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. - - -
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. - - - 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. - - -
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. - - -
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. - - - 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. - - - 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.
