Kami no Tou

First of all, I really love Crunchyroll and the attempt to make an webcomic based anime. I really think that tower of God is a good choice too, not because the webmanga is good but because the fanbase is huge.

Besides that ... I think that tower of God is a terrible anime. It tells a story about a boy that is looking for a girl that enters the tower to make her whishes true.

Well the main plot of the story is interesting. But the way that those story is shown is really bad. Tower of God has many problems that we can't leave ... alone.

First main problem, All the challenges are useless, they don't show anything, the characters don't learn anything with the challenges. The 1st one bam gets eaten and get a piece of 💩 in a pool. The second one is a forced way to make bam get friends because the main character is just boring. The 3rd challenge is just a random and etc and etc.

Second main problem, every second of this anime they trow a new character at your face ... They are just plane Cliche characters that try to hide how bad this anime is made. It's a Mysterious guy with a dark past, an funny and strong lizard that loves fighting ( Vegeta ? Goku ? ). And the worst part every useless challenge get a new, useless and Cliche new character ..

Third problem... The writer of this story is just bad ... The way he tries to hide every _#$&-$ mystery is hilarious. Is just like , hey do you wanna to know what is that mystery for ? Dont worry I won't tell you. So keep it with me watching all those useless challenges until I tell you all the secrets ... In the next 100 chapters...

At first I thought that those problems were because the anime director, but after I read the original art , I saw that the anime is just following the original ... So the original is just bad ...

Story (1), nothing new here, and a lot of story holes, and no motivations. Tower of God is a very bad made in abyss upside down.

Art (5), not the worst, but far from good. It's just me or the opening of the anime got a filler ? I can't remember the last time I saw an opening with so many things written ...

Sound (3) is nice ... But I can't remember anything or any music from this anime ... Openings ,endings or in eps music's.

Characters (1) flatt earthers gonna like those plain characters ... random no emotion boy, random dark past boy and random stupid lizard ... With a ton of others random and useless characters.

Enjoyment (1) not for me ... The story bad points are so big that makes me mad.

Overall 1 ... I can see why ppl that reads tower of God for so many years wants this anime ... But besides of the hype tower of God is a really bad story ( at least the begging of the anime and the webtoon ) it's an infant try to make a Mysterious story, there's a lot more interesting webtoons than tower of God, and better written ones too.

Sorry guys ... But this one is just a bad one ... If you want a dark and deep story try attack on Titans , made in abyss, ajin, full metal alchemist, monster, violet evergarden, devilman crybaby and etc etc etc.

In this review section we have an influx of Webtoon readers praising this series to high heavens, and I frankly don't get why. Keep in mind that this is a review for the Anime and not the respective Webtoon it came from.

First things first the animation and art quality, while passable is nothing special. While it's reminiscent of Devilman Crybaby's simplistic style it doesn't really have any of it's flair. While nothing sticks out too much, still frames are overused, and for being an action series is less than optimal.

I've given a lot of criticism, so I have to give it to the show ... for it's soundtrack. While no track in specific sticks out, the soundtracks are appropriate with a good mix of orchestral, lofi electronic and even some fusion Jazz. This may be the one silver lining of watching this anime.

Don't even get me started on the story or characters. The characters seem like knockoff Hunter X Hunter characters, and the story is a weird mashup of ideas from it as well. I fail to see any excitement around what the characters are doing and why. This fails to give any sense of mystery all the while obscuring the direction the show is taking, leaving the watcher feeling that the show is directionless. The main character lacks any personality or motivation besides "Rachel", and even makes your standard Kirito protagonist look good by comparison. While the side characters are quirky, they lack any personality besides surface level archetypes.

As of now there are 7 episodes out (more than half of the season done), and I have yet to find a reason to care about the tower or any of the characters (besides MAYBE Anak) for that matter (why does the MC even care for Rachel in the first place, don't tell me I have to wait until the second half of the story to get a simple explanation).
I will update this review as the episodes are continually updated, but from how it's going currently, I doubt it will change much.

Started out fairly promising but never really got any better, only continuously more confusing. I haven't read the Manwha but i get the feeling so much of the world of this manwha was left out in the anime. The whole anime is almost lacking of any substance or context. Things just happen and appear without any explanation. Motives for characters are not revealed at all for all 13 episodes except for the Green Lizard girl who is really the only one with any background and even hers is kind of vague. Idk it just feels like an anime that was rushed and probably missing a ... lot of major character development that may be in the source material. The idea is great the execution is poor.....it feels like an anime that is trying to appear to be deeper and more intellectual than it actually is. In a word if i had to describe this entire anime it would be "RANDOM". 5/10 wouldn't recommend unless you enjoy an aimless story with even more aimless characters.

When the main character gets a legendary weapon in the first 10 minutes of the show, you get this pile of hot garbage. I saw a lot of hype for this anime and thought i would give it a watch myself, and now i regret my decision. I watched the first episode for 5 minutes and it got so boring i fast forwarded to the end. There is nothing new about this anime, Characters look bland and there is no story. This is the second coming of demon slayer and its fanbase, and I hate it. This anime introduces nothing new to the genre and ... I was disappointed because all the hype was for nothing.

It's pretty bad. I tried to read the manwha but it's worse. The author doesn't know how to tell a story. He focuses on small details, about the trials so much that gets boring. Instead of letting the pictures show you the story he puts a wall of text of how the gimmick works, when he could just show you .
Art is kind of bad, the characters are not charismatic.
No one understands nothing about this world, and instead of telling you how the things work, how is the world outside of the tower like it wants you to be sympathetic about ... every climber...
Well it didn't work for me. And if you try to say something like this show is boring for x reasons you are going to get harrased by the fans that actually climbed throug those 400+ chapters of tower of poop

Ok, let's get to the point.

The protagonist is a fucking gary stu, who is able to beat literally every single obstacle in such an easy way that is almost ridiculous to consider this world as a "dangerous one" For almost half part of the anime, the MC passed the tower tests by doing nothing, without mentioning that he's an irregular, who apparently, automatically gives you a high level of power to beat everyone.

The rest of the cast aren't better, some side characters died or left the series, despite we barely spent time with them, and the attitude of the princesses change deliberately just to move ... the plot on (Yuri's leaving the black march to Bamm, despite she had doubts about his skills; Androssi hating everyone, just to finished risking her life to save the people she betrayed in the past, etc)

Special mention to the fake feeling of partnership between the characters, the world was made to not trust in anyone, but suddenly everyone decides to be friends, just because, apparently "the power of friendship" is the answer; they barely spent time enough to meet each other.

The world is a bunch of random none sense, I mean, What are the tests actually supposed to test? Who is wisest? Who is the strongest one? Who has the better luck? Every test is solved in the laziest ways possible, whether walking through a wall of water, opening doors just for the sake of it, or playing tags.

It can have some interesting plots, like the backstory of Zahard princesses, but there's nothing that can make up for all their failures.

Note: This review is an assessment of the anime adaptation and the material it adapts alone. If I incorporated outside material I’d be writing a review of the entire Tower of God franchise rather than the anime adaptation, and that wouldn’t make for a fair evaluation of a show.

---minor spoilers ahead---

Just as man built the Tower of Babel to reach the heavens, I found myself metaphorically climbing along with the Kami no Tou aka Tower of God (ToG) hype. With such cultural influence, ToG inevitably came to life as the trailblazer anime adaptation of manhwa. Unfortunately, just as the tale of the Tower of ... Babel doesn’t end the way mankind wants, neither does the ToG adaptation.

Story: 3.5/10
The defining issue that rises from the ToG adaptation’s story is depth. Pacing is erratic for storytelling and worldbuilding but holds up decently in maintaining the high stakes, competitive fighting on the Testing Floor. There are missing details that hinder the shows overall world building.

Characters, noticeably, lack characterization. Specifically, why is Khun so fascinated by Bam and why does that mean he treats Bam differently than others (specifically in regards to trust)? Why does Yuri, the supposed ferocious “Jahad’s Imp,” just readily hand over one of the most powerful weapons in the ToG universe to Bam, who belongs to the same group of individuals that threaten the status quo, within minutes of meeting him? Why does Bam, an uncompelling character, become the object of everyone’s affection? Turns out, none of these questions have a satisfactory answer that matches the observed actions or stated history of the cast outside of “for the sake of the plot” which degrades the continuity of the story.

This isn't to say that questions at the end of the first season of a show are bad. In fact, it's in all likelihood good for the high fantasy/pseudo-isekai setting of ToG. The critical distinction that exists between the ToG plot questions and an anime that executes the mystery well is captivation. Ultimately, I can recognize that these questions play a crucial role in the continuity of the plot, but the current construction of the characters and environment leaves me with a general apathy towards their “soon-to-be” answers. This is a bad use of confusion, there must be some purpose behind a mystery. Maybe there is a sudden finite window of time to do something, maybe the cast’s survival is contingent on participating in the journey, or maybe we even just grow to resonate with the protagonist and their vision for the future. These three motives can all be identified as an expression of the “call to adventure” in the hero’s journey, yet ToG’s call to adventure is just about as nebulous as it gets. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you want, or why you want it, just climb the tower. This is frankly uncompelling and doesn't do itself favors in elevating the levels of suspense and intrigue.

Art: 1.9/10
This is where the adaptation falls woefully short to the point of laziness. Composed of flat pencil sketches with minimal shading, the animation frankly looks lifeless outside of dynamic scenes such as fights. Even then, fights are definitely not up to industry standard with a comical misunderstanding of how motion works.

The adaptation is a faithful representation of the early manhwa art; however, these comments aren’t particularly convincing. While the early manhwa panels are quite bad, the later artwork in the manhwa is significantly improved and likely better encapsulates SIU’s vision for the series. It’s not enough to just follow along with the source material without a critical evaluation of why the source material is conveyed the way it is. Poor source material art is not an excuse for poor art in the adaptation.

The opening animation is also indicative of a lazy animation effort as the viewer is treated with 5-second increments of animation followed by cuts to black credit screens for no narrative purpose. Animation quality is critical in action anime, and ToG falls woefully short of the industry standard.

Sound: 7.2/10
The opening is nice with the feature of being Korean; however, it’s doesn’t stand out to me as particularly iconic. The background/ambient music helps dampen the obtrusive drawn environments and frame the tension. Some of the supporting characters struck me as having strange voices for the characters; however, these are quite minor.

Characters: 3.4/10
Simply put, ToG’s characters are lackluster and even uncompelling. Of the main cast, Bam is a boring and personality-less character, Khun is essentially the Killua of ToG sans the fleshed out emotional baggage, and, quite egregiously, the rest of the cast has an inexplicable love for Bam. Only Rak from the main cast is likable as a stubborn to a fault warrior that adds some actual comedic relief. This may not be how Rak is meant to be portrayed, but, considering the rest of the cast, it’s no surprise that Rak is usually the focal point of memorable character dynamics. However, if the rest of the main cast was properly developed, I could see Rak as being quite obtrusive.

Enjoyment: 3.6/10
Unfortunately, I can’t say I enjoyed the adaptation very much. ToG is supposed to be an extraordinarily vibrant yet simultaneously perilous world. I can’t help but feel that the magic of the world is noticeably missing. This anime definitely serves as the biggest wake-up call regarding hypetrains for me in recent memory.

Overall: 3.9/10
In all likelihood, ToG has changed the landscape of anime. ToG had many expectations, well-founded expectations that many sincerely wish would be met to redefine the medium. The ensuing hype alone is indicative of the sheer possibility of anime to adapt and bring to life our favorite stories. That alone is commendable. However, as an actual work, ToG doesn’t live up to the hype. For the reasons I’ve stated above, ToG is subpar. However, this may be subject to change as more material is adapted. This is not a story well suited for a 13 episode seasonal anime run. In the end, ToG falls woefully short of the imposing world it has sought to convey.

My review was removed for apparently having the wrong amount of episodes watched recorded. So, thanks for that MAL staff.

This review encapsulates my feelings after seeing 10 of the episodes so far.

Finished review at the very bottom.

I am a HUGE Tower of God fan. When I first started reading the WebToon, I was floored with how interesting and griping its story and characters were. As the story progressed, the world itself started to show how much potential the series had. To this day (and mind you it is still ongoing), it is the best WebToon I've read. Everything about it feels so polished minus ... the artwork in the beginning and a couple arcs in the middle of the story.

Now the anime...look yalls be giving this show waaaaaaaaay too much leeway. I know that the artwork in the WebToon looked kind of bad in the beginning chapters...but holy fuck that doesn't mean the anime has to look bad too. The artwork in this show is my first major gripe with it. Both animation and artwork looks, in my opinion, hideous. A LOT of the animation looks very stilted and is missing both the art of the pose and the art of motion. I cannot think of a single moment thus far that makes me think "holy crap that looked cool!" and that is important because this is essentially a shounen anime.

Second major gripe; the pacing. The pacing so far is waaaaaaaaaaay too quick. They are burning through material way too quickly. Re-read the first season of the WebToon. You cannot tell me that you think that the anime gives off a similar vibe when it comes to how fast the story is progressing. I will link this to how I felt about the Knights and Magic anime which also burned through so much content so quickly. Because of that, both that show and this one ends up making other core elements of the shows (character development and interactions mainly) miss the mark. I don't have a fucking moment to breath and just see the characters get to know each other. For instance, the first test part of the story when the characters need to survive until a set number of people remain; that shit was so rushed in the show. However, in the webtoon, even in this somewhat faster part of the story, there is time to show the three main characters interacting. In the anime, it's over extremely quickly.

Lastly, the direction (directing) of the show feels extremely uninspired. Yes the show has done a good job faithfully adapting the source material (even though they rush through it) but you have to still make it something interesting to watch. Whether or not that means doing some things differently than the source, you have to make it interesting. Sometimes you can do a note for note adaptation, sometimes you cannot. Whatever the case is, this show is just plain boring to watch. Each scene just feels like bare minimal effort was given. The source material is so interesting but the show isn't. Shame.

You all are of course entitled to disagree with me. The show has, at the time of this review, an overwhelmingly positive reception (8.0/10) which is great; I hope people pick up the WebToon after watching the anime. However, if you take a step back and evaluate the show without your nostalgia, fanboy googles on, I think you'll see what I'm getting at. I want to enjoy this show and love it as much as I do with the WebToon...but so far it looks like and is hot fucking garbage. I'll update this review at the bottom after 12 or so episodes are out.

Enjoyment: 4.0/10

Overall: 4.0/10

***

At this point I've finished the season. My thoughts stay exactly the same. I'm sorry but the show feels like a very rushed product. It looks like shit (artwork and animation), it has mediocre sound design and music, due to the horrible pacing the character development feels stunted, and all of the super impactful moments of the webtoon feel very watered down in the anime adaptation. If you liked the anime, great. Now PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ THE WEBTOON. Let the anime be an introduction to the crazy and amazing world of the Tower of God Webtoon.

If you have been enticed to watch Kami no Tou because of its relatively high rating this season, think again before wasting your time and wondering where it all went.

I have noticed a lot of the reviews on ‘Kami no Tou’ tend to be misleading and have an implied bias towards what the show “could be” to what it is. Much of this relies on the supposition you are an avid follower of the web manga (from which this adapted from) of the same name.

The narrative seems to be that Kami no Tou “could be” one of those epics which take many, many ... chapters to create on the levels of the “Big Three”: One Piece, Bleach and Naruto (I can’t believe this comparison is being made). But if this series is going to reach levels of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the likes, it could start by passing the “three-episode rule”. And at the least, if it does not we viewers should be placed with an idea of what the story could become beyond. Does it do this? No.

This series falls short beyond the promises of its fans, and on so many levels.

Just on my background writing this review: I have not read any of the web manga. If your first impulse is to castrate me because you rate the anime (not the web manga) highly, why? Why should we judge adaptations by what hasn’t been released yet? None of the “Big Three” had as monotonous premises in the first three episodes, as Kami no Tou. No, they had us wanting more.

Anyways, by comparing it to the “Big Three” I am doing a grave disservice to them. I will stop it there.

Onto the actual review, I will start by discussing the story. You can read the synopsis, so I will not bore you.

I think the first three episodes are a good place to start, given I have talked about the how these should suffice to determine a viewer’s expected enjoyment for the rest of most series.

The story’s premise is generally interesting: Complete some “tests”, level up. Many forms of this have been done previously, so what can go wrong? The problem is, there is no explanation for the solution for any of these “tests”. It leaves the audience to guess the intent of all these “tests”, to stand at the “top of the tower”. This is poor leverage of the Mystery, Fantasy and Adventure themes and besides some weakly displayed “world-building”, it does not add much sense of purpose to the goals of our main characters.

The problem with starting without giving character purpose like this is obvious, in that the anime does not give viewers any emotional attachment with our characters or enough to continue the series. The only incentive to continue that we get is to recover the sunk cost of time, clinging onto the fans hopes “Oh, but it’ll get better!", "Just get past the first season!", "Kami no Tou is a long epic!”. But therein lies the problem, and as usual, by trying to recover sunk costs we get nowhere.

If you thought to watch Kami no Tou intrigued by how our characters solve any of these “tests”, walk away from this anime and stop reading now. The events of our characters passing these has thoughtless solutions, sheepishly poor tension-building, and when solved, leaves miniscule satisfaction for viewers.

I will introduce our main characters. Bam is depicted as the “weak” character who enters the tower for no other reason but to skirt chase and gets trusted with an exclusive, godly weapon for convenient reasons. I will add that the ways he “solves” the test in the first episode and the two after that, is uninteresting and stale. Next Khun, the cunning, cool character yet distrusting having been betrayed by his sister, he enters the tower for… revenge? Why should I care? And Rak, who is used tactlessly for comedic relief and called “the gator” to no end in search of dull giggles. It got immediately boring the second time.

For the viewer, try to empathise with any character in isolation as much as you want, you will not find a reason to.

On pacing: Even for a “very long” series, it takes far too long for the author to get to a small satisfying "conclusion". As a result, if you watch this, you are in at a snail’s pace. There is not enough material covered to make you want for more.

I will go towards some of the good points. I think the art style was crisp. If nothing else, I enjoyed this aspect the most, and appreciate the animation. I think about what a waste it was to spend it on this. And I think it definitely was a waste when viewers were constantly being bombarded with Rak’s “angry” emoji.

In addition, the soundtrack was generally good. I enjoyed both the opening “TOP”, despite it signalling the slowest of burns that were to come. And, was relieved by the ending “SLUMP”, which told me I’d finally finished another nonsensical episode where nothing got done.

And that ends the “good points” part.

Hopefully, by now I have made my grievances clear. Whatever good elements Kami no Tou has, it does not come close to hiding its flaws.

When I climb the Tower, I will ask who decided to adapt Kami no Tou, a “very long series”, into thirteen episodes.

This series rocketed off into excruciating slow mo.

holy shit, why do people hype up garbage like this?

** Minor Spoilers

The story is about a generic male character who is in love with a girl who took care of him when he lost his memory, this girl is all she knows, the only family he has.
One day the Girl (Rachael) decides to climb the tower of god to see the stars, she is a really sweet girl, talk nice, act nice, and shows herself to be a passionate person.
Anyway she leaves MC-kun to see the stars but we wouldn’t have a generic MC if he wouldn’t begged her attention no matter what, so he ... goes after her.

And during his adventures he finds friends, Kun (the feminine looking dude who acts cool who is into incest), mr Alligator (irrelevant Character who makes a lot of noise to be funny)
So the typical storytelling setup is complete.

Now we need to make some sweet fucking money out of this so what can we do?
Well let’s look at one of The most praised and successful manga out there, oh there it Is… Berserk.
Let’s make one of the main characters who we thought is the most harmless creature ever to do such an insanely evil thing out of nowhere to drive the audience lose their minds, and we use this cliffhanger to not end the story, but every now and then we show the audience a Brief (with capital b) confrontation between the old friends to keep the sheep in the cattle and the rest of the show will be about irrelevant subplot.

I WISH I knew this anime ends with a fucking cliffhanger, I would have never watched it
This anime is based on a super long ON GOING webtoon, and is tricking his audience to keep reading with the recipe I just explained

Unfortunately for this anime, the sudden evil thing that happens makes no sense, at Least in berserk Griffin turns into a god, what the hell will she achieve? A look at star? Really?! Couldn’t you Give her a better motivation?

The first 5 episodes were actually enjoyable, the Jokes were funny, Secondary characters were kinda interesting but up until last episode where the cliffhanger happens nothing interesting happens

So I got really disappointed, it had potential…a little potential to be exact

Opening song and Soundtracks? Sorry but Korean music sounds like dogs when breeding, and no worthy soundtracks
Art? Acceptable and decent
Characters? Kinda ok

Overall? Not good

Don't know how the webtoon is but this anime is simply bad

The story is just the good old climb the tower and get a reward, may sound a bit cliche but given proper execution and it would work wonderfully. Sadly that's not the case with this one. The pacing is just awful. Specifically, they don't explain much about the power system or the roles other than just naming them out, nothing more nothing less, and this is supposed to be a prologue. Then there are these games that do build proper suspense, only to be crapped on by retarded solutions and of course that "All ... according to plan" line everytime.

The art is lazy as hell. Somehow a lot like to defend by saying "Just look at the webtoon artstyle and shut up" which actually made me laugh more than the comedy in this show, but more on that later. The animation is just lackluster across the entire show. The fight scenes while nowhere near the worst, definitely are among the most boring and hilariously lazy, with slow frame rates, stupid camera work, near zero choreography and looneytune-ish violence with how they treat the moves and the characters.

The sound design just adds to the boredom of the fights by having almost equal level of looneytune-ish. The OST is probably the best thing about this show, but then is by far Kevin Penkins weakest contribution. And the director sure does a good job of wasting them by arguably the worst timings in modern anime. The voice acting starts off rather strong at first but just decline in quality at a rapid pace towards the end

The characters are actually pretty interesting, only to be murdered by bad execution. There is this one intense scene between two characters involving the typical revenge plot that then turns into a slapstick comedy with no transition or reasoning other then the director feel like it, no joke. Or towards the end, characters just forcefully turn into friends with vague reasonings, some even lack completely. And the biggest problem is the protagonist who is just boring and annoying, precisely because how badly they portrait his innocence, good heart and determination.

The only actual enjoyment out of this show is some of the entertaining dialogues and a few funny gags, but the majority of them are just slapsticks or stereotypical sarcasm and have awful timing. But then for me, this is among those "so bad that it's good" type of shows so I still got through all of it.

Overall, try episode one and you will know whether you will enjoy it or not, since it is without a doubt the lowest point in the series. For me, as an anime-only, this show is merely 4/10, maybe even lower once I read the source material.

Tower of God isn’t very good.

Words of blasphemy to it’s legion of loyal fans, but that’s the way I feel after five episodes of this much anticipated adaptation. Promises of future glory and storytelling fall noticeably short with its simplistic premise and short-handed worldbuilding, that serves to convenience rather than develop.

Tower of God is the story of Bam – a young man who is rescued by a girl named Rachel, who enters the titular Tower of God so that she can see the stars, presumably because they both live in an underground society. Bam follows her in the hopes of being reunited.

To properly enunciate what ... I think of ToG, we need to dissect one of it’s key selling points as presented in these first few episodes, the worldbuilding. This is the standout feature that any fan will point to as the tipping point from being just another web comic to something else entirely. In my opinion it falls woefully short for a handful of reasons.

The tower itself is not a location. This sounds contradictory to its presentation and existence as an actual place – but the tower is not a real place. It is a loosely connected series of airport duty free shops and Mario Party minigames disguised as a place. Our main crew teleports uneventfully from one floor to the next.

This level of video game abstraction exists to convenience. Every character has a point and click video game inventory that stores their weapons (unless they don’t use it for whatever reason.) They have floating orbs that tell them the time remaining in whatever challenge they undertake. This extends to elements of the story that haven’t been adapted yet.

The tower is seemingly infinitely large, affording the author complete free reign over what should be inside of it. While a promising exercise in creativity, it also means that these elements do not need to meld together. Normal humans make up the majority of the cast, or humans with extra arms, or humans with green skin etc.

There is little rhyme or reason, nor cultural practices displayed that differentiate these characters – in fact, many of them dress like they just got out of bed and didn’t have time to get changed. There is no need for cause and effect because on a meta-narrative level – none of these worlds are connected to each other. Only the rules of the tower are important, which makes for incredibly dry viewing as we are deluged with simplistic rules about how to beat the in-so-far idiotic challenges and advance.

The characters are flat. Bam is a fundamental problem within the narrative because he is a blank slate – free of desires or wants that can define him or his behaviour. Bam displays the barest minimum of effort yet still manages to fluke his way through multiple challenges, is granted a staggeringly powerful weapon for no real reason, and generally serves as a deflating presence in a story that seems to be trying to display some kind of manic energy.

But you know, five episodes.

The action animation is decent. The show’s presentation overall is hit and miss for me, with flat colouring that is highly saturated standing in contrast to the moody first episode. The action is not enough to carry my interest through more of the series.

I also object to the characterisation of the opening as “super-hot fire,” I can objectively prove that is in fact, not fire at all.

Overall, Tower of God is a slightly below average action series that I’m not willing to endure fifty something episodes of to get to the “good stuff,” that may or may not being waiting further down the line.

While the sourcematerial is amazing any decent story falls apart if you cut away 1/3 of the source material. To make matters worse they also add fillers into it, to twist and change the story even more.

The characters are underdeveloped and filler is introduced to make the series feel as cookie-cutter shounen as possible. While the original work is gritty and the main character is more cold and distant, hell that doesn't sound like generic shounen does it. Better turn it into generic shounen so that the young ones can recognize a re-hashed Naruto when they see it and keep watching.

A great work butchered ... by people that doesn't understand anything of what makes Tower of God great, making it more generic does not make it better.

The art also happens to be so bad its not even funny, there is a limit to how many times they can adapt the source material to make it possible to anime with minimum amount of effort until turns too sad to take it seriously.

Are you a fan of the orginal or not, stay clear of this shit. If they continue to adapt it the anime will probably be decent because the source material is great but still why watch halfassed crap when you can just read the webtoon, it is fifty times better than this.

I have not read the web toon or whatever the original source was, so I'm only critiquing the anime. This show is like someone had a very incoherent dream and decided to animate it without adding anything that could turn it into a fleshed out story. The characters are constantly explaining how the world works without us having any context to where they are or how these magical things are all over the place. The show tries to go for a very serious and dark tone, but then will randomly shift to a goofy looking children's cartoon. The story, the characters, the setting - ... everything is all over the place and this show has zero structure, like a dream. I could not make myself give a damn about any of it. Sword Art Online was more enjoyable than these first few episodes and that is really saying something.

I had dropped this after the first episode, then reluctantly picked it back up hoping to be proven wrong. But nope, this show is just trash.

What this show has:
1. A bland MC who looks like he was lobotomized
2. Thirsty female characters who just give OP weapons and powers to the MC because "he looks cute", not to mention all of them having the same personality.
3. Extremely cliche characters
4. MC winning by pure luck and plot armor
5. Basically rips off HxH for the story, concept, and characters.
6. It's a racist show. All humans appear to be white, and all non-white characters appear to be aliens, monsters, ... mutants, and/or dumb.

This show is for kids that don't understand what constitutes a good story and good character development.

Highly overrated and overhyped show, and the hype also feels artificial. There is no way there can be so many people out there with such poor taste.

Story:3
A Broken Godmod Character who came out of nowhere which is clearly from that special place and he also gets a broken weapon so his basically a immortal at this point. And a girl that will clearly betray him for stupid reasons and looks like she's from same place as him because of her wish, real reason for climbing? why those who reach high moderate it? why they control it? but they didnt make their wish true? Everything according to being a rip off from the real tower of god.

Art and Sound:7
Just good, it looks awfull in some moments...the image I mean.

Character: 4
Like I said ... Story is poor and a rip off excuse from the real one, just throwing backgrounds, the characters communication is something else than the characters itself, id give their interaction a decent or fair but characters by themselves are weak and etc.

Enjoyment: 7
Why Good? cause its like every rpg lvling with no knowledge broken boi, and always overated with some fights.

Overall is clearly a 4 cause this is just decent, fighting and sponsors don't make an anime good no matter what this dumb people throwing 9 and 10 at ep1, does pretty much look like fake accounts or randoms randoing.

Expected way more after so much advertising, this anime is easly predictable from start to the end. Can't wait to watch the next episode, why? Fight fight fight pain hate gogogo, and he will provably fail the test but ofc he will survive or something. Not a spoiler since I'm saying this noone who haven't watched will understand, only those who seen it so far will get this or not even those, since its a predictation and not something that will happen or may happen, is just an opinion.

One look at my username will tell you that I am an avid fan of the Kami no Tou Webtoon. After watching the first episode of this series, I simply became intrigued by the premise of the show: endless possibilities encompassing mystery, challenges, adventures, friendship, and questions about our own morality. Reading the webtoon for this show was one of the best decisions that I ever made in my life. I can't even begin to express how far SIU has come in terms of art, story development, complex world-building, and other factors needed for a great story. With that being said, the Kami no Tou ... anime is an abysmal attempt at translating a Webtoon to anime because it lacks feeling and emotion, the most beloved aspects of anime that are absolutely necessary for a grand adventure.

So what exactly am I talking about? How does this anime fail to engender "feelings?" Well, the simple answer is that a 13 episode season attempts to cut down on 80 chapters by leaving out relevant details and rushing the experiences that allow characters to grow and develop in this ruthless, unforgiving place known as the Tower. Bam's intense feelings for Rachel are so skewed in the anime that it drives you to think of Bam as a useless MC who is obsessed with holding Rachel back from achieving her dreams. The deep conversations and paneling in the Webtoon simply do not translate because Crunchyroll somehow decided that the two main characters did not need greater development. Right from the start, we can't feel anything for Bam because we can't resonate with his own feelings about his role in the Tower. Additionally, the anime chose to cut details about other Irregulars in the tower, which are literally INCLUDED IN THE FIRST FEW CHAPTERS OF THE WEBTOON. Without these details, anime viewers can't even begin to comprehend what Bam's arrival means for the state of the tower. How can any viewer begin to critically analyze and think about the present/future state of the show without having some context?

However, the worst thing about this anime is its terrible pacing. The episodes are so fast that you can barely comprehend what's going on (forget about asking yourselves questions while watching). So, what does the bad pacing mean for the rest of the show? Fundamentally, it makes a mockery of the Webtoon by making the entire group of Regulars a set of bland, good-for-nothings that simply follow Bam/Khun's actions. In the anime, characters like Endorsi (Androssi), Anaak, and Hatsu fail to have their own unique personalities and goals that drive their actions and moral deduction. I distinctly remember loving the Webtoon because each of these characters had a unique relationship with each other, and especially with Bam. This simply does not exist in the anime. Furthermore, climaxes become meaningless in the anime because the pacing doesn't allow viewers to invest themselves in the characters. Let's use Ho as our classic example. In the Webtoon, the elaborate backstory and emotions during the second exam give us a reason to understand Ho's ideology and where he's coming from, despite the fact that the tower has robbed him of his humanity and morality. When I saw Ho's situation in the anime (no spoilers), I couldn't even feel anything for him, which was completely jarring. How are viewers supposed to feel anything for this story if you cut out necessary scenes that contain raw emotion?

All in all, you shouldn't waste your time with this anime if you are not a Webtoon reader. The whole reason why this anime got so much hype was because Webtoon readers wanted to support SIU, an incredibly dedicated writer (he works nonstop to generate a meaningful and complex story about our own humanity and the moral issues that we consistently face every day). I am deeply saddened by the way that this has all played out, as many viewers have began calling ToG trash/mid, when it's really a beautiful story behind the scenes. I hope that reading this review will peak your interest and drive you to give the Webtoon a chance. With no regrets, I say that the Webtoon is 1000x better than this trash anime, which robbed me of excitement for 3 months.

I came into ToG expecting an interesting plot. I was so disappointed watching this anime. If I could use 3 words to sum up how I found this anime, they would be- "Shallow, confusing, and unlikeable".

Firstly, none of the characters in this series are likeable at all. The MC is an absolute bird-brain good guy who wants to save Rachel. Why does he want to save her? Because yes. What would he achieve by saving her? who knows. The anime straight up makes it obvious Rachel does not care about Bam but he still goes through the tests. Literally none of the characters in ... this series managed to make me feel a connection. Khun and the alligator are characters with no depth at all and are basically only written in to distract you from the fact that the MC is a blank slate that isnt even fit to be a self insert.

World building in this anime was so bad I found it hard to keep up with what was even happening. We dont know what the Tower of God is, What the world below it is like, or even what the hell is at the top. It's so difficult to sympathize with any characters when the world building is THIS pathetic. ToG by far has the worst world building out of any anime I've seen.

Should you watch this anime? Hell no. Theres way better anime than this in these genres. This show is basically just taking all of the cliches of these genres and executing them horribly.

Score- 4/10

Hey, pal.

Having coincidentally delved into the webtoon a month before this show aired, I was quite excited about Tower of God. For those new, Tower of God is an epic fantasy story about a cute OP simp named Bam who must climb an SAOish tower chock-full of warring factions to find his gal friend. It's a frighteningly well-built story that investigates friendship and betrayal. Like all great intrigue stories, you'll often find yourself flipping back through earlier arcs and saying, "Oh! That's why that character was doing that." or, "That's who that person was!"

I'm going to go out on an edgy limb here, though, ... and say that the anime should have done more to separate itself from the comic. Hateful, I know, but bear with me; the issue is the sheer amount of information there is to show. Each character has a backstory and motives and an arc which makes some moral point. The anime tries to show all this and suffocates itself. Each normal scene has its own mid- or end-scene during which we learn about why the characters did what they did. In a comic format, that's okay, because the reader regulates themselves - you can scroll back, understand, read the scene again, and feel fulfilled. In video, it's not okay. It's tedious and creates choppy progression. Even to someone who's read the comic twice, I felt like I was watching this show just to catalogue and study for a test.

Added to this choppiness is Tower of God's weak first arc. It's a point of contention between readers whether SIU should have done more initially to explain the tower and its powers. I'm firmly in the 'he should've' category (especially when it comes to the roles, like fisherman). For anime, especially, when you can't scroll up and reread to understand, a viewer's disconnect with the world becomes worse. It's crippling.

So, one word: dynamic. Scenes should be as long as possible. Spoken exposition should be kept to a minimum. The best example of Tower of God's pitfalls is around episode 7, when they play tag: It cuts back to the instructor area so often. There are three flashbacks. Bam whines way too much - we get it, he's naive, I'm okay with that, but don't have him stand there like a headless chicken for most of a minute. That point can be made in a few seconds. Keep things moving. Overall, keep the main plots, but don't feel compelled to meticulously explain why each character does each thing. Sometimes, motive can be established more poignantly when a character acts quickly and forces us to react, when a character surprises us - no need to spoon-feed readymade reactions to the viewer.

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Story - Smack me with a stick, it's great. As explained, though, execution is phooey. 4.

Art - Barebones style, fits the comic. Shinsu purty. I'd like more variety of expression or angle. 6.

Sound - My ears aren't great. Didn't have any issues, I guess. Songs are fun. 8.

Characters - Funky fresh. Go Endorsi, it's your birthday. 9.

Enjoyment - As explained, not great. If I weren't invested in the comic, it woulda been gonzo. 3.

Overall - Give 'er a 4. I can't highly rate a show I wasn't excited to watch. The creators executed the storytelling method they decided upon well. . . but I didn't enjoy that method. It's hard for me to imagine that viewers not familiar with the webtoon would enjoy this show, because of how much is explained and also because of how much is NOT explained. I am interested to see whether future Webtoon adaptations fall into similar genre-translation pitfalls. (I do think there is a difference between the storytelling methods of manga and webtoons)

The anime introduces an interesting concept that fails to deliver much excitement or depth to the characters.

The plot is one main guy with hidden power that is shown randomly at first, the characters feel very unrefined and dull, there is no real plot, no hype.

The anime is just not worth your time, it's too much focused on one character, failing to show aspects of other characters properly and if you'd give the concept to a better mangaka/creator he would surely come up with way better stuff than this.

The art is alright, it's unique, doesn't make it great.

The story consists of flashbacks of many characters, which ... is a classic recipe that fails to introduce or elicit sentiment/any for excitement for the upcoming events.