What is your opinion on the plot and characters so far?

dandon223 said:


You claimed that-- I've been reading the manhwa simultaneously with the show and it is the same thing, if not the worse, so I don't think the main issue here is adaptation.

I am really interested in why you think that since they cut a lot. No pacing can produce you 78 chapters in 13 episodes with additional filler scenes. You do not have to read the source material to see that it is impossible to not have some things skipped.

Aaron_Fdo said:
There was a bunch of small things that were cut. I am gonna use the spoiler tag to mention a few of them

Those were a few that I just thought of on the top of my head. I am sure there is more.

LordSozin said:
Tower of God is garbage.

utility_fog_kid said:

If it wasn't obvious already, it's been hyped because the manhwa was fantastic.

abystoma2 said:
Characters are boring and the plot has way too much going on without actually focusing on making the plot interesting.


The webcomic is also bad tho.

utility_fog_kid said:

Did you read it first and not like it? Or was it just after the anime to reconfirm how "bad" it is?

utility_fog_kid said:
it was because of the webcomic fans, who also agree that the anime was bad.

abystoma2 said:
I've started it before the anime was even announced.


So, I take it you're not one of those who agree the anime was bad as you've given it 8/10?

LordSozin said:


It had an intriguing premise at the onset of the show but failed to explore it. The characters' motivation is unrelatable and seemed childish -- especially Bam. Overall, I felt like I didn't get anything out of the show.

Because of that, I can't wrap my head around on anyone who thinks this show is a 9 or 10 out of 10.

Takuto_Shindou said:
When some of the complaints were "lack of explanation" by episode 3 I knew this board was pure trolling

Takuto_Shindou said:
The show is definitely over-hated by anime-onlys tho
When some of the complaints were "lack of explanation" by episode 3 I knew this board was pure trolling

Psyborgrey said:

Can you blame them though?
It's not the viewers job to have already read the source material. It's the adaptations job to do it justice.

Takuto_Shindou said:
Yes, yes we can.
There's something called "mystery", apparently people today have short attention span so they can't wait for the plot to come together, even when it's just 13 fucking episodes.

Psyborgrey said:
People arent mad at the plot. From an anime only watchers perspective, the characters are all shallow and the story isn't presented very well. For someone who has read the manhwa, they know whats about to come so they can call it "mystery' or "suspense" but people aren't gonna watch another season for something they don't even know is going to happen.
If I say "well it's just first season, second season is where it's at, I promise" why should the anime only guys believe me?
Main probelm here is that in the anime nobody could really get invested in anything or anyone. It has nothing to do with "the people's attention span" These are the same people who have watched 900+ ep of One piece.

Takuto_Shindou said:
Are those also the same people who sit through the first 20 episodes of Assassination's Classroom and rated it 10/10? If so then I call bullsh**.

Takuto_Shindou said:
The show is definitely over-hated by anime-onlys tho
When some of the complaints were "lack of explanation" by episode 3 I knew this board was pure trolling

Psyborgrey said:
People arent mad at the plot. From an anime only watchers perspective, the characters are all shallow and the story isn't presented very well.

Inorichi said:



I cant' help but ask if you're not the one trolling... Psyborgrey literally said it all in his message above.



After seeing the oddly high 8+/10 score, (which obviously has dropped), I gave Tower of God a try even though I dropped the webtoon fairly quick, so I'll throw in my two cents as an 'anime only'. Maybe these characters, concepts, setting, and more are all further built up later in the story, but after 13 episodes, an 'anime only' has gotten literally nothing out of this story. Let me explain:

Starting with the setting. Not only is the setting unorthodox, it's never even explained or explored. We have no idea what time place this takes place in, the technology, where the characters even are. I don't even know if they're taking the test to climb the tower inside the tower or out. The most they delve into this are explaining that the sky itself is fake and apparently you may be able to see stars at the top of the tower assuming that's not a rumor. Not only that, the story starts with Bam / Yoru in a cave meeting Rachel. Why are they in this cave? Where is this cave? Clearly civilization is more or less quite civilized, seeing the testing facilities and people using rifles in the first test, yet Bam / Yoru and Rachel live(d) in a cave, and the princess lives in a straw shack.

The tower itself. This anime, (and webtoon), titled "Tower of God" only really has references to the Tower in it's entire first season, so it's safe to assume, in the broad sense of things, we've barely got an exposition to it's entirety much less any action. Why do they want to climb the tower? You get everything you want? You basically become God? There's a King Jahad and he's just letting random people climb the tower? He's alright with people climbing the tower, yet the princess's aren't allowed to have kids, reason being they shouldn't spread their powers? Has anyone climbed the Tower before? Are just an infinite amount of people allowed to become God and have their wishes granted? Literally nothing is explained in anyway shape or form. For an anime which takes place in a unique universe, it explains absolutely nothing about it.



The characters aren't irredeemable in this first season, but the story is. My entire question throughout this whole first season was, why the hell do they need to take such convoluted "tests" to be allowed to climb the tower? Kill People until 200 remains, open red doors, the crown game, pretend classroom learning roles, 'tag', get eaten by the giant dolphin queen.

Regardless of how interesting the story gets later down the line, these have got to be the stupidest tests of all time. They're getting permission to climb the Tower which may mean one of these people may become God, or something. Instead of testing morals, intelligence, skills, they're throw into the most stereotypical and idiotic tests, which test 'luck'? Shinsu compatibility? Assuming they're just looking for strong people to climb the tower, these tests are completely contradictory to the point, basically limiting the amount of participants. Unless this group is the only group to ever get access, what if the next group are all abnormally weak or abnormally strong? Does nobody pass? Does everybody pass? Not to mention they actually spent time creating an arena for the crown game and a labyrinth for tag. Anything wrong with standard strength and skill tournaments? You should get the point, it's literally mind boggling how these tests are set up.



The first episode. The first episode is one of the most important, if not the most important episodes in an anime. The exposition of the story, the narrative hook, it's what introduces the audience to this fictional universe and hopefully engages them enough to stick around. This anime completely flops at that. What did we get? Bam / Yoru being 'transported' "into the tower?" to follow after Rachel, which we barely know anything about their relationship so far - in fact nothing in the entire first season, flashbacks and all, justifies Bam / Yoru going that far for her, but he meets some weird rabbit thing. This rabbit makes him fight some giant fish monster and break a black ball? If I was searching for someone incredibly important to me, I'd be quite desperate in the searching part. How does Bam / Yoru even know that doing as this rabbit says will actually lead him to Rachel, psst it didn't since Rachel was watching him invisible the whole time. Not only does he get a national treasure from a princess, who just happens to be passing by, apparently he pretty much gets to keep it and appears in some wheat field battle royale with no training or explanation. Which he survives for a bit and we get a brief glance over several characters and the episode ends. What part of that was meant to interest or engage us exactly? Right off the bat, it's pretty clear the only ones getting entertainment out of this would be the manhwa / webtoon readers. Rather than being adapted for an anime format, it's practically incomprehensible. Look at any other popular adaptation, SAO, AOT, Naruto, One piece, MHA. You either get a clear understanding of the setting, the plot, the main character, or in the aforementioned adaptations, all of them. What does the Tower of God show us in it's first episode? None of that. Assassination classroom makes the plot clear from the start, kill koro sensei, what the MC wants to do, etc. Tower of God the Anime isn't even about climbing a tower or even about the tower at all. It's about? a kid taking part in 'death game' entry tests to look for a girl he met in a cave.

Characters - this is something I see brought up frequently so I won't go into it too much, but after being in a battle royale and crown game against each other, apparently having lunch a few times and attending pretend class together makes everyone best friends? Like even though Rachel is quite a dislikeable selfish bitch, she's probably the most relatable character in the entire first season. She has goals, which she's willing to do anything to achieve. Betray some random shaggy looking boy she met in a cave? Consider it regretfully done. Bam / Yoru on the other hand is supposedly the ultra stereotypical meek, ultra morally right, no betraying, friends with everyone main character, willing to attend battle royales and death games just to find a girl when he doesn't even know doing all those things will actually lead him to her? The point was made.

I'd go on about the adaptation and how the animation and music have added little to nothing to the story, the few unique aspects of being in an animated format rather than a webtoon manhwa, however, I dropped ithe webtoon quite early so maybe it does actually enhance the story.

All in all, rather than the 'anime-onlys' being overly critical of the Tower of God, it's more the other way around. The Webtoon / Manhwa reads are overhyping it.

GhostRO123 said:


Your critics are both understandable and true, but if you continued reading the webtoon you would've found out that most of those things that you mentioned and questions that you brought up were already built up and explained in the first season, its just that that the anime had cut nearly all canon things/plot points,explanations, character development and or interesting thoughts/lines(and here I'm specifically referring to Bam, although there are others as well) and even changed the personalities of some characters.

Unfortunately the anime messed up and failed to deliver, but to answer some of your questions and shed some light on things:

1. The Tower is more like a massive structure of multiple floors stacked upon each other then a literal one. As stated in the anime it has at least 77 floors. It is split into three sections : The Outer Tower, The Middle Tower and The Inner Tower.
For more information about it please check this thread and its posts (where you'll also find out about a quick explanation of Shinsu without going into too many details, among other things) : https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1842614

2. The contestants are taking the tests to climb the Tower inside of it. All you've seen in the anime has been happening inside the tower, the Khun Family that Aguero is part of, the King and every other character that was seen or mentioned are also inside the Tower and come from different floors. The participants didn't have the right to climb the Tower before Headon chose them and they became Regulars, but now they do. The only scenes where you could see characters outside of the Tower were those in the first episode with Rachel and Bam when she was running away from him (and you know the rest). The thing with the real sky is considered to be a fairy tale/stuff of legend but whether this is true or not you will find out later in the story.

3. The technology is generally very advanced in the Tower as you've already seen and said (the rifles, the testing facilities, the pockets, the floating ship in episode 7 etc.) , but it differs from floor to floor since there are floors with residents from different settlements and kingdoms that don't know they're living on a 'floor' or in a tower, that the Zahard Empire exists and that there are other floors out there. Most people can live up to 200 years (at the very least) in the tower due to the constant exposure of dense Shinsu and them being able to manipulate it which results in a slow aging process of their bodies. This is especially true the higher the floor that you're on. Some of these kingdoms are very primitive in their nature and/or in terms of technology so that's why some of the Regulars that Headon had chosen can look as if they come from entirely different eras or worlds. But this is all inside the Tower, the cave that Bam and Rachel were at the start of the anime belongs to the Outside World, which is a place that has no correlation with the Tower.

4. Why do they want to climb the Tower? Well you've already answered the question on your own, it is to get whatever they wish for or desire (be it revenge, money, fame etc.) but there is way more to this then the surface level, unfortunately if I were to answer your question completely I would have to talk about some things that are major spoilers to the story. Also King Jahad was the one who created the Regular system that allowed the Tower residents to climb it in the first place, so of course he wants them to climb it otherwise he wouldn't have bothered inventing it. And yes Jahad forbid his princesses from any romantic relationship or having kids so the power that they inherited from him wouldn't spread.

5. The tests actually do have some purpose to them. You misinterpreted the "luck part" or didn't pay enough attention to what Lero-Ro said in the second episode. He mentioned that your "luck" consists of being born with either impressive intelligence,talent or strength and even being rich or possessing something that will give you an advantage over your enemies(like a powerful weapon or something). So let me clarify some of them :

Headon's Floor

-The first one with the Ball in Headon's Floor was to test the fear of death.

Evankhell's Floor/Floor of Tests

-The first test in Evankhell's floor was to test the strength of the Regulars,their skills,resolve(whether they are willing to kill someone to get what they want) and experience in battle.
-The second one was to examine their skills of persuasion,manipulation and overall charisma since they were supposed to turn their enemy, the same individuals that the constestants were planning to kill moments before, into their teammates/allies.
-The third one was to disqualify any person who may have adverse reactions to Shinsu. More precisely, if they can't even handle the minimum requirement of concentration of Shinsu then they aren't qualified to climb the Tower since the density/concentration of Shinsu increases significantly the further you climb so they'll get killed.
-The 4th one with the red door tested intelligence, yes you read that right. If you remember, the test promised to punish them severely with their deaths for Rak's recklessness should they have chosen a door past the 5-minute mark. The answer to the test can be found by deductive reasoning and that path is actually encouraged since its way less risky considering the severity of the punishment of what I said earlier. Here's how they could've gotten to the answer :

-The 5th one tests their strategic capabilities and/or how they handle themselves working in a team.

6. They spend weeks on the second floor, so they had some amount of time to bond. And yes, them becoming "best friends" definitely feels forced in the anime, it especially doesn't help that they changed Anaak's personality (with her crying over Bam's "death") . In the original, she didn't really care about him at all. Also, while the characters that Bam has interacted with the most make some sense as to why they would help Rachel for him, the others most probably do it because they know these guys are very strong and competent so they'll have an easier time climbing with them than alone.

7. About the main character (the male one, because Rachel is also a protagonist), I can see where you're coming from. His relationship with Rachel is a bit more touched on in the manwha, but Bam/Yoru, unlike most other shonen protagonists, didn't get to grow up in a society and as a consequence didn't properly develop his own personality so that's the main reason as to why he is so innocent and friendly (there is also his backstory that explains why he doesn't remember anything before that cave/Rachel found him and it does make sense plotwise, but I'd rather not delve into it since this is a massive spoiler. Well unless you want me to put in a spoiler tag or something). Rachel is like a big sister/mother figure to him, she taught Bam everything he knows and she is really the only person/thing Yoru has ever known, so I'm not surprised he follows Rachel like how a baby chick would follow its own mother. But his webtoon counterpart definetly isn't as naive as the anime portrayed him to be. He has some pretty great lines in season 1 and he actually figured out on his own that Rachel lies to him sometimes. He is really perceptive and quite self-aware. And while not much, he had some noticeable character development in the first season of the webtoon but anime really did him dirty (also Endorsi and Anaak). Even Rak wasn't such a comic relief in the original.

8. Bam knows that doing what that "rabbit" says will get him to Rachel because he knows that if he passes enough tests he'll eventually get to the floor which Rachel is on. I'm not sure what you're implying with that 'invisible' comment, how exactly would Yoru know that Rachel was watching him the entire time and she was actually on the same floor with him?

9. That "national treasure" was given to him because Yuri knows that Irregulars are extremely dangerous and powerful individuals who always bring great change to the Tower (be it chaos, destruction or something else) so she helped Bam by giving him the Black March because she is interested in what "change" he would bring to the Tower. The motivation of the anime version and Yuri giving him that weapon because of his "cute face" is an anime-only plothole. Also, Yuri didn't just happen to "pass by" but she actually found out that an Irregular entered the Tower and that's why she got there in the first place.

Now that is not to say that the source material doesn't have its faults, but its definitely a great read and a far cry from the mess of this anime.

I think I answered most of them. Hopefully, I managed to help you and now you have a more clear understanding of the plot and the world of ToG.

Inorichi said:


Thanks, what you explained regarding the inner / middle / outer tower clears up a lot of the setting, it would have been nice for the anime to explore the setting a bit more or mess around with the chronology to do that to actually get an anime-only viewer invested.

Still confused about a few things if you're still around though -
4. Wouldn't King Jahad allowing others to climb the tower ultimately end up with someone more powerful / with more authority then him once they reached the top? At least from what I saw in the anime, the 'regulars' were chosen quite haphazardly and most likely very few if any at all have any strong loyalty to King Jahad.

5. I did get that the tests did test different aspects, but I felt that they were way too elaborate. Especially the Crown Game and Tag where unless some creation magic exists, they went through the process of creating giant arena's to test for certain attributes when it seems like they could have done other tests which would have the same if not better results with less uncertainty. - Due to Crown Game allowing participants to choose when / if they participate / Khun's Loyal team (which I don't recall what happened to them ultimately) - The Tag teams being thrown together and Betrayal, team unbalance, etc.
- Elaborating more, compared to something like the MHA test, although it's similarly elaborate and over the top, it shows more of the administration examining the results and feels like something done on a regular basis for all tests, whereas tog felt like they just jumped from one crazy test to the next, especially with the whole getting eaten by the dolphin where the test overseer specifically said, it was set up just for this occasion if I'm not misremembering.

8. So what I meant was how did he know Rachel was even in the tower to begin with? From what I gathered, apparently climbing the tower is dangerous and difficult, Rachel could already be dead, left the tower, or due to them being teleported in, he could have already passed her and he would never know - which is what happened and what i meant with the invisible comment. Up until Rachel showed up in the anime, wasn't Bam technically already ahead of Rachel since she only entered the tests after she watched him break the black ball and begin the tests. And if at any point Rachel died, gave up, or left he never even would have known or heard about her? Perhaps it's more of a character portrayal in the anime, with Bam just either being too clueless to guess any of the above or being overly confident that no other option exists other than for Rachel to be in the tower somewhere ahead of him, but to an anime-only there's too many 'what ifs' going on and makes the meeting between Bam and Rachel incredibly forced.

9. Isn't really a question but actually a huge thank god that wasn't canon moment. It definitely builds Yuri as a character more and makes way more sense. Still not entirely sure if it was wise giving Bam such a powerful weapon without even confirming his personality or intentions, but since she did have other weapons and because she said she couldn't use the Black March, I guess it's a fair decision if she wants to bring change regardless of whether its good change or bad.

Inorichi said:


Thanks, what you explained regarding the inner / middle / outer tower clears up a lot of the setting, it would have been nice for the anime to explore the setting a bit more or mess around with the chronology to do that to actually get an anime-only viewer invested.

Still confused about a few things if you're still around though -
4. Wouldn't King Jahad allowing others to climb the tower ultimately end up with someone more powerful / with more authority then him once they reached the top? At least from what I saw in the anime, the 'regulars' were chosen quite haphazardly and most likely very few if any at all have any strong loyalty to King Jahad.

5. I did get that the tests did test different aspects, but I felt that they were way too elaborate. Especially the Crown Game and Tag where unless some creation magic exists, they went through the process of creating giant arena's to test for certain attributes when it seems like they could have done other tests which would have the same if not better results with less uncertainty. - Due to Crown Game allowing participants to choose when / if they participate / Khun's Loyal team (which I don't recall what happened to them ultimately) - The Tag teams being thrown together and Betrayal, team unbalance, etc.
- Elaborating more, compared to something like the MHA test, although it's similarly elaborate and over the top, it shows more of the administration examining the results and feels like something done on a regular basis for all tests, whereas tog felt like they just jumped from one crazy test to the next, especially with the whole getting eaten by the dolphin where the test overseer specifically said, it was set up just for this occasion if I'm not misremembering.

8. So what I meant was how did he know Rachel was even in the tower to begin with? From what I gathered, apparently climbing the tower is dangerous and difficult, Rachel could already be dead, left the tower, or due to them being teleported in, he could have already passed her and he would never know - which is what happened and what i meant with the invisible comment. Up until Rachel showed up in the anime, wasn't Bam technically already ahead of Rachel since she only entered the tests after she watched him break the black ball and begin the tests. And if at any point Rachel died, gave up, or left he never even would have known or heard about her? Perhaps it's more of a character portrayal in the anime, with Bam just either being too clueless to guess any of the above or being overly confident that no other option exists other than for Rachel to be in the tower somewhere ahead of him, but to an anime-only there's too many 'what ifs' going on and makes the meeting between Bam and Rachel incredibly forced.

9. Isn't really a question but actually a huge thank god that wasn't canon moment. It definitely builds Yuri as a character more and makes way more sense. Still not entirely sure if it was wise giving Bam such a powerful weapon without even confirming his personality or intentions, but since she did have other weapons and because she said she couldn't use the Black March, I guess it's a fair decision if she wants to bring change regardless of whether its good change or bad.

GhostRO123 said:


I'm glad I could help. Now to clarify some things :

4. Normally, that would indeed be the case but this is what I was talking about when I said major spoilers, it's not that simple. If you really want to know and don't care about spoilers then feel free to check out the spoiler tag below :


8. He saw her entering the Tower, that was enough to know she was inside of it and given that Bam knew how much Rachel wanted to climb it, and because of that there was no way she was going to return to the Outside even if she knew the way out of the Tower, he was pretty sure that Rachel would've started climbing already. He wasn't entirely sure whether she was still alive or not, but there was no way to find out the truth if he didn't at least try to climb the tower and search for her so that's what he did. Also, Headon actually put some doubts into his mind by saying that "maybe she was already eaten by a hungry eel or kidnapped by bad people". But this only reinforced the urgency of the situation and made him realize that he had to act quickly and find Rachel before its too late and something like that would actually happen (because there was still the possibility that she could be alive and well somewhere out there in the Tower). Since the current floor that he was in must've been the very first one, Rachel was the first of them both to enter the Tower and she wasn't there, then it's natural for Bam to assume that she must be on the upper floors.

Nishinga said:
I just finishedthe anime yesterday, and I read the first season of the webtoon at the same time and those are my conclusions:

I don't understand the webtoon's fans hate toward the anime, while it isn't a perfect adaptation since it has some few changes from the webtoon, it does a great job by telling the story.
I've seen many posts about how the anime made the characters bland and felt less darker than the webtoon. It made me grin, as I thought the anime gave life to the bland characters portrayed in the webtoon, I also felt the anime did far superior in portraying the darker stuff that happens, it felt much more grim with the soundtrack and the director did those scenes very good.
Rak, Khun, Anaak, Shibisu, Laure are all characters I enjoyed to see much more in the anime than in the webtoon and I think the adaptation did them great justice.
I do agree that the anime fails to explains some little details about the tower but it is understandable and it still delivers the big picture.
I also think that some scenes the anime changed were better than the original, but I do agree that 2 main changes are questionable (Ghost and Rachel, Hong Chunhwa) as far the reasons for the change and the impact towards later seasons.
Overall, the anime did a good job, season 1 of the webtoon is not better. People who didn't like the anime won't find redemption in the webtoon.