Kami no Tou: Ouji no Kikan – 02

Tower of God is pretty much the ultimate can’t tell the players without a scorecard series. If any manga/hwa/hua/fra ever needed an editor more desperately, I’ve yet to see it. But they just keep coming, and remarkably enough SIU actually manages to make a decent percentage of them memorable. Most of the names still get washed away in the flood, but when I see them pop up here the memories come rushing back in. And truly, this is barely the tip of the iceberg.

So far the only common thread with the first season – other than Rachel in flashback – is Bam. Only he’s calling himself Jue Viole Grace now. And the rest of the regulars he took the first test with are suitably terrified of him. The next batch of regulars comes through, and it includes Yeon Yihwa, a daughter of one of the ten great families whose presence here comes as quite a shock to Wangan and the others. She has quite a reputation for burning her fellow test takers to a crisp, to boot. Also in the group is the loan shark after Wangan’s organs, and a young man he calls Prince. He’s the son of the company president and the rest of the group were brought in to fix the exam in his favor, courtest of a bribe.

It’s all about the mind games in Tower of God, really. So you know the test of strength test is not really testing strength. The ranker is the memorably named “Mule Love” and he informs the group that the test will determine eight candidates to move to the next level. There’s a lot of flexing and posing, but eventually Viole puts affairs in order and claims first place. Now Love pulls the twist – as winner, Viole gets to choose the other regulars to join him. He begs off, citing their inadequacy and his stated goal as a FUG to kill the big Jahad at the top of the tower. Love refuses to allow this, and eventually proposes a game between the two of them to determine whether Viole can fly solo or not.

This is all very fun in ToG’s usual off-center way (I actually love the interstitial segments focused on hotel rooms and food). Is it something I want to cover? I  guess I’m still undecided about that, but there’s still enough good material left to cover that I’m at least considering it. I imagine this one is a candidate for the bubble and the ballot, which are starting to look like they might be very crowded.

 

2.5-jigen no Ririsa – 02 

This is the season of mid romcoms – it’s veritably swimming in them. I quite liked the premiere of 2.5-jigen no Ririsa but I found myself starting to get pretty bored with the second episode. And Mikari annoyed me immensely from the moment she appeared on-screen. The fact that the formula in the premiere worked was soft of odds-defying in the first place, but tweaked the way it was the show totally lost me.

I think this show does have a certain charm to it when focused on the two leads, but ultimately I feel pretty confident saying it’s not my bag. I’ll check out the third ep but it’s going to have to mount quite a comeback even to make it into the bubble.