In this “review” I will try to explain and adres some points within both the manhwa and anime.
Tower of God follows the story of Bam, a young boy who practically lacks any kind of character there is to it, you can actually compare him to the most plain characters out there in all the isekai/game insert shonen protagonists and this is actually the point. He does not have any character to himself because he did not experience anything, he was trapped inside a cave for years, without having any interaction with anyone and this is when Rachel makes her appearance. As Bam was trying to climb into another level of the underground caves he met her, and she became everything for him. Rachel taught Bam how to read, speak and told him stories about the outer world and how her dream was to one day see the night sky and the stars. At this point in the story Bam has the mind of a 4 year old kid trapped inside the body of an teenager, he is naive, he does not question anything and this is why when Rachel decides to enter the Tower his whole world has fallen apart. His only friend and human interaction decided to leave him in pursuit of her dreams and he could not understand it. Thus this became his whole motivation to climb the Tower only to pursue Rachel, and nothing more, no flashy goal like wanting to be the number 1 ranker, or following some other philosophy and I honestly feel like there is nothing wrong with it. Still the future will be engulfed with conspiracies and idealistic clashes as Bam climbs the Tower.
The manhwa took a lot more time to try and make clear the relationship between Bam and Rachel, something that was not shown as much in the anime yet, that is why only anime viewers might be confused and find the beginning of the story to be quite cliched, and I do not blame them for this. Still the anime manages the tone of the premise for the following to come story and captures the mysteric atmosphere perfectly. One thing I am not quite fond of is the animation style and choice of colors, everything seems too vibrant and the contrast is a bit too high for a world as violent as the one inside the Tower. The rough edges around the characters is not really a good choice if we compare it to the manhwa style of the latest chapters, but I hope the overall animation will improve the same way it did in the original source.
The best thing the adaptation managed to produce so far is the soundtrack. I felt as if I really was inside the Tower and feeling all the tension when listening to the ost, and it comes with no surprise as the composer is Kevin Penkin who also wrote the score for Made in Abyss and Shield Hero. The scene in the second episode when Bam prepared to fight Rak was accompanied by a really nice melody which culminated when the Black March was dropped. Another really well done moment was in the third episode during the Crow Game when Anak was fighting where the music even compensated for not so well detailed of a fight scene. I really hope we will get to hear even better tracks for upcoming episodes.
To conclude I am glad that Tower of God finally received an adaptation even if it is one with some minor flaws but this is to be understood as it is from a studio which is not as experienced with battle shounens as Ufotable or Bones, and even the budget is not as high as to produce something of better value. The thing is, it was more of an experiment to see if something outside the japanese media is worth being adapted and if it proves to be successful then we are in for some really awesome future seasons.
