Is Tower of God Worth the Hype?
Hello everyone and welcome to our shelter ? Today, we’re going to dive into Kami no Tou – Tower of God in English – which was undoubtedly the Anime debuting in the 2020 Anime Spring Season that got more traction. On top of shipping Yoru (also known as Baam) and Khun, everyone is also dragging Rachel through the mud for her less friendly behavior online. Honestly, every episode was entertaining, and I highly enjoyed the first season. But, does Tower of God deserve so much praise?
Synopsis
Tower of God happens in a world where people fight to the death to climb a tower. This happens because everyone who reaches the top can see one of their wishes come true. Baam – the main character – is a guy who lived inside a cavern (or something similar) all by himself. One day a girl appears and becomes his only friend. However, after some time together, she goes away with the only explanation that she is going to climb the tower to see the stars. Since Baam doesn’t want to end up all alone again, he tries everything to follow her, and the tower decides to let him in as well, even if he’s an “irregular”. From there on, Baam does his best to climb the tower to find Rachel, making many friends along the way.
An HunterxHunter Vibe
If you’ve seen HunterxHunter, you know what I’m talking about. Due to Tower of God’s test nature, the Anime reminds me of the HunterxHunter’s first arc a lot, and I love it. It’s just a great formula to have in an adventure Anime. The main characters have to go through deadly tests repeatedly, and you’re never sure if they’re going to make it.
More than that, there’s also quite the mystery going on, as we have little to no information on how the tower really works. As we live the story through Baam’s eyes, we get to know more about how the tower works as the main character learns it. I didn’t read the Anime’s source, so I’m not 100% sure if the manga had a better introduction. However, from what I read, I believe many explanations were not included in the beginning to start the action scenes right away. Honestly, I think this was on purpose and I’m ok with that. At least this way, we always have some kind of mystery that pulls us every single week. We all want to understand this strange society a little better, right?
We also need to consider that we only watched the first season. So, hopefully, everything that wasn’t explained so far probably will in future episodes. That being said, there are a few things that rubbed me in the wrong way.
Rachel Is a Mess
The main reason everyone is calling Rachel a b**** online is due to her character not being well written. I don’t know about the manga, but in the Anime, Rachel is the villain just because. Besides her dream of wanting to be a star herself, there’s no reason why she behaves so ruthlessly. Sure, she wants to climb the tower and probably went insane in the process. Despite this, she just seems to be the same girl throughout the series – someone who’s ok with hurting the only person that sees her like the star she wants to be.
This doesn’t make much sense. There are plenty of Animes out there showing bad guys turning into good guys because they finally had someone valuing them – Naruto is a good example. However, Rachel is quite the contrary. She’s ok to hurt and even kill the only person that perceives her how she wants to be seen, for no reason whatsoever. For me, this is poor character writing, as villains should have the same level of motives behind their actions (or even stronger) as the heroes.
In my opinion, this where the show lacks the most. Everything else is pretty ok, and although the story seems to be going slowly, I believe it’s ok for an Anime that will probably have several seasons.
Everything Else is Great
I’m not sure what is going to happen next, but for an introduction season, Tower of God season one is excellent. We get to know most of the characters as well as their motives behind their actions, and things look promising. The veil isn’t entirely lifted, though, as the tower itself hasn’t been fully explained. For example, where does Baam come from? I understand he was from outside the tower, but from where? Moreover, where’s everybody else who is part of the tower living?
The animation is also pretty nice and unique. Khun and Rak (Baam’s companions) are also excellent additions. The former reminds me of Killua from HunterxHunter (who I love), and Rak is probably one of the funniest characters I’ve ever seen. Baam himself is still a pretty mild character, but I’m guessing this is going to change for the second season.
So, yeah… I would say Tower of God is worth the hype, especially when it clearly stands out from the other Anime came out this Spring season. If you’re into adventure Anime, then I highly recommend you try this one out.
What about you? Have you watched Tower of God? What are your thoughts about it? Tell me all in the comments! ?
There’s actually a reason why everyone(including me) hates Rachel and calls her a b****. If you have watched the entire first season of Tower of God then you would’ve seen that she pushed Bam out of the Shinsu bubble to get eaten by the Bull. Rachel betrayed Bam because Headon(the tower caretaker) gave her the offer to kill Bam to climb the tower since she wasn’t chosen by the tower. She betrayed Bam for her own benefit, and was jealous that Bam had everything that she wanted. Rachel in the manga isn’t that different to the one in the anime, and she’s still an absolute a-hole. The introduction in the manga isn’t that different from the anime. The only things that are different in the anime is that some characters are different, some situations are slightly different, and some things are cut to make things easier to understand. Bam WILL get more interesting later on. I hope this answers at least some of your concerns(some of these details may not be correct, so please let me know if I got something wrong).
Hi Art,
I really liked your review!
I have read the webtoon/manhwa and honestly, as Moon The Wolf states above, Rachel is hated for several reasons, one being the fact Baam is betrayed by her every single step of the way. She lies to him, she hurts him and she just seems to get away with it. Annoying SIU (the creator) has stated she is more of a protagonist than just some love interest…
I definitely recommend giving it a read if you get the chance – it’s very, very good! There is more to Rachel than meets the eye and I didn’t feel that season 1 managed to capture everything, however there are nearly 90 chapters between the first episode and the last episode, so you can imagine that they weren’t able to fit everything in.