Tower of God is groundbreaking by the mere virtue of existing. For it’s the very first anime series that’s
based on a manhwa – the South Korean manga.
Well, actually, other anime adaptations of manwha are slated for
2020. However, Tower of God was the first one to get released, technically giving
it the honor of being considered the first.
The eponymous Tower is the
setting of this anime. Gargantuan and mysterious,
it houses an entire world containing a variety of unique races, nations, and environments
within its walls. Each floor is as vast
as a continent, and one can only move to the next floor if he or she passes a
series of tests that are administered by those who have been put in charge of
that floor. What floor one is situated
in indicates his or her power and standing in life. That means that those who have managed to
reach the top floors are the strongest individuals of the Tower, who have
earned themselves premium living conditions, privileges, and social status.
The main protagonist of the story
is a boy named Bam. He intends to climb the Tower to
catch up to his friend (first love) Rachel, who desires to see the stars at the
top of the Tower, and thus, left him behind for her dream. Except for the time he spent with Rachel, Bam
has no memories of his enigmatic past.
However, it’s regularly hinted that he’s someone special and will shake
up the status quo of this world. During
the course of his journey, he learns more of the Tower, and meets
friends to climb the tower with.
Baam is an effective audience
surrogate. Since he’s an amnesiac outsider and
ignorant of what’s the deal with the Tower, the audience gets to learn more of
it as he learns more of it. On the other hand, as
the main character, he isn’t really compelling. While he’s shown to have tremendous potential, and will clearly be more competent down the line, he’s not at all strikingly
badass, multifaceted, or smart, and has very little personality during this
first season. In fact, I personally find
most of his supporting cast – especially the master strategist Khun – more
interesting than him. His naivety and obsessive infatuation with Rachel – her name is always on his lips – also make him annoying at times (to be fair, you do get to understand why he’s like that).
Nevertheless, Baam isn’t entirely
unlikable since it’s also apparent that, for all his faults, he stills works as
the heart of Tower of God. One of the things that I like the most about
this anime is that it successfully captures and potently depicts one of anime’s
most charming tropes – the sense of nakama. Baam’s innocence and fortitude endear him to many
of the other test participants, who eventually become his teammates and friends,
and they organically form into a nakama
ensemble due to him.
Other than the character
dynamics, what make Tower of God
riveting are the worldbuilding and the storytelling. It has fascinating, well-realized rules, mythology, and power
systems in place, and you immediately get
to buy into them for they’re presented with coherence and panache. Meanwhile, along
the way, intriguing unknowns and connotations are well set up – there’s a splendid sense of mystery. All these are then interwoven with a dramatic,
immersive narrative.
Overall, while it didn’t blow me
away as I expected – there was a lot of hype prior to its debut – I totally
enjoyed following the first season of Tower
of God. It’s a generally fantastic show. And there’s good reason to be
optimistic it’s only going to get better moving forward.
Next manhwa anime to be excited for: The God of High School. Debuting in July!
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