Tower of God Review

**season 1 anime spoilers**

I started watching Tower of God (or Kami no Tou) weekly back when it first aired, but got distracted with other things and just recently was able to catch up and finish it all. And... I don’t know how I feel about it, honestly.

I did a First Impressions review when I first started watching, and most of the things I wrote there I still agree with. I still think the character designs are overall very unique and well done, I still love Khun and Bam, and I still think the animation is great. Although, I noted in my initial review that most of the other climbers appeared to be “huge assholes” but I’m happy to note that as we got to know them better, each one of them became interesting and likable. However...

Something I mentioned in the initial review is that the worldbuilding isn’t the best. Unfortunately, this did continue for the rest of the season; I felt very confused for the majority of the show, like I was missing some kind of vital info while I watched. The only time I felt like we got any kind of actual information was when we learned about Anaak’s backstory, and when we learned about Rachel’s betrayal. Those were the only episodes that actually felt whole, if that makes sense.

As someone who generally likes shows with a mysterious plot (a better example of this kind of worldbuilding is Attack on Titan, for instance), I’m used to having to wait a bit to find out about what’s going on. But there was something about Tower of God that felt messy, or incomplete.

Honestly, I thought that one of the best parts of the show was Rachel’s betrayal/transformation into a ‘villain’. Before this we barely knew about her character at all (although, to be honest, we still don’t know much) and she seemed to have the personality of a stale piece of bread, but now that we know that her main goal was to betray Bam, all of her decisions suddenly made sense.

Was this show ‘bad’? Definitely not. It definitely checks the boxes of something that’s high quality and worth watching: good characters, good character design, cool fight scenes, great animation. However, I can’t even tell if I ‘like’ the story because I truly don’t even know what the story is yet. It’s worth noting that this isn’t the typical genre of anime that I like to watch so I may be slightly biased, but if you asked me if I’d recommend it, I’d probably say no. Will I continue watching it though? Possibly. I am definitely still intrigued by the mystery of the tower, and because I’m so desperate for answers. But I definitely felt a lot of frustration while watching.

Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking

First Impressions: Tower of God

Tower of God/Kami no Tou is an action fantasy anime currently airing this season. I was very interested in this anime due to the intense advertising done by Crunchyroll; obviously an anime being highly advertised doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good show, but it did make me think that this show was expected to be very popular.

So far, I’ve watched the first three episodes of Tower of God. I was impressed by the fact that this was originally a manhwa webtoon; it’s really cool that something that was originally a webtoon received an anime adaptation.

Something about the art style was slightly off-putting to me, and initially I couldn’t figure out why. The designs of many of the different ‘fantasy races’ in this show are actually very unique, and I think the humanoid faces are pretty cute. I also am generally impressed with the animation; the backgrounds are beautifully illustrated and the action, especially during the frequent fight scenes, is done well. But I think my issue is the flat, saturated color palette. There doesn’t appear to be much shading, like, at all, on any of the characters. It’s not horrible to look at, but it does take some getting used to.

I actually really like Bam, the protagonist. One of my favorite anime tropes is the very positive/kind shonen main character (think Deku, or Tanjirou) and Bam fits very neatly into this character trope. It could be argued that he doesn’t have much of an actual personality yet, but it seems like that’s intentional? He’s basically just obsessed with ‘Rachel’ who we know very little about at this point, but again that seems to kind of be the main conflict.

I also like Khun, despite his character design being kind of ridiculous. His personality contrasts very well with Bam’s, and with Rak (crocodile dude) completing their trio, they make a great team. Some of the other characters trying to ‘climb the tower’ seem like they’re supposed to be huge assholes, but we don’t know very much about them yet.

IMO, the worldbuilding in this show is not super great; I know that inundating the audience with information about an entirely new fantasy world is not recommended, but there almost isn’t enough information being given at all to the point where I don’t even kind of know what’s going on. I’m hoping that’ll change soon as more episodes come out, but at this point I’m way more confused than intrigued.

I’ve mentioned that if I lose interest in a show I will stop watching it, but as of right now I don’t see this happening with Tower of God. I wouldn’t say I’m loving it yet, but I’m a sucker for mystery worlds, and as of right now I want to know so much more about this world that I’m willing to suffer through the confusing drip feed of info that’s happening rn. Stay tuned for part 2 of this review once I’ve finished the season!

Thanks for reading,

-threecheersforinking