Tower of God
a review by Lorde
a review by Lorde
"What do you desire? Fame? Glory? Power? Revenge? Or something bigger than all this? Whatever you desire, it will be here."First of all, I must say that Tower of God is a manhwa that begins very slow, but that is engaging and getting better and better with the chapters that pass. Tower of God is excellent on the last mission before the second part of the story and after that I get crazy with every chapter that is released. Hold on to the start and wait for epic exams, plot twists, and a character that will make you want to kill. The feeling, the sensations that this story caused in me are indescribable so I feel compelled make a review of this fantastic narrative! If you want to skip all this review and want a reason to read this work, skip to the end.
Action, money, frenzy, pain, revenge, everything!
The main story focuses on the protagonist, Twenty-Fifth Baam, who lived alone most of her life until found by her best friend, Rachel, who has always dreamed of seeing the sky and the stars; to do this she would have to enter the Tower of God and cross every floor to the top... On the day she finally gets in after receiving the "God's permission" for this, Baam becomes desperate and, with his own hands, opens the gate of the Tower of God to chase and bring his friend back; the only question is that he wasn't allowed to "God" but entered anyway. In this way he qualifies as the calamity in person or simply "irregular."
There are two types of people: "regular" and "irregular", regulars can climb the Tower if they dare to face the challenges of each floor and risk their lives, but the irregulars are known to always bring chaos and breaking rules! Many people are chosen to go up the tower, each with their motives. In order to climb the floors, it's necessary to face the tests passed by the administrators, which can be simple (pass in a completely normal test type, without violence, only brain) or purely violent (eliminate the maximum of people and survive), then coexistence in this place for those who are going up is usually very difficult, because, you need a good team to climb at the same time you never know who you can trust. Baam is an "irregular" one that will destroy the tower just like everyone else did to rescue Rachel... or not? Does the Tower have other plans for the young protagonist?
You think you can? Do you have the gift? Want the world? Pass the test, climb the Tower!Talk about the script of this manhwa is something that needs to be well thought out beforehand. The author has constructed a universe so detailed and deep that to think of the immensity of his work can make the reader perplexed. To be honest, as a critic of this work at the moment, I think it's very difficult to choose how to speak in a way that can instigate you to go through the large number of existing chapters.
At each floor of the tower, we know a completely different world, with different creatures/people and events from that environment in parallel with what else rolls with our characters.
Talking about them, ToG has an incredible variety of characters, mostly well-crafted with highlights, reasons and everything else good characters have. The reader can always find one or more characters with which to identify and there is a rotation between the protagonists that is very interesting and does not leave the story tiresome. Of course, I could talk about all of them, but we would stay here for days. All of them are complete, complex and captivating and have the highlight they deserve. If it is necessary to cite some fault in so many characters, it is that we miss each one that is gone.
Some characters of Tower of God (isn't the original art though)The tower is divided into three parts: the Outer Tower, the Inner Tower and the Middle Area. Curious detail: The author tries to give us a good idea of the size of the dimensions found on each floor of the tower, using the size of North America as a measure, making the tower more or less 6.5x the size of our planet.
As I said previously, Baam (or Bam) knew nothing of the world and no one except the girl Rachel, who claimed to come from a world full of joy and light where only the chosen ones could live. Her biggest ambition was to climb the tower and see the stars, while all Baam wants in life is to stay close to Rachel. Make no mistake about the romance, it's not that good! The story shows that Rachel is a character placed in a very special creative set for every reader to hate even mentioning her name and this is due to the fact that although Bam is a good-hearted person, this nearly sick fissure by Rachel ends up putting all his dear friends always in danger. She is an excellent character and Bam's reason for evolving and accepting everything that happens in her life, but she is also his greatest enemy and his great weakness. Neither should she be in the tower, which takes a series of intrigue to roll among the administrators of each floor and so the reader will discover that this place so called paradise is actually a hell.
Although the manhwa is what we know as shounen, there is no aggressive "push something too far" on the character's principles and what he thinks should be a friendship or an alliance. Of course Bam is full of defects so that throughout history he lives in various situations and thus mature, but is quite satisfactory the method used and its speed.
Baam's art from 1st season and 2nd season)In everywhere there is a chain of command and the tower is no different. It is said that in the beginning, a man and ten brave warriors decided to break through this tower, and when they reached a certain stage, they constituted a residence, fighting terrible creatures and knowing the mysteries of the place. This man became the King of the tower, known as Zahard/Jarad and the 10 fighting comrades became clan chiefs, also called 'The 10 Great Families'. Each family has a myriad of 'sons' obtained in different ways, but the best daughters of these families have the chance to become princesses of Zahard, another position within the tower. They are not the king's daughters, but they inherit a portion of his power and can live a decent life if they don't break the rules! They can't fall in love or have children, nor have relationships and eventually the princesses end up competing with each other.
Below that we have the powerful rankers, people who climbed the tower to the current top (where Zahard's empire arrived, currently on the 134th floor of the tower) successfully and received a rank.
After that we have the regulars of several ranks separated by letters (C-regular, D-regular) and the fearsome irregular ones. There are also very old beings called administrators and of course, an infinity of different creatures, but the purpose here is not a text explaining what each being in this tower does or thinks.
(The 10 Great Families Symbols)In addition there are separate organizations that have different goals. The FUG for example would destroy everything that Zahard created and remake the tower as they think it should be, while the Wolhaiksong people want to prevent it and apparently make that fissure by the tower run out. The irregular Urek Mazino (my favorite character, such a badass) mentions that people need to know the world outside the Tower.
The Irregular Urek Mazino)The structure of this hierarchy, the secrets and failures of it, the various smaller organizations are all very well created, and the tiring work and dedication of the author in the construction of this universe is remarkable, so as to the script I must say that its only undeniable defect is the old protagonism . Of course, it exists and occurs, but even so far the author is handling this part well and constantly dividing the characters into several groups to better work their development, thus having to resort less to the infamous role (except with Bam, Koon and Rak... they were made to follow), but on the good side the antagonists don't take a shower of rain and die like that, which gives the reader the feeling that there really was a challenge, a suffocation that they went through and paid their price due.
If you are looking for a reason to accompany such a great work, I can't get rid of it. I myself was afraid to follow something so great, since many manga and manhwa have encountered various problems throughout history, such as character development failures, abuse of protagonism for the script and countless chapters, not so significant, but I am happy to say that Tower of God knows how to manage the longevity of its history, because... there is an infinity of small journeys that we accompany inside the tower, but that one way or another adds importance in the 'grand plan'.
The concept of good and evil, wrong and right and villain and good guy is also very variable. While most cheer for Bam and against Rachel for example, I saw many comments on the opposite or other types of fans. Seeing that Bam is a seemingly limitless character with extreme obstinacy, he is even seen as an insane monster, a cursed being, a real danger to everything that exists in the tower.
Another positive factor is that the art of manhwa, which was not that good in the beginning, only evolves more. The author have put a lot of time in his trait and in the coloring of the scenes on the second season, giving emphasis on the most exciting with mastery!__
A well-formed story that doesn't lose its thread through the chapters is hard to find. I've never felt bored or tired during reading (just because I read 60 chapters in a day, so it tires the mind a little, hehe). Not to mention that the author, SIU, is very communicative and lives by dropping many extras on the story, which are translated from the direct forum to the wikia of the manhwa!
ToG is a story that is sure to fiddle with the reader! It has comedy, a little tinkle of romance, a lot of friendship and enmity, a lot of hate and rancor, tons of action and a good comedy! Between dirty tricks and pure principles, in a world where innocence and trust have no place, how will our characters come out?
To finish, you can follow the manhwa through several sites, but I recommend LINE webtoon!
by the way, another curious fact: seems like the author really likes football players, names like "Zahard" is it the opposite of Hazard. Pretty cool, right? He does other references, you'll see all them since as you read the manhwa.
I'm really sorry if this review wasn't very good, I also tried hard to translate it all into English, then I really hope that everyone have understood it well.
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