappointment of the comic’s fans. ~~~
I’m not the one to tell you whether or not it was a deliberate artistic direction, but ToG has a tough time meeting art standards set by other anime in recent years. Personally I don’t think it’s too much of an issue, but if your mind is still reeling from the *"sakuga"* in *Demon Slayer* you’ll want to take note of this. ToG’s action sequences still feel fresh thanks to that fantastic score, and director Takashi Sano does the best with what he’s given with some good shot compostition^^^. I certainly can’t fault the show for trying to polish its presentation, but there is room for improvement.

img1000(https://lostinanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Kami-no-Tou-02-45-1280x800.jpg)

# ~~~ __Tl;Dr:__ ~~~
Tower of God has the makings of something truly special. ToG has given me several reasons to stay invested long-term, delivering a strong cast of characters and countless creative ideas alongside its solid premise. A masterful soundtrack by Kevin Penkin enhances the experience and is a stellar highlight. At its peak, ToG brings out some of tensest action setpieces all season. However, this show looks like one still finding its feet; a disappointing main protagonist, inconsistent writing, and subpar art present issues that need resolving ASAP. ToG’s short episode length also needs to be taken in account, because a lot of relevant material seems to have been left on the cutting floor as a result. Compared to its webcomic counterpart, I can only wonder whether or not this story got the adaptation it deserved. But from I’ve seen so far, this show is glowing with promise and I’m intrigued to find out what new tales might come our way in the near future. __6/10~__

# ~~~ __STRAY RAMBLINGS (SPOILERS):__ ~~~
-	^~!Rachel is a big problem. I couldn’t find a way of working her into the main review without spoiling anything, as I wanted to avoid revealing that she shows up in later episodes. This pair of Irregulars are irritating as heck. Much like Bam, Rachel is severely underdeveloped and ticks me off in every scene she’s in. She’s fridged for a good chunk of the narrative, only serving as a damsel in distress who gives Bam something meaningful to do in the tests. Her motivations are always annoying to interpret and she never really opens up on her shared past with Bam, ensuring that I couldn’t care less about the bond that got Bam taking the tests in the first place. Both of our Irregulars create dissonance between themselves and the audience, with Bam’s passivity and Rachel’s distant façade. The one time I appreciated her character was for indirectly calling out Bam on his BS by telling him how clingy he’s been, which is something I do NOT want to be complimenting! Granted, the show finally tries to justify her stubborn desire to “see the stars” in the season finale, but I would be a lot more forgiving about our leads if Rachel did just a little to justify the great deal of respect that Bam has for her. I’m plenty impressed with SIU and the cast of Regulars he’s put together, but I’m puzzled as to why these two vital pieces don't get the same treatment.!~
-	^^Okay, so I don’t know if I’m just too stupid to keep up with the plot or not, but something weird happened while I was watching Episode 10. Several of my friends came out just as confused by this as I was, so here’s hoping that I’m not alone in missing out this key detail. ~!Early in the episode we get a quick flashback sequence from Khun’s perspective, delving into his suspicions on Hoh. This rapid-fire plot dump seemed to have made Khun out to be the culprit who planted the note in Hoh’s quarters. To my surprise I later learnt that Khun actually copied the note with his bag and left the real one where he found it. The reason why this misunderstanding occurred in the first place is because this flashback was only given one minute to present all that exposition! While writing this I revisited the episode to see what I didn't catch. I counted 2 cuts. 2! Missing that was all it took for me to misinterpret the scene entirely, especially when Khun later goes on to claim, “My strategy was perfect.” An extremely unfortunate coincidence that wasn’t helped by the density of the plot and the inadequate series length. Probably the most damning indicator that this series deserved more than the single cour it got.!~
-	^^^Seen some hate-filled comments aimed at Takashi Sano that I don’t think is warranted at all. He’s an experienced staff member with credentials in storyboarding and key animation. His roles in *Megalo Box* and *Vinland Saga* demonstrate the importance of his talents in visual storytelling. You still see creative and impactful flourishes throughout the show, although the poor production values can’t deliver those scenes at their fullest potential. As for the many “unnecessary” changes made to the original story, studio execs in charge of the anime likely forced him to adapt way too many chapters in a short span of time, while throwing in some other nonsense they thought us zoomers would like. The poor guy’s hands were tied, and I seriously doubt that he ever intended to derail the project. Please don’t send hate his way.
-	The VA cast sound distinct and are mostly great. I actually think the dub is worth checking out, mostly for the sweet reprieve of not hearing Japanese Bam’s tiresome voice on a weekly basis. I won’t go as far as to say that Sayori Hayami phones in her performance, but she doesn’t get a lot to work with. All is forgiven though, ‘cause we get Takuya Eguchi as Shibisu. It’s nice to hear Hachiman’s voice this season, especially after Oregairu got postponed :’)
-	Hats off to *Stray Kids* for recording the songs for the OP & ED in three languages: Japanese, English, and their native Korean! I am glad to report that all three iterations of “TOP” are certified bangers. *Stray Kids*, I think what you guys did was really cool and pray a kind soul finds y’all a loving home soon.
-	 To heck with the 13 Month Series, Khun’s briefcase is the most broken weapon that we’ve seen so far. It’s such an interesting take on a Bag of Holding, the trope where a bag is implausibly larger on the inside than what it should be. Seeing the briefcase make countless copies of objects ~!and even spawn an entire team of Regulars!~ fits Khun’s conniving nature to a tee. I hope they never explain away how the damn thing works, it’s way too fun!
-	~!Hmm, foreshadowing for the Crown Game was a tad too on-the-nose here:
img500(https://66.media.tumblr.com/1c73a2f9eb81e8aaf1efb1ab212145b2/b22acf219e74757f-8c/s500x750/9089b7b955bf60601c9f02e0470903e3f4b1f193.gifv)!~

-	BEST GIRL: Endorsi Jahad, Princess of Jahad, is my Queen. We have a close runner-up in Lauroe, for being me and everyone else during Covid lockdown – encased in a blanket 24/7.
img500(https://i1.wp.com/doublesama.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower-of-God-Episode-7-2.jpg?w=640)

-	WORST GIRL: Rachel. As a woke Nayvadius “Future” Wilburn once said:
img300(https://media.tenor.com/images/e7f58c33b832cd850c78b6864309e6f2/tenor.gif)

-	Lockdown does weird things to people, so I guess I blog now! Thanks so much for making it this far. If you happen to like my verbose over-analysis, come check out the other [reviews](https://anilist.co/user/AnimeDweeb/reviews) I’m putting out this season. Also, feel free to leave any feedback for me; I’m still trying to figure a lot of this stuff out. Stay safe, see you in the next one, peace!

img1000(https://www.gudstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Kami-no-Tou-Tower-of-God-Episode-11-Release-Date.jpg)

The Realms of WebToons and Anime Collide.

~~~*All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.*
~~~

-----

*Tower of God* is a fascinating series, and that would be true even if we looked solely at where it comes from. *Tower of God* is an anime adaptation of a South Korean webcomic. The first of many, I would venture to guess. (Indeed, if you’re reading this as it goes up, the similarly-titled but unrelated ***God of High School*** premieres in only a week or two.) But while *Tower of God*’s multinational pedigree is certainly fascinating, and does inform some of its sensibilities, it would be a mistake to preoccupy ourselves with *solely* this aspect. So let’s take a step back.

img880(https://i.imgur.com/s5fKTif.png)

*Tower of God* is the story of Bam, in many ways the very image of an archetypal shonen hero. Friendly, naturally gifted, determined, honest. Ah, and singularly devoted to a girl, who he begins his quest to scale the Tower in search of.

*Tower of God* is also the story of Rachel, who is that girl. Rachel is Bam’s opposite and his shadow, though that does not become clear until the series’ closing episodes.

There are a few ways to analyze *Tower of God*. Purely as an action series, what’s presented here is *well* above the merely competent. ToG has an interesting, clean visual style that sets it apart from most of its peers. Its plot is a pleasing mix of adrenaline-pumping fights and twisty political intrigue. The cast is colorful, both in personality and often literally, as the series’ origins as a webcomic really shine through in many of the “fuck it, it looks cool” designs of certain characters, such as the inexplicable number of ribbons that Yuri Jahad uses to tie her hair, a one-off character who is a living pink punch dummy, Anaak, a charming green lizard girl with a bobcut, and Rak, one of Bam’s main companions, who is a spear-wielding alligator-man. Even more “sensible” designs, such as those of Khun and Endorsi, make eye-catching, pleasing color choices.

img880(https://i.imgur.com/lKyKLzG.png)

In terms of actual characterization, they’re great. This is true when they’re working in surprisingly subtle, nuanced shades, say with Aguero Khun or Yu Han Sung, who operate as the series’ obligatory plan-spinners, or the intertwining histories of Anaak and Endorsi, or, indeed, Rachel. It’s equally so when dealing with broader, archetypal characters, such as Rak or for that matter, Bam himself. Nearly to a one, every character is a joy to watch work, even if it’s in a “love to hate” sense as with some of the villains.

The other point though is that *Tower of God*’s titular structure is a metaphor the size of a million skyscrapers. What for? Well, any system you care to name that pits its competitors against each other in a zero-sum game, and there are many of those. It maps most closely, in my estimation, to capitalism. Both with the foregrounding of the “haves vs. have-nots” dichotomy when Hoh betrays his team during the “tag game” arc, and the subsequent inequality and cycle of suffering that dichotomy perpetuates. Some of our characters are empowered by it: indeed, this is Bam’s role, someone deposited by fate and circumstance into a system which rewards his skill set and natural talents (making allies and shinsu manipulation, respectively). Others are much less lucky. Hoh, a blonde, horned character, is the clearest example. We never get the gory details of what, exactly, happened to his homeland, but the scattered nightmare flashbacks we get speak to the trauma on its own. In this light his betrayal makes perfect sense. Who *wouldn’t* do anything they could to come out on top of a system this vicious? 

img880(https://i.imgur.com/3wgJCal.png)

This appears to be what drives Rachel, too, whose arc is a more subtle, larger-scale reflection of Hoh’s (perhaps that’s why they’re both blonde). We never learn *why* she’s so obsessed with “becoming a star” and “being special” (as Headon, the rabbit-like ‘guardian of the Tower’, puts it), but her deep-seated envy drives the final episode of the season. It would be easy to write her off as simply a bad person (and hell, maybe she is), but *Tower of God* seems to resist such simple readings. 

img880(https://i.imgur.com/57Q9Cql.png)

There’s also, to return to the “Tag” arc, Selena, who literally exits the series at its 2/3rds marker, plainly in the Tower because she is the only survivor of a band of criminals. It’s only when the system grinds her will to fight down that she willingly leaves. She isn’t dead, and in that sense her fate is better than Hoh’s, but both have given up the fight.

But *Tower of God* also touches on other forms of inequality. Khun’s apparent exile from his family seems to have been caused by either a violation of some sort of social taboo (it’s broadly implied his relationship with his sister may have been incestuous) or a frame-up to resemble one. This is certainly a very *different* sort of inequality than the systematic oppression wrought by having or not having shinsu affinity, but it feels an interesting stab at applicability nonetheless. Our own world is certainly no stranger to ostracization on these grounds. It’s not nearly as fully-realized a metaphor as the show’s primary storytelling mechanism, but it’s interesting food for thought nonetheless.

img880(https://i.imgur.com/Mu8W3Sm.png)

There is even incremental touching on of misogyny. We learn very little concrete about the King of Jahad, but his policy that his “princesses” cannot have sex or reproduce certainly *feels* like commentary. Again, it’s not followed through-upon with the same strength as the story’s central metaphor, but it's meaningful that the show even deigns to go there.

Of course, no anime is perfect. *Tower of God*’s thoughtfulness in some areas only makes it more obvious when it’s deficient in these same regards. No dark-skinned characters play a major role, which would perhaps be less egregious if the only one who comes close, Hoh, wasn’t the only named character to die on-screen. Elsewhere, Rachel being disabled and one of the show’s more outright villainous characters feeds into the ancient “evil cripple” stereotype that fiction in general, really, should be *well* past by now. Some scenes in the finale also imply that she’s faking it, which is not any better.

On the narrative side, the simple realities of cutting even a given length of a sprawling webcomic into thirteen 22-minute episodes means things are occasionally a bit confusing. The Tower’s mechanisms being obscure and obtuse *usually* works in the show’s favor--it really only adds to the central metaphor--but it sometimes gets in the way of the show’s literal plot. The “Tag” arc is the big offender here, while the emotional beats are great, the actual logic that the tag game *works on* is rather confusing. 

*Tower of God* thus can certainly feel like the long prologue to a story we’re only going to get in full from the second season (which, one seems likely) onward. I would hasten to ask, though, is that a bad thing? All of the above is tied together with an excellently-executed action shonen setup that is rarely less than a good time. Its flaws may mark room for improvement, but on both a pure craft level and intellectually, the series excels overall.

In general, *Tower of God* stands as one of the strongest entries in the already-strong Spring 2020 anime season. That’s to be respected, and celebrated. *Tower of God* ends on an ambiguous note, Bam washed down, seemingly back to the bottom of the Tower. A still, mysterious shot of a lone figure closes the series. The cliffhangers feel pointed, a promise that *Tower of God* is nowhere *near* finished telling its story. For that, we can be hopeful.

img880(https://i.imgur.com/bX4xLIt.png)

------

And if you liked this review, [why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?](https://anilist.co/user/planetJane/reviews)

"He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary."

Anyone who's followed me for the last six or seven months knows that I've grown to be a massive Tower of God fanboy. Discovering that an anime was on its way soon after I got sucked into the world and characters of Tower of God got me extremely excited to see this masterpiece of an story get the attention it deserved. When the first trailer dropped, I somehow got even more excited than I already was. Here was a trailer that captured the artstyle of the webtoon perfectly and made some changes that I thought were certainly on the right track, like Khun's hair, for example. The music was on point too, capturing the mysterious and intriguing vibe that the Tower emanated. Then, it started airing. Now, I should point out that, objectively, pushing my webtoon bias to the side, I think Tower of God is an alright anime. Not really good or great, probably a boring, but a run-of-the-mill anime. I'll go into more detail as to why I'm not very impressed with the quality of the anime even without my biases later on, but then you add in my knowledge of the source material and here's where my feelings about this adaptation get much more complicated. I will dive into spoiler territory beyond the Favorite Character section, as usual.

Like I said earlier, Tower of God captured the aesthetic of the webtoon extraordinarily well. The watercolor aesthetic is pleasing and unique, though I have to say that I wish they had toned down the brightness a little. It makes it seem a little too lighthearted in my opinion, but that's something that I'll admit is down to personal preference more than anything. The animation quality wasn't extremely impressive, especially in the battle sequences. They all seemed so generic and underwhelmingly choreographed. It certainly would have been foolish to expect ufotable level quality from Telecom but it still feels like a bit of a letdown on that front. I loved the changes that they made with some of the character designs, namely Khun, who looks so much better from his webtoon version in season 1. The fluffy hair was definitely a good touch.
~~~img(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWoVLYjXYAIikq0.jpg)~~~
Switching to the audio design, Tower of God gets a solid pass from me. On a soundtrack level, Kevin Penkin always slaps, although I think this is definitely one of his weaker soundtracks. It doesn't have many memorable tracks outside of maybe some of the numbers in episode 1, that come to mind, but again, that's something that is relatively subjective. Stray Kids absolutely kills it with their performances of "TOP" and "SLUMP" as the opening and ending songs respectively. "SLUMP" may actually be one of the best endings I've ever heard, though the competition for that title is tough, to say the least. Outside of the music, the sound design was otherwise just meh. I thought it was really underwhelming for shinsoo and certain other moments that felt as if they should have packed a little more of a punch.

__Favorite Character:__ Endorsi Jahad
~~~img(https://i0.wp.com/animehunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Endorsi-Jahad-Tower-of-God.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1)~~~
This is where my disappointment in the anime begins in full force. Starting with Endorsi's anime portrayal. This is my favorite character in Tower of God and that's saying _a lot_ because I love so many of these characters very strongly. Firstly and most obviously, the anime removes her relationship with Bam in its entirety. In the webtoon, Bam is instrumental in her growth from a selfish Princess who only needs herself to someone who trusts her friends and doesn't look down (as much) on those who are weaker than her. They share a lot of experiences and dialogue in season 1 of the webtoon, even to the point of her developing a crush on him and telling him that they are going on a date after the final test. Then we look at the anime version of their relationship and we wonder if they even acknowledge each other's existence. They share what, one conversation? And even in that conversation, Hatz is in the room and he steals the conversation and has a shipping moment? It's so disappointing to see the removal of such a key aspect of Endorsi's character and development. Even greater than that, a huge aspect of her motivation in season 2 makes way less sense because of these completely unforced changes to her character.

I wish it was just limited to Endorsi's character, but Khun gets much of the same treatment in the anime for seemingly no reason. His backstory gets changed, on top of a lot of his personality. It's sad to see, because he's definitely still the Khun we know and love from the webtoon, but he feels like a lite version of that character due to the 'redeeming qualities' the anime seemed to force upon him. In the webtoon, we never really are sure why he's doing what he's doing and if its for himself or his friends. There's a lot of deviousness and ambiguity in Khun's character that simply gets lost in the translation between webtoon and anime. It feels pointless because of the way that they weaken his character and make him feel far less deep and believable.

I could go on about the characters and why they feel like somewhat cheap imitations compared to the source, but I had better move on. The next big disappointment for me was in the anime's overlooking of important details and subtle foreshadowing. There are far too many instances of this happening, so I'll just point out the first one that always pops into my mind whenever I start thinking about this specifically. In the first episode of the anime, we're introduced to Yuri long before she actually kicks Bam in the face. During this whole sequence, they're laying the groundwork for a lot of the early plot of the series and dropping some really important names in the process, like Urek Mazino and Phantaminum. While this flies over the head of first time viewers, its such a good bit of foreshadowing for later and introduces the strangeness of an irregular and shows you how insanely rare they are. The anime has none of this. Yuri just jumps in unexplained and gives Bam the Black March. For an anime viewer, why was she even there? For this random loser? So many moments that are weakened or simply unexplained that cause a domino effect throughout the series and weaken moments later and later because the anime is either having to play catch up or find a new way to make a moment make sense without the groundwork being properly laid.

Obviously, I can only scratch the surface with so many of these issues that occur time and time again in Tower of God's anime adaptation. There's still so much more that I could explore, but you get the idea. I feel like a valid question to ask here would be: What makes an adaptation good? Is it in the complete and totally faithful retelling of the original work? The proper retelling of the story? Making changes to more properly tell the story and explore different characterization? I think the answer lies somewhere in a mix of all of those. If we look back through history at some of the best adaptations in anime, we can look at works like Attack on Titan or March Comes in Like a Lion who faithfully adapt the series for the most part. The key is understanding what can be trimmed from adapting the work and what needs to be added. Obviously, there were moments that the anime version of Tower of God would have had to trim from the runtime, but we didn't need to use that extra time on Rak eating candy bars (Why are they not Bananas?!?). I think a lot of it comes down to directing passion. Toward the end of production, the assistant director took over and the quality took a massive upturn in both faithfulness and overall quality. It makes me kind of sad seeing the quality get so much better in the latter three episodes or so because it makes me wish that the other ten could have been as good.

Clearly, thirteen episodes is too little to adapt such a dense work as Tower of God, but its doable. A lot of these factors soften my opinion on the adaptation somewhat. Time constraints are no joke and this is an anime that could have used fifteen episodes just to pack in those details that would have elevated this season to a much higher quality. Will I be watching a season 2? Probably. I simply love this world and these characters too much and the last few episodes definitely gave me a little hope that season 2 can capture the hype better. As it stand though, season 1 was a massive disappointment to me not only as a source material reader, but also someone who likes good anime. It just doesn't manage to make itself very interesting even to me who has the passion for the material, so I can't imagine how boring and uninteresting it may have been to some others. I'd like to take this moment to apologize if any readers feel as if I'm leveraging an elitist attitude for having read the webtoon beforehand, but I hope you understand that its simply passion for one of my favorite works of art ever. I hope that the anime (and this review, hopefully) at least pushed many new people to read the webtoon for themselves and experience the absolutely phenomenal world and gripping story that SIU has crafted so masterfully.

Tower of God, ruined potential, and what makes an adaptation good.

~~~__"Climb the Tower, and everything will be yours."__

_This is my first review, and it contains spoilers. I am not going to put spoiler tags here, so please be careful if you haven't watched/read this series._
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img500(https://i1.wp.com/www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0220_78300_CR_Tower-of-God-Key-Visual_Crunchyroll-lockups2x3.png?fit=1200%2C500&ssl=1)

A while back, an anime adaptation was announced for the Tower of God webtoon. I, personally, had never even heard about the webtoon up until I heard about the hype surrounding the anime. I heard many people call it the best anime of the season and even the best anime of the year before it began airing. I decided to watch it as well and see if it deserved the hype. 

As a person who had never read the webtoon before, I enjoyed it. But it wasn't quite like what I initially expected.
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img500(https://66.media.tumblr.com/91e8284c835187e0f3c28c0cef70adf8/bca3ed3a4da9c3a6-c4/s500x750/adc9179d84f0eb64b820f55886aac940a17a14ff.gifv)
The premise of the series is relatively simple; a girl called Rachel attempts to climb the Tower, a mythical place where legends become reality, to 'see the stars above', and a boy called Twenty-Fifth Bam follows, wishing for nothing but to be with her. Immediately after Bam tries to climb the Tower, the story is set up into an exam arc, similar to the Hunter Exams or the Chunin Exams, in which new characters are introduced through the various tests and intearctions that they have with each other. The story is relatively fast paced and does not hesitate to throw off the viewer with the amount of events happening each episode. While I do understand that this was a problem for many people, particularly for people who read the webtoon and were not satisfied with the pacing and the amount of information left out (from what I've heard), I enjoyed not having everything explained to me. I understood immediately that this season was a prologue of sorts to establish the characters and the world. Instead of giving the viewer tons of information, Tower of God chose to give us small chunks, leaving a bunch of plotholes and unexplained events. It was almost as if the show itself asked us questions throughout its run, and I appreciated this, for not only did it establish most the characters and the world relatively well, but it also allowed us to think for ourselves and to leave us guessing for what would happen the next episode (with a fair share of foreshadowing too). The only problem I had with this type of storytelling was that certain characters ended up being quite shallow and underdeveloped and the fact that the show failed to leave much of an impact because of the amount of plotholes, but I'll get into that a bit later.
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img500(https://gadgetfreeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Kami-no-Tou-Tower-of-God-Episode-7.jpg)

The artstyle/animation was another aspect that receieved a lot of hate from many people. Well, I'm going to be honest:

The audiovisuals (particularly the animation) were easily the __best parts__ of the show.

Tower of God (well, at least at this very early point in the story) is relatively simple. It's a character-driven plot that has no need for complicated designs and Violet Evergarden or ufotable-like animation. In fact, the simple backgrounds and simple designs fit very well with the story and improves upon the atmosphere, in my opinion. I do believe that the colour scheme was a bit uncoordinated at times, with the background being a bit too bright or the foreground being a bit too dark, but it wasn't a major problem. The fight scenes were very smooth and sleek, with fluid, well-choreographed movements. There were a few problems with still frames, but it didn't necessarily make the anime a lot worse. The character design is messy to a certain extent, but it fits each of the characters very well. Apparently, this was done to resemble the webtoon in its early stages, and I appreciate Telecom for choosing to draw the characters this way instead of doing a more generic design. In addition, no two characters look exactly the same, which also adds to the vibrant world that is Tower of God. 

The soundtrack is another very strong point of the series. Penned by the amazing Kevin Penkin (Made in Abyss), each of the soundtracks are used at exactly the right moment. There are no cases of overused songs at all (except maybe that one guitar theme that played each time Bam had flashbacks to his past with Rachel, but that's my favourite track so I didn't really care). Each track is memorable and adds to the vibe that the anime has, and at the same time it doesn't take the viewer's attention away from the anime either, which is what all soundtracks should aim to achieve. The voice acting was another strong point of the anime, with each of the characters having a voice that fit them very well. Honourable mention to Endorsi's VA, who was easily the best voice in the show in my opinion. The only problem I had with the OST as a whole were the opening's visuals and the ending as a whole. The opening, sung by the K-pop group Stray Dogs, is a vibrant, electronic tune that is insanely addictive, but is coupled with mediocre visuals. (Um... what were all those black screens about?) Unfortunately, I don't have as much praise for the ending; sure, it lightened the mood when the episode ended on a tense note but it's very forgettable and generic on its own.
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img500(https://animeshelter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tower-of-god-episode-3-11.png)

And now we move into the characters. Speaking of generic, I've heard lot of hate circulate around the main character Bam, saying that he's a useless main character and a 'simp' for Rachel. According to webtoon readers, this season is the prologue; as such, it focuses on building the world and not the characters. Sure, I would have liked to see Bam do more than just rely on Khun and think about Rachel so much, but he's a good main character in his own way. His only reason for living, Rachel, left him alone in the dark without anyone to rely with, so of course he'll be scared and alone. He was thrown into the Tower with only the determination to find Rachel, having no idea what the Tower even is. Of course he would be asking questions over and over again. Of course he would be cautious and afraid. Bam might get annoying for his whining at times, but he's one of the most honest main characters I've seen in a while, and I respect the author for choosing to make Bam like this instead of a typical, loud shonen protagonist. Over the course of the show, we see him conflicted on whether he should get involved with Rachel once again, which was to be expected: he obviously had no way of knowing that he would see her this early in his journey.

And then we have our edgy side character Khun Aguero Agnes. He's a smart, rational, cool-headed guy able to make quick, effective decisions whenever the time calls for it. While it is true that the anime showed why he couldn't open up to people easily because of what happened in his past, he mostly remained to be the mysterious person he was when he was first introduced at the end of the anime. I don't know, maybe he gets better in the second season...? I didn't really like Khun throughout the show ~~(except when he ties his hair in a ponytail and becomes the ultimate alpha male).~~

Rachel was another character that I found quite interesting. She showed so much love towards Bam, so why did she go dark all of a sudden? I honestly found Rachel to be one of the most interesting characters in the whole show. I wanted to know more about her and her motives. Why is she acting like this and why does she continue to try and hide her identity? And how will the actions that she takes going forward have an effect on Bam? Why does she try and avoid Bam after they see each other again? I found myself wanting to know the answer to these questions more and more as the show moved towards the finale (which, unfortunately, wasn't as surprising as I thought it would be due to stupid webtoon readers spoiling everything).

As for the other characters, they each have quirky, unique personalities and add their own unique flair to the world around them. Unfortunately, since this season focused on world-building as I said many times before, many of the characters were left severely underdeveloped and didn't have any form of development apart from their personality. I do hope that the characters which were left as empty shells of one of their personality traits and nothing else (see: Rak being loud and calling Khun and Bam turtles, Hatz being an edgelord, Shibisu being a dollar-store version of Natsuki Subaru) develop in potential future seasons.
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img 500(https://media1.tenor.com/images/6ba1dffe07b3072509bcfee10613d1bc/tenor.gif?itemid=16831903)

Tower of God is a well-made anime, but it is not without its flaws (some of the more minor ones I stated above). Ultimately, while the anime explores interesting concepts and aims to expand its world and cast of characters, the main problem with this series is that suffers from serious direction problems, meaning that it fails to carve an identity for itself and fails to establish a flow between the ideas it introduces. What I mean by this is that this anime introduces a bunch of new ideas, but fails to bring these ideas into a cohesive story, and it feels more like a collection of different ideas than an actual story. Much of the foreshadowing and built-up tension in certain episodes failed to leave much of an impact on me as they were quickly replaced with a more down-to earth scene. A lot of the 'serious' moments didn't feel that serious at all due to the varied and fast-paced nature of the show. The anime introduced a bunch of ideas and concepts throughout its run, but very few of them were thoroughly explored and many of the events that have happened in this first season have yet to be explained properly. While this isn't a problem if the anime ever gets a continuation with a longer season (say, 26 episodes for example), it raises a number of irregularities and unexplained details as a standalone series. In addition, the pacing happens to be a bit too irregular and all-over the place for my liking, as there were some quite slow episodes mixed in with very fast-paced ones as well. Cramming about 70-ish chapters in 13 episodes didn't seem to work well in the past (I'm looking at you, Tokyo Ghoul) and it clearly didn't work well here either. Again, this meant that there wasn't much of a flow between scenes, and a potential second season will hopefully make up for it.

Another problem I had with this anime was the lack of strong emotions that I felt while watching this weekly. Now this may be more of a personal issue than a general problem for everyone because I find it extremely hard to get invested in seasonal anime, but the series failed to connect with me and leave a lasting impact. While it is true that I would excitedly wait for the next episode, when the episode actually came out and I began to watch it, I felt a bit...disappointed? This might have been due to the irregular pacing or the flawed direction, but I think it had more to do with the atmosphere that the anime set up. Tower of God carried the same 'vibe' throughout its run, and while I do admit that this is much better than a show losing its own identity, it also means that it failed to make me feel a variety of emotions. Sometimes, taking a risk and doing something different works very well, and Tower of God chose to stay mostly the same instead of experimenting with different styles of direction, which I personally think could have benefited the show much better. Because I liked the audiovisuals and the concepts that were introduced so much, I still ended up appreciating the anime, but I honestly didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
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Overall, I'll answer three questions that I think sum up this review nicely:

Have I read the webtoon? No.

Does it live up to the hype? To a certain extent. Both Yes and No.

Did I enjoy the anime? For the most part, Yes.

It has its flaws, but it's worth a try, and it's a fresh breath of air for this very dry anime season. Whether you just scrolled to the bottom to see the score, or read the whole thing, thanks for taking time off your busy day to look at this review. This is my very first review, and I'm definitely not used to talking about an anime in this amount of detail. Any criticisms/feedback about this review would be highly appreciated. Let me know what you think.

Story: 7.5/10
Animation: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Characters: 6.5/10
Direction/Enjoyment: 5.5/10

TOTAL: 7.3/10~~~

Climb the Tower, and everything will be yours.

<center> 
#**Tower of God: A Lesson in Expectations**</center>
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img1000(https://i.imgur.com/x6yxCn3.png)

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Note: This review is an assessment of the anime adaptation and the material it adapts alone. If I incorporated outside material I’d be writing a review of the entire Tower of God franchise rather than the anime adaptation, and that wouldn’t make for a fair evaluation of a show.

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**Warning:** There are minor spoilers ahead
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Just as man built the Tower of Babel to reach the heavens, I found myself metaphorically climbing along with the Kami no Tou aka Tower of God (ToG) hype. With such cultural influence, ToG inevitably came to life as the trailblazer anime adaptation of manhwa. Unfortunately, just as the tale of the Tower of Babel doesn’t end the way mankind wants, neither does the ToG adaptation.

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Story: 3.5/10
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The defining issue that rises from the ToG adaptation’s story is depth. Pacing is erratic for storytelling and worldbuilding but holds up decently in maintaining the high stakes, competitive fighting on the Testing Floor. There are missing details that hinder the shows overall world building.

Characters, noticeably, lack characterization. Specifically, why is Khun so fascinated by Bam and why does that mean he treats Bam differently than others (specifically in regards to trust)? Why does Yuri, the supposed ferocious “Jahad’s Imp,” just readily hand over one of the most powerful weapons in the ToG universe to Bam, who belongs to the same group of individuals that threaten the status quo, within minutes of meeting him? Why does Bam, an uncompelling character, become the object of everyone’s affection? Turns out, none of these questions have a satisfactory answer that matches the observed actions or stated history of the cast outside of “for the sake of the plot” which degrades the continuity of the story.

This isn't to say that questions at the end of the first season of a show are bad. In fact, it's in all likelihood good for the high fantasy/pseudo-isekai setting of ToG. The critical distinction that exists between the ToG plot questions and an anime that executes the mystery well is captivation. Ultimately, I can recognize that these questions play a crucial role in the continuity of the plot, but the current construction of the characters and environment leaves me with a general apathy towards their “soon-to-be” answers. This is a bad use of confusion, there must be some purpose behind a mystery. Maybe there is a sudden finite window of time to do something, maybe the cast’s survival is contingent on participating in the journey, or maybe we even just grow to resonate with the protagonist and their vision for the future. These three motives can all be identified as an expression of the “call to adventure” in the hero’s journey, yet ToG’s call to adventure is just about as nebulous as it gets. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you want, or why you want it, just climb the tower. This is frankly uncompelling and doesn't do itself favors in elevating the levels of suspense and intrigue.

img1000(https://i.imgur.com/WsrgL5i.jpg)

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Art: 1.9/10
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This is where the adaptation falls woefully short to the point of laziness. Composed of flat pencil sketches with minimal shading, the animation frankly looks lifeless outside of dynamic scenes such as fights. Even then, fights are definitely not up to industry standard with a comical misunderstanding of how motion works.

The adaptation is a faithful representation of the early manhwa art; however, these comments aren’t particularly convincing. While the early manhwa panels are quite bad, the later artwork in the manhwa is significantly improved and likely better encapsulates SIU’s vision for the series. It’s not enough to just follow along with the source material without a critical evaluation of why the source material is conveyed the way it is. Poor source material art is not an excuse for poor art in the adaptation.

The opening animation is also indicative of a lazy animation effort as the viewer is treated with 5-second increments of animation followed by cuts to black credit screens for no narrative purpose. Animation quality is critical in action anime, and ToG falls woefully short of the industry standard.

img1000(https://imgur.com/XCLtBfZ.gif)
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Sound: 7.2/10
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The opening is nice with the feature of being Korean; however, it’s doesn’t stand out to me as particularly iconic. The background/ambient music helps dampen the obtrusive drawn environments and frame the tension. Some of the supporting characters struck me as having strange voices for the characters; however, these are quite minor.

img1000(https://i.imgur.com/sGSl8ts.gif)
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Characters: 3.4/10
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Simply put, ToG’s characters are lackluster and even uncompelling. Of the main cast, Bam is a boring and personality-less character, Khun is essentially the Killua of ToG sans the fleshed out emotional baggage, and, quite egregiously, the rest of the cast has an inexplicable love for Bam. Only Rak from the main cast is likable as a stubborn to a fault warrior that adds some actual comedic relief. This may not be how Rak is meant to be portrayed, but, considering the rest of the cast, it’s no surprise that Rak is usually the focal point of memorable character dynamics. However, if the rest of the main cast was properly developed, I could see Rak as being quite obtrusive.

img1000(https://i.imgur.com/DdS92rV.jpg)
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Enjoyment: 3.6/10
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Unfortunately, I can’t say I enjoyed the adaptation very much. ToG is supposed to be an extraordinarily vibrant yet simultaneously perilous world. I can’t help but feel that the magic of the world is noticeably missing. This anime definitely serves as the biggest wake-up call regarding hypetrains for me in recent memory.

img1000(https://i.imgur.com/fFB7wtY.jpg)
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**Overall: 3.9/10**
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In all likelihood, ToG has changed the landscape of anime. ToG had many expectations, well-founded expectations that many sincerely wish would be met to redefine the medium. The ensuing hype alone is indicative of the sheer possibility of anime to adapt and bring to life our favorite stories. That alone is commendable. However, as an actual work, ToG doesn’t live up to the hype. For the reasons I’ve stated above, ToG is subpar. However, this may be subject to change as more material is adapted. This is not a story well suited for a 13 episode seasonal anime run. In the end, ToG falls woefully short of the imposing world it has sought to convey.

In a one-dimensional story, there are two directions. Hype brings you up the tower, disappointment brings you down.

~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tower-of-God-Banner.png)~~~

Whatever many might say, _Tower of God_ is not the first Korean work to get an anime adaptation. From the obscure _[Shin Angyo Onshi](https://anilist.co/anime/884/Blade-of-the-Phantom-Master/)_ to those people barely know were originally Korean such as _[Freezing](https://anilist.co/anime/9367/Freezing/)_. Whatever the reason, be it heated diplomatic relations or just disinterest in the works, Japanese adaptations of Korean works are rare. So to see one of Korea's largest series in _Tower of God_, originally created by [SIU](https://anilist.co/staff/119297/SIU) and read by millions, get one is a momentous occasion. Its success could mean the opening of the door for other Korean series, such as _[The Breaker](https://anilist.co/manga/38586/The-Breaker/)_. A possible breath of fresh to what sometimes feels like a stagnating industry. Its failure could mean that door stays shut for a long time to come. So the question is, is it good? Adapted by [Telecom Animation](https://anilist.co/studio/94/Telecom-Animation-Film) and Directed by [Takashi Sano](https://anilist.co/staff/141892/Takashi-Sano), this is _Tower of God_. Let's dive in.

And warning, this review will contain spoilers for Tower of God.

__(_Disclaimer_: This review contains minor spoilers for _Tower of God_. I am also working to make 50 the new "average". 70 is not an average score people. 70 is above average. You can also find individual episode write ups and comment on this review on my [Star Crossed blog](https://starcrossedanime.com/tower-of-god-anime-review-56-100/). Carry on.)__

~~~img(https://i2.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tower-of-God-2.6.png)~~~

# __~~~Art/Animation~~~__

Lets start with the obvious, something everyone can appreciate, the visuals. As far as art style goes, I like _Tower of God's_ quite a bit. There is a roughness, a hand drawn quality, to the designs that I love. It feels like it was drawn by hand rather than smoothly generated on a computer, most of the time at least. Similar to _[Mob Psycho 100](https://anilist.co/anime/21507/Mob-Psycho-100/)_, its clear that Telecom Animation wanted to remain true to the original Webtoon's style. This gives _Tower of God_ a level of personality, of visual uniqueness, that sets it apart from most generic moe blob anime today. On top that _Tower of God_ makes very light use of shading, keeping characters skin and clothing the same uniform color throughout. With only deep blacks to denote any kind of shadow. Compared to the often post-processed backgrounds, this allows the characters to really pop when on screen.

On the backgrounds themselves, these can range from bland and monotone to beautiful, sweeping landscapes. The variety of backgrounds throughout _Tower of God_ is impressive to say the least, though a number do suffer from the original Webtoons limitations. It's obvious in a number of scenes, such as the Crown Game or Tag, that the authors layout and design skills were still developing. Beyond those though, many of the anime original backgrounds are stunning. Some make use of a more painterly style, with brush strokes and blending colors while others rely heavily on post-processing effects to really nail their lighting or dust/clouds. It's these second ones that I like the most, as they remind me almost of Sci-Fi promo art. They do a fantastic job of building this fantastical world, of telling us "this isn't earth".

Sadly, as much as I enjoy the backgrounds and character designs, _Tower of God_ suffers in the animation department. Don't get me wrong, if you want action scenes, there are definitely a few for you. In particular the middle and final arcs have some great combat and character animation, the Anaak especially stealing the show a few times. However what _Tower of God_ isn't is consistent, with a number of action heavy scenes just not getting the treatment they need to work. Sometimes the art style can carry these scenes through, with coloring and line-working making the motions easier to follow. But as a series, _Tower of God_ just isn't on the same level as other stand out shows of the year such as *Eizouken* or *Kaguya-sama Season 2*. That doesn't mean it's bad. Just not great.

~~~img(https://i1.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower-of-God-6.2.png)~~~

#~~~__Direction__~~~

Moving on we come to the direction of the series, and this is again inconsistent. When _Tower of God_ wants to, it can frame some beautiful shots. Just look above, or perhaps at anything during the final test’s underwater segments, for proof of that. On the flip-side however we have instances such as episode 12, with its constant cuts every minute making it difficult to follow, or some questionable choreography in a fight few scenes. These are rare, but at least in episode 12’s case, it impacted large chunks of the series and made it difficult to watch. More often than not _Tower of God_ is fine, it does what it needs to do as inoffensively as possible. Occasionally it rises above that, and just as often it falls below, ultimately resulting in what I would call the “average” cinematic experience. That’s more than a lot of series can claim.

~~~img(https://i0.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower-of-God-7.2.png)~~~

#~~~__Setting/Story__~~~

Now we can get to the meat of _Tower of God_, the story and the setting. The core of the original Webtoon story is there. I never found _Tower of God_ particularly well written, but it made for some good popcorn fun. The issue with the anime though, and we will talk in specific adaptation issues later, comes down to pacing. The anime attempted to adapt 78 chapters of content into a single 13 episode season. In some ways, this worked just fine, the core of the story is all there. Bam enters the tower, starts climbing it, hi-jinks ensue. In fact some arcs even benefit from this condensed adaptation. Take the final arc for instance, where a lot of fat was cut and it feels a fair bit tighter. Considering this is effectively a prologue for the rest of the series, that sounds good right?

Well sadly I would say more was lost than was gained through this condensing of the story. Large portions of the original plot were either cut or moved around, and this has already caused some issues, not to mention possible future seasons. Character motivations have gotten modified, tests aren’t properly explained and important pieces of world building are left by the wayside. Take for instance the Tag test, where we are given no proper reason why Quant can’t intervene. In the original work, there is a clear answer here, as with many such questions the anime gives us. The anime just ignores this however. In it’s quest to quickly adapt the core of _Tower of God’s_ prologue, it has failed to capture all of the small details that made the original story so appealing. That gave this world it’s lived in sense of life and scale.

All that said, while the details are lacking and the greater scope of the story is lost, the core is there. And at its core, _Tower of God_ is still a popcorn action series. We still get the fights, we still get the characters and we still get at least some of the interesting world building. And _Tower of God’s_ world is one of my favorite aspects of it. This idea of a tower, with everything you dream of at the top, everyone climbing for said dream. With those in charge of the Tower weeding out not those unworthy, but those who don’t fit their vision for the Tower. Death and betrayal permeate this world, and _Tower of God_ does a great job of showing that off, while still keeping this small spark of light in our main cast.

~~~img(https://i0.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower-of-God-8.3.png)~~~

#~~~__Characters__~~~

Speaking of cast, lets talk about them, because _Tower of God_ has quite a large one. Even after cutting down on and merging multiple supporting characters, there are still over a dozen characters to know. Some such as Lauroe or Paracule are relatively simple and straightforward. Others however, such as Anaak and Endorsi, are nothing of the sort. Sadly however, our lead character Bam falls into the first group. As far as this first season goes, Bam is a bit of wet blanket. He is naive and inexpressive, filling that “nice guy” role and generally being a basic audience surrogate. It doesn’t help that what little defining personality he had was shaved down by a rushed adaption. Simply put, it is not Bam that really drives or makes any of the relationships in _Tower of God_ interesting. Rather it’s the other parties involved who put in all the work.

Take for instance my favorite character of the series, who was robbed of some of her biggest moments, Endorsi. Bam has never contributed much to this relationship, existing primarily for Endorsi to bounce off of. However his character was constructed in such a way that they complement each other. Bam’s naive determination to climb with his friends, contrasting Endorsi’s colder and distrusting nature did wonders in transforming her character. For the first time she met someone who didn’t care about her status, who didn’t see her as a Princess but as Endorsi. This same person who see’s her alone and, understanding what its like, wants to eat lunch with her just so she doesn’t feel lonely. Combine all of this with complex feelings toward the Tower’s establishment and her relationship with Anaak and you have yourself a Best Girl. Sadly, _Tower of God_ cut most of that in its adaptation.

It’s these two extremes, complex and flawed side by side with shallow and uninteresting, that make up the cast. For every Endorsi we have a Lauroe, for every Anaak a Bam. Characters like Rak are loud, fun and make for an entertaining watch, but any deeper inspection reveals there really isn’t much behind them. If all you want is a fun action series with just enough depth for an occasional “Oh no” moment, _Tower of God_ has that in spades. However, at least for myself, this is the last place I would look for meaningful or impactful storytelling. As they are adapted, _Tower of God’s_ characters don’t make me think about my own life or any complex issues. They don’t leave lasting impressions or stick in my mind beyond “She’s cute”. They just exist for some brightly colored popcorn action series fun.

~~~img(https://i0.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tower-of-God-2.10.png)~~~

#~~~__OST/Sound Design__~~~

Next comes sound design, which I can wholeheartedly say I love. Sadly the OST is yet unreleased, so I will have to make do with youtube rips, but bear with me. You see, I have a soft spot for the sort of Gothic choir aesthetic, and [Kevin Penkin](https://anilist.co/staff/121796/Kevin-Penkin) nails that. Tracks such as [“Princess of Jahad”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-mNVLEHEA&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=34) or [“Black March”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aOxqPfMw1g&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=1) (unofficial titles), drench _Tower of God_ in this almost religious, godly feeling. The weight of the vocals and drums bearing down on you oppressively. It’s not an aesthetic I hear often in anime, and though I am not particularly religious myself, it’s one I enjoy listening to. There are so many connotations and so much history behind the style of music that you can’t help but feel like you are in a church when you hear them. And what could be more fitting for _Tower of God_ than a church?

Meanwhile for battles and more character focused scenes, Penkin doesn’t restrict himself to just the Gothic choir. In tracks like [“Run”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pB6qTf5bIU&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=10) he branches out to a more techno or pop beat, imparting energy to fit with the movement on screen. Similarly there are tracks like [“Protect”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1i4gtZU7LE&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=17) that give us a slow build to the action, while still working in that choir, yet for a completely different effect. You can also see this in the multitude of character themes. Take for instance [“Rachel”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmqOVeJjGDo&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=12) or [“25th Bam 2“](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jlVOXS2rhM&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=15), both of which stand out from the rest of the OST and character themes, denoting their status as Irregulars. Singling these characters out even through just their on screen themes. Similarly in [“Khun Past“](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GWNyNZkHYY&list=PLOseTNHq-FlcxSnu3XNcOI8RMIbftd43Y&index=13), an entirely piano driven piece focusing in on Khun’s past and how he deals with people. Listening through this OST, it’s hard not to find pieces I love.

Overall, _Tower of God_ might not be my favorite anime OST, its without a doubt a good one. Kevin Penkin said when interviewed about the series that he has [“[…] been gearing up to write this music for 10 years”](https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2020/04/29/tower-of-gods-kevin-penkin-ive-been-gearing-up-to-write-this-music-for-10-years) and it definitely shows. Just like his work on other series like Made in Abyss, Penkin has managed to create something unique here that will no doubt sit in my playlist for quite a while. Because not only is _Tower of God’s_ OST varied, but it is varied with reason, with each one fitting it’s particular scene or character. Yes, I could nitpick the one or two off or forgettable tracks, but what is the point in that when the whole package works as well as it does? Just like 1 good track can’t save an OST, 1 forgettable track can’t sink it. And _Tower of God’s_ is far from sunk.

~~~img(https://i1.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tower-of-God-11.6.png)~~~

#~~~__On Adaptations__~~~

Finally, we come to whether or not _Tower of God_ is a good adaptation or not. If you havn’t read the original work, or simply don’t care, then feel free to skip this part. This exists for source readers who want to know how the anime adapts the original comic and has no bearing on the overall score. That said, let’s get into it, and know that there are heavy spoilers in this section.

As a source reader, I am not happy with _Tower of God_. I said above that the core of the story is still there, and that is true. However it was never the core of _Tower of God_ that I truly enjoyed. Rather it was the little details sprinkled throughout that gave this world such a sense of life. Some of the change’s aren’t that bad, and some are even for the better. Arcs are condensed and characters are irrelevant characters are merged to give them slightly larger roles than they otherwise would have. Take Levin, who originally passes the 2nd floor. Here he is the one to fail Lero Ro’s test and since we have already met him, if even for a moment, that gives it a tad more weight. Or giving Paracule a greater sense of humor, to endear him more to the audience. These are good!

Sadly these are far outweighed by what _Tower of God_ gets wrong. The big offender here for me is Endorsi, and her treatment throughout the season. Her entire relationship with Bam has been put into jeopardy, as a large number of her scenes were for time. She no longer talks to him about how she feels lonely, nor does she promise him a date after he returns from the final test. She isn’t teaching him hand-to-hand nor has she really explored her relationship with Anaak. Considering she is my favorite character in the entire series, and Best Girl besides that, it hurts. Their relationship is incredibly important to both of their characters, adding a lot of weight to scenes where Endorsi has to go against the will of Jahad to help Bam. And if we ever get a 2nd season, I don’t see how they can fix this.

Another example of mishandling cannon is the finale of the entire season. Bam’s shock and disbelief is replaced with a steadfast will and some nonsensical dialogue. Going on about how he will find his own answers, only to then agree to climb the Tower, exactly what Hwayrun wants. Similarly Hansung’s rings are missing from those going up, really throwing a wrench into any future plot. Simply put, _Tower of God_ fails as an adaptation. If all you want is to see some of your favorite characters animated and voiced, then don’t worry you will leave happy. For those of us that wanted to relive what it was like reading the original arc all those years ago however… I fear the highs just aren’t there. From what I have heard, this isn’t an issue for anime-only, but such is the source reader curse. As for me? I’m just disappointed.

~~~img(https://i1.wp.com/starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower-of-God-6.1.png)~~~

#~~~__Conclusion__~~~

So all in all, how was _Tower of God_? Ultimately, as a source reader, I left disappointed. I had expectations from the source material that were not met. All I can think of, watching this series, is how much better it could have been. How much better the character arcs or the fights could have been, had they been faithful. Looking at it from the perspective of an anime-only however? I see a good time, with no strings attached. For all its pacing and story issues, _Tower of God_ still delivered a complete prologue. So even if we never get a season 2, watchers can feel like they have a complete story. A small one, but still a complete one. And in my mind, combined with what highs _Tower of God_ did manage to give us, that’s worth something. At the least, it’s the 2700 words I took writing this.

So give it a shot. Worst thing you lose is a few hours. Thanks for reading.

A decent popcorn action series, but for fans of the source, a failure of an adaptation.

# ____~~~Simpception. ~~~____

~~~A Tower of God review~~~

~~~What am I talking about?~~~

One of the highly anticipated animes of spring 2020, Tower of God a Crunchyroll original in association with Line webtoon. This series was expected to serve as a gateway for webtoon adaptations and acknowledgment of Webtoon as an adaptable source material on its own. The 13 episode season produced by TMS covers the first season of SIU’s work. Though the initial chapters of the webtoon look bland and tasteless, TMS’s unorthodox production quality coupled with Kevin Penkin’s music hit the mark. The ending and opening songs performed by popular Korean boy band Stray Kids and an OST composed by Made in Abyss’ Kevin were a auditory thrill.

~~~img(https://animemotivation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/tower-of-god-anime-characters-wallpaper.jpg)~~~

~~~What is it about?~~~


The plot kicks off with a young and ambitious Bam (Yoru in the Japanese adaptation) wanting to climb the Tower of God, a gateway to one’s greatness. Headon the guardian of the tower lays down the rules to climb the tower and presents the first challenge. Intimidating at first glance, Bam overcomes with little effort with the help of Yuri Ha one of the princesses of Jahad, the ruling household of the tower . Moreover we learn about Rachel, the reason why Bam decided to take up the monumental task. Bam who appeared out of nowhere was taken in by Rachel who transformed into a kind and presentable person. Bam proceeds to round 2 with Yuri Ha’s sword The Black March one of the 13 month series swords, after a confrontation with him Yuri ends up pursuing Bam in order to retrieve the sword.

In the round 2 of the qualifiers Bam meets Khun , an azure haired mastermind with a dark past and a Brawns over brains alligator looking creature Rak. The three form a trio and overcome initial hurdles posed by Lero Ro, voiced by the omnipresent Tsuda Kenjiro. Meanwhile Rachel (using an alias of Michelle Light) who also manages to form a trio ravages through the qualifiers alongside Endorosi another prince of Jahad.

~~~
Bam and co form an alliance that sweeps through the latter stages with one of their accomplices getting killed moreover Bam discovers Light’s true identity which previously she had asked Khun to hide. Anak daughter of another princess of Jahad possesses a 13 month sword which she inherited from her mother, Endorosi turns a sour throat over this and challenges Anak for a deul in which both sustain injuries. Hang Sung an evaluator of the test a graceful yet malicious character who is depicted to be running a scheme behind the scenes as he poses an obstacle for Bam in every test. Later on a retrieval agent under the king of Jahad is tipped off by Hang Sung which leads to confrontation between the three princesses and the Ranker ends up in defeat of the latter. The penultimate episode which left us on a cliffhanger created the necessary hype for the season finale to end on a high. 

~~~Should you watch it?~~~
~~~img(https://miro.medium.com/max/3200/1*33xnpxRWh7WUl6Ttjj1tRg.jpeg)~~~
Coming from an acclaimed source authored by SIU, ToG lived upto its expectations. Great production quality offered by TMS with an equally incredible music work lifted up the show’s ratings. A great development of Bam’s character can be seen, who initially starts off as Rachel’s simp evolves into a self-reliant and strong character through power of friendship. Khun is another character who was sought after in the anime, his unparalleled fondness towards Bam and helping him in every stage of the test a sketch of his past is also show and an Acquaintance of his gets a bit of screen time towards the end. An average Shounen canon that transcends its genre which disappointed me in the beginning  owing to its generic  theme in an innovative premise , evolves towards the half way mark and goes up by a mile towards the end , the cliffhangers, the quality of animation , narrative structure and even pacing makes it a true eye candy.  

An anime well catered to match a binge watcher’s taste, is so far the most recommended anime of 2020. Garnering a rating of 7.92/10 on MAL and a 4.8/5 on crunchyroll is a no brainer if you love webtoons, even if you aren’t a big fan of medium its sure an anime to quench your thirst for unorthodox animation and long running series. 

~~~Conclusion
~~~
~~~img(https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tower-of-God-Season-1-Finale-mystery-character-header.png?q=50&fit=crop&w=960&h=500)~~~
 It would be a shame not to say ToG opened the gateway of new era of Webtoon adaptations. With a couple other webtoons getting adapted ToG sure did its job and is bound to get a second season. The anime even managed to draw more people to its source material who wanted to get on the update reader club. 

~~~__All in all a great prologue to an epic saga yet to unfold, that falls short at a certain places overcoming its shortcomings with a great plot.__~~~


__

Description : 
~~~__Bonjour à tous__~~~
On se retrouve aujourd'hui pour faire le point sur cette anime : __Kami no Tou__.

~~~img(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WKVIto4a354/XqHMfkV5wCI/AAAAAAAAXs4/ymcvyNbJpDsP0scxsdU7thNZsIyH8WjpwCLcBGAsYHQ/w914-h514-p-k-no-nu/tower-of-god-anime-bam-and-rachel-uhdpaper.com-4K-7.1956-wp.thumbnail.jpg)~~~

Pour commencer, __Kami no Tou__ est un anime qui nous raconte l'histoire de Bam et de Rachelle. Elle, le fuis pour atteindre son rêve et lui la suit, car il ne peut vivre sans elle. Nous suivons donc ce jeu du chat et de la souris entre les deux personnages principaux.
Premièrement, ce que j'aime bien dans cette adaptation, c'est qu'elle suit le manwha en apportant quelques trucs en plus comme les superbes graphismes des personnages, car en renvoyant les scans, on se rend compte que les chara-design n'étais pas vraiment beau dans la version originale.
Il y a aussi le scénario, qui pour moi, même si j'avais déjà lu les scans, ne m'a pas empêcher d'apprécier le déroulement de l'intrigue avec tous les rebondissements et les situations imprévues, c'est toujours aussi bon.
De plus, nous pouvons aussi parler des différentes scènes de combats qui sont également très bien réalisés et qui m'ont fait franchement de l'effet.
J'attends aussi de voir ce que la suite, au niveau de l'anime nous reserve, car ayant déjà lu les scans, je peux vous promettre que ça va envoyer du très lourd. 
Ce que j'ai bien aimé aussi, c'est que l'on suit le personnage principal (Bam) dans son évolution, que ça soit physique (combat) ou dans sa construction psychologique (stratégie/tactique, mais également sentimental). Je pense que ce point nous permet de nous accrocher assez facilement à son caractère et sa personnalité.

~~~img(https://digistatement.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2020.04.15-06.21-boundingintocomics-5e96a7da1def5-750x375.png)~~~

___Conclusion :___

__Kami no Tou__ est un superbe anime qui reprends bien les codes d'un Shonen, tout en restant fidèle à son origine (manwha), ce qui est pour le plus agréable pour ceux qui ont déjà lu les scans (comme moi XD). Sinon, je vous le conseil vraiment car les graphiques sont beaux, l'intrigue est de qualité et les personnages sont pas mal développer et l'on en apprends de plus en plus en les suivants dans leurs avantures.
Je vous le conseil également pour les combats qu'ils soient physiques pour tactiques, et c'est ça qui est pas mal aussi, c'est que des fois, et même souvent, on peut retrouver les 2 ne même temps, ce qui nous offre une hype de fou pour ces situations.


~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/gYDZzIm.jpg)~~~

PS : Désolé pour les fautes de français. Ceci n'est que mon avis personnel. Je ne vous empêche pas d'avoir un point de vue différent du mien. Je pense que tous les points de vue sont à prendre en compte tant qu'ils sont argumentés.

un anime beau graphiquement, avec de beaux combats, mais aussi des intrigues derrière la scène

~~~_What do you desire?_~~~
~~~~~~
(To be fair here, I didn't know about the webtoon before I watched the anime so please keep that in mind. Also, please take a look at the original webtoon!)

_Tower of God is about a boy named Baam who has to enter the Tower in order to follow his friend, a girl named Rachel._ 

Let’s start with the animation because I really don’t get why people hated it so much. I mean, I don’t think that all of the frames were perfect and the fight scenes do not have the best choreography but all in all, I was really happy with how they did it. I’m no expert when it comes to animation but as your average anime viewer, I was pretty pleased with how they designed the characters and scenery. I also loved the colors and transitions!

It was really great seeing how the characters move and I think that they even included the style of the actual manwha in some of the scenes. The story may not be the most original one but it feels like a nice adventure fantasy sci-fi with many twists and turns that most readers did not expect. This is a question of taste but personally, I really liked that the story and characters reminded me a bit of the _Hunter X Hunter_ series which is one of my all-time favorites. 
~~~~~~
~~~img350(https://media1.tenor.com/images/d360415c4a42e89599b7f6f53dd380d3/tenor.gif?itemid=17407022)~~~
~~~~~~
_About the characters;_ 
~~~~~~
What we can definitely say is that every character is very well written- even the minor characters or characters that are not necessarily present in other arcs. 

Many people complained about the protagonist _Baam_. A lot were saying that he is way too boring and generic. A typical Shounen hero character. While that may have been true for the very first season I'd disagree because this basic naïve personality of Baam is definitely important for the story and the development of not only his own character but also the other characters he interacts with. Because he seems so simple and doesn’t know a lot about this world we also don’t know anything about we learn with him and it makes us feel engaged. We also meet most of the other characters through Baam’s eyes and it feels like the readers aren’t biased as they would’ve been with omniscient narration. 
~~~~~~
~~~img300(https://c.tenor.com/eTD3bx1zpZ8AAAAC/tower-of-god-anime.gif)~~~
~~~~~~
Not to spoil too much but he will learn a lot about this world is harsh and sometimes cruel. It’s also thanks to Baam’s personality that the other characters can shine as much as they do. Especially, his teammates _Khun_ and _Rak_ who appear to be heavily motivated by Baam in terms of goals and character development.

In the original comic there’s also a lot of comedy and while they did include some of that in the anime I feel like they should’ve done that more especially the comedic elements involving Baam. His innocence is not only sweet and likable but also funny. I think that for the main character it is very important that they have at least some flaws or insecurities. For Baam it’s definitely his naivety and the need to stick to his ideals even when it’s not possible. Still, I understand why people would view this character as boring and not engaging enough because in the first season that may be an issue. Personally, I still enjoyed this character though because I like the cinnamon-roll-must-protect-characters. (I see you there, Khun) 
~~~~~~
~~~img300(https://media1.tenor.com/images/e1bfab7cd9795c2c85b67919081ce334/tenor.gif?itemid=17407550)~~~
~~~~~~
Another critique was the role of Maria who seems to have a much bigger meaning in the anime than the manwha but I think it’s hard to say whether that’s true or not because she hasn’t really appeared in the manwha yet. We don’t know the whole story surrounding her and Khun and who knows, maybe she has more meaning than we thought. For me, this wasn’t really a big deal but I understand why some fans were disappointed with it since they cut out a lot of other scenes from the manwha. 

In my opinion that was a more pressing issue with the anime because 13 episodes are way too short for a series like Tower of God. In terms of length, it should’ve been more like Hunter x Hunter or Naruto minus the filler episodes. I hope that Crunchyroll will change that for upcoming seasons if there are going to be any. 
~~~~~~
_The hate on Rachel:_
~~~~~~

~~~~~~
I’m not going to talk about this too much because I don’t want to spoil you but yes, there are plenty of reasons why people dislike her, and honestly, so do I. Nevertheless, Rachel is a very important character and a key to the story. I’m not a big fan of character-bashing in general and I don’t think that it makes sense because the creator probably chose her to act like that for a reason. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Rachel is very unlikeable but I also find her fascinating because she’s so driven by ugly human emotions we’ve all experienced at some point. Jealousy, anger, and frustration play an important role when it comes to Rachel’s behavior and her attitude in general. I’m excited to see what is going to happen with her and who she really is.
~~~~~~
~~~img300(https://c.tenor.com/yabnmwCPF-AAAAAC/tog-rachel-tog-rachel-ugly.gif)~~~
~~~~~~
The music and voice acting were really great and I especially enjoyed the English voices for the dub. Just go listen to the Tower of God OST, it is really beautiful! The voice acting for Princess Yuri done by Kira Buckland was very great and stood out to me even though she doesn’t even have that big of a role in the first season. I also liked the English voices for Rak, Khun, Rachel, and Endorsi a lot but the whole cast did a great job if you ask me. My secret favorite character has to be Shibisu by the way. Gotta love the tracksuit
~~~~~~

Now for the manwha itself, you can probably guess that I do enjoy it a lot. It’s currently on hiatus but I’m looking forward to reading more in the future. Do I think it’s the best? I don’t believe in such things as ‘the best’ so no. However, to me, the manwha is both entertaining and emotionally touching. I’ve come to love most of the characters and the world they live in. The conflicts are interesting and there are twists that caught me off guard. The world and hierarchies seem well thought out and play an important role throughout the different arcs. Baam may be a bit overpowered but for good reason and he isn’t the only character who shows growth in their abilities. 
~~~~~~
~~~img350(https://media1.tenor.com/images/efa23bd72efa4f5dead7bdf2e8ce2467/tenor.gif?itemid=16831896)~~~
~~~~~~
_All in all, I’d definitely recommend reading the manhwa and watching the first season of Tower of God._

~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
I want to do a very detailed analysis of the manhwa in the future and explore some of the characters and relationships in more depth but that will take some time because the manwha has been going for what? Ten plus years? But I’m going to do it! Anyway, I hope that the criticism of the viewers will be heard and that the series will be improved for a second season. Tower of God absolutely deserves at least two more seasons if you ask me.

___Tower Of God Review___

__Overall Thoughts:__

Tower Of God has a great plot. You must climb the tower to receive whatever you want, power, wealth, and so forth. As we follow our lead, Bam we learn a lot about most of the main cast. This anime has really good overall character development where we learn about the history and the intentions of its cast. Tower Of God really brings the viewer into its story and its characters. Overall I would give this 78-80 for how well it executed its story and how it developed it's cast. But continue reading for my additional broken down thoughts.

(Note I have yet to read the manga/web novel).

__What the show did well:__
- Has a great plot and executes it well.
- Great cast of characters and develops them well.
- Characters are well balanced.
- The animation is very different but is quite good.
- The soundtrack fits very well with what was going on, and generally fit well with the whole story.
- Dealt with a large number of characters very well as so there wasn't a lot of chaotic storytelling with the characters.
- Binge-ability, I just found this show easy to binge-watch 1. Because it is only 13 episodes. 2. Because it really keeps you hooked just to see the next challenge they face. 

__What could've been done better:__
- The pacing was good most of time but I thought it got a bit slow on the later episodes from 9-13 specifically.
- Though it dealt with the large cast very well I would like to see more of the backstory to some of the other characters such as Rak, Hatz, Shibisu, and the rankers.
- The fights were okay and didn't pack that much of a punch (no pun intended).
- I thought the OP song was okay but didn't suit the anime as much as I would've liked.

__What really stood out to me:__
- The animation as mentioned earlier was very different and I enjoyed it a lot, it really separated itself from many others in the shounen genre.
- The ending was quite good and left a lot to look forward too, along with being a very interesting (though somewhat predictable twist).
- I also thoroughly enjoyed the relationships and interactions between the characters.
__
Why I gave it 80/100:__
For me what really makes an anime good is its character development and it's pacing. Which I think Tower Of God did a very decent job at. The pacing could've used work along with the other cons that I mentioned. But the things that I really give it credit for is its characters and the plot. I think those two together really separated it from other shounen.

__Do I recommend it?__
Yes, it is a quick watch and I found it very entertaining. So if your into this kind of shounen, fantasy, continuous tournament ark type anime I think you will enjoy it a lot.

Links To Watch The Show:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/tower-of-god

Manga:
https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/tower-of-god/list?title_no=95&page=1

__Thank you for reading this review. __



______

Interesting Story, Well Balanced Characters But At Times Lengthy Pacing.

# __Tower of God - a very promising beginning of a huge story__

I'll start my review by saying that... I basically watched the anime first and then jumped into the Webtoon and as I am writing this review right now, I am fully caught up to the Manhwa. Because of this my view on the anime has changed and I decided it will be interesting to express my opinion on anime before and after I read the webtoon/manhwa. 

#  __1. Thoughts on the anime BEFORE I read the Webtoon__

Overall I really liked it. The start was kinda confusing because there was a lot of information to process(13 months weapons, irregulars, princesses of Jahad etc), but later I realized that it's just a unique way of storytelling this show has ( it's VERY rewarding to rewatch this show btw. You'll always find something you missed or didn't understand fully from the first time. I wasn't bored in a bit even though I remembered almost everything.) 

___What was good about this show?___

- __Characters__. 

The main cast in this show was very entertaining. 
Each character has its own unique design, which makes it very easy to understand who is who, even though the cast is quite huge. But what I liked the most was that many of the characters had their own ideals and aspirations, which they relied on when climbing the Tower. I especially liked how the ideals of the various characters came into conflict in episode 9. Endorsi, who is used to getting everything through killing others, and Baam, who just got out of the cave, had a good conversation.
As a result of this conversation, both Endorsi and Baam got some character development. Endorsi suddenly saw a completely different perspective on her actions, and Baam saw for the first time the brutal reality of the Tower. A reality in which it is almost impossible to climb without betrayal and deception.

- __Music__ 

Music was magnificent. There is nothing to add. I am still waiting for it to be released so that I could listen to it again and again. Especially I liked Hunsung Yu's theme. That "AaaaaYAaaaaaa" was just great. 

- __Artstyle__ 

I don't know what people think about when they say it's "bad" and "cheap" because it's unique and definitely one of the main advantages of ToG. I will go even further by saying that the art style was the main reason I started watching the show. The colors are vibrant and aesthetically pleasing. The backgrounds are so amazing that you can literally pause the anime, take a screenshot and use it as a wallpaper. Just look at this:

img1000(https://data.whicdn.com/images/343786581/original.png)
img1000(https://project-nerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ToGStars.png)
img1000(https://i0.wp.com/otakuauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tower-of-God-Episode-1-Bam-and-the-Silver-Eel.jpg?fit=1044%2C587&ssl=1)
img1000(https://heshero.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tower-of-God-Black-March.jpg)
img1000(https://images.wallpapersden.com/image/download/baam-tower-of-god_70962_1920x1080.jpg)

I think those pictures speak for themselves. Artstyle 10/10

- __Animation__.  

Nothing to talk about it here. Animation is decent (8/10) but it seems like people expected top tier godlike animation for this show which I don't understand. By this logic HxH, OP and other great shows are bad just because they don't have top tier animation. But even then ToG is animated better than 80% of the shows which is more than enough to enjoy the story imho. 

___What was bad about this show?___

I didn't really like the MC, Baam. I have nothing against nice MC's but Baam is too much of cinnamon roll imho. But I guess it's a result of him being in that cave for the entire life. He was basically brought up by Rachel and for the entire Season he's like a little child that does't know what's happening and why everyone is killing each other. He received a little bit of development in Ep 9 as I said before but nothing life changing. I guess it would be stupid if he changed only after 13 episodes. 

A bit confusing. (most of the confusion can be solved by rewatch) 

__OVERALL__

A really good show for multiple reasons. I gave it 7/10 after the first watch but gave it another point after rewatching it. So the overall score is 8/10. 


# __2. Thoughts on the anime AFTER I read the Webtoon. __

Now this is a different talk. When I finished the anime I didn't really know what to expect from the story yet but I will just say that I was pleasantly surprised by the size and complexity of it. 

I will start by saying that when I finished the anime I had a lot of questions and the main ones (except for the obvious "What's the Tower?" "Why Baam was trapped in that cave?") were:

"Why it seems like Baam gets everything so easily?" 
"Why it seemed like someone was trying to separate Baam and Rachel and make Baam climb the Tower for some reason (even though he didn't want to) and what that coffee guy has to do with all of this?" 

I am glad those 2 questions were answered at the beginning of Season 2 cause they were bothering me for some time. I would even say that S2 had a lot of flashbacks to S1 which kinda filled almost all of the holes that the anime had. 

The further you read the more you appreciate S1 because of all those foreshadowings. And the OP makes more sense after reading the Webtoon (especially that part where Baam opens his eyes and sees Jahad's symbol.) 


All in all after reading the Webtoon I decided to give the anime 9/10. One point was taken because of all the cuts they made. I truly believe that S1 of the anime could be better if it had 20 episodes so that minimum information was cut. But if the anime adds the information from S1 to S2 and makes it in a good way I might even give it 10/10. But we don't know yet will there be S2 or not. And if it will be, there is still a chance it could be rushed again, But let's hope for the best.

I really wanted to like Tower of God. The trailer was interesting (I thought the art was unique enough to pull me in), and I had heard mostly positive things about the manhwa. Perhaps it was because of this initial anticipation that made watching the show so painful.

If I were to say anything even substantively positive about this show, it would have to be the art. I liked it (the music was cool too). These are where my compliments end.

I didn't like Tower of God. In fact, at times, I even actively hated watching the show. Tower of God exists at the excruciating midpoint between a train wreck and a masterpiece. It's not glaringly atrocious, which would have made it fun to watch, if only to constantly rip apart the plot. And it certainly wasn't incredible, I can assure of that. Instead, it sits in the dustbin of mediocrity, content in it's utter inadequacy.

I suppose the plot is interesting enough. It sets up a unique world, I suppose. But the characters who occupy that world simply drag the show down, and for one simple reason. I don't really care about any of them, nor do I really care about their successes or failures. And if I had to point fingers at which character I cared about the least, it would easily be Bam.

I hate Bam. I think he's an utterly terrible character, who continually offers nothing throughout the entirety of the show. Maybe it's a shortcoming of mine, but I tend to dislike characters with little to no motivation for their actions, badly written dialogue, and for whom the rest of the cast fawns over. Bam is a blank slate. Through the entire show, from Episode 1, all Bam does is talk about how he wants to climb the tower with Rachel, and how great it would be to climb the tower with Rachel, and how he loves Rachel so much. Such a character is the protagonist for this show, and such a character, despite his own insistence, doesn't grow throughout the show's entirety.

I will not hesitate in saying that Bam seriously undermines the entirety of the show. Maybe if Bam wasn't there, I'd even nominally like the show and it's characters. After all, some of them, such as Khun or Shibisu, have their enjoyable moments. However, I cannot base my feelings of a show off of a hypothetical, and therefore, any possible attachment I could've had to a character is ripped apart by their continual relations with Bam, which ruin any of their potential for me, and cause me to not care about any of them.

Even the action of the show feels poorly executed. Throughout the runtime, it always feels like the animators are holding back, a feeling that I think is exemplified in the boring fight for the throne within the early part of the anime. At multiple points during this, it looks like there are going to be exciting connections with one's fist, or that a sword fight might turn dynamic. But these possibilities lead nowhere and ultimately rely on one's imagination to fill in the gaps if they want to derive enjoyment from the scenes.

Tower of God isn't good. The main character is awful, and the anime tries to keep your attention with cheap "gotcha" moments, the action is disappointing, and I left feeling very little desire to want to continue watching, when this inevitably gets a second season, or even in reading the manhwa. Perhaps the source material is good. I don't care. This show isn't, and I think that sure is a shame.

Tower of God crumbles the moment Bam appears

Tower of God foi um anime que me hyparam para assistir, mas que eu acabei por me decepcionar um pouco dado o tanto de hype que me deram, pois eu acabei saindo um pouco triste na maioria dos episódios, menos no 12 e 13 que me surpreenderam e acabaram por dar um empurrão na qualidade do anime( eu sei que vc entendeu o trocadilho hehe)
Esse review vai se dividir em produção e enredo.
1.  PRODUÇÃO
A equipe de produção desse anime me decepcionou muito, pois era um anime que me hyparam para assistir e quando vi o design eu achei muito feio, cara não tem nem o que falar pra defender, é feio e olha que me disserem que era uma evolução do webtoon onde o material original é publicado.
A fluidez dos personagens foi bem constante e as batalhas eram bem animadas, porém como o design era problemático pareceu que estava vendo um anime que estava com a produção atrasada, claro que não era toda hora, mas isso era quase constante durante as lutas, claro que foi isso o que eu senti assistindo.
A trilha sonora era ruim demais, sendo que tinha momentos que eu esquecia que tinha uma trilha tocando, devo deixar ressalvado o episódio 12 que a trilha ali foi top dms e deu um empurrão na qualidade do anime( eu sei que vc entendeu o trocadilho hehe), mas em sua maioria era ruim e mal utilizada, e isso foi péssimo para o curriculum da compositora _Erika Yoshida_ e da banda _Stray Kids_ que canta a abertura e o encerramento do anime, e foi ruim pra banda, pois a abertura é horrível, sendo(na minha opinião claro) a pior parte do anime tanto no visual quanto no musical.
Na parte da direção eu devo dizer que ela foi até competente se tratando de ritmo de adaptação pois eu consegui entender a história como um todo, só achei triste disponibilizarem apenas 13 episódios para adaptar 73 capítulos do material original, mas o Diretor novato _Takashi Sano_ conseguiu se virar e tentar entregar algo razoável onde dava pra ver que ele se esforçava pra tentar entregar já que ele era o diretor de todos os episódios e o storyboarder de quase todos, mas devo dizer que foi insuficiente, não só por conta da animação e da trilha, mas também pelo ritmo, pois 13 eps em 73 capítulos foi muito pouco, mas ainda assim eu consegui entender a história, mesmo tendo partes que realmente precisavam de um tempo maior para serem explicados, mas sinceramente podia ter sido pior, o ritmo de Tokyo Ghou;re 2 tá aí pra provar isso.
O estúdio responsável por animar o anime foi o mesmo de Orange e Lupin the 3rd, como nunca vi Lupin , não posso opinar sobre esse, mas em relação à Orange o caso é diferente, por mais que eu ache o anime mehh, devo dizer que a parte técnica o orçamento pareceu bem dividido, já que por mais que fosse meio genérico, eles tentaram fazer com carinho(pena que o enredo não ajudou), mas o caso de ToG a situação parece ter sido outra: eles deram boa parte do orçamento em animação de personagem, o que resulta em batalhas bem animadas porém feias por conta do design, e acabou por prejudicar outros aspectos do anime o que resultou em um fracasso técnico na trilha sonora e na fotografia, o que é triste por que parecia ter potencial, era só melhorar o design.
1. HISTÓRIA
O enredo do anime é muito bom e me surpreendeu bastante. No início eu estava esperando algo como Dungeon ni Deai, mas o primeiro ep me surpreendeu por que não tinha uma torre gigante no cenário, mas era meio que um lugar secreto que escolhe quem vai subir nela, e que tem um teste pra quem vai fazer um teste pra entrar na torre, genial demais, então são 3 testes sendo que o terceiro tem vários testes dentro dele pra poder inicial a subida, muito boa a mecânica que o autor criou.
Os inspetores lá pareceram dar a entender que a torre é algo muito grande e complexo, e isso só foi se confirmando no decorrer do anime, pois a cada etapa que eles iam não mostrava nada da torre mas dizia que tudo o que eles passavam nos testes era o mínimo necessário para sobreviver e eu curti, mas tenho medo que as expectativas acabem por ser altas demais.
Os personagens são bem diversos, sendo que tem alguns muito bons e outros bem fracos e ainda tem aqueles que ficavam quase como figurante durante boa parte do anime e do nada ganharam uma importância na história
img220(https://animeshelter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tower-of-god-episode-1-52-840x473.png) personagem ruim demais.
O Baam foi um inútil quase o anime inteiro, sempre tendo alguém ali pra ajudar ele de certa forma, ele nunca conseguia fazer nada sozinho( acho que isso era pra contrastar com o início da segunda parte do mahwa), e que vivia atrás da rachel, simplesmente por que tudo o que ele sabia provinha dela, eu sei que tem que ter um motivo pro protagonista ter que se aventurar, mas sério a gadísse dele foi muito cansativa espero eu que ele venha como um cara diferente na próxima parte do anime( eu só li um pouco da segunda parte então não sei o plot dela).
img220(https://i1.wp.com/www.crowsworldofanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Tower_of_God-Episode-07-Figure01.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1) O melhor do anime.
Todo o desenvolvimento do Khun foi interessante já que eu achava que ele ia ser aquele personagem caladão que tava cagando pra tudo, mas acabou que ele se tornou o melhor personagem do anime, por ser divertido, carismático ,ter um background interessante, e ser útil no quesito batalhas, pois ele se mostrou bastante inteligente e sagaz(a parte da coroa foi pika), embora não muito aprofundado, e deu a dica no final de contra quem ele vai estar no futuro, já quero treta.
img220(https://64.media.tumblr.com/72f3753d346ea016a1f5f757ff8d0686/815ba8e20b3efcd6-5a/s640x960/8b08b1c0f03bc26ff6cd1fec37beab9f3bc3bc71.png) do nada ficou importante.
Essa personagem foi praticamente uma figurante o anime todo, mas no último episódio( na verdade nos 3 últimos) ela ganhou uma importância, dando a entender que ela vai ser um pilar pro protagonista na segunda parte da história.
Tendo um elenco bem diverso e que davam boas cenas de comédia ToG conseguia manter um ritmo constante e bem dinâmico que algumas vezes nem se via o tempo passar, mas deixo claro que nem todos eram bons tinham uns que pareciam que estavam lá simplesmente pelo battle shonen e pela comédia, não tendo um papel realmente importante na história. img220(https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rak1_4051.jpg) <-Maior exemplo
 -  RACHEL
img220(https://www.anime-planet.com/images/characters/rachel-tower-of-god-58379.jpg?t=1419735594)
Para essa personagem eu tive que abrir uma ala especial, pois ela foi claramente marcante para a obra, surpreendendo a todos inclusive eu, pq eu realmente não esperava que aquilo acontecesse(por mais que eu quisesse), e por pior que pareça ela estava apenas mostrando de forma bruta aquilo que ela queria, mas que acabou por a transformar em vila, mas eu sinceramente não achei que ela estivesse tão errada, um dia eu escrevo um review com spoilers explicando a minha visão.
Conclusão
foi um bom anime no quesito história, mas a sua produção foi bem questionável mas que me deixou bem interessado
ANIMAÇÃO: 7/10
DIREÇÃO:7/10
TRILHA:1/10
ENREDO:6/10
PERSONAGENS:8/10

Um anime de história boa, mas que a sua produção o deixou ruim.

# ~~~Just Some Thoughts~~~
~~~(Spoilers ahead, if you care)~~~
I just finished binging  _Tower of God_ after putting it off for months despite its many recommendations from friends. 

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined, to put it nicely. As I watched each episode I kept telling myself (and the poor victim I dragged into my binge session) that it would certainly get better, but it never really did. By the final episode I was left rather confused and irritated with the obvious sequel/read the manga title drop ending. 

It's a shame really as I quite enjoyed the aesthetics of the show, it has a stellar cast of VAs, and Kevin Penkin's soundtracks never disappoint. But the show just felt so lacking in substance that I can't justify the time sink to anyone going into the anime expecting some stellar new IP, read the manga/manhwa instead, it's probably better.

# ~~~Aesthetics~~~
The character designs and color palette are superb in my opinion. The colors are warm and saturated, you have your classic orange on black, red on black, blue on white, etc. The artstyle highlights the character's eyes in a way that's oddly reminiscent of something like _Jibaku Shounen Hanako Kun_ (which is positive, just to be clear).
~~~img(https://i1.wp.com/www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0220_78300_CR_Tower-of-God-Key-Visual_Crunchyroll-lockups2x3.png?fit=1200%2C500&ssl=1)~~~
~~~img(https://i2.wp.com/www.myanimeforlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Jibaku-Shounen-Hanako-kun-10.mkv0026_15.jpg?resize=1210%2C642&ssl=1?v=1584223197)~~~
The animation itself however, was pretty lacking or rather, it didn't match the quality of the art. Most of the action sequences felt boring as character's abilities and strikes were lackluster and seemingly lacked impact. Take Endorsi for example.

~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lv1j6Fhwa8)~~~

This character was hyped up over the course of 2-3 episodes before finally entering the fight during the king of the hill style crown challenge. Her character's meant to be a powerful psychopathic killer who we learn later, has gutted dozens of others to reach her Princess title. So why do her strikes have almost no impact in her first showing against the 'mystery' gimp suited lady (and every showing thereafter save for smashing Anaak into the ground)? Why does she get destroyed in every fight she's in? Especially considering that the most powerful princess, Yuri, can literally destroy terrain with a flick of her finger as we see later, what kind of power scaling is that?

Another example of this can be seen with the Ranker Quant, who is supposed to be exceptionally strong as he has cleared the tower. 

~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FsxKwGX1Mw)~~~

To give him some credit, his hits are pretty satisfying but for someone who's supposed to be extremely fast his movement feels rather clumsy and slow. No kicked up dust? No screen shake when he starts running circles around people? Is he supposed to be teleporting? Then why have him sliding across the screen like an idiot? It lacks polish, it's not very _crisp_ I guess, there was never really a big budget sink fight (think _Kimetsu no Yaiba_ ep 19, any big fight from any season of _Boku no Hero Academia_, or any big fight from either season of _Mob Psycho 100_) which may have been due to lack of budget, or shortage of time but regardless the end result suffers quite a bit. 

# ~~~Plot~~~
This is my real main grievance with the show to be honest. Not every IP is blessed with unlimited money to shill out for gorgeous action scenes, plot and good writing can make up for lackluster or even dated visuals easily. But I can't say in good faith that _Tower of God_ 's plot and usage of it's characters is anything but a clusterfuck of surface level ideas that are never actually fleshed out. The premise is pretty straightforward, our protagonist wants to find his old friend Rachel, who has begun to ascend the tower so of course he must follow. He needs to pass a bunch of tests _HunterxHunter_ style with a group of allies that he slowly accumulates over the series. Let's go down the list of strange characterization choices and pacing issues I noticed.

Firstly, we have a typical Shounen protagonist, he's rather meek, stubborn, kinda dumb/oblivious, and extremely kind, cool. It's fine to have common tropes in your characters, what's irritating is when other character's seemingly 180 their personalities for seemingly no reason besides something like 'but Bam was nice to me'. 

Take our main side character, Khun for example. This character is introduced as a seemingly selfish, untrustworthy, conniving fellow, from his lackadaisical attitude to his strange briefcase, to his white/blue color scheme obviously implying his cold nature. He's got family issues and trust issues, stemming from a betrayal by his sister, he tends to abide by the 'trust no one but yourself' approach. That's all well and good, but why does he team up so easily with our protagonist? And then, why does he stay perfectly straight with him the entire 13 episodes? I did not think even once during any of his scenes that he was attempting to betray Bam, despite people warning Bam to distance himself from Khun (though this might just be because he's a reject rather than a traitor, kind of unclear). Khun's mantra seemingly only applies to other people besides Bam, 'oh, weird balloon guy offering advice for a test? Doubt', 'oh, Bam likes this lady who raised him and taught him how to literally speak? Hate her, she'll betray you just like my sister'. His love of Bam and weirdly placed gripe with Rachel just ends up making him seem like a misogynist which is pretty hilarious. 

How about the 2 Princesses, Anaak (jr.) and Endorsi? A cold hearted lizard who wants revenge on those who killed her family, great stuff, she neglects her team and even bullies the Black March blade off Bam. Then suddenly she's friends with Endorsi, someone she swore to kill and is a great team player willing to listen and carry out plans designated by others, such as Khun. I can't recall any sort of big moment between Anaak and Bam to usher in such a personality change. I do remember Anaak's fight with Endorsi though, you know, the one where she declared to kill the other only for their fight to end in a weirdly placed comedic twist where they fall together and start to reconcile because...Anaak's late mother was nice to Endorsi at some point? Or maybe it was because...Endorsi kept asking prodding questions about Anaak's mother which we know is a sore subject? Their relationship's development felt rushed to say the least.

This next gripe may just be a personal problem but I can not for the life of me even remotely begin to understand the 5 class types or their assorted abilities. I feel like I look down to put food in my mouth for half a second and just miss an entire info dump packed into a single sentence or something. Like hey dude, there's this magical water stuff called shinsu, but only certain people can use it, oh and you have to make a _Naruto_ style summoning pact with the god of each level to be able to use it on that level. Oh also this water stuff can do anything, from destruction to immortality. Also, also there's something called an administrator test that you have to talk to that same god for, does that mean you can only administer tests on that level too? who knows. There's 5 classes/positions but any one person can be apart of various positions. Simple enough right? You have frontliners (fishermen, spearmen), reconnaissance types (scout, light bearer) and multipurpose magical water slingers. How do light bearers work? Where does their lighthouse box come from I must have missed it, is it a piece of technology? Magic shinsu? The weird orb thing everyone has? Do they have telepathy when in the box to talk to people? I feel like the rules are never really established especially compared to it's obvious cousin the _HunterxHunter_ nen system. For example, Khun has a lighthouse, but he is more than capable enough to easily kill people with a knife and demonstrate pretty impressive physical feats, and he has a magic briefcase which isn't really explained. Anaak is for all intents and purposes a frontline fighter who is physically strong, who can also use sushin to empower her movements but ALSO heal herself. Mind you that in the magical water slingers training bit they were being taught to pop balloons with the stuff , and Hoh's lack of ability is a major plot point but my man never even tried other applications of the ability, what if he was a good healer or something. Do you have to be able to shoot a water projectile as a baseline? Anaak never shot shisun and she's doing what I can only guess are high level techniques as healing usually is. Endorsi is seemingly a pure frontline physical fighter, but she's no where near as strong as Yuri, does that mean Yuri is empowering herself with shisun to hulk smash harder? Because Endorsi wasn't smashing boulders and terrain to atoms with her strikes.

Lastly, I cannot fathom why there are so many subplots occurring simultaneously onscreen. We don't need to cutback to Yuri and her group making their way to the testing grounds randomly every episode, 8 episodes in a row, just for them to do nothing but buffer in some comedic relief. How do you expect me to care about Anaak and Endorsi's fight against the assassin fluffball when you keep cutting to Rak and co with their slug things, and then cutting to Khun talking to his gamerbro who he seemingly hates for some reason. Then cut from any action to Bam and Rachel doing _literally_ nothing despite it being a trial that's supposed to test _their_ ability (yes it may have been a setup, but at least have Leo Ro or anyone acknowledge how stupid the test was). It just makes me care even less about any of the things that are happening. Frankly, it just seems like really poor directing, or at the very least the work of a director with his hands tied and a massive time crunch.

Rant over
tldr; This show is a rushed mess and a terrible introduction to the series

The source material might be amazing, but this anime adaptation was objectively bad.

~~~=====================================================~~~ Spoiler-Free Review! Before reading please, know that I've only watched the anime :)
~~~=====================================================~~~
_Tower of God_ is based on a Korean webtoon of the same name by SIU (Lee Jong Hui.) It's an interesting take on the shonen genre and seems to take a lot of inspiration from other anime. If you climb to the top of the tower, any question you have will be answered by the tower's King Jahad. The main character Bam finds himself wanting to climb the tower in search of an important girl to him named Rachel who entered the tower to see the stars. In order to climb the tower he must complete a series of tests to see if they present too much of a danger. Right off the bat, by episode 3 you can tell the story of this first season bears a striking resemblance to Hunter x Hunter's Hunter Exam arc and hits very similar beats, albeit not nearly as good. Some of the concepts from _Tower of God_ are actually really cool like the tower itself or the princesses, but they end up being executed very poorly with little payoff. My favorite part of _Tower of God_ is the characters, even if some are clearly inspired by characters from other anime, they all are very unique from each other and present a nice balance. Relationships between the characters, though, are contrived and unnatural just like the story.  

img220(https://sm.ign.com/t/ign_za/review/c/crunchyrol/crunchyrolls-tower-of-god-episode-1-review_h1wa.1200.jpg)

The whole test and challenges to see if you can climb the tower, however, is a desperate attempt to recreate the charm of the aforementioned Hunter x Hunter: Hunter Exams arc. Being inspired by a story isn't bad, but _Tower of God_ is shameless in how it takes from it. Each of the challenges to proceed in the test are lifted directly from it but are made needlessly complicated in order to distance itself from the original creation. This ends up hurting what could've been an interesting inspiration. Another concept taken straight from Hunter x Hunter is Shinsu, which is clearly inspired by nen but with no clear rules and no actual importance to the structure of the abilities. There are plenty of smaller things you could nitpick but the rest is just simple inspiration. To me, though, it sometimes feels like bad Hunter x Hunter fanfiction with the characters switched out. 

img220(https://i0.wp.com/doublesama.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tower-of-God-Episode-2-2.jpg?resize=640%2C360)

Some of the concepts from _Tower of God_ are actually pretty cool. The tower itself is really interesting and some of the twists & turns the story takes are cool but they never give a solid enough payoff. Most of the important moments in the story feel like they come too soon and are shoved in just to keep you watching. It all feels rushed just to get to the next section of the story. My biggest issue with _Tower of God_ was how contrived the character relationships were. They give no effort to build the relationships between them and instead just tell you they're friends now with no real reason. It feels very forced and by the end, you don't really understand why the supporting cast cares so much about the Bam when there's barely been a relationship between them. Instead, they just straight up tell you they're friends now and there's no buildup or conflict to warrant their newfound relationships. The best character relationship is between Bam and Rak, where you actually feel like it's been built and earned. Rak also provides the only good comedic lines, but comedy is subjective. 

img220(https://spoilerguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/maxresdefault.jpg)

All in all, _Tower of God_ feels like a poor attempt to recreate Hunter x Hunter with a twist. The character relationships don't feel earned and the story is lacking originality. There were some great and original ideas thrown in the mix too, but they were either executed badly or overshadowed.

Tower of God season 1 feels like a poor attempt to recreate Hunter x Hunter's Hunter Exams arc for a new audience. 

**Overview:**

Kami no Tou ends near as fast as it began. The pacing throughout was steady and covers exams of being able to ascend the tower itself… sort of. There is a bit of a twist nearing the end, one that I think benefits and lays a fair amount of setup for what’s to come. Simply put for the plot though, Bam wants to chase some head or is it a handy, anyways mission success by end [?] heh, debatable.

The tower is something that hasn’t been described too in depth yet, was given an overview for what will happen if a person reaches the top but that’s about it. Some extra details and hints throughout regarding the tower but for the most part is all still a mystery.

Characters throughout were enjoyable and worked well together. They felt different and the interactions and twists that were thrown in throughout had their own merits. Bam has a severe innocence to him which is something that can’t see lasting for too much longer. Even him, there isn’t much said, or background given, lot of mystery which is probably why it was as enjoyable as it was, there is always something more to look forward to as more comes out.

**Visuals/Music:**

The visuals used a more unique style and I was really enjoying it. The fights and affects with attacks were great, it’s a strange mix of simplistic with detail where it counts. Has more of a cartoonish vibe but heavy emphasis on anime as well. Origin media is manhwa so makes sense that it won’t be a Japanese as content originating from Japan. Also, with Masashi Kudou… doing the character designs, you know it was going to be great. Masashi did the bleach character designs as well and it just hold a special place. Really like the style and direction this man has to say the least lol. There’s a certain standard that he upholds when in action and doesn’t fall short one bit here.

Music was great, there are a wide variety of tracks and are made use of accordingly. The style of the tracks is very good. It could be better in some parts but eh, it’s nearing the point of diminishing returns id say. What is more important is the tracks are used properly and placed accordingly to immerse the viewer more, which was exactly what was done. Silence and OST’s both melded well and worked great. Even the opening and ending, they may not start out as anything special but by the end, they both hold up well and are enjoyable to listen through. All was rounded and pretty solid. Honestly though, when osts are produced by Kevin Penkin, who composed for Made in Abyss, would be hard for them to be bad.

**Final Thoughts:**

This show has a lot of potential, with what was shown so far it seems to only be the beginning of whats to come. Some shows have the beginning the high point and fizzle down to nothing later on but the opposite is hopefully true here. The ending with the reasoning and setups that had happened seem to be :perfect: . Hell they even had some dnb in there which is a bit of a soft spot I have to say. Hit all the marks and still was sittin there waiting to flex a bit lol.

For those unsure what to watch and want something that will be enjoyable throughout then Kami no Tou is a good choice as it definitely hits the marks but now the wait begins for a hopefully season 2.

Characters (main) – 3/5

Characters (sub) – 3/5

Enjoyment – 4/5

Visuals – 4/5

Music – 5/5

Story – 3/5

```Overall Ratings - Rec: 3/5 Raw: 73%```

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 or ten 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!”

Tower of God Series Watch Order

Season 1