OP: TOP by Stray Kids (스트레이 키즈)
Tower of God is a tough one, from an analysis standpoint. I wouldn’t even know how to start trying to explain it to someone who hasn’t read the manhwa, or how to discuss it with those who have without spoiling the first group. It’s a long, convoluted and messy source material that somehow – especially in its early chapters – has a strongly compelling narrative. It’s also by far the most popular Korean comic (web comic in this instance) ever to be adapted to anime. As such, it’s one of the most interesting and probably important entries in an otherwise bland and safe season.
This story was first sold to me many years ago as being reminiscent of Hunter X Hunter, which was enough to get me to give it a try. I realized almost immediately that the resemblance was as skin-deep as its possible to be, but got hooked on the series just as quickly. I’ve had the curious experience of wading through Kami no Tou for years (I finally did drop the manhwa a couple of years ago for reasons better suited to discussion at a later time) without feeling like I ever fully understood what was happening.
On the basic level it’s easy – a tower, a girl, a boy chasing the girl. But there’s so much more here – way too much more, in my opinion. It always struck me that Tower of God was a RPG disguised as a comic, and I generally lose patience with RPGs pretty quickly. But it took a long time with this series, because you could dive as deep as you wished to, or you could stand on the beach and appreciate it from the surface – which was exactly what I did to good effect for much of its run. A one-cour anime adaptation is likely to just skim that surface, and while normally that would be cause for complaint, I’m not convinced that with ToG it won’t end up being for the best.
We’ll see. I won’t go into detail on the difference between the intro of the manhwa and the anime, because that’s not what I do – you can read it if you want, and any anime has to stand on its own power. Suffice to say there was a fair amount of skipped material here, and some of it probably would have been useful from a character exposition standpoint. What we see is a boy named Bam (Ichikawa Taichi) trying to climb a mysterious tower. He’s following a girl named Rachel (Hayami Saori) who seems to have rescued him when he was trapped in some sort of pit. She wants to see the stars, so she climbs the tower. He wants to see her (because for Bam, the stars are Rachel) and he follows.
As complex (and believe me, it gets way too complex) as Tower of God gets, that simple premise really is at the heart of everything. Climbing the tower is not a straightforward business. Normally it’s the privilege of “regulars” apparently, and Bam is a non-regular. The entrance is guarded by someone called Headon (Ohtsuka Houchu), who tells Bam that to get started he has to get past a “white steel eel” and break a black ball. A couple of regulars show up – Yuri Zahard (Honda Mariko) and Evan Edroch (Okitsu Kazuyuki). She’s a princess and quite incensed that Headon seems to be giving Bam an impossible challenge on the first level of the tower. He suggest she loan Bam her weapon called Black March (Itou Shizuka), and – to Evan’s horror – she agrees.
This is where the experienced/newbie problem really presents itself for me, but I think it’s best to just play it as it lies and pretend we’re all experiencing this for the first time. Once Bam manages to clear the level by getting the Black March to power him up (like Yuri it seems to like young boys) he wakes up in a field and a bunch of other characters show up, instructed by a cube with a child’s voice to start killing each other and whittle their numbers from 400 to 200 (this is obviously a moment where the early chapters of HxH spring to mind). We’ll talk about a couple of them in more detail next week, but to be sure, there are important figures among that group (follow the famous seiyuu to figure out which ones).
So how does all this work, as anime? The art and animation are going to be divisive. As is often the case it’s hard to tell how much is cost-cutting and how much artistic choice, but the style is pencil-sketch spartan at times, and there’s no sakuga to be seen yet (though we haven’t had any big fights). Kevin Penkin does the music and that, as you’d expect, is a strong point. The ToG phenomenon being what it is I suspect fans of the manhwa are going to complain over every change, but given that massive changes are inevitable I think it’s best to drown that out as much as possible. This wasn’t a stellar premiere, but it was workmanlike and competent – and frankly, the first couple chapters aren’t as good as the next batch anyway. Color me cautiously optimistic, but next week will tell us a lot.
ED: SLUMP by Stray Kids ((스트레이 키즈)
Roger
April 2, 2020 at 12:29 pmI haven’t re-read the first chapters in a while so I don’t have a fresh memory on everything, I think the production team got the main stuff though. I can see why you would bail on the story since its really easy to get lost because of how massive it is and suddenly forgetting what’s going on. At one point I decided to start again from the first chapter because I forgot who everyone was and what the current goal was. I’m still reading every week and I’m looking forward to the rest of the anime episodes.
Guardian Enzo
April 2, 2020 at 1:20 pmI didn’t re-read the intro either, though I considered it. In hindsight probably a good decision.
Jindujun93
April 2, 2020 at 2:03 pmI have to admit that watching this premiere felt really surreal. I mean, I still remember quite vividly how I started reading ToG way back in 2010 when I had to stay at home one day, and quickly caught up to everything that was translated back then (which wasn’t much, since the webcomic just started). I used to be really into ToG, and while these days I’m nowhere near as much of a fan of it anymore as I used to be, in part because of the problems that both of us are aware of, I still view it with a certain kind of nostalgic fondness – probably because it was the first thing to introduce me to the webcomics on Naver, which inevitably made me stumble across the one I really love and care about, Kubera. But that’s a story for another time, haha.
In any case, for the most part I liked this premiere. There have been moments where it looked a bit off, but overall I don’t mind the visual style so far, maybe in part because it really reminds me of the early SIU art. The OST is great as expected (you can’t go wrong with Kevin Penkin), and the voice actors are good as well so far (thankfully no Yuki Kaji to be seen anywhere). There’s a few casting choices that surprised me, but I talking about these would be better for next episode. Pacing is a little faster than I expected it to be, since I thought it’d end with the ball popping (they could have easily managed that if they didn’t cut out several Yuri scenes), but eh, with that pace it seems like they want to cover all of part 1 in 13 episodes, so the pacing will probably stay that quick. Part 1 was where ToG was at its best but it’s been a while since I’ve read that part, so I’ll have to see whether or not it holds up in the way my memory tells me.
Guardian Enzo
April 2, 2020 at 2:41 pm“Nostalgic fondness” is a pretty fair description of my view on this part of the series, too.
One casting choice surprised me when I read about it (the blue turtle) – I envisioned someone more like Ishida Akira. The other (gator) was basically one of the two names I thought were likely.
Jindujun93
April 2, 2020 at 2:48 pmYeah, that was pretty much the choice I was alluding to even though I didn’t want to state it outright (since anime-only viewers haven’t even gotten his name yet), but I fully expected it to be Akira Ishida. I guess that pick would have been too obvious though, haha. Gator is fine, though I also expected Akio Otsuka there.
Guardian Enzo
April 2, 2020 at 3:17 pmROFL – Ohtsuka Akio was the other name I had in mind (and would have been my first choice) though who they chose was fine. And on some level I think Ishida would have been too on the nose, just because it’s such a cliche Ishida role.
I don’t worry too much about names as spoilers, especially since these are just nicknames anyway.
Derrick
April 2, 2020 at 3:58 pmToG is a victim of its own cleverness.
It gets so disengaging for me in my second year reading.
Think I will just enjoy this as it is
Dauntingoverlord
April 2, 2020 at 4:47 pmI enjoyed reading this a while back, but also dropped it around the same area you did. I just didn’t like the new direction it decided to go and jumped ship. I remember this part being way more interesting than what came after.
dc22
April 3, 2020 at 3:23 amAs someone who wasn’t read the source material, this left me feeling cold.
Amateurish production, generic videogame concept, tropey characters…
Miyu Fan
April 3, 2020 at 3:44 pmI read the webtoon and still followed it sparingly, but I agree Season 1 was far the best arc of the webtoon and had one of the best conclusion I ever read in a piece of work. I haven’t re-read Season 1, but I’m really looking forward to the episodes nearing the end of season because I remember how impressed I was at that time.
leongsh
April 3, 2020 at 10:19 pmI have not read the manhua but have read/heard a lot of gushing about it. My expectations were high. In the face of that, this first episode was below expectations. It was trying to show that it’s ultra cool and edgy but it got my eyes rolling as I found it quite narcissistic in style and presentation. This reminded me of “Guilty Crown”. That said, it is the first episode and I will give it another 2-3 episodes to see where it goes.
Guardian Enzo
April 3, 2020 at 10:44 pmIn the manhwa at least, what comes in the next several “episodes” is better than the first one or two. We’ll see if the anime reflects that, given all the cuts it’s going to be forced to make for schedule expediency.
Color2413
April 4, 2020 at 4:36 amAs someone who came into this with no knowledge of the source material, I have to agree with dc22: The first episode felt like a tropey, formulaic adaptation of a video game, with the second level being a conventional battle royale. However…when I saw the first few episodes of HxH 2011, it seemed like a cheerful kid’s Saturday morning cartoon, and I couldn’t have imagined that it would achieve the greatness it did in the second part of the Chimera Ant arc. So on the strength of the recommendations of those familiar with the manhua, I’m willing to give TOG a few more episodes.
Micah
April 4, 2020 at 5:38 pmPersonally, I think the episodes should’ve been an hour long rather than the usual 20-30 minutes. The story cuts are too quick in pace; if the episodes were longer than they could prob still get everything done with just 13 episodes. I know that it might cost more money, but I don’t want my most favorite comic (OF ALL TIME, LITERALLY) to be skimmed over like the Tokyo Ghoul anime. You know what I mean?
Guardian Enzo
April 4, 2020 at 6:35 pmIf wishes were fishes, we’d all swim in riches…
When was the last TV anime that was an hour long? I can’t even remember. And ToG is a low-budget affair at that – I think we should be grateful it’s at least not full CGI. Anime just doesn’t work like that, and wishing won’t make it so. This is the only kind of adaptation we were ever likely to get, like it or not.
Wanderer
April 7, 2020 at 12:26 amOh boy. After years of being completely disconnected from the anime/manga world, I just found out today about ToG getting an adaptation (a korean webtoon? an anime??). I can’t believe how much the ecosystem has changed (crunchyroll and netflix producing anime? collaborating with Naver! what the heck).
ToG season 1 has always held a very special place in my heart. For me, it was a very compelling and smart take on shounen that avoided the worst pitfalls of the genre (which I feel was much less the case in season 2, where I stopped reading). Plus, I am a sucker for well-fleshed out worlds with trickling pieces of lore that leave you wondering and theorizing.
As for the episode itself, I fell it was okay. It’s clear they want to cram the webtoon’s first season in just 13 episodes, so quite a few scenes and dialogues aren’t gonna make the cut. Still, it pains me to see certain actions not properly explained.
To anime-only watchers, I share Enzo’s opinion: give the series a few more episodes before judging it.
Side note: as an occasional commenter in your LostInAmerica days I vividly recall mentioning ToG to you and comparing it to HxH. Funny to read your first paragraphs now.
Guardian Enzo
April 7, 2020 at 8:31 amWelcome back! Who knows, maybe you were the first one to recommend it to me. It definitely sounds like we had the same experience with it.
Milferd Jones
May 23, 2020 at 2:11 amI seams almost none notice Rachel is stated as main character in introduction. It not I Webtoon but I have confirmed Rachel is the female lead while Bam the male lead from Authors posts.