Tower of God Episode 1 & 2 Review

Tower of God Synopsis: Twenty-Fifth Bam had been alone his whole life until he met Rachel. Now, however, Rachel is set on climbing the Tower, and she is willing to leave Bam behind to do so. After Rachel disappears in a veil of light, Bam follows her, vowing to ascend the Tower in hopes of meeting her again.

But the Tower is a dangerous place full of ancient secrets, fearsome monsters, and nefarious humans. Each floor is protected by an Administrator who puts the daring challengers through grueling tests that will push them to their limits.

As he confronts Headon, the Administrator of the first floor, Bam learns that he is an ''Irregular,'' someone who was not chosen by the Tower but was able to enter it on his own, an extremely rare event inside the Tower. Regardless of this revelation, however, his path forward is clear. Be it wealth, power, glory, or even reuniting with Rachel, all desires will be realized at the top of the Tower.

REVIEW: Tower of God Episode 1: Is The Mystery of The First Floor Enough to Keep You Climbing?

Beginning in 2010, Korean artist Lee “SUI” Jong-hui, has been producing the webcomic Tower of God, which has captured the attention of readers across the globe. Tower of God’s popularity has hardly gone unnoticed and now, thanks to Crunchyroll, the series is receiving an anime adaptation set to be simulcast in Japan and America. With the April 1st debut of the series’ first episode, fans can now find the answer to an important question: is this Tower worth climbing?

The Story

Fans of the manga will find that the anime adapts the story almost 1:1, with the viewer being thrown right into the mystery and confusion of the Tower alongside Bam, a young boy who follows his dear friend Rachel after she decides to enter the titular Tower.

Once inside the Tower, he is separated from her, and instead finds himself face to face with Headon, the guardian of the first floor, and two mysterious individuals who appear to be familiar with the Tower, Yuri Zahard and Evan Edrok. As Yuri presents Bam with a particularly infamous sword, Headon explains to Bam that each floor in the Tower presents a unique challenge that must be accomplished in order to keep advancing. Headon also presents to him his first challenge: to destroy a steel ball protected by a giant, monstrous eel.

Art Direction

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the entire episode is the art direction. Dry ink-like textures line the characters, the ambient, surreal backgrounds of the first floor recreate the unique, loosely structured format of the original Korean webcomic, and the final scene of the episode takes place in a vividly colored, almost watercolor-like field of tall, dry grass. The manga makes a beautiful leap from the paper to the screen, and it’s apparent that great effort has been put in to capture the wildly varying and often ethereal appearances of the Tower’s individual floors.

Voice Acting

As far as voice acting goes, most of this episode focuses on an exasperated and confused Bam, portrayed by Taichi Ichikawa (Kengo, Hinamatsuri) in his first role as a lead. Though light on actual dialogue, Bam’s desperation is communicated excellently by Ichikawa through gasps and short breaths. Though their appearances in the episode are brief, Khun Aguero Agnes’ calm and cunning demeanor is subtly portrayed by Nobuhiko Okamoto (Katsuki Bakugo, My Hero Academia), while Rak’s gruff and often hard-headed attitude is communicated through Kenta Miyake’s (All Might, My Hero Academia) performance.

The Verdict

Overall, longtime fans of the series will be happy to find that the episode is a faithful and beautiful adaptation of SUI’s original work, while fans unfamiliar with the source material will be enticed by the episode’s varying settings and allusions towards the series’ larger plot. Whether intrigued by the plot or mesmerized by the beautiful production quality, Tower of Gods will have you looking forward to every new floor. If this is what the first episode offers, hopes for the rest of the series are sky high.

Tower of God Episode 2 Review: Does It Pass The Test of The Second Floor?

After Tower of God’s first episode drew a perfect review due to the series’ high production value and promise, expectations were high for the series’ second episode. A blaring question was present when reviewing this episode: would the impressive art direction turn out to be the series’ only redeeming quality, or would it deliver in keeping viewers interested?

Luckily, it turns out to be the latter.

Picking up in the middle of Bam’s test on the Tower’s second floor, “Three Four-Hundredths” begins with a series of quick action scenes as the Regulars continue to battle to the death for the right to advance to the next floor of the tower.

As Bam and Khun attempt to find a peaceful resolution to their confrontation with Rak, the rules of the test suddenly change: the two hundred remaining contestants must form a team of three and have all three members touching within five minutes or be eliminated. Forced to make a quick decision, Bam and Khun throw themselves at Rak, forcing him into a team-up and successfully complete the challenge.

The surviving combatants are then taken to Evankhell’s Mothership, where they are met by the Test Administrator, Lero Ro. Khun reveals that Lero is known as a Ranker, the title bestowed upon individuals who have successfully reached the top of the Tower.

Finding that too many teams made it through the last round, Lero decides to ‘cull’ the rest of the team with another test, proceeding to wash the crowd away with and raise a wall of ‘shinsu,’ a water-energy which “is the source of the tower’s power” and informing the remaining combatants that they must pass through the wall in order to advance.

The only individual to not be moved by the rushing wave of shinsu is Bam, who is then invited by Lero to sit with him and observe the attempts of others to pierce through the wall. While they watch the others attempt to pass the trial, Bam asks Lero questions, including whether he had seen Rachel and why everyone was so wary of Non-Regulars, though he does not reveal that he himself is one.

As this is only the second episode of the series, it comes as no surprise that exposition still features heavily in the script. Thankfully, the episode avoids boring the audience with extended scenes of one-on-one discussions by beginning with the clashes of the second floor and then placing exposition against the backdrop of the frantic and desperate strategies of the shinsu wall challenge.

Hopefully the exciting looking action scenes seen in the first half of the episode will be expanded upon during later, action-heavy scenes in the series.

Of course, the series continues to be beautiful. The backgrounds lend individual personality to different locations, with the watercolor-esque fields of the second floor being visually distinctive from the reflective floors and ordered architecture of Evankhell’s Mothership.

The wall of shinsu, whose liquid almost-gelatinous texture presents a colorful and heavy resistance to the combatants, is a particular standout of this episode.

The Verdict

The second episode should continue to interest viewers in seeing the continued adventures of Bam; after all, it’s clear that there’s a deeper mystery to his presence in the Tower than anyone seems to know. The beautiful art direction remains the highlight of the series, with characters and settings each displaying their own sense of individuality, while the action scenes, though sparse, give an exciting preview of what is hopefully to come for the fledgling shonen series. Overall, this episode should keep viewers enticed and keep them looking forward to climbing to the next floor.