Ladies and gentleman, this is a momentous week for Tower of God. Where last week was ups and downs, where it skipped a lot of content but ultimately got it across, this week… does not. In fact this week was so annoying to me as a source reader, I compiled a list of all the things I think it screwed up. So without further ado, it’s time for a little rant. And I promise there are some nice comments in there. Maybe.
First up, lets talk straight up cut content. Both Serena, the lady who gave Shibisu the knife, and Endorsi lost a lot here. Tower of God straight up removed conversations that were rather important to both their characters. On Serena’s side, she and Shibisu had a much longer conversation about Hoh, Bam and her feelings about it all. She doesn’t ever return to the story, so it isn’t a big loss. However it is part of how everyone see’s Bam, from someone outside the core trio. Meanwhile Endorsi lost a very important scene between her and Bam. One where Bam explains why he is so devoted to Rachel, and that continues to push Endorsi’s world view. It’s important to remember that she grew up in a cut throat environment. One where this kind of care and devotion was a weakness, showing why Bam is as impactful as he is.
Beyond cut character conversations though, there was a fair bit of world building cut as well. Stuff that primarily dealt with Irregulars and their role in the tower. I am primarily talking about a conversation between Lero Ro and Hansung Yun though. One where Lero Ro confronts Hansung on his actions, bringing up their old conversation about their role with these tests. It ends up actually being an interesting little philosophical discussion. As we learn that Lero Ro believes that their actions here, weeding out the “undesirables” who don’t match the tower, will stagnate it. The metaphor they use is a sea with waves. And that a sea without waves, while calm, is but a pond. There are other tidbits, such as more information on Urek Mazino and a new Irregular called Phantaminun. Neither are particularly important, but it does illustrate how impactful an irregular’s role in the tower is.
This wouldn’t be such a big deal though if Tower of God had not also failed to explain Floor Administrator’s. It was brought up earlier yes, how you can make contracts to use Shinsu. But this is sort of the foundational lore of Tower of God. That these floors have always existed, that the tests were originally given by those Floor Administrator’s, rather than Jahad’s Administrators. We learn later in the episode, and we will talk about it in detail, that only Irregulars can take these tests. That only Irregulars can petition a Floor Administrator and circumvent Jahad’s Administrators. So that makes on wonder, what does that mean for Jahad? He took those tests, he climbed the tower that way and he implemented this current system. Does that not mean Jahad is an Irregular, if only the first one to climb the Tower? You can see why this is important.
Simply by being an Irregular, Bam has placed himself in contention with the strongest beings on the Tower. He, like them, is one of the only people able to circumvent the rules and do as he pleases. As the cut conversation with Hansung says, he is a “tsunami that will shake the Tower”. I realize a lot of this might feel like spoilers, but I promise you, it’s very important for understanding all of the political side stuff of Tower of God. We already got a small hint of it earlier in the series with Hansung’s explanation of “desirable’s” and his tests. And we are seeing it return with Lo Po Bia Ren (mouthful, I know) who has come to kill Anaak and retrieve the two swords. Where once this idyllic Tower was a place where wishes were granted, it has become this Orwellian nightmare of a corrupt Government.
Moving on past lore, politics and cut world building though, let’s get to Khun and the big changes he got. Because you in the original, we saw a lot more of his thought process. We were shown how he manipulated everyone into helping him with Bam, even without them knowing. We saw how he lied to everyone, and blackmailed them individually. Most of all though, we saw him legitimately make everyone hate him to help Bam. Shibisu doesn’t figure it out, no one does except for Rak, and he arrives only after its all over. From Hats to Anaak, no one figures it out, and he is left alone and distrusted by most of their “friends”. He didn’t even tell Rak, Rak figured it out on his own. It’s rather disappointing to be frank, as I always enjoyed how Khun manipulated people even into hating him. And we’ve lost that.
Finally though, coming to the end of the rant, and i’m allowed to praise Tower of God. Because without a doubt, there were some parts that it pulled off well. First among these for me has to be Hansung Yun’s reveal as the one to send Hoh the letter. Even now it isn’t made explicit, but everything is hinting towards it. The buildup of Hansung’s philosophy around their role as administrators to all the cuts showing him before/after scenes talking about Hoh. Add on to that him siding with Lo Po Bia Ren in the episode as well, to remove Anaak from the Tower. All in all I think Tower of God presented his character rather well and that even with the cut content, his threat is obvious. We know that he is planning something for this final test. Now we just have to wait to find out what.
Similarly, Tower of God also did a decent job with Rachel. I think a lot of the cut content could have made it better. But the core of their conflict is there. As Rachel expects Bam to abandon her as she did him. Part of her no doubt wants him to, to prove he is just like her. So when he doesn’t, when he shows he is better than her, she is almost disappointed. This is part of where the cut context hurts it, because it does a great job of framing how different Bam is from everyone else. Of showing exactly why Hoh felt the way he did, and how that feeling wasn’t unique among the Regulars. Combined with Hansung’s bit it made for a rather tense atmosphere heading into the final test. Will everyone stay true? Or will someone become the next Hoh? Now, that atmosphere is lacking.
So, how was this week? I’ll be honest, it was rather difficult to write about it without spoiling much. I want to talk about how the cut content affects future scenes. How it changes or hurts future relationships, but I can’t do that, because we aren’t actually there yet. Instead I have to limit myself to how it effects what we have already seen, and focus on how the differences made it lose focus. As an anime, it’s still entertaining of course. I like it visually, the OST is nice and overall the core of Tower of God is there. However I never felt Tower of God was particularly well written in the first place. So to have what feel like some of its most important character and world details cut is a huge disappointment. Hopefully they can nail the finale and end on a high note at least.
EDIT: 2 things have come to my attention. 1) It’s Hansung Yu not Yun. I am a failure. 2) I rag on Tower of God, because its screwing up as an adaptation, but I still enjoy watching it every week. It’s a fun enough show, I only nitpick because well… most of Tower of God is pretty straight forward and I think nitpicking the comparisons is more interesting than writing back the obvious from each week. I trust you all to get those, your smart folk. Thanks for reading, and I promise, the final review will be far more than me going “But mah source material”,
You’re making me really glad I didn’t read that far into the source, because I actually thought this episode hit a lot of the right notes. Sad Knife Lady was always a side character and it’s no surprise to me she’s written off. I’m still a big fan of Endorsi, and since I don’t know who she’s supposed to be, I’m quite content with her being a primary side character.
I understood the floor administrators bit and that Jahad put his government and people into place (it’s a strangely Chinese principle, despite being a Korean webcomic). I also assumed that Jahad, having climbed the tower himself, was separate from it and therefore an irregular. We already know he’s got some of his own stuff going on with the ongoing shoe collection motiff.
I will admit I didn’t really understand the spooky sheep, except he’s here to whack Anaak and get the super special swords back. Doesn’t that also mean the princess who helped Bam in episode 1 is in trouble?
And about Khun – you were just complaining how perfect his plans went. I LOVED that he gets called out on his 3rd rate acting – that just made me so happy that everyone’s finally understood his deal. Also WTF CHIBI RAAK IS BEST. For someone talking about turtles all the time (I don’t think we know why exactly he’s so set on turtles, do we?), he looks like an adorable, angry dinosaur. I’m going to have to look if there’re like plush toys of chibi raak.
Finally, I agree on Rachel. I’ve been complaining this whole season about her, and I thought they did a good job here with her. I also thought the entire funeral and wake for Hoh was perfect. Kinda scary the number of graves there.
This was one of the better episodes for me. And I still don’t like the OST….but I love the ED ^_^
The turtle metaphor was actually explained this episode: he calls others turtles because they hide inside their shells instead of proudly lifting their heads – unlike the fearless leader that he is. It’s mostly just a recurrent gag, though.
Oh brilliant! I missed that – that makes sense.
Thats great! This is def a case where being a source reader hurts it, because all I can really see is what isn’t there, if that makes sense.
For Spooky Sheep, it’s not explained well, think of him like Secret Police.
For Khun, its a mixed bag. I never really liked how perfect his plans were, but I was always able to appreciate how much work he puts into them and how self-defacing many of them were. Because like the Tag Test required him to outsmart everyone including a big and powerful Ranker. While this one was just him acting like an asshole to get everyone on Bam’s side. It was originally a spur of the moment plan, one that wasn’t prepared before hand at all. Where as the anime has changed it to be more like something Khun and Rak prepared before hand, having already known Bam was an Irregular. For me, this was always the moment Khun devoted himself to Bam, precisely because the one time he had no time to plan or prepare, he chose to sacrifice his own reputation. And that sacked reputation comes back to bite him a tad in the future a little.
I am glad you enjoy it though! I feel like I don’t say it enough, with the nitpicking, but its still an entertaining show. I still enjoy watching it every week. It’s just not a great adaptation, if you get what I mean?
Also yeah, Animosh explained the turtles.
You say it isn’t well written but still praise it?
Honestly this show reminds me Durarara where the bloody creators cut or skipped important scenes from the novels to condense future seasons into 12 episodes each. It was si bloody annoying. Would it have killed them to have more episodes like S1?
I can praise it for the things it gets right, sure. Tower of God’s world building was generally its most interesting part for example. This Orwellian dystopia propped up by the promise of riches and a “merit” based system, with many never realizing that it isn’t merit based at all but rather whoever they let reach the top. Or Endorsi coming to learn and find people outside of her little dog eat dog world, who care capable of caring for each other.
Overall its not particularly well written, I can find better examples of everything in it elsewhere and I won’t be bragging about it to anyone, but its also not terrible. It definitely has some things going for it. It’s like… It’s the difference between a competent story, and a great/terrible one if that makes sense. It’s consistently meh, with occasional spikes. And I don’t want to just rag on the series without acknowledging that yeah, I do enjoy some parts.
Another skipped dialogue that I really liked is the one in chapter 53 between Khun and Rak, where they talk about Khun’s history with Maria and his reasons to follow Bam. It made it clear that – unlike the impression we got earlier in the story – Maria wasn’t (just) a selfish girl who manipulated Khun into helping her, but was rather unusually kind and caring for someone from his family. And she didn’t exactly abandon him: rather, being left behind seemed to be part of his plan, and he pushed her away (believing that becoming a princess was what was best for her) just as much as she moved away from him. It makes the dynamic far more interesting than before, so I really like the extra characterization. It also explains why Khun is so interested in Bam: though he succeeded in making Maria a princess, he feels like he lost something important that day, and hopes Bam’s devotion to Rachel can help him understand himself better, which makes Bam’s later declaration that he will carry Rachel up the tower (and Khun’s Eureka moment resulting from that) all the more rewarding. And it gives us one of Rak’s greatest moments, where he tells Khun that what he lost when he gave up Maria was … his banana! (Though admittedly that joke worked better in the manhwa because Rak’s hunger for bananas was replaced by chocolate in the anime for some reason.) And that he should have instead had the courage to follow his desires, even if it was the more difficult path. In combination with the later scene (where Rak is the only one to see through Khun) it really helps to show that Khun and Rak have become good friends who understand each other.
I was also a bit annoyed by the anime-original content in the episode. It wasn’t bad per se, though I found Rachel’s scene questionable (both because it took an important scene away from Endorsi and because crying her heart out to Bam seems very unlike her), but if they have the time to add original content, I’d have rather seen it go to some of the cut material.
Overall, though, I didn’t dislike the episode as much as you did. It definitely doesn’t live up to the source material, but, perhaps because it wasn’t a climactic episode like episode 5 and 9, I was more tolerant of the cuts and changes than in those episodes. The further world building and characterization undoubtedly make the source material better, but if you can ignore what was left out, I thought the episode did okay. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either.
(Some minor nitpicking: Hansung Yun = Hansung Yu.)
Shit, is it Yu? I’ve always thought it was Yun. Damn, my years of reading it are a lie.
For Rachel, I thought it worked, though I do miss the Endorsi scene. A lot of that is because Endorsi is my favorite character though.
Like I told Amun though, I didn’t hate the episode. I nitpicked it to death sure, but I still enjoy watching it every week. Its an entertaining show, I just don’t think it was a good adaptation if that makes sense.
At the end of the day, i’m going to judge it as a standalone thing though, with only minor notes about the adaptation aspects.
I agree Rachel’s scene wasn’t bad in itself: it nicely clarifies some of her misgivings about the path she’s chosen, which is something that I think we didn’t have in the manhwa at this point in the story. It just didn’t seem like something the Rachel from the manhwa would do, because she is notoriously hesitant to explain and justify herself. Hell, in the manhwa she didn’t even attend the funeral. But that’s just my source reader perspective poisoning my experience of the show, and if you can ignore what was cut because of the scene, and how well it represented Rachel’s personality from the manhwa, it actually works pretty well.
As for the show, I am of the same opinion: it’s entertaining, but it doesn’t do justice to the source material. For me, this adaptation falls somewhere in between excellent adaptations like Demon Slayer and Kaguya-sama and terrible ones like OPM 2: not great, not terrible.
I should note for all those reading, since I forgot to put it in the main post itself, I fully expect the final arc to be better than the original webcomic. The final arc stretched long and was padded, so at the rate things are getting cut and squished, this is going to be one of the bits to really benefit from it I feel.
I promise i’m not a negative nancy haha . See you all next week 😛