Kami no Tou

Kami no Tou, a praised series that surprised many fans. The plot is so fantastic that Shakespeare will look like an amateur. Unfortunately, the reality is a different thing, it's just another series without good storytelling and plot progression. A mediocre series, after four episodes, they do not explain anything about the plot and do not have good pacing.

In a small shell, the plot is very simple. A boy, Bam, is found in a cave by Rachel. She educates and cares for him to the point that he believes he is her property. One day she said she wanted to see the stars and begins ... climbing the "tower of God." The caveman decided to follow her, so he begins climbing the tower too. At the door, he is very lucky that someone lends him a mighty sword. We don't understand why they are fighting at all, the only idea we have is "yes, they must want to climb the tower." We do not understand who is irregular or regular. We don't know how big the tower is. We don't understand why there are silly tests and how many groups are taking them (there must be hundreds). We don't understand why Bam is so overpowered or lucky(?) that even the princess gave him her sword, and most the most hilarious, the sword lends its power to Bam, something that never happened to the princess. The author continues to feature characters without background, and they never grow. Until now, the characters are bad because we know little information about them, they are like a blank sheet. We need a little character progression, please.

About the characters, they are very average. I have seen many characters and no good progression. Perhaps, we need to wait a bit before appreciating them, but after four episodes, all the characters are the same: A fighter or a caveman.

Art and sound are acceptable. The initial scenes captivated me, but then I noticed that the animation is normal, and the design can be average.

On the other hand, several followers will tell me that the best part is after the second arc. I want to remind you that a good series will give you a great impression in the first episodes. More importantly, you will not need to read or know the source material. So far, my perception of this series is very average. You must know the source material to understand the series and follow the concept of the tower. Even if the source material is very popular, the adaptation lacks a good narrative, good character progression. An adaptation demands equilibrium and expects to carry the watcher through the story without the need to read the source material. This adaptation failed to do that. We need to accept it. For example, four episodes, and we do not know who Rachel is. She is only a girl who picked Bam in a cave and educated him, then she leaves. However, in the source material, other details appeared and were not explained in the adaptation. The casual viewers are not magicians; they cannot guess what was explained in the source material.

Finally, it is too early to bury this series, but so far, the impression is poor.

This is the a train wreck on fire diving straight off a cliff. And we all watch it because its interesting to see things fall so hard.

Tower of god, heavily promoted and even more praised for the only fact that it is a webtoon. I went in with high hopes but its not just disappointment that brought me to a score of 4. The only redeeming point is that the opening and ending is kinda catchy.

••••• ART •••••
This looks like more paper drawn art style, close to the webtoon. I think this was a bad choice because the animation looks lazy by the lack ... of movement, action and detail. The art felt underwhelming and rather boring. It didn’t make the characters pop out or made the Shinshu (their magic?) enchanted. I would say it is easy to look at because the calm colors and easy going detailing.

The lighting of this is subjected to this low detailing. It either feels to bright or to dark. Characters don’t have much shadows, the shadows feel muddy or it is simply to bright. At one of the tests the whole thing in general was to dark to see clearly. To actually make an almost black scene and giving the impression of being dark are different things. In terms of lighting it fails to make the surrounding more appealing and thus lacks depth.

••••• SOUND •••••
Well this was terribly hyped up by the fact that Kevin Penkin composed it. The soundtrack is indeed fitting and feels warm. The soundtracks are well coordinated and fits the timing of actions. It creates an relaxed/calmed sphere where all the characters act al happy and friendly. And that is exactly the downside to it. The tower, presented as a heavy task to climb, didn’t make me tense or hype me up for anything. It really misses a theme song or upbeat mix to make you sit closer to the screen.

••••• STORY •••••
I would say that the story is one of the two main factors why this anime was such a dumpster fire. The pacing is so off, even as a non-manhwa reader I feel that it is wrong. The beginning starts without any explanation of the situation or world. While this may seem as “explore the world with MC-kun” it left an awful after taste in my mouth, because we didn’t explore anything at all. Bam (mc) just pop in a new environment and is told to “climb” in order to find his lost girl Rachel. He doesn’t question it, prepare for it or anything an OP isekai mc would do. But Tower of God is not comparable to isekai so I’ll leave that out. In the end after 13 episodes I’m still puzzled by most of the things that happened so quickly in episode 1-3 without explanation.

Then again, going in totally blind, I don’t know the amount of test and how the test will be more difficult each time. So some test pass by, mostly battle royal with (forced) teamwork. Most people who take the test are called regulars. Someone who isn’t born from the tower is called an irregular. So it is understandable that Bam doesn’t know anything at all, but it seems so weird to see that the regulars aren’t that knowledgeable of their world. Test may differ, but if you know that you have to get violent, learn to estimate people’s power and get some killer moves. Sadly enough the real combat prowess was left at exactly 5 people for comic relief. Waisted potential and not world immerging.

As far as world building goes, it is almost non-existent. The commentary alone is not enough, the mc doesn’t discover things on his own and there is basically no explanation how anything works at all. The feeling of world discovery is killed off by some humor and that makes the world feel underwhelming. The anime show several times the image of a tower, practically reaching heaven, as an image of the tower but how the areas are set up simply doesn’t add up. The commentary and sloppy flashbacks don’t add anything either. At the end of the whole 13 episodes you’ve to accept that “oh there is a world and they happen to be in a (test) space”.
The introduction of “whatever you desire is at the top of the tower” makes me think that the test should be hard and the participants even harder. Oh boy, never did it let me down deeper after I had my hopes high.
Oh and there are some powerful weapons. No explanation what so ever. They simply exist. Good to know. Except that the “regulars” are a bit ignorant of this.

The fights feel rather boring to watch. The outcome is 110% predictable. I guess I don’t have to say who continuously pass the tests after you’ve seen 4 episodes. I expected a lot from the second test. It was supposed to be a bloody battle royal. Alas we get to see boring anti-climatic encounters. This scene feels underwhelming because the defeated are only announced, thus missing 99% of the real action. ToG is consistent, because the rest of the fights feel exactly the same. Underwhelming, disappointing and tensionless. It feels disappointing because the other regulars are so unbelievable weak. The fall pit of ToG is that it wanted to show how strong the main characters are by making the rest unrealistic weak. This does not only feel bland, but takes away all risk and tension. You don’t start to question IF Bam would succeed his test, but with what ass-pull. The tags action and adventure are heavily abused.

There are multiple hints of a vast amount of lore for ToG. It acts like the backbone for most explanations and surprises. This includes the rankers, the princesses of Jahad and shinshu. And again, all explained to little about. These topics leaves to much questions open. While these concepts should be very familiar with the “regulars”, surprisingly it isn’t. Shinshu is said to be a building block of the tower, yet it remains unused and to mysterious. It would have done a great service if at least the commentary about it gave a bit of information about it.

In the end it feels like Bam is wearing full heavy armor suit. Plot armor. Anything and everything he does, he pulls off somehow. While it is the intention that Bam would successfully climb the tower, it doesn’t feel believable or realistic in anyway. You get all the events shoved up your throat and you have to swallow it all, believing it is the “natural” route.

The subtle hints towards his great hidden power to his comrades till death are simply not satisfying to watch. There is no hardship to overcome. It feels like nothing is at stake. The connections between the characters feel as flimsy as the line “I want to see them all smile”. To contribute to this, all characters are very willingly to go with this madness.

In short, Tower of God fails miserably to present an appealing, dangerous and adventurers world. The concept of the tower feels like a lame excuse to keep the characters going. ToG doesn’t give me the slightest feeling of world immersion.

••••• CHARACTES •••••
The second main factor why this animated webtoon flopped hard. The cast was so weirdly put together. I can see the good intention of adding bold, goofy, sleepy, silent, loud and tsundere characters, but that is exactly the problem here. All the main characters can be summed up in few words. The wacky flashbacks don’t really add to character bonding for the viewer. It simply shows something sad and then blatantly moves on. There is no edgy to the seemingly mysterious characters nor is there a really funny moment with the clowns. The way characters react to each other is often being surprised or angry (in a comedic way). I would ask myself, are there no normal reactions?

Another weak point is the incredible bad character development. All characters feels simply not serious or really interesting. Khun may be a bit interesting, but that is mainly because almost anything relevant is left out.

BAM – pronounce it as yohru. he is the most boring mc I’ve seen. No grit, no courage (stupidity doesn’t count) and no likeable or relatable character traits. Seeing Bam on the level of a caveman is pretty sad. He has no way to actually fight. He has no strength nor the knowledge of wielding a weapon. That’s why it feels like extra thick plot armor to have the best shinshu output.
In short, he is the quiet ever-smiling and optimist mc who magically knows how to bind everyone together. Bam also feels very passive and way to relaxed about climbing.

RACHEL – pronounce it as raah-hel. If I have one fully loaded gun and I sat in a room with Myne of Shield Hero and Rachel, I would shoot the whole clip in Rachel. For some reason Bam yearns for Rachel. I don’t understand why, again because his relationship with Rachel is so weakly explained.
Whenever Rachel showed up, it was in one way or another plan annoying. Just seeing her being passive aggressive against Bam is irritating. Her selfish excuses don’t really back this up or rather is so badly presented, it doesn’t feel like a legit reason.

RAK – so he is supposed to be a hunter. I don’t see him as anything else than a clown. He doesn’t make jokes, his character is a joke. We see him exactly 2 times in action, other than that I think he is only there to be there. He adds a bit of balance in the party without being a character himself.

KHUN – a more mysterious character. Set up as a mastermind and schemer, he acts like the smart guy of the group. He might be an interesting character. He has a sad back story and now he is back on his feet for I think revenge. He looks like a half decent character.

LERO-RO – the only likeable character in the anime. Unlike any other character we get to see some of his thoughts and opinions. He is seemingly the only one who question things which aren’t clear and tries to do his job. Its sad that we don’t get to see more of his character or his character traits.

••••• AFTER WORD •••••
This feels like the worst anime of 2020. I went in with high hopes of spectacular battles, teeth gritting scenes or get some chills. Tower of God lacks in interesting character bonding and world building. I think the amount of praise and love for this is to much for something of this “quality”. I won’t recommend this to anyone. You’re better of picking up anything else like Children of the Whales or Dorohedoro which does everything better.

Tower of God. Probably the biggest hype train to get derailed and combust into a fiery pit of dogshit and luck. I've dropped this show, mostly due to the bad show in itself but also due to the annoying superfans who's only argument is seemingly "Read the webtoon". Let's get into it, shall we?

// Story // 2/10
Bam, no, Yoru, no Twenty Fifth Bam, whatever the hell his name is at this point is being pampered by some girl called rachel, and we learn that they get seperated and he wants to become the biggest simp of all and decides to climb the Tower of God ... that can supposedly grant any wish, his wish being to see the stars with said Rachel (rahel?). Already not a great start, not very original but maybe i'll stick through it. What do we get in the very first episode? A rushed first test and the MC getting an OP sword because "he's cute".
But that has to be a slip up right? A one time deal right?
Wrong. Throughout the 4 episodes i've seen, luck/BS reasoning has found it's way into the situations at hand. The second test where he definitely would never had survived, given the fact that it was a battle royale where he was surrounded by bigger dudes with better weapons than him? He made it out by the skin of his teeth. The mini-test after that? He's somehow the only one to not get pushed back. The third test? Dino-Alligator-Crocodile guy opens a random door and guess what it's the right one! No, wait the entire point was to just open a single door.
Too much luck in this story so far, leaving a bad impression.

// Art // 1/10
The art style used wouldn't be so bad if they just stuck to that one style and didn't branch out to a bunch of other styles in the same episode, they go from the regular simplistic-fanartsy style to a chiibi style to another different style back to the original style in the span of 10 seconds...
The original style in itself is very criticizable, it looks like something that would come out of a Pixiv fanart account, the art is simple, but it contrasts too much with the thickness of the lines and the detail in the eyes.
Either you make it simple or you make it complex, but not both at the same time.
I'm also gonna talk about the animation, as it seems pretty unbalanced. While some episodes have respectable animation (for a seasonal), some episodes look choppy, almost as if they just threw the budget out the window for some scenes.

// Sound // 3/10
The voice acting isn't all that bad, but given the lack of good animation, it hinders the experience as it feels like the same as when a cheap english dub is placed over and the lip sync is completely off. The OP is a nightmare to sit through, i cannot stand kpop, and this just had to have an OP done by a kpop group for extra exposure towards kpop stans, not a good thing overall.

// Character // 2/10
Maybe i'm gonna be a bit harsh here, but man, fuck Bam/Yoru. He is the single most annoying MC i've seen in all of anime. He's a wimp that gets lucky, he's a child trying to play an adult's game. He clearly is not ready for the task of climbing the tower, but he throws himself into it anyways because plot armor, i guess. The only interesting characters i found to be noteworthy were dino guy, but he just kept getting ridiculed week in week out to the point that he isn't the beast he was made out to be at the end of episode 1/start of ep2, and Yuri, but we haven't seen much of her so far.

// Enjoyment // 1/10
These 4 episodes were a pain to sit through, i'm not going to lie. So why did i sit through them? why didn't i drop it one episode in? Because i actually thought that this could somehow get better. I get that a series doesn't instantly get better an episode to the next, but 4 consecutive bad episodes with the same exact problems is just too much for me, maybe it gets better later on, but i'm not willing to put myself through more problem -> luck -> solution.

// Overall // 1/10
The hype killed it for me, i came in expecting a top tier show, and i was disappointed. Had this not had the hype it did could i have enjoyed it? Probably. The fans built this up as a masterpiece in every respect, and so far i haven't seen anything worthy of more than a 5/10. This just isn't targeted at me i guess...

For a manhwa anime adaptation hyped up as the second coming of Jesus, the quality of the show so far has been anything but stellar. I can't even describe it as "good", it is instead painfully mediocre and often dreadful.

Beginning with the story, I don't even know what it is other than being a clusterfuck. From episode 1 a million questions are thrusted upon the audience, and every episode more and more are raised. I understand that the intention behind this is to slowly reveal bits and pieces of the world and its characters in order to create tension and thus have the audience invested ... in the many mysteries behind everything. Yet the problem lies in the fact that nothing makes much sense and the essential plot direction and pacing amounts to "the characters do this and go here and then they have to do this thing and in the meantime some other random-ass characters (that the audience has yet to know or care about) have some mundane dialogue or random fighting scene out of nowhere."

Instead of learning more about the past of the protagonist, the world they lived in (some sort of underground cave?) and are currently in (a tower that is situated in who knows where), we instead get to have some bog-standard shonen fights. And tests. Lots of tests. People like to compare these "tests" to Hunter x Hunter's first arc, which I have to disagree with because unlike HxH, the tests the characters must undertake are poorly designed and their purpose quite literally feels like they are there to show who are the main characters (that get to survive) and who are not. They quite literally test only luck, which I have to give credit to the show for being so upfront about it. (episode 2) Then again, an episode later and there's another test, that has so many variables and uncertainties about it (such as the order of the people who take the test or the test maker being intentionally deceitful without much of a hint) that the overall message behind it to "trust others and yourself and not hesitate to make decisions" seems highly disingenuous.

As for the artstyle I can agree with consensus that it is "unique", but that does not make for good visuals which instead resemble cheap microsoft paint drawings. The character designs for the most part however are decent and distinguishable from one another, but there are questionable design options. Such as main companion Khun having a blue triangle stuck to his hair, which only further reinforces the perspective of the show being made with MS Paint.

Sound is decent, no complaints there other than it is wasted on such a poor show.

Characters are my chief complaint for the show and another reason as to why the story itself is abysmal. The main character himself: God Simp, is another generic plucky, innocent and earnest shonen mc, except some of his actions betray this facade. Such as being ready to kill someone else in episode 2, not out of self-defense but in order to pass one of the stupid tests, yet a couple episodes later and he's apologising for causing problems for the others. Neither is he particularly interesting nor sympathetic, literally starts off as a blank slate who upon being deserted by the girl who taught him everything, resolves to make it his life mission to find her again; despite her pleading him not to follow her. This premise is something I actually don't have a problem with inherently, the problem is there's no sign of development for the main characters. If I hear him say "Rachael" one more time (which is pronounced Ra-hel" I'll go mental. The other problem is, the only thing special about him is how "special" he is. By that I mean; he gets through all problems through luck, characters are driven to help him because he has a "cute face", passes through this magical water with pure ease (that other stronger characters struggled with) with not even an explanation of how.

As for the side characters, I can't honestly take them seriously. They are either "comic-relief", "cool badasses","random unfunny humans who think they are funny" or "characters to get hyped about." Khun is the only one who seems to be a bit more multi-sided, but even his character isn't something I haven't seen in numerous other shows.

Rachael ironically is the one character that has yet to be ruined, and in fact as of episode 4, holds the most potential for me. This is due in fact to her rather antagonistic personality contrary to Bam's high opinion of her; not very opposed to him being killed by one of her teammates. I am interested if her motives behind climbing the tower (to see the stars) are truly genuine or not, and am personally holding out hope for her to inspire a teachable moment for Bam, which is "have an actual personality other than being obsessed about me."

I think it's rather clear at this point that my enjoyment of this show is rather low. I don't necessarily find it boring (though it does have some boring features and moments), but find it instead interesting in that it is an awful train-wreck of wasted potential. I can't say I'd recommend this show, but it is highly popular for a reason, whatever that may be; so give it a shot. Will I continue watching it, yes; I am in it for the long haul. I believe there is still opportunity for the show to do a full 180 and actually present something above average.

The story is cheesy and generic that any amateur author can make a similar story o the same level-better than this. Bam is already joke of a character in this first episode alone. That first episode was bad, the set-up and worldbuilding is generic and poorly defined, at one point they're just throwing out jargon terminology that Bam just repeats because he's an empty husk of a character.

Just being dropped in this empty hallway seemingly made only for Bam to do this thing, and then these two people come out of literally nowhere and just inject poorly disguised exposition making vague allusions to Bam's ... behaviour like it means anything to us. They really try their best to make Bam just standing there like an idiot seem like some dramatic brilliant gesture and they needed the guy to just say "there is something special about this boy" even though all he does is trip over himself and show no ability to think on his own.

There's like an element where this one guy is like trying to give Bam some tips but the show also wants to manifacture tension so they cut him off, but then once he's in the middle of the challenge he can give us the full rundown, the entire reasoning for the scenario is thin. Which includes him just being given a sword by Yuri who isn't even supposed to be there?? It's such a contrived "trial" that depends on what-ifs and weakly justified character decisions. Even the reason he can use the legendary sword when "even Yuri couldn't do it" is stupid.

It's like, what am I supposed to get out of this? Oh "the tower" yes I will automatically care about this story because they say "the tower" a million times, even though the main character is a bumbling squeaky idiot with no personality or basic human cognition. It's soooo repetitive, over and over again they reiterate "You are the princess of Jahad", "I am the caretaker of this tower", "will you climb the tower", "I want to see Rachel again" and every action and scene is based on *one* simplistic trait or idea like this.

They also had a guy *tell them* the actual limit is 5 minutes so if anything it'll push them to think that's the actual limit so it's not even really testing their decisiveness at all. The answer was so predictable as a viewer I was begging they wouldn't be so stupid. What's the point of making such a simple thoughtless attempt at subversion when there wasn't even any proper set-up of the test for them to work around? This was literally the only way it could go because he thought through this premise halfway.

Tower of God is just another series that's over-hyped by fans that think one guy looking for a girl is cute and dramatic. No. It's. Not. She didn't want to meet him when they fought later on, silly enough, He was about to die for her. Yet she didn't even considered what he did.

Tower of God is a hideously ugly, embarrassingly incompetent, grossly corporatist shitstorm built upon a trite mess of an overhyped SAO fan-fiction which doesn’t even have the creativity or sensationalism to be outrageously offensive or unacceptable beyond its hysterically unfounded popularity. Having heard nothing but its alleged excellence over the years, I desperately sought out the manga in light of the anime’s shocking lack of any quality whatsoever only to be immediately nauseated by the exact same brain-numbingly amateur storytelling and vacant dialogue which the anime had just assaulted me with. Drowned in the confused vapidities of a writer who couldn’t possibly have escaped the ... clutches of puberty, supported by ESL internet stans lacking even the tiniest modicum of emotional maturity, and delivered by an understaffed and underfunded animation studio contracted by an American licensing company comprised of SJW marketeers and money-hungry *** ******* utterly unfamiliar with industry practices and deluded enough to think slapping a genius musician and a six figure advertising budget on a project is enough to make it worth anyone’s time, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Tower of Gaud.

This did not feel like a genuine story birthed of imagination or inspiration. Rather, it felt like the work of a moody teenager so frustrated at his own lack of talent, he just up and re-skinned his favorite fantasy isekai light novel in order to live in this illusory reverie wherein he actually created his favorite work of art, whether or not that work of art was actually worth imitation nor whether his rendition of it was actually fucking decent in any way, shape, or form. I welcome you to judge me for having read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I have, indeed, read that book, and of all the media I’ve ever consumed, it alone reminded me of Tower of God the most, and it’s the reason I began this review calling it a borderline SAO fan fiction. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey began as a Twilight fan fiction, and if you read the book with this in mind, it becomes abundantly clear. The characters in Tower of God are so empty in personality and motivation because they are so obviously caricatures of other characters from other stories, and the plot line is so undefined yet paradoxically derivative because it’s so obviously an emulation of another narrative, so at no point is the show really doing anything other than presenting you with cardboard cutouts atop a stage of papier-mâché and expecting you to care about anything they’re doing for any reason other than the fact both you and its braindead author are drooling fanboys of selfsame works who can get off on familiarity alone. Everything is just trying to be a plot; the characters just sit around and talk about the plot, yet never is there a sense of them being real people who are interesting or who I wish to see do anything. From where I’m standing, wholeheartedly caring about some plot when the lifeless drones lobotomizing me with it are archetypical, mass-marketable, self-insertable Barbie Dolls and Ken Dolls so mechanical and uninspired as to be existentially dreadful is simply daft.

Even if you are happy to slurp down the same generic mass of media sludge devoid of even a beating heart to pump the corporate oil through its veins, I still can’t see you investing in a show where NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS! The amount of episodes which passed over my dried, reddish eyes before someone actually SAID SOMETHING was so depressingly unbelievable I repressed it from memory. Now, I don’t mean to say this show is literally without speech. In fact, no one ever shuts the fuck up, but nobody ever says anything substantial. “Reach the top, and everything will be yours.” “I must reach the top, whatever it takes.” “At the top of the tower exists everything in this world, and all of it can be yours.” “The tower can give you all you desire.” Every single line of dialogue in this show takes the mocking irony of the word “chuunibyou,” accepts it with pride, and then attempts to become even more cringeworthy and intellectually worthless than the last, and each successive line of vagueness serves only as a shameless carrot on a stick leading anyone without the foresight to notice down a contextless rabbit hole where creativity and artistic innovation go to die deplorable, pitiful deaths. The nonexistent sense of time and place combined with the equally absent sense of mystery and intrigue makes said lack of contextual knowledge not only unengaging, but downright infuriating. You’re expected to give a single shit about wooden characters getting thrown in and out of contrivance after contrivance, episode after episode, fighting battle after battle with a totally undefined and nonsensical magic system until the show finally ends, the end goal is no less hazy, and you’re finally relived of your suffering. The tone is utterly nonexistent, cutting from people getting their brains blown out from a sniper bolt to some goofy looking monster twisting that very same sniper like a spoon and letting its rifleman run free in a cloud of dust like a scene out of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, or interspersing would-be intense battle sequences with chibi art comedy only to continue on as if nothing happened and assume the little tone initially there decided to stick around even after their kindergarten sense of humor had made its embarrassing appearance.

The show only bothers to hide its absolute technical incompetence under a veneer so thin, it inherently relies on the complete and total ignorance of the viewer to actually obfuscate any of the blatant cost-cutting at hand. It’s riddled with enough post-processing effects to make a ufotable show look cel animated, but whereas that studio will at least put in the time and effort to build a cohesive aesthetic around how abundantly digital their anime are, this show used these effects to merely get by. These digital crutches which this passionless cripple of an anime used to parade its garish color design and equally thoughtless slapdash character designs ultimately did little more than make the former even more blown-out and migraine inducing and the latter even more bizarre looking given the fact nothing about the character art is hand-drawn except for the linework itself. And if the designs weren’t outlandish enough on their own, the incessantly off-model frames and flatly shadeless facial gradients which I hesitate to even call art make every character look even more gawky and retarded than their non sequitur dialogue already does. The staff animates movement, I mean, because they have to, but they never dare animate propulsion. A character will brace for an impact, but the second they’re hit and launched airborne, the animation immediately stops dead in its tracks, and the most recent frame proceeds to be pathetically clicked-and-dragged across the pseudo-artful, harshly colored, Microsoft Paint looking background art as a still image. Even if you’re so new to the medium of animation and so blind to the technique behind its craft to actually think any among these meager scribbles to be presentable, I still can’t see anyone with legal vision standing in approval of the downright abrasive CGI and its unabashedly poor compositing which was vomited over any scene which required any level of intricate effort to draw. Hilariously begun with a Korean Linkin Park music video for an opening theme, every episode is just as horrific as the last, as there is simply no redeeming qualities to be found in this show’s visual presentation whatsoever, and if you were hoping Kevin Penkin’s soundtrack saved it, prepare yourself for the most inept sound direction in the history of television.

But first thing’s last. Can a corporation really buy your approval, and will you, Mister or Miss Cash Cow, continue your patronage upon the realization they tried to do so? This is the real question at the heart of Tower of God and the real reason I’m here seeking your attention. Many spheres of entertainment have had to ask this grim question in the past when they, too, became populous enough for corporations to see their fandom as healthy investments, but with Funimation now holding seats of influence on Japanese production committees, it’s time for us in the anime community to ask the same. Tower of God is a crushingly uninspired mess of trite ideas and vapid elements stacked atop one another so high, even its stature as a pile of artistic shit starts seeming impressive, but it feels it can get away with its countless offenses not out of a sense of confidence in itself, but out of a sense of confidence in you. Using your technical blindness and unshakable genre loyalty as insurance, it bets it can make a profit despite being awfully made, pointlessly directed, and vacantly written not because it thinks the critics will love it regardless, but because it knows you will buy it regardless. And as far as I can tell, it made the right call. This isn’t just, “Oh, look. A-1 Pictures is cheaply adapting another best selling light novel, Bones is cheaply adapting another hit in Weekly Shounen Jump, and both adaptations will be wildly successful despite all.” This is different. This is a foreign entity penetrating the industry and using their knowledge of your domestic consumer habits to pitch a feigned project at the lowest cost margin it can specifically manufactured to milk impressionable fans up to the highest profit margins it can, and they did it by gaining industry clout with a popular subscription service you pay for to support the anime you love, but which they use, instead, as a hedge fund for an American convention and their own original productions. Industry is a machine, and you are its fuel; this is okay, because capitalism and the free market are good things. But this isn’t about economy, this is about identity, and if you want to identify as an enabler of the creative death of your favorite form of entertainment, then by all means, go ahead. Crunchyroll Originals™ await you with open arms.

Thank you for reading.

Watching Tower of God unfold every episode is like reading a comic book. Starting from the first page, you read and flip each page to see what's new. From every one of those pages, you may find something that catches your eye, or something that gives you an underwhelming sigh. Tower of God unfolds its plot with principles that seemed intriguing at first. But as more and more pages are turned, the anime slowly dies and leaves me with little to get excited about. Helmed by Crunchyroll as one of the leading projects of the Summer lineup, this is not an anime that deserves such ... amount of hype.

First, I do want to say that I am an anime original viewer so coming into this show is a fresh new experience. On my first viewing, Tower of God reminds me of the classic Hunter x Hunter as the protagonist is faced with challenges to overcome. It’s the sort of adventure that chronicles how much our characters can achieve or fail. We follow their journey to climb the mysterious Tower and the awards that await them at the top. From his journey, we meet protagonist Bam, who had been searching for his friend Rachel. The show pits him into a deadly challenge but promises the answers of his desire should he succeed. Now the question arises how much should we care about his desires or in fact, his journey to reach the very top.

Crunchyroll has been heavily promoting this show and I actually do praise them for the effort. It’s a Korean webtoon adaptation after all and this is one of the first full TV anime. Making an impression is important as more webtoon adaptations are coming in the future. Tower of God stands with a lot of genres that combines elements of fantasy, adventure, mystery, and action. While there’s also drama in the mix, I would say it falls short but I’ll get to that later. For now, understanding what Tower of God is important so you’ll have a reason to watch the show as the plot follows Bam and his adventures. Throughout this adventure, he encounters many new faces. Whether friends or foe, he responds to them cautiously to avoid consequences. Remember, this Tower contains mysterious properties almost no one understands and what awaits with each step to the top is a new challenge. From my initial impression, Bam seemed like an outsider that needs an immense amount of character development. He’s part of this world where no one knows who he is except his friend Rachel. And searching for his friend is used as a plot element rather than exploring more of his own character. At its base, Bam is a kind person but with little social skills. To put it simply, he is like a lost child that needs guidance, someone that needs a helping hand. He also has a distaste for loneliness and desires to be with Rachel.

Now of course Bam isn’t the only character carrying the show. Soon, we meet the intelligent Khun, a young man with a complex personality as compared to Bam. He is almost like his foil, a character who is independent and knows how to play his cards to get what he wants. Throughout the series, he uses his strategic mind to manipulate others and is someone difficult to read. No one knows his true endgame goal although he has a keen interest in Bam. Based on the author’s interview, he is perhaps the most human character we encounter as his actions are realistic and often methodically planned ahead. To me, watching Khun’s character role is far more intriguing to see what cards he’ll play. And of course, let’s not forget Rachel, the best friend of Bam and his source of motivation to climb the tower. After finding her, Bam vows to help her reach the top to fulfill her desire. With that desire, it’s clear that Bam treasures Rachel as a special friend. That’s to say, Tower of God tries its best to get us invested into its character relationships. It unifies their relationship as a character pair built on trust and friendship. But does it really work? On some levels, it has an emotional impact but from this season alone, it is not enough. Bam and Rachel’s relationship doesn’t undergo much change or development after the two are united. Despite being prominent characters of the story, I find myself more invested into other supporting characters such as Annak and Endorsi. In fact, the anime actually devotes efficient amount of storytelling on Anaak’s background story. Even Rak and Yuri are worth watching for their personalities. The lack of charismatic traits for both Bam and Rachel drags this show down and their relationship exemplifies mediocrity.

Let’s not forget the ultimatum of Tower of God. We have to always remember the story is an adventure and each step along the way is similar to a phase of a long test. From the beginning, our characters are being tested to see who is worthy. Bam, Khun, Annak, Endorsi, and Yuri are just a few examples. Questions emerge on how much these tests are worth watching and although the stakes are high, it’s not easy to always get invested into them. Let’s face it, most of the action in this show feels the weathered down and the studio (even with Crunchyroll backing up the production), didn’t fully capitalize on its choreography. The visual quality is subpar at best that looks similar to an animated comic book. It has sketchy visuals without much shading and the character designs looks less detailed than I had anticipated. This all comes down to preferences but Tower of God isn’t a show to praise for its art.

But for the soundtrack, I do give praise Kevin Penkin’s music composition. The OST is not just worth watching but does hype up various episodes and important moments in the show. Let’s not also forget the OP theme song with its lyrical tune and effective usage of its cinematography. However, it’s a shame the voice acting of the main characters can’t compare to the music composition. Even characters like Annak and Endorsi hardly sound appealing despite their more lively personalities.

Tower of God is one of the most talked about show of the Spring season but with 13 episodes, you know this isn’t the full story. What it tries to set up is a story of adventure, challenges, relationships, but none of them really justifies its hype.

I remember it well. Back in 2011, when webtoons were starting to get popular, there were two names that echoed louder than the rest: 'Tower of God' and 'Noblesse'. The debate was real as everyone was arguing over which one is better. And here I stand, 9 years later, trying to decide which one is worse.

Tower of God is essentially Korean Naruto with Bleach-swords. The entire first act is a fast paced exam-training-rescue arc hybrid, and that's pretty much how it differs from classic Japanese shonen, which take their sweet time doing each of these one at a time. The idea for the story can ... be figured out by reading the title: Reach the top of the tower and you will become something of a God. The motivation for our main character to attempt this very thing is to rescue a girl. The means that allow him to do so are a different deal and that deal is rather lame.

This is how it goes: Certain princess is "feeling bored" so she gives our hero a sword, and this sword is actually alive - at least in some sense - and "it" happens to be kind of a shotacon so she (the sword) gives our main character undeterminated amount of power which he can now use in certain situations when the convenience is due. And all of this happens because he is "kinda handsome", at least according to the sword-shotacon-spirit. I guess kudos for the author for not even trying to hide the lameness that exist among this work. Of course, friends are also very important and just so happens to be, this exam side of the act forces our main character to form a team consisting of two other nakama (whom he has never seen before), so naturally, Sasuke-Kurapika edgy guy - who is also a walking keikaku doori with tragic past story - joins the team along this 3rd dude who is flamboyant, arrogant, GAR and very loud - and plays the role of a comedic gag guy. Together this powerful trio do some highly predestined stuff and thingies as we, the audience, are watching them advance while the not-so-great mystery unfolds.

To more thoroughly cover the character section: Yoru -our hero- has almost no presence and his resolve is pathetic when considering his reasoning, Khun is apparently super genius but all he does is succeed at everything and anything so effortlessly that it comes off as bullshit (excluding that one scene where he can't figure out a riddle and instead experiences random PTSD flashbacks because it wasn't his time to shine due to a joke the series wanted to deliver..), Rahk's entire existence is so comedic that he has no real value as a person, and Lahel (the girl that needs no saving but Yoru still wants to save) has no personality because she is essentially a mystery element who needs to be "kind of a cold bitch" and cannot ever make logical sense, rational decisions or explain herself because otherwise the story falls apart.

What the series does well are the side characters. By no means are they very strong and fascinating individuals from stand-alone perspective, but what the author does with the side casting is smart because they end up serving the entertainment factor of the show. Many side characters have gone through thorough planning to make them appear fascinating from the first glance. Their design and small tweaks in behavior give the series heart and personality to surprising extent. This is done in a manner that were you follow these characters for a long period of time in a long journey, you'd end up realizing they aren't amazing at all, but when they have insignifant roles in small parts of the story, they are right in their element.

The animation and art style is certainly the only thing those who consume shonen series have never seen before. Most of everything else varies from copy-pasted formula and overused trope to downright macro-filling as things such as originality and fresh, new ideas are absent entirely. Naturally, that's not to say that the series is doomed to fail and cannot be entertaining. The execution among the nu-art certainly make the series stand out from majority of classic shonen titles that have come out in the recent years, but that's exactly all the newness there is to experience. Other factors massively bottleneck its art style which impact isn't given in the first place. Personally, I enjoyed the art style and art directing a great deal - even in all of its simplicity - but those who do not approve of it will have much less anything to look forward to as the story and character factors have little no praise-worthiness in them, rather, they appear very flat and contain much fewer strong points to hang onto - entertainment wise.

Speaking of entertainment, the series seems to have been build with one single request in mind: "Whoever is watching this, just please try to have some fun with it." This is the message I got. Many things are entirely forgotten, such as the main characters actually forming bonds. It just happens for some reason and by the half way mark of episode 03, these guys are already prepared to take a bullet for each other. If you ask questions like how, why and when, be prepared to receive nothing but "yeah, iunno" *shrugs* as a reply. The series doesn't seem to think that such things are of importance. It isn't afraid to cut at any corner or cop-outs its way towards whatever it wants to do next. This serves the pacing and perhaps makes the show more easier to get into and digest, after all, it asks practically nothing from the audience and 0 efford is required as there isn't much substance to follow nor are there things you need to actually wait to get. On the downside, the series only aims to be mediocre and hopes you will enjoy it regardless. There is no great reward you can get by continue watching it onward, but it will consistently give you the same level of fun that it can.

By the way, when I imply it comes with good pacing, I specifically mean the flow of the individual episodes. One massively important thing to note is that there is hardly any plot progression or character development to be seen at any point in the series. Moreover, the series doesn't really try to build anything or foreshadow the next step it's going to take. Heck, it doesn't really even seem to fully plan the current step that it's already taking. If you look at it in that way, then the pace is quite horrid. Basically, the more you zoom out, the bigger the picture you look at is, the worse the series appears. Zoom in and you might as well find at least something worth your while.

One thing the series does quite well is use its comedy to paint scenes that would be entirely stupid if taken seriously, as comedic. I already mentioned the series doesn't try to hide its lameness, but it does hide its own immaturity rather well, if you will. For example, I don't really like riddles, but it took me about 7 seconds to figure out how to solve the beginning of this part of the exam. The raw idea for that scene was entirely idiotic, but at the same time, the actual conclusion end up being that only a total idiot could figure it out. This was a real hilarious 'ouch' moment for me as I figured it out and instantly claimed it idiotic. After that, the show tells me if you knew the answer, you're also an idiot, and I actually end up laughing at it and at myself. Alas, I can't agree with the statement, but that don't mean I can't enjoy its attempt at wit. :^)

To conclude the previously mentioned: The art style leaves more room for different interpretations whereas the story and characters come as they are and they really aren't much. It's common criticism to say that anyone could have written Tower of God's story, but to be more accurate here: many already have written it. The series is such a huge deja vu experience that watching it for the first time feels like rewatching. I guess it feeling familiar and welcoming are among its pros if you want to look it that way, but overall I wouldn't give it much credit for achieving something like that.

Overall, to make my point stand out even more: This series has very limited amount of good going on, but for me personally, its pros were enough to keep me entertained for most part and actually made me care for the series on some level. It's still pretty shitty tho, so be warned, but that don't mean it can't be fun for what it is. Do keep in mind that it's supposed to be brainless fun aimed for teenagers. All things considered, I conclude this series is not as good as average anime and therefore it's bad.

In your mind what's makes a good epic fantasy anime.

Massive World-building?
Well, detailed power system?
Interesting lore?
High and impactful stakes?
Engaging politics?

These are the elements that make a worthwhile fantasy anime. Vinland Saga, The Heroic Legend of Arslan and Hunter x Hunter are great example of fantasy series that follow the requirements of an epic fantasy setting.
Sadly now and then we get a handful of bad fantasy anime that fails to have elements however very rarely do we get a downright horrendous fantasy series that not only is incapable of doing at meeting the basic requirements of a fantasy anime but also frequently treats the viewer like idiots ... with its inept writing and directing.

That's Tower Of God a broken, unpolished and cringy pile of waste that fails to achieve anything.

Let's address the ugly elephant in the room the visuals.
This may very well be the most unpolished modern I've seen. This show came out in 2020 yet looks like it came out in the early 2000s with its messy camerawork, uninspired background scenery, ugly as sin Microsoft Paint character designs are not appealing in the slightest and the animation is messy that is filled with mediocre to bad fight choreography.

Combined with the poor lighting and jarring use of CGI and you got yourself a visual nightmare.

"Hey, viewer do you remember Hunter's Exams arc in Hunter X Hunter and how good it was. Well, let's make the whole anime about it expect to strip everything good about it, and we are going to heavily advertise it on social media like as the second coming of Hunter x Hunter"
Random Crunchyroll employee.

That's the Tower Of God story in a nutshell.
It's hollow, poor written and devoid of substance.
Worldbuilding is frankly non-existent in this series. It's labelled an Epic Fantasy series yet the show doesn't bother to establish its world. It just shamelessly dumped us the world without explaining shit.
What's the power system in the universe?
What's the lore of the world
What are the main characteristics of passing each test?
What's the mystery of the world and the tower itself?

The show never tackles any of these things of theses as it rather spends showcasing its poorly directed fights and abuses the luck factor where the Bem would pass the exam with ease due to dumb luck. No skill, strength, no strategy, nothing. This is only made more jarring by the atrocious writing in the series.

Right from episode 1, the show wastes no time showcasing how atrocious the writing in the series is. Cardboard Beta kun I mean Bam loses his potato love interest, Rachel, because of reasons. Due to this Bam decided to enter the tower so he can save Rachel. Then for whatever bizarre reason he receives the most overpowered weapon in the series by this plot device woman starting that the reason why gets the sword because I was not making this up, he looks cute... After watching episode 1 I knew I was watching to be plot armoured written shitshow featuring a one-dimensional beta protagonist that will pass at everything due to his disguising plot armour. Right after episode 1 the writing quickly deteriorates to a point where it started to on par with really bad fan-fictions from the mid-2000s.

The best example of this show's compete disregard of writing happens in episode 7. Anak and Endorsi are fighting and at the same talking about their issues. Typical fight shounen stuff I have no complaints. What happens next is so unbelievably dumb it makes me wonder that this show was written by human beings. Endorsi high heels break, and she falls but she was able to grab arm then if this horrendous written and directed piece of tripe wasn't bad already the show decided to do an over the top tone shift thank frankly killed off the mood and tension that the fight had for no reason. It has truly been a long time since I watch a series this incompetent. That fact, that putrid writing was allowed to be pitched infuriates me to end. I know we get just in the new decade of anime and all but Tower Of God has the worst writing I've seen from this decade.

What's pushes Tower of God into beyond awful territory are the characters.

Bam is overpowered beta cringelord.
Now I usually like my beta protagonist as they can be interesting and compelling characters e.g. Nagisa Shiota, (Assassination Classroom) Saika Totsuka (Snafu), and Elliot Craig (Trails of Cold Steel) but Bam is anything but that. He spends the majority of the anime being an overpowered beta for sake of it. He's boring, has no character development and he's just annoying site from beginning to end.

Rachel may very well be the worst female characters I've encounter in recent memory. She's bland, a plot device has she has a personality of potato and she's a hypocrite. I will never forgive what she did in episode 12 as she efficiently made the contrived journey worthless.

Aguero Agnes Khun is lame. He may not be as insufferable as Bam and especially the plot device thing that is Rachel but he still a subpar character overall. To his credit, he is the most entertaining character as he kept me awake while watching this amateur hour but his still, not a good character in the slightest.
He's a Killua/Nagisa/Karma knockoff that lacks depth, development and substance.

The rest of the characters just exist because why not. Forget character development just, have the rest of the characters either be plot devices or background noise. Frankly, the characters in Tower of God are just interesting as potatoes.

The only decent to come out in this scrapheap is the soundtrack done by which is alright but, it wasn't enough to redeem the anime from being a garbage fire. You can go on youtube and listen to the soundtrack and OPs/ENs from there. You don't need to commit to 13 episodes of unpolished poorly written gibberish to listen.

Tower of God is just pathetic.
It's a series that fails to do even the basics required for a fantasy series. It's a series that has ugly as sin production values, It's a series that features empty characters who are a void of personality and creativity. It's a series that can't even entertain the viewer due to its bad fan-fiction tier writing.

It is a series that gets nothing right yet Crunchyroll think this is the second coming of Hunter by hamfistedly promoting the series on social media.

Crunchyroll listen I understand you want to make money by promoting a popular series please do not shove a series right down our thoughts in social media especially when some people such as myself don't like this series.

You did the same crap with Twin Star Exorcist back in 2016 as you promoted as this epic, complex shounen show yet, in reality, is a half-baked anime adaptation that doesn't adapt the source material correctly. If you didn't hamfistedly advertise the series then I would have been less harsh about it heck, I would have dropped it after episode 4 and left it alone.
The damage has been done and for that, I hate this series and everything that its stands for! One of the worst shows I've ever watched in recent memory and I recommend you to avoid this amateurish series that has no passion and creativity like the plague.

If I made it to the top of the tower, I would wish for a more coherent testing system where things were actually explained so that climbing the tower didn’t give everyone a massive headache due to how poorly it’s conceived.

But some wishes just aren’t meant to come true.

Tower of God is an anime that’s grown in popularity due to the unique fact that it’s one of the first Korean web comics to receive a television adaptation. And with the added bonus that the source material is highly revered, what could possibly go wrong? Bad direction apparently. Despite having several upsides and what I believe ... to have the potential to actually be something great, there’s one major flaw I have with this anime that kept it in the realm of mediocrity in my eyes.

I just don’t get it.

Now at the time of writing this review, I have not read the source material. And as an anime only watcher, I expect this and any adaptation to be able to properly present a story that’s concrete, understandable, and doesn’t require prior knowledge of the source material to actually comprehend. This is where Tower of God failed miserably for me. From the presentation of episode one alone I knew that I wasn’t going to like the direction of the anime. Things are constantly being thrown at viewers literally every episode without nary an explanation on what they mean in regards to the narrative. I’m still perplexed about seemingly basic things such as what the heck this tower is and how it fits into the world of Tower of God. Yeah, I know I’m not the brightest bulb in the batch, but I’m usually not this confused. I mean for example, how do people exactly get chosen to participate in the tower? Do they all come from the same planent, or different ones since there are multiple (and horribly designed might I add) species present? Is the tower just a training ground for people to rank up, or is it actually its own little world since there seem to be sentient lifeforms living in it? Can someone please explain ANY of the numerous powers that the characters have and why? Who the hell thought a fisherman was a good title for a class? Why the heck is Bam the most generic character in existence?

Ok, the last two are more personal gripes, but you get the idea. And it isn’t just these broad ideas that have their issues, but many smaller ones that really detract from the anime, which usually comes in the form of trying to explain who characters are and their motivations. The most insight we’re ever given are brief backstories for some characters that are so abrupt that they didn’t really leave much of an impact. Now I understand that it’s good to have mysteries surrounding one’s story. It’s usually a good thing to keep a lot of information in the dark and to casually reveal parts of it to viewers over time for an enhanced effect. However, Tower of God doesn’t do this properly as it’s such an expansive world with a lot of details yet has basically neglected to explain ANYTHING of any importance until the 13th episode which…was actually really good. But too little too late honestly.

I know one common argument against this is “Hey, just read the source material! It wil fill in the blanks and make you enjoy the anime more.” No, it unfortunately won’t for me. In my mind, an anime has to be able to get by on it’s own merits without having to rely on the source material for viewers to fall back on, and Tower of God fails at this. And to the shock of no one, it is in fact possible to make an anime adaptation of a lengthy story that works perfectly well on its own. HunterXHunter, an anime that Tower of God seems to get compared to, did this just fine among others. Then again, Tower of God’s direction is so bad that it actually makes me want to read the web comic just to see if it’s better like many claim, so maybe the anime accomplished what it set out to do in my case!

Anyway, the narrative itself is pretty simplistic. It’s set up sorta like a battle royale where a group of characters must rise through the levels of the tower and enhance their abilities, all while losing the weaker contenders along the way. I’m a sucker for tournament themed shows, so I’ll admit that I have been entertained throughout watching the anime. Bam is your typical super overpowered protagonist who doesn’t actually understand his powers, and the story revolves around his journey. Bam face several test along the way, such as some crown game and a variant of tag. These tests honestly aren’t the most exciting, but they generally serve their purpose. The real highlight of Bam’s quest and one of the better portions of the show would be character relationships.

Yes, I don’t like Bam. But there were some characters that I actually thought were appropriately handled. Khun is the cool bro character, and while I wasn’t really impressed with his “schemes” since I don’t really find them to be all that impressive, I still ended up liking the dude nonetheless. The two characters who I thought were the best were Anak and Endorsi. I just really liked their chemistry and enjoyed watching their development over the course of the anime. Speaking of development, I’m a sucker for when a group of characters are at odds with each other in the beginning but end up forming close bonds in the end, and this was handled quite well in Tower of God. I guess I’ll give Bam credit for something, as he was the cornerstone that really brought this group together.

The final character that I want to mention is Rachel. Now the vast majority of people seem to hate Rachel. I for one really like her. Of course what she does to Bam wasn’t really a surprise since just about every web comic reader spoiled it in every single forum, but it was still interesting and I really like what it did for her character. Episode 13 ended up being far and beyond the best episode for me simply because it took Rachel’s perspective, showed her true persona, and actually explained some things. Yeah, that last part really came as a shocker. So hats off to Rachel for actually being a layered character! (*cough* unlike Bam *cough*)

I did really enjoy the soundtrack and it was probably the highlight of the anime for me. I just have a thing for eerie chanting I guess. Stray Kids performed the opening theme, and it went straight to the TOP of my favorites for the season. They also did the ending theme, which was definitely no SLUMP like many EDs tend to be. The visuals are definitely unique, but not to my liking. A lot of the character designs felt really laking to me. Battles were often short, but the animation used for them seemed to flow just fine in my mind.

Tower of God ended up being a mixed bag for me. The last three episodes were actually pretty good, but they were just brought down by their mediocre, and in some cases bad, predecessors to the point where I was beyond really caring, which is unfortunate. And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but holy crap, the comedy is abysmal. Jokes were often cringe and horribly timed. Sorry Rak, but you just didn’t do it for me! Of course comedy is subjective, so you might enjoy it, but…I just thought it was unredeemably bad. This anime was definitely saved by character interactions, and I honestly did enjoy watching the characters bond throughout the episodes. But in the end, the direction and world building were completely botched up, which unfortunately ruined this show for me. It's a shame, because this issue could have been completely avoided with some better decision making. Why did the directors do this?

I just don’t get it.

Tower of God. So much hype...........
Personally I havent read the manhwa. I have to say that I 've read an enormous ammount of manga and spent many months of my life watching anime. So I will write this review as someone who meticulously watches many anime each season and in general has viewed many hyped anime in his life.

This anime...this story...this worldbuilding...is absolute GARBAGE.

I am not going to sugarcoat it.
I dont give a damn if this gets good after chapter 356 on the manhwa.
For what we are given this should not be getting a chance to reach that point of the story. There ... are much better stories out there that should be getting a chance to be animated.

Story? Worldbuilding? Characters? what's that?
This was supposed to rival one piece in these regards? Are you serious right now? All these 9s and 10s that I see as a score for this anime..are you serious?
Why??

Which character is the memorable here?
Which animation part?
Which part of the story?
Which scene?
Which soundtrack?
Are the OP or the ending even decent?
Nothing. The great void. This anime has nothing going for it.

STORY 3/10.
Simple premise really. Climb to the top of the Tower, make your desires a reality.
Ok ok.
So lucky protagonist Bam enters the tower while not even knowing what it is or how he enters it in search of his only other known person to him who left him with no explanation to attain her own wish which is also not explained.
BTW BAM is an irregular.
What is an irregular you might ask.
Excellent question poor viewer!
What? You wanted an answer to that question? Well sucks to be you. This is world-building peasant. No time for these we have to introduce characters without background. If we introduce 100 of them then what the hell 1 or 2 will be interesting right?
On to Tests. You have to pass tests in order to climb the tower. What is the main characteristic that you have to possses in order to pass the tests?
Strengh? meh
Intelligence? meh
Luck? YES thats its. I shit you not. its LUCK. Couple that with inherent being born with powers and you have what it takes apparently to clear the tower.
I could go on and on about the caretaker the first test the princess the weapon the different "races" but the brain of the human is a smart organ you know. It identifies when you are trying to hurt yourself and it stops you. Recalling what happened to these episodes is physically painful. Main reason being that this anime was HYPED. OMG poor hypers. I legit pity you. I could not be more sιncerely sad for you right now. Honest to the tower's owner.

CHARACTERS 3/10.
Lets start with the MC, Bam.
Every time the MC speaks you want to yawn.
Weak. Blunt.
No brain.
No plan.
No common sense.
zero knowledge of how the world works.
No power (which he earned).
No special features is his character design.
Nothing special about him.
He has a goal I ll give him that. But you cant even call him determined. Its your typical "I am going to befriend everyone and never dirty my hands" type. You know, the one that if he didnt have armor plot would be dead in seconds because thats not how the world works.
Watching paint dry on a wall would be more interesting than watching this man be a protagonist.
He instantly copied, nay, MASTERED the technique of a ranker-a person who has cleared the tower? HOW? WHY?
He is lucky? Chosen? why????? It shouldnt take 300 episodes to learn why.
A very weak protagonist.

Then there is Rak. Excuse me Rak is listed as a main character? Really? Its a talking standing crocodile who is supposed to provide some comic relief? He does no such thing.
No background for this one as of episode 9 and he doesnt showcase anything special.
He wants to eat and fight. Then watch out because he....SLEEPS. Thats it. And he is not even particularly strong. So why is he a main character?

Ok next is Agnes. Now he is the only reason why I am not rating this anime as a 1. He is strong. Mysterius. Smart. With a past you give a damn for. Promising weapon. Nice design. Even nice one liners. The actual protagonist? Maybe.

Finally Rachel. Oh Rachel. The Golden Apple of Discord.
Laughable really. This is going to be the heroin? Whatever goes for the MC goes for her as well.
Vague. Weak. Uninteresting. You dont care about her at all. She could die and besides the MC nobody would care.

ART 5/10
Art is decent. Just that. Nothing to write home about. I would never judge an anime by its art alone.
I assume that this is how the background of the original material was.
Otherwise the 5 rating would be generous. I dont know. I dont want to know because the anime is not giving me any incentive to find out.
Blunt background and colors. No details at all, nothing special.
Not much to talk about really. Plain and boring.

SOUND 4/10
Same as the art. Absolutely nothing memorable. You will never see a part of tower of god's soundtrack in any top anything list.
The opening is called "never let you go" which to me is very funny since this is the exact opossite of what you should be doing with this anime.

ENJOYMENT 2/10
I am out of words really and as I said that is mainly because this anime was HYPED and because it keeps getting good reviews for some reason.
BUT, if I had to describe it with one and only one word that would be BORING.
Its also bad but mainly it is boring and I hope with the passage of time when the hypers move on the score on myanimelist will slowly deteriorate to a more realistic one which would place it between 1-5 (TOPS!!!).

You who have read this review please note that I am not joking I am not over reacting I am not biased in any way. Just STAY AWAY from this anime for your own good :)

"The writing is unfortunate, attempting clever repartee between the attractive stars, but just succeeding in making everyone slightly embarrassed with rushed and perfunctory."
-YESTORAKS, GeeKon Magazines

Arguably, expectations may have been set a bit too high for The Tower of God, the first cinematic adaptation of Webtoon celebrated series, a self-proclaimed magnum opus which began with a webtoon actor, SIU. A project which was taken years to reach realization, the distinction would eventually fall to Japanese writer, Erika Yoshida who famously (not really) be as a Scripter in Double Decker and be as a Series composition in Namu Amida Butsu, etc.

Having broken out into international acclaim as ... a director, Sano Takashi (who be as a key animation of Detective Conan) seemed an inspired choice to helm such monolithic material, which professes to condense ideas from SIU series and meld them into a boiled down sequel of sorts to the whole endeavor. Never fear, those who haven’t taken the opportunity to wade through SIU lynchpin of a multiverse (which bleeds into his expansive and illustrious bibliography) shouldn’t have a hard time keeping up with this somber palette.

Unfortunately, what Sano and contributing writer, Erika Yoshida. What could have been a unique franchise to be shouldered by an effective Sano Takashi crashes and burns all around in him in this rendering, which falls significantly short of the epic scope SIU conceived.

Synopsis:

Troubled brown-hair kid Twenty-Fifth Bam (Voice acted by Ichikawa Taichi) who has spent most of his life trapped beneath a vast and mysterious Tower, with only his close friend, Rachel (Voice acted by Hayami Saori), to keep him company. When Rachel enters the Tower, Bam manages to open the door into it as well, and faces challenges at each floor of this tower as he tries to find his closest companion.

Just imagine....

3 season, more than 300+ chapters and a multitude of exotic settings and alternative realities entered by two near-mythic protagonist, are here transformed into turgid cinematic slop. This anime has a considerable amount of source material to fall back on but we never got a sense of this here. Of course there is more material than any one anime could possibly cover but this one could have done a better job, especially since this is the first manhwa of what will probably be a series. This particular anime threw us right into the story without explaining too much. The answers are on the periphery, however, the anime never gets there as viewers are kept at arm’s length so fans of the manhwa series may be disappointed.

The Special effects light up the screen like gloopy video game flourishes, while a handful of action sequences fail to contribute to the epic scope of what’s meant to be a staggering palette, but instead each tableau looks like just some other place on earth.

Although not the misfire it could have been, Takashi's treatment of The Tower of God is perhaps more sacrilegious than an utterly tone-deaf train wreck because, to be blunt, it’s boring.

Unpopular opinion here, Tower of God is overrated and the attention the anime seems to receive is going to be short-lived. Note that I'm writing this review, having read the webtoon for many years but decided to drop it.


At first, the story seems really captivating in the beginning. A character named Bam is trying to reach the top of the tower, to have his wish granted. Not to mention, Bam's relationship with Rachel. All these are really interesting to start off a series like this. However, the concept of reaching top of tower isn't exactly new or really thought provoking, hell even SAO did it ... already. Characters need to progress through levels in the tower to reach a specific goal, sound familiar? What SIU does well is presenting his ideas, in his own image, to the world via the form of webtoon.

Sadly, the story/plot gets forgotten really fast after the first arc or I could say first 50 to 80 chapters of the Tower of God webtoon. Suddenly theres no coherent plot or even story telling. The author at that point is just mindlessly introducing an endless amount of concept and ideas, which sadly fails to build upon a story unless you are willing to religiously dedicate your time to it hoping somehow it will be fulfilling which it never does. Exposition after exposition, nothing seems to capture readers like it did in the first few chapters.

Character interaction just doesn't seem to build upon anything and is just downright bland. The anime so far is sticking close to its source material which I hope the studio is able to wrap it up in the last few episodes.

Art-style, while its typical webtoon, don't expect much. I'd argue other webtoons are much more worthy of your time; God of Highschool, The Gamer, Hardcore Leveling, Solo leveling, Girls of the wild)

I honestly think that people are mistaking a good story with endless exposition of ideas. But you might argue, if its so bad, why is it so popular? Well this is just my opinion. Being popular doesn't exclude the fact that it can be bad or boring. TOG is just the result of SIU imaginations which doesn't deliver much in terms of story or character interaction.

I regret having spent so much time reading the TOG webtoon expecting it to deliver an experience which it probably never will.

The only thing good about the TOG anime that is really making it interesting, for me at least, are the voice actors. Anything else, is just due to the source material being downright boring.


TL:DR: I dont like the webtoon and think the anime will run dry after the first cour.

AHH were back with the lastest segment of over-hyped trash that's been receiving hype from casuals who don't know their noses from there thumbs. Well, the story sucks the characters suck the art sucks everything about Tower of God sucks why was this even aired??? The soundtrack is terrible I've seen hentis with better openings then ToG. Never the less all the anime casuals hype this up for the 2020s best anime. I mean really cmon

Story(1) The story follows some overpowered timid cry baby character who chases this girl around because he is in love with her. Upon entering the tower he is sent to ... a high floor and for whatever reason was given the best sword in the series WHY?? because he looked cute yes this is the most cliche thing I have ever seen. OFC because he's the main character he unlocks this overpowered ability from the sword well its extremely pointless because he just loses the sword later, but that doesn't matter because he's already overpowered. after the first ep which is too stupid to explain he is sent to a battle royale where he teams up with the most OP characters why because the sword was used as a beacon of power. It attracted strong characters when they saw it (basically to be less predictable of a series which they did an awful job). Anyways the show hints about how overpowered he is through the next few episodes and then cries about Rachel the girl he is in love with. Anyways he finds Rachel then saves her life and at the time of saving her life unlocks this op ability to fight (In tHe MaNga He GoES TO SLeEp this is a review on the anime not the manga) then he goes to this training school WHY?? I don't know. YES, YOU DO its a shounen every shounen has a school/academy duh. Anyways he loses his op sword but he has these op abilities that nobody else has.

characters: forgettable I only remember bam and Rachel the rest are meaningless

I'll wrap things up by saying this show just tries to take itself seriously which is painful to watch. Tries to be not predictable introduces these characters that nobody cares about, the whole plot is stupid Ill just say it the reason why Rachel doesn't want to be with Bam is that she's like 100 years old or something and wants to do stuff I may be wrong but its something as stupid as what I said. Anyways this anime is not a well-written thought-provoking anime-only catered to morons without a brain who just wants fighting that's it.

Nine episodes in and it still seems incredibly generic, with its poor writing standing out more and more. The show is filled with very contrived ass-pulls left and right which are never foreshadowed beforehand, which makes them pretty unsatisfying to viewers - from magic bags, character turning into magic shinsui lasers, hidden character motivations leading to unexpected twists in their behaviour, etc.

There’s a difference between giving information through a drip feed and just generally being bad storyteller, and I think this show leans to the latter. What little is shown about the world is pretty bland, there’s a tower that can grant wishes, but ... the content of the tower have been poorly explained and borderline nonsensical thus far. There’s been mentions of a King, princesses, and noble families, but none have been explained in any detail. Life outside of the tower haven’t been explored and how it relates to the tower itself. The tower’s test are pretty arbitrary and doesn't make enough logical sense that viewers could derive any sense of satisfaction from them. The power system of Shinsui is so vague and poorly defined that it is uninteresting – viewers left in the dark about its capabilities, rules, and limits. Character background and motivations are also left vague so that they can pull anything out of their ass for plot convenience, rather than molding them into actual characters who react to events occurring and interact with other characters with coherent behaviours based on established personalities and ambitions. Even when exposition occurs, it isn’t handled with much grace, with the one in episode 9 being awkwardly placed and laughably jarring – in front of people who never prompted Endorsi for her life story. The thing about drip feeding information is that what happens within the show needs to be engaging enough that viewers are hooked until the big reveal; this show does not have that hook. So little is shown about the world and characters that you never develop attachment, or even feel like you have gotten to know them. – just a bunch of hollow characters serving at the convenience of a hollow story.

There is a phrase Japanese which directly translate to the Poop of a Goldfish (金魚の糞). The phrase refers to 'a hanger-on' or someone who persistently sticks around. This anime is about a boy named Yoru (Also known as Baam) who climbs the 'tower of god' to find Rachel. The Tower of God is a completely unique tower that has many environments inside it, and to climb to the top of the tower you must defeat these monster things which test your strength.

Story - 2/10
Literally about Yoru being an absolute simp. He climbs the tower to see Rachel and becomes powerful to find her. ... The tower concept isn't anything really new, but it isn't exactly a ripoff or a generic fantasy action-adventure anime.

Art- 3/10
It's not bad but it's not good. Just average. Not really my style, it's kinda new I guess? The animation is kinda really flat and seems more like an animation YouTuber art with mute colors and bland layers.

Sound- 1/10
The intro was a Japanese cover of K-pop.

Character- 4/10
Everyone is a good/decent character besides Yoru. As I said before Yoru is just a big simp and it kind of gets really really annoying.

Enjoyment- 2/10
I watched this series because of the hype and wanted to be with the community. I can't really recommend it.

Overall- 1/10
Honestly, if this anime wasn't this hyped I would not give an overall one, maybe a three or a four at max.

It’s an alienating feeing when you feel like you just don’t get it.

You watch a show like this and think to yourself ‘wow, this is so average it hurts. Maybe everyone else feels the same’. So you check what everyone else is saying and apart from a few detractors, you see majority singing its praises and treating this like some kind of masterpiece.

The people who point out the bland characters and awful storytelling are quickly jumped on by the rabid Webtoon readers and are accused of being trolls.

So what’s so great about Tower of God? I don’t know.. Maybe the world? The concept of the ... tower? Some of the character designs? I really tried to enjoy it and lasted until episode 8 before rage quitting halfway through. Nothing gripped me. The story moved far too quickly to build any type of suspense or tension so it failed to hold my attention or ‘convince me’. When one hurdle pops up, it’s swiftly conquered but never feels earned.

The main character is the most offensive thing about the show. Give me one good reason why I should like this guy? Why does everyone want to help him? Why do the princesses think to themselves how cute he is? This is another case of the show not convincing me. It’s like the author says ‘this is what I want the audience to think’, but not making the effort.

I’m not a fan of Naruto but it doesn’t seem right that a series like that can receive so much hate when it clearly has better storytelling, better world building and far superior character development compared to this. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t say things like that after only watching 8 episodes.. Don’t worry the Webtoon readers will make that very clear.

The fact of the matter is: this story has not done anything to show me it could possibly improve. I think the problem is that people want to tell themselves that this show is the next coming of something amazing. The next big shonen! AND it’s Korean! How different! And they tell themselves enough that it’s a masterpiece, then it most certainly is. They want to be there before it explodes and takes the world by storm.

I can't help but feel this is a bait and switch as a viewer.

Tower of God starts off by promising an incredibly difficult and likely fatal ascension, and in the first few episodes follows up on that.

Later on, it keeps re-stating the promise and not following up on it. A battle to the death with no deaths? Are you kidding me?

Normally this type of show is right up my alley, but this is leaving a sour taste in my mouth, especially with all the hype before it even came out about it being like Made in Abyss - it's not.

Tower of God is an awful clusterfuck of anime cliches haphazardly stitched together. Somehow its pseudo-deep story has tricked thousands of people into thinking it’s good. I’m in awe that this miserable fanfiction got an anime adaptation.

Becoming popular is the reason why ToG was adapted. Crunchyroll milked it because it was their prized cash cow, more interested in money than creativity. It recycles familiar anime tropes, plot points, and character archetypes to create the anime equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster.

Tournament arcs are successful, so the entire show will be a tournament arc. Superheroes are trendy, let’s add superpowers. People like comedy right? Let's add nine or ... ten comic relief characters, they'll love it! We'll even shoehorn a school into the Tower. Fantasy stories make tons of money too, so we'll say outside of the tower is a sprawling fantasy world. That way we won't have to write it, instead, we'll just call it a mystery. Genius. Perhaps I may be mistaken. I've heard it gets better later on, but I don’t care how long it takes to become worth watching. I’m not reviewing chapter 400 of the manhwa. I’m reviewing this season.

The premise is simple, but the execution is threadbare. Those attempting to climb the Tower strive for riches, influence, and the power to become a God. They've been living inside it forever. How has it shaped their lives? I have no clue what the world is like outside of the tower. Maybe it will be explained in the next season. Constantly it is implied there is a huge fantasy world out there, but it’s never actually shown. Rather than organically introducing the setting, characters, and politics, the show haphazardly drops names and exposition onto the audience. Thankfully, the author knows how poorly explained everything is, so he writes blog posts to fill in the blanks because he doesn’t know how to integrate information into the story. The paper-thin plot is played up to be mysterious, but the biggest mystery about ToG is how the hell it got so popular.

This UNIQUE and ORIGINAL story follows a boy named Generic Male Protagonist, his Cool Guy friend, and a Comic Relief character. Our hero embarks on a quest to find the Generic Girl. Where did she go? She entered the tower, the Tower of God! Despite being told not to pursue her, Generic Male chases after her anyway! For as long as Generic Male, AKA Bam can remember, he has lived in a cave beneath the tower. One day, Rachel the Generic Girl found Bam. For better or worse, she taught him about the world. She became a mother figure to him and his love interest. Uh-huh. I have no clue what her perspective on their relationship is. Does she love him too? Or did she just pity him? I have no idea what Rachel's life was like before she found Bam. How did Bam live before being “saved” by her? How long was he trapped? The show wants us to sympathize with him, but it's impossible. He is a potato with arms, legs, and a face. Despite trying to leave him, Rachel groomed him to be loyal. She told him, “Betraying a girl’s trust is the same as betraying the whole world,” but Bam is a brainless mouth-breather so he believed her. This is how he became the world's biggest SIMP.

At the beginning of his journey, Bam is granted superpowers. Out of nowhere, one of the Tower’s Princesses of Jahad meets Bam at the first level. She presents him with a mighty sword. Why? Because she’s bored. When it's convenient for the plot, she reappears to remind us she exists. Ingenious character writing. Luckily for Bam, a ghost babe is living in his sword and she grants him even more power. Why? Because she thinks he's “cute.” Do you see the trend? Bam gets everything he needs without putting in any effort (almost like the author). He is a Deus Ex Machina magnet because using cheap plot devices is easier than writing character development. The longer Bam is on screen the more he looks like a human-shaped punching bag. Bam is the audience’s avatar. He doesn’t need a deep personality, but it would've been nice if he had one. The story follows an ensemble cast and we learn about the world through him. Throughout the season Bam and his ‘friends’ take various tests administered by Rankers, people who’ve climbed the tower before. The tests vary from a fight to the death to making friends with competitors. There's never a sense of urgency in any of the challenges.

At the end of the season, Bam announces, "I have changed so much." Except, he never does. The only thing he changes is his outfit. For the entire show, he is an amnesiac with no personality or memories. His only reason for living is to chase after a girl even after she said not to. I’m honestly more interested in why Rachel’s trying to avoid him. She wanders through the anime with an expression that seems stuck somewhere between disapproval and boredom. You never get a sense of what she’s thinking because she’s so… dull. Her motives are so wishy-washy and her relationship with Bam makes no sense. She ditches him, then avoids him, then helps him. Rinse and repeat. It’s no wonder why ToG fans hate her guts. When she tries to avoid Bam, she does nothing to change her appearance. She wears the same hideous outfit that she wore when she first met Bam. If she didn't want him to find her she would’ve at least cut her hair. They’re always close together yet he’s too dimwitted to figure it out. While in Tower school, they’re in the same class, but Bam can’t even see through her lazy disguise. Their whole relationship is so unbelievably stupid. How did someone above the age of fourteen write this?

Wrapped layers thick with plot armor⁠—Bam embodies the “Chosen One” archetype. As though the author realized how bland Bam is, he introduces tons of side characters to distract us. The less bland deuteragonist, Khun, carries Bam through this season’s challenges. There’s not much to him (yet) aside from being the quintessential Cool Guy™. When he is first introduced, he suddenly gets a convenient flashback to his family. It’s vague, of course, but at least it’s something. From what I could discern, he was expelled from his family because his sister disappointed his parents. I’m assuming his personality and motivations were deemed unimportant because he has neither in this season. Maybe the author was kind enough to blog about Khun so we can fill in the blanks. One thing I find remarkable about Khun is his magical briefcase. Not only can it hold a couple of people, but it can also duplicate anything. While it’s an awesome idea, it doesn’t make much sense. If we’re supposed to believe this fantasy world has modern technology like electricity, televisions, phones, and the internet, then it would probably also have guns. Why can’t Khun just clone a bunch of AR15’s and plow his way through the tower? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we can look forward to that in the fifth or sixth season.

Rather than integrating exposition into the story organically, the author uses Bam’s amnesia to lampshade exposition dumps. Random characters spoon-feed him plot points as if he’s a toddler. Sometimes people will just start monologuing their backstory out of nowhere. Throughout this season, we get random flashbacks to develop side characters. Two of them stood out far more than any others: Anaak and Endorsi. As princesses of Jahad, their rivalry to one-up each other is the most enjoyment I got from the show. Anaak, a green lizard-tailed girl, at least has a reason for climbing the tower. Revenge. As for Endorsi, her entire personality revolves around her vanity. She explicitly says she wears makeup and high heels to use her beauty for her benefit. Though this is just the ‘woman manipulates men with beauty’ cliche we can at least sympathize with her. The King views his princesses as beautiful tools only he may use, which explains Endorsi’s obsession with her appearance. The King’s prejudice towards women isn’t challenged by the author, which is likely because the author shares those ideals. As if unintentionally, certain lines of dialogue reveal the author’s regressive view of women. I wish the show was about Anaak and Endorsi rather than Bam and Rachel. There’s so much more to them. In future seasons, I hope to see more focus on them.

All the other side characters are cardboard cutouts. Their personalities can be summarized with one word each. Annoying, confrontational, tired, loud, hungry, etcetera. Way too many of the fight scenes are from the perspective of these forgettable characters. There is no reason to care about any of them if you haven’t read the manhwa. Some of the character designs fit the enigmatic fantasy setting they’re going for, but others just make no sense. Some people wear typical 2000s fashion like tracksuits, sneakers, and cargo shorts but others are in ninja outfits. And that’s not even to mention the dozens of different fantastical races. Just the character designs imply so much about the world, I wish he fleshed out the world or its inhabitants. But he didn’t. It’s a mess of disjointed tropes stuck together with Gorilla Glue.

If all you want is action and eye candy, you’ll probably be disappointed. Most of the combat revolves around strategic games, but rules are never clear, or where the contestants are in relation to each other. Despite the skilled animators they hired for certain fights, it all feels completely weightless. The director can compose a shot fine enough, but he otherwise seems bored to be here. Each scene lazily collides into the next; transitions are rushed and ugly. To make this trainwreck worse, the art quality is inconsistent as hell. The animation is stiff and the background art is unimaginative.

It's as if the director didn't know how to even script a TV series because every episode ends abruptly. In the middle of dialogue, it cuts to the credits. The next episode picks up right where it left off. They rarely ever tried to surprise us with a cliffhanger. It feels like they wrote the screenplay for a four-hour movie rather than a thirteen-episode TV show. Traditionally episodes conclude a chapter and setup to the next one, not just suddenly cut to black. The only buffer we get is the OP and ED, which are both average pop songs. For a high budget series, they put so little effort into designing the visuals for the credits. Within the series, the music is much better. The piano and the orchestral soundtrack is beautiful, as expected of Kevin Penkin, but it's not suited to this series. Admittedly, it's difficult to tell what tone Tower of God is going for. I doubt even the director always knew what emotion he was trying to evoke. In the rare action scenes when the music and artwork sync up well, it's pretty entertaining. All of a sudden, someone will interject with an unfunny joke and the pace comes to a screeching halt. The art style will suddenly swap to chibi and comedic reaction faces are thrown in at random too. Even out of combat, the comedy is just cringy as hell. I was expecting it to go away as the plot progressed, but it only got worse.

Everything in Tower of God is a mystery. It is predicated on mythology, the setting is very vague, the protagonist is an amnesiac, and the rules of the Tower are unclear. For a show that’s at least 80% exposition, impressively it didn’t explain much this season. While watching ToG, questions like these will fill your mind: Who or what created the Tower? How does it grant people power? What is the outside world like? When the final episode ends, you still won't have answers. The Tower is a mystery to everyone, even the author. Like an unplanned fanfiction, the direction is unclear. There is some vague foreshadowing. New characters are endlessly added in favor of developing current ones.

Tower of God suffers from inherent problems that are deeply structural, not just superficial, and they run right down to its core. If you build a tower on a weak foundation, it is bound to collapse. You cannot write a fantasy epic with no bones, and that's why this season was a trainwreck. It has been a long and tedious climb, and apparently this is only the prologue. There’s nowhere to go from here but up, so as the fans say,

“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”
“It will get better next season!”

It's a story about a simp. This story defines what a simp is. What a simp will do. This could be the definition of simp when someone googles it.

The story is "simple" it's about a simp named Bam. He will do anything for this girl, this girl doesn't even like him, she abandons him at any moment, will kill him, will do nothing for him, but bams just steady being a simp.

I realized that this story of this simp was about a simp on the first episode. The only good thing about this anime, are the other character's who aren't bam or rachel.

People like Khun ... Or Rak-san. They aren't simps, it's very refreshing to watch them not be simps, but then you're plunged back into the simpness with bam being a simp at every waking moment. It's dreadful. I wish he'd just kill rachel. It'd instantly be a thousand hundred million times better.

I can not rate this any higher then 3. It is not good, It's just a plain old story of a simp.

RIP.