Hello all and welcome to another week of Tower of God! Apologies for the wait, been a busy few days, but not near as busy as our leads. As this week we see Team A’s test, Khun lay plans within plans, and Quant get publicly humiliated. So without further ado, lets jump in!
Starting off, the visuals. I always bring it up in some form or another, positively or negatively, so this shouldn’t surprise you. This week however I felt Tower of God was rather… lacking. The art style is still great, I love the inconsistent line work and bright colors. It still looks like nothing else really airing this season, what little is left. But as far as the animation goes? For what was seemingly an action packed episode, so much of it just felt flat and weightless. From Quant movements to the struggles of the Regulars, nothing really “wowed” me. There were some decent effects, like Quant after images, but the animation behind his movements did little to sell it sadly. About the only cut that I really liked was mid way through, at Khun’s “fall”. Beyond that though? Well, lets just hope they are saving their efforts for next week.
As far as the test itself goes though, I have always rather liked this whole sequence. As up until now Khun has consistently been sold as a rather manipulative person. We saw it when he teamed up with Rak and Bam, and also in the Crown Game. But both of those were for his own success as much as anyone else’s. This exam though, we get to see Khun act for other peoples success. Allowing both his coldhearted manipulative side and his caring, friendly side to come out in the same episode. Hansung Yu explained it clearly enough, in that Khun didn’t betray his team at all. Because rather than his exam team, his real team are his group of friends, and he acted to ensure their success. The only complaint I have ever had against this sequence was the Mary Sue argument for Khun. That aside though, its fun.
On a similar note, this is also one of my favorite Lauroe scenes. That isn’t say much, since the man doesn’t have many, but hey we take what we can get. I love how consistently done with everything he is, and how little he actually cares about the exam. After all, he is already guaranteed to pass because of his performance in his position tests. And since Shibisu, Khun and everyone else on his team he knows are the same, it makes sense he doesn’t really care about the result. So while I wish Tower of God hadn’t skipped some of his previous scenes, like his talk with Bam and Hoh, I do enjoy what we got. Now if only there was a bit more care put into the animation of it all.
On the other end of the spectrum though we have Quant, the Ranker with a temper. I’ve never been a huge fan of this character to be honest, he was always incredibly simplistic. Out of all the characters we have seen, he is the most “what you see is what you get”. And while that isn’t inherently a bad thing, simple and straightforward characters can be interesting at times, as a side-character it does him no favors. Still, Tower of God did a decent job of showing both his strength and skills, along with his pride and how seriously he takes his job. As he does his best to reign in his temper and fight the Regulars on an even playing field, but still can’t accept them beating him in fair competition. If Tower of God can nail his big scene next week, he will probably end fine.
Finally we come to Bam’s test, which we didn’t really get to see much of. Oh there are small jokes, like the Spear Bearers revolution, that I am happy to see didn’t get cut. Or how everyone bows to Endorsi the moment she opens her mouth, except Bam, endearing him to her. But overall the whole thing is cut short before we come to the good stuff. The only real surprise coming at the end as Endorsi begins to attack her own team. The question now though, is she also on Bam’s side like Khun? Or is this her finally turning on everyone to ensure her own place in the Position Tests? With what we have seen so far, it could go either way, so I am curious about any anime-only viewers thoughts on the scene.
Sadly though, thats about it for this week. Tower of God was pretty straight forward with both its content and its characters. Clearly laying out their motivations and reasons for everything they do, even explaining them outright. And while that makes it easy for viewers to follow, it makes it difficult to write interesting posts about. After all, what is there to dig into if you already know every little detail. All in all though, it was an entertaining episode. I think the lighting could have used some work in places, and the animation definitely wasn’t the strongest. My hope though is that they are saving it all for the finale, since at this point we are guaranteed to complete the entire first season of the webtoon this cour. Is this a good thing? Probably not considering the pacing. But at least we get a complete story, yeah?
1. I think Endorsi is probably on team Bam.
2. I’m still big confused on a few points: Why is Bam on the verge of failing if he’s a magicwater genius?
3. What actually happens if people fail this exam? Do they die? Get sent somewhere else? What about Bam – he’s an irregular, so can he even go back to his “world”?
4. Why is Rachel freaking useless?
I thought Khun was okay – he feels slightly OP (and kind of a walking Deus Ex Machina) but he’s got enough personality to make up for it. The last 2-3 episodes have just felt REALLY rushed though, and you can tell there are a bunch of mechanics that haven’t been explained fully. I still am not 100% on what this entire test is or why they’re doing it, but I accept it and cheer for team turtles (plus Endorsi – she can be a turtle too).
I’m not an anime-only, but I’ll try to answer spoiler-free.
1. Most likely. He had Black March and wanted to return it to Yuri, so she’s probably very curious as to what was going on there since Bam never explained why he had in the first place it to the other characters.
2. This is a big failure of the anime, caused by it skipping the Position Test explanation. We see that each of the regulars were chosen for position training based on the first few tests, but what was left out was that there are a limited number of final slots in each spot. For wave controller, there are 2 slots and Lauroe took one of them. The slots are awarded based on a point system (remember the cafeteria food costing points?), where points are awarded based on performance. Bam’s non-performance in the early tests as well as being injured leaves him with about the same number of points as the other candidates, so Khun managed to guarantee the wave controllers on his team won’t get the last slot as long as Bam can get more points than Hoh and his team wins.
Talking about slots, let’s go back to number 1. There are 4 fisherman slots and Anak is guaranteed to have one since she can awaken Green March and performed well in this test despite losing. Endorsi/Androssi got docked the same number of points for being injured that Anak lost, but she also spends/wastes her points buying expensive food to sate her royal palette. Since points are lost by being injured, it’s not hard to figure out what her goal is here by turning on her competitors.
3. If you die, you obviously fail. If you fail, then you won’t be allowed to climb the tower and are stuck on the floor.
For Bam, at this point no one knows he’s an irregular other than the first floor guardian who let him climb in the first place. Several people suspect he is, but have no proof. Khun and Rak definitely noticed he doesn’t know basic knowledge he should know. As for what would happen if he fails, at this point in the story most likely he will be stuck on the floor.
4. Good question 🙂 Knowing that only those with the highest points can pass, what does that imply about her ability to score points when she keeps buying bruised apples while everyone else eats something decent?
Just to add to what anon234 said:
2. anon234 already did a good job explaining the mechanics of the tests, but a broader point is that what the tests examine is not the talent or potential of their participants but their current abilities. And although Bam is amazingly talented, because he has only been training with Shinsoo for a couple of weeks (whereas many of his competitors have been honing their abilities for decades), his current abilities are only slightly above average: he’s slightly better than Hoh and the staff girl, but far less skilled than Lauroe, say. So if Khun’s teammates had done well in the test, they would very likely have earned more points than Bam, and he would have failed as a result.
4. Although Rachel isn’t as insanely talented as Bam, I wouldn’t say she’s useless: remember that she was one of the “best seeds” alongside Khun and Anaak, so she’s actually quite capable. It’s true that we haven’t really seen much of that, though, mostly because she’s been avoiding Bam (so she has to keep a low profile). So I’d say she’s more passive than incompetent.
2. That makes good sense, thanks for clarifying! That’d be nice to have shown (could have done in like a ten second window)
3. That’s interesting – I never really thought of just being stuck on the floor. That’d be odd – getting points, etc.
4. I’m just cross that the supposed main girl is ducking and running every time Bam even breathes near her. I’m pretty sure she’s just trying to econ her way through the test, but that’s lame.
3. Because this is the test floor, regulars who fail will presumably just be sent back to where they came from. And even after this floor it isn’t exactly true that regulars are “stuck” on the relevant floor if they fail: they can’t climb higher, but they can still go to lower floors, and they can simply retake the floor test as well.
Of course, in Bam’s case it may not be possible to send him back to wherever he came from (because it’s outside the tower), so the rules for him may be a bit different. The series will address that question eventually, so for now you just gotta be patient. 😉
4. For what it’s worth, Rachel will have a somewhat bigger role in the latter parts of the season, and she does have her reasons for avoiding Bam, which will also be explored later. As for being lame … I guess, but you could argue that only those with exceptional talent have the luxury to worry about whether they look cool. And Rachel is (in her eyes) not in that position. She does what she needs to do to climb the tower, and if that isn’t cool, so be it.