Welcome all to the halfway point of the season for Tower of God! We finally get a bit of downtime here, as Bam recovers and we enter a… training arc? Exam arc? Who really knows, point is, its time to learn us some stuff! Lets dive in.
First up, lets talk adaptation and how Tower of God is doing production wise. Because for all that I enjoyed this week, there were a few cracks, as we adapted 7 full chapters. 7 chapters in a single episode. And the pacing is only going to get worse if we try to fit in all of season 1. Now I am sure this isn’t much of an issue for Anime-Only viewers. Maybe the episodes feel a bit fast, but nothing more. For those that know the source though, we can see just how much is being skipped or condensed. Credit where its due, they aren’t doing a horrible job. If they are going to cut things, they are mostly choosing well. But there are still scenes I wish we could have seen we didn’t. All because someone decided to fit 78 chapters into a single cour of anime.
As far as the actual episode goes, where else do we start but with Rachel? This was our first real look into Rachel as a person, since everything before was from Bam’s point of view. And I have to say, it was not a good look for her. Coming to Khun to tell him to lie to Bam, that she doesn’t want to meet him. Even trying to dress it up as her being kind, that the two would become each others weakness. Luckily Khun was there to call her on her bullshit, that she isn’t doing this for Bam’s sake but her own. Gone is our perception of this gracious and kind girl, sticking with and guiding Bam in his darkest hour. Instead we see a jealous and lonely girl. Perhaps she wasn’t the one to save Bam, but the other way around?
Of course I am referencing her nightmare from the middle of the episode here. Alone in her room, no team or friends to speak of, what does she think about? Bam. But instead of this lonely child who depended on her, she sees he has started to gain friends of his own. People are gravitating towards him, just like she did, except now she doesn’t have him to herself. Now he doesn’t need her, because he has found other, better friends. There are a lot of ways to look at this, and mine is a bit of a more cynical one. Rachel could be jealous, afraid, shy or any number of things. But the way I have always seen this is Rachel’s insecurities coming into play. In all honesty, this is probably Tower of God’s best written character plot, though Khun and Endorssi have their moments as well.
Returning to Khun and his place in all this, he goes along with Rachel’s plan! I actually quite like this from him, as it fits everything we know about him. Khun isn’t one for rules, nor does he care for doing what others tell him. He also has clearly dealt with the seeming betrayal from a female figure in his life, one he devoted himself to. So it makes perfect sense that he would see Rachel as worthless, and play along with her scheme. Not for her, but for Bam. To spare Bam the pain of confronting her, of being abandoned by her. So long as Bam doesn’t learn the truth, he can continue to hope, to climb the tower with Khun. It’s messed up, but in his own way, Khun is trying to protect the naive Bam. Of course, we all know that can’t last, now can it?
Moving on we come to the other major plot thread of the episode, Anaak and Endorssi. Tower of God actually does a good job here. Simultaneously building up both the world and the characters. Teaching us a bit more about what a Princess of Jahad is, and both their limitations and abilities. One of the big ones though is that they aren’t actually related at all. Rather, they are chosen from great houses or tribes, no doubt both for their strength and for politics. Effectively making them political prisoners of a sort while also ensuring strong individuals are loyal to Jahad himself. As Endorssi described it, they are “shoes in a display case”. This has always been one of my favorite metaphors in Tower of God, and Endorssi one of my favorite characters. It perfectly encapsulates both their position, and the restrictions that come with it. Restrictions such as marriage.
I am of course talking about Anaak, or her mother’s, story. How she was a princess who fell in lover with a baker and ran away from the world. All she wanted was a happy comfortable life free of fighting. To love and raise her daughter. Only for her fellow Princesses to come down on and kill her, her daughter taking her name and fighting for revenge. We have seen hints of it before, but this is another instance of the Tower not being the fairy tale it sounds like. This isn’t a happy place that you climb and get a wish at the top. Rather it is a ruthlessly controlled tyranny, with Jahad at the top, only letting those who fit the system through. All the floors and tests being design to weed undesirables out, and institutions like the Princesses made to control the strong. Feeling depressed yet?
Finally we come to the most shounen-ey aspect of Tower of God, positions. All of them are rather straight forward though. The frontline in the Fisherman and Scout, the back line with the Spear Bearer and the Light Bearers in the back. The Wave Controllers of course being the big power behind it all with their Shinsu. It’s a rather simplistic and unrealistic way to partition a fight, but hey, its a battle Shounen. You should have expected it. The big thing here though are actually the tests, each one unique to their positions. Fisherman just have to fight it out and prove they are good at close combat. Meanwhile Spear Bearers just have to hit a far away target by the end of the course, and Wave Controllers no doubt have to learn to control Shinsu. So instead of going into the simple stuff, lets focus on Bam’s position.
Thats right, lets focus in on Wave Controllers! We see during the episode that to use Shinsu, a Wave Controller has to form a contract with an Administrator. These sort of godlike beings, each of which effectively control a floor. Everyone has to do it, from Rankers to Lauroe, who used it during the Crown Game. However we saw last week that Bam didn’t need any such contract, he already used Shinsu. To build on this, the Administrator also makes a rather ominous comment about this contract being a “shackle” for Bam. That by making it, Bam is tying himself to the rules of Shinsu, to the Administrators whims on the matter, rather than his own. The big question in all of this is: Why can Bam use Shinsu without an Administrator contract? Why is the contract a shackle? If you have been paying attention, you probably already know.
So all in all, how was Tower of God this week? Well the best thing I can say is that I enjoyed it. Seeing characters like Endorssi and Khun get to develop reminds me why I stuck with Tower of God in the first place. Rather than just reading it because of the sunk cost fallacy like I do now. The stakes are still small enough here, personal enough, that its easy to care about them. If nothing else, I expect Tower of God to end as it began: A fun shounen romp with some interesting visuals and a better than average world/story. So long as it can nail the pacing moving forward, we should be good to go I think.
“Luckily Khun was there to call her on her bullshit, that she isn’t doing this for Bam’s sake but her own.”
I actually think it’s a bit of both. On the one hand, Rachel is clearly not telling the whole truth when she’s saying she’s staying away from Baam for his sake: she has her own goals and seems to be prioritizing them over him. But on the other hand, she does seem to care about Baam, and her point that they are each other’s weak points is logically sound: Baam got a significant injury protecting her just an episode ago, and his dependence on her is unhealthy to say the least, and can easily be used against him (and possibly her too). But yeah, Rachel’s a great character, probably the most interesting in the series. It’s just a shame her character development is so damn slow (probably because it’s endgame stuff), which can make it really difficult to empathize with her sometimes.
By the way, although I see where you’re coming from with the sunk cost fallacy, I’ve actually been enjoying the most recent arc quite a bit. It’s typical shounen stuff, sure, but it’s pretty exciting, makes good use of the main cast, and (unlike some parts of the Hell Train arc) at least feels like it’s going somewhere. It’s hardly a masterpiece, but it makes for some pretty solid junk food.
PS: are you combining the two names for Endorsi/Androssi (the new and the old translation, respectively) into one (Endorssi)? :p
Speaking of translations, one thing that really bothers me is the translation of “Rachel”. I spent the past 5 years working in the US in a Japanese-owned company. I had some coworkers on-site in the US, but the rest were in Japan and I would meet with them remotely. The “L” sound does not exist in their language, and I would frequently hear them pronounce that sound as “R”, as in “pran” instead of “plan”. They also had no problem pronouncing the “ch” sound.
What I hear when watching this is “Lahel”. It very distinct to me, because I’ve spent so much time working with native Japanese speakers who couldn’t pronounce “Lahel” no matter how hard they tried, yet in this series I hear the “L” very clearly when they say what the subtitles show as “Rachel”. I also don’t hear the “ch” sound when the VAs say her name.
It’s very off-putting to me to clearly hear one name that I know is difficult for a native Japanese speaker to pronounce then read something completely different in the English subtitles.
And “Yoru” is translated as “Bam” (the Korean word for “night”), which is even more distinct. It personally doesn’t really bother me, because I’m used to those names (Rachel and Bam) from the webcomic, and given how entrenched they are among source readers it makes sense to stick with them, but I can see how it could get on your nerves.
So whats actually very interesting about how they pronounce “Rachel” as “Rahel” is that they are using/emulating the old Hebrew pronunciation rather than the more modern “Rae-ch-el” or however you phonetically sound it out. It gives it a much more religious connotation, at least in my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQDrVuSFFMk
Whether this is intentional or not is a toss up. But its interesting nonetheless.
The double S may have been a typo, I will admit. The naming scheme for her is annoying. Webtoon translations have it as Androssi, while the anime has it as Endorsi. I didn’t want to confuse anime only but at the same time, I have called her Androssi for years. Its a pain :< As for the most recent arc, I am up in the air on it. It's very action and shounen focused, and I do enjoy Kallavan. But I much prefer the quieter bits where the characters talk about/experience the world. Where we meet interesting or large figures from the Tower or learn about new locations. As is, the current location is just kinda... floating in the air, and isn't all that interesting to me conceptually. It also feels like Bam is fighting people that should be far beyond his power level, and I wanted to see him grow a bit more by climbing the tower first.
Thats just me though. Its not bad, just very average. It doesn’t help that Androssi isn’t in this current arc and shes my favorite character >.> Least I get her in the anime.
Warning! There are some mild spoilers about the overall direction of the series below. Read at your own risk.
I see what you mean: the series certainly did lose some of its early charm, when the focus was more on climbing the tower and slowly exploring and learning more about the world. But on the other hand, given Baam’s overarching mission, it was never going to carry that focus all the way to the end: sooner or later, Baam was always going to have to become an active participant in the conflicts of the tower. You could say it’s still too early for that, but if it were to be postponed until after he climbed the tower, then basically all the exploration would have already been done, so combining the two makes sense. And it also makes sense that his enemies wouldn’t leave him alone, and would therefore already drag him in the conflicts during his climb. So personally I’m mostly on board with the arc: it doesn’t match the best parts of the series – given how unimaginative the battles tend to be (they’re often just DBZ-style ki blast stand-offs where the one with the bigger power level wins), they were never going to be its main appeal – but for me the fact that Baam has become an active participant is mostly a good thing, because it gives the story a sense of direction, makes it feel like it’s really going somewhere. I’m also generally a fan of politics, so really getting into the conflicts of the tower, and the various factions participating in them, is interesting for me. But I do see your point, of course: the series has no doubt changed, and not all for the better. But even if it isn’t at its very best right now, reading it at least hasn’t become a chore for me: like I said, it’s solid junk food.
By the way, for what it’s worth, a big princess arc is rumored to be in the works (based on SIU’s blog posts), and you should be seeing plenty of Endorsi there. Those rumors have been going around for a while though, so God knows when that will be… It might be soon after this arc (maybe Maschenny could help transition between the two), but it could also take 100+ more chapters. Hopefully not, though, because I’d be interested in a princess arc: Endorsi aside, it could give us some good lore too, and more development for the princesses.