Introduction
Sometimes you know what you wanna write. The words come to you naturally. And sometimes you have no idea where you are going. This is one of those times ^^. I totally want to review Tower of God, yet it’s only the introduction and I’m already lost in thoughts. I truly have no idea how to structure this. Hopefully, I’m listening to some music (Mili, I love Mili). I think music helps get the words to flow easier. Maybe, I’m not sure.
Now I’m gonna warn everyone right away, this review might get a bit long. Well, it’s no surprise,Tower of God is on a pretty huge scale. How huge you ask? Well, let’s say One Piece huge.
Honestly, I can’t help but compare Tower of God to One Piece. Yeah, the theme is really different, yet the two feel so similar. I’m pretty confident that if you enjoyed One Piece you will enjoy ToG (I’ll be using this abbreviation from now on). How are they so similar uh? Well, ToG is not as old as One Piece, yet you can already tell that it’s probably gonna last as long. It has the same multi-layered story, some things become relevant much later on and you only realize it afterward. Anyway, you’ll see what I mean as I write.
Some Notes
So, I have to say a couple of things, first, I started writing this about a year ago. Yeah, it’s been almost a year I haven’t published anything. A lot has happened, mostly I moved to a different city, which is the main reason why I didn’t write anything all that time.
And I recently injured my wrist, actually, my wrist has had an issue for almost a year, which is the other reason I haven’t published anything. And a few days ago I injured my wrist quite badly, it’s a bit awkward to write but I’ll try my best. Honestly, I’ve missed writing, a lot.
Anyway, I’ll try and finish the few reviews I had started writing before all this. The good thing is, that I had time to read ToG from start to end for the second time, right now it’s all quite fresh in my memory.
Very first impressions
So I started reading Tog after watching the anime adaptation. And while the adaptation is great, the first season only goes so far. Tower of God has 550 (actually more now) chapters as I’m writing this review. Honestly considering how long the chapters are, I’m truly impressed with the publishing speed. It’s truly astonishing really. And while I’m at it, for those not familiar with webtoons, it’s fully colored.
Well anyway, let’s go back on topic. There’s one thing that totally marked me while I watched the adaptation, and then even more when I started reading ToG. It was all unpredictable. No matter what I thought would happen, it always, at every moment, managed to surprise me. Now it’s not the only thing I’ve read or watched that kept surprising me. But I was totally baffled by how I just couldn’t get it right. Twist after twist, truly marvelous.
Drawings
While most anime reviews typically start with a synopsis, I’ll review the art of Tower of God first. It feels kinda weird, I’ve not even started talking about the story or anything really. But I feel like it’s better to get the other stuff outta the way first this time around. I’m quickly gonna mention the adaptation there. It was quite surprising when I first watched it. The art style is memorable, it was different from anything I had seen, and it actually reflected the original style really well. Yeah, I think this style is quite unique.
And the best part about ToG is that you see the drawings getting better and better with each chapter. Yeah, the author improved a damn ton over time, the most recent chapters are honestly and truly, beautiful. And I really mean it, ToG has one freaking insane graphic style.
It’s a bit hard to put into words but I can assure you it’s fantastic on this end. There’s one thing I sometimes don’t like however, it has gotten a bit too big sometimes. I mean the attacks and the likes take entire pages by themselves. On one end It looks great, but in terms of readability, it can be a bit confusing. As I mentioned, it’s fully colored, and it looks quite bright and colorful. Anyway, I’ll let the images speak for themselves.
Story & Characters
After thinking for a bit, I decided to go with a pretty unusual structure for this Tower of God review. You see, things get quite complicated in this series. There are multiple arcs, a ton of characters, and so many other things. In that, it’s truly similar to One Piece. All the intricacies, the twists, the mysteries, and so on.
Honestly, it’s not hard to forget some stuff that happened previously. Heck, the other day a character reappeared, and I had totally forgotten about that one. Aight, let’s get going, shall we? I’ll try to spoil as little as possible, but be warned, I may spoil some minor stuff.
Part One
The Main Character
The premise is actually quite simple. There’s a tower, and people try to climb it to obtain whatever they may want. That’s where our two first characters, Bam and Rachel start it all. Rachel gets invited to enter the tower, and Bam follows her. Well, except he was not supposed to do so. Bam is the true main character, and at first, he’s totally naïve and kind to a fault.
And Rachel? Honestly, I’d rather not say anything about her. Well actually, there’s one thing that has to be said. Out of every single character I’ve seen, be it from a movie, anime, manga, novel, or whatnot. Out of every single one. Rachel has to be the single most detestable character of all time.
Mark my words, there’s pretty much not a single chapter that doesn’t have a comment saying how detestable Rachel is. She’s evil incarnate. Now that’s enough said, it’s already minor spoilers. And it’s way more attention than she deserves.
Bam, on the other hand, is truly loveable. Kind to a fault. And if there’s one thing that can be said about him, it would be how different he is from every single other character in this story. I’ll let you see him evolve as the story progresses.
Other Characters
Besides those two, quite a few other characters get introduced, but the two really important ones are Khun and Rak. They will accompany Bam while climbing the tower. Khun is the mysterious and super cunning type, while Rak is the total opposite, a big idiot who says whatever he thinks (also, he’s a crocodile with a bad tendency to call people ‘turtle’).
There are a ton of other important characters, but it’s quite difficult to talk about characters without spoiling stuff. Some will stay important, others will become important later on, and some completely disappear, or even die. I’ll let you discover it all.
First Arc
The very first arc is mostly a setup, it’s there for us and the characters to get a first feel of the tower. It’s a bit hard to image things, the tower is a bit different from our world, there’s no air nor sky, but visually it looks similar to the earth we know. There are actually explanations along the way so don’t worry.
What’s most impressive is that this very first arc could easily be an entire story in and of itself. Yet it’s only the setup. It’s honestly amazing. By the way, the anime stops at the end of the first arc.
Part Two
More Characters?
As always, I find it quite hard to express myself on things without spoiling, especially regarding characters. And in tog, there are so many characters. No really, there are so many, to the point you may forget about them along the way
There’s one other character I really want to talk about, and that would be Yuri. See, outta the many many characters in ToG, Yuri has to be my favorite. We unfortunately don’t see her too often, but she’s essential to this story, from the very beginning.
As to the kind of character she is, definitely the badass and reckless type, she’s very emotional, and strong, extremely strong. Oh, and she’s quite fond of Bam if you see what I mean (well to be honest, she’s far from being the only one), but she’s, uh, crazy about it, yeah, when it comes to Bam, she’s totally nuts.
I won’t talk about any other character, although, there are many who are super cool and whom I’d love to talk about, but I gotta let you discover them!
Second Arc Onwards
Obviously, I can’t talk about the whole story, I would be unable not to spoil stuff, and it would get way too long.
So I’ll just say a few things. First, expect the unexpected, always. Then, things will get bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper. I compared it to One Piece, but it’s a lot more complicated and a lot deeper than One Piece, this story is so intricate, layers upon layers, I can’t help but be amazed.
And finally, just enjoy it, honestly, there are reasons why ToG is among the most read and highest rated Webtoon ever. It’s simply that good.
