Tower of God Anime: One Of The Best Korean Works (review)

Finally, the Tower Of God Anime review is here! This detailed review will either convince you to watch this amazing anime or force you to read the Manhwa. One question for the readers: How did it felt when your girlfriend dumped you or betrayed you for someone else? (pun intended) That exact feeling will flash in your mind making you feel crushed by the end. What’s more? The action scenes are just a treat for many. If you are looking for an anime with a twisted and an entertaining plot, dig in for more details.

S.I.U (one of my current favourite) has written and illustrated this mind-blowing South Tower of God (Korean: 신의 탑; RR: Sin-UI Tap) is a South Korean manhwa released as a webtoon. It is serialized in Naver Corporation’s webtoon platform Naver Webtoon from June 2010, with the individual chapters collected and published by Young Com into four volumes till the month of June 2020.

The Plot of Tower Of God Anime

The Tower of God’s plot is quite complicated but let me explain the Tower Of God Anime basic plot. The Tower Of God Anime centres around a boy named Twenty-Fifth Bam, who spent most of his life trapped under a mysterious Tower in a cave, with only his close friend, Rachel, to keep him company. When Rachel enters the Tower, Bam feels devasted, but Somehow, Bam manages to open the door to the Tower.

He decides to overcome any hardship and travel anywhere to meet Rachel again, even if it means dying. When he enters the Tower, he makes many friends/allies with whom he aspires to climb up the tower and achieve his dreams.

Where to Watch?

• Netflix
• Crunchyroll
• Just Watch
• WW7
• Webtoon (Manhwa chapters)

Review

First, let me clarify that Tower Of God Anime is not the first Korean work to get an anime adaptation. Also, one should take notice that Japanese adaptations of Korean works are rare. So it’s worth a watch as this Korean work is getting read and watched by millions. This success could lead to more adaption of Korean works. Warning for the readers, this review will contain spoilers for the Tower Of God Anime.

ART/ANIMATION

Let’s start with something which is obvious and grabs the attention of everyone, the visuals. As far as art style goes, I think the art Tower of God is good. There is an essence of roughness, a hand-drawn quality, to the designs that I love. It feels like most of the characters or scenes were drawn by hand rather than smoothly generated on a computer.

We can see that Telecom Animation wanted to remain true to the original Tower Of God Anime Webtoon’s style. This gives Tower of God an upper hand in personality, of visual uniqueness, that sets it apart from most generic computer-generated anime today. I’ve noticed that the backgrounds can range from bland and monotone to beautiful, sweeping landscapes which is just a feast to the eyes.

The changing backgrounds of Tower Of God Anime throughout the Tower of God are impressive and reminded me of Dr.stone anime. Also, in the Crown Game or Tag, the author’s layout and design skills were still developing. Beyond those though, many of the anime original backgrounds are splendid. Some scenes felt like loose paintbrush strokes, and some were like sci-fi movie type. The art didn’t disappoint me at all.

Sadly, as much as I enjoy the backgrounds and character designs, I’ll have to say that Tower Of God Anime suffers in the animation department. Tower of God animation isn’t always consistent, with several action-heavy scenes just not getting the treatment they need to work.

But as a series, Tower of God is still isn’t on the same level as others like Jujutsu Kaisen or Bungou Stray Dogs. I’m not saying it isn’t good, but it has a lot of room for improvement.

DIRECTION

Let’s move on to our next topic direction. The Tower Of God Anime can frame some beautiful shots I mean look above, or perhaps at anything during the final test’s underwater segments, to prove this.

But on the other hand, we have instances such as in episode 12, with its constant cuts it wasn’t easy to follow. These directions are rare, but in episode 12’s case, it heavily affected large chunks of the series and made it difficult to follow. Sometimes it feels like tog is setting another level while sometimes it falls to the “average” level like Is it wrong to pick up girls in the dungeon.

STORYLINE

Now its time for the main ingredient of Tower Of God Anime, the story and the setting. The core of the original Webtoon story is present in the anime. The story is really absolutely interesting, and a lot of planning has been done before starting this project.

The 13 episode of Tower Of God Anime covers 78 chapters, which feels a little too much. It feels like they skipped the subtle details, and the pace was a little faster than other anime, which happened in the case of Nura: Rise of the yokai clan.

Well, sadly a lot of scenes were cut, so it was disappointing for the manhwa readers. Large portions of the original plot were either cut or moved around, and this caused some issues, the very reason why we don’t know if we will be able to see another season or not. Even tests weren’t explained properly. Important clues of world-building left by the team failed to engage the viewer.

For example, in the Tag test in Tower Of God Anime, there was no proper reason for why Quant can’t intervene. In the original manhwa, there is a clear answer. The anime just ignored this, however. In its a quest to quickly adapt the core of Tower of God’s prologue, it has miserably failed to capture all of the subtle details that made the original work so appealing. Okay enough with the flaws, let me tell you that the core is still present in Tower of God, a popcorn action series. If you liked Seven Deadly Sins anime, then you will love this too.

CHARACTERS

 Let’s talk about the cast of Tower Of God Anime as it has quite a large one like SKET dance anime. Even after slimming down on and merging multiple supporting characters, there are many unknown characters. Bam is naive and gives the vibe of a guy with a wet blanket. I don’t think the protagonist stands out more than the other characters as I think the anime is ongoing because of the supportive cast and characters that make it interesting.

Characters like Rak are loud, fun and make the show entertaining, but deeper inspection reveals that there isn’t really much behind them. The characters are unique; there’s no doubt about it and can complement each other in a squad. The development of characters is still left. I hope there’s a season 2 so that people will feel more engaged with the anime.

I’d say TOG has its own spade. If used effectively it can crush even DBZ.

SOUND

Some Tracks used in Tower Of God Anime such as “Princess of Jahad” or “Black March” (unofficial titles) drench Tower of God in whole religious, godly vibes. The weight of the vocals and drums bearing down on you oppressively. It’s not an aesthetic sound one can often come across in anime. The music made me feel like I’m in a church even though I’m not a religious person, to begin with.

.In tracks like “Run” its more like techno or pop beat, imparting energy to fit with the movement on-screen. Similarly, tracks like “Protect” give us a slow-paced build-up for some action. Similarly, in “Khun Past“, an entirely piano piece was used focusing on Khun’s past and how he dealt with people.

Listening through all this OST, I’ll admit the music literally made my day, I also have some saved in my playlist. Some musical works remind me of Made in Abyss if only TOG had good staff members, I’m sure it would bag all the prizes.

Final Words

So now, how was Tower Of God Anime? Ultimately, as I’m a manhwa reader as well, so It left me a  little disappointed. I had expectations from the source material that didn’t seem to shine. How much better the character arcs or the fights could have been if they could follow the source closely.

From the perspective of only anime viewer, I see a good time, with no strings attached. The pacing was okay, and it was able to deliver a complete prologue successfully. So even if we never get a season 2, watchers might feel like they have a complete story.

A small one peak on but still a complete one. Give it a shot before you start reading the source and give your thoughts in the comment section. If there are any reviews that you’d like from me, then comment all that below. I’ll be more than happy to watch a new series and make a review on it. Sometimes I end up watching it 3-4 times to take a note of the flaws. It’ll be a good watch for the ones who never watched any Korean works.

Rating: 4/5

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