Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - is Tower of God Living Up to Expectations?
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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The fact that you said he's probably in a cave is where my main point lies. Everything is too vague and disjointed. I could tell from the opening narration that life inside the tower was the focus just like the abyss is the focus of MiA from the closing narration of it's first episode and that's exactly why we shouldn't have jumped into the tower so quickly. Going back to MiA, the first three episodes firmly established Riko's place in the world, livelihood and relationships. In other words, everything she is leaving behind and sacrificing to achieve her goal because it's repeatedly emphasized that her journey into the abyss is a one way trip. Whether she lives or dies she's not coming back. This also serves to give us clear contrast between the peaceful world around the abyss and the dangers within the abyss. ToG should have done this as well with Rachel so we can really feel how much she wants to see the sky/stars, which also doesn't make sense because we know nothing of the outside world. Why can't she see the stars from where she's at? Why is climbing the tower the only way to do it? How does she know stars even exist if she can't see them? Where did this motivation and information about the stars come from? Why can't/won't she take Bam with her? The last question could probably be left for a later reveal but the others should have been established in the first episode. I can't even come up with any questions regarding Bam since he's such a blank slate that I really didn't care about him, but a firmly established setting outside the tower could have at least laid the groundwork for guessing what could have possibly caused his memory lost. But we got a whole lot of nothing. And if anything outside the tower isn't important then we shouldn't have started the story outside and instead just start on the first level. |
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R.Obliv
Posts: 31 |
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Thanks for your response. I can definitely see your point. Vagueness is a massive issue the webtoon struggled with. Within context of this series, however, for Baam and Rachel to reach the outside world from the cave the only was was through the tower. As Baam does explain in one of his flashbacks, he was imprisoned there (and a scene that didn't make it to the anime from the crown game also showed someone forcibly grabbing Rachel by the hair). The cave also has the symbol of king Jahad on the wall in the original source material, which didn't appear clearly in the anime. I do think basing the first episode within the cave would have been a better start rather than immediately entering the tower to give time to explain who Baam and Rachel are (or at least what they know about themselves) what they know about the tower and how they learnt to enter - but there was 80 chapters to adapt, so they decided they didn't have time to fix shortcomings in the source material. I guess for me the world outside of the tower wasn't something that interested me more than the tower itself back when I actually liked the webtoon, as the systems of the tower itself seemed really interesting. Each floor is the size of a continent and with multiple factions vying for control and irregulars coming from an unknown world that single handedly destabilize everything. The Webtoon didn't live up to what I had hoped, but that is what interested me. What happened beyond the tower was like the world outside the walls in Attack on Titan (please forgive me using a comparison to contrast your own). A couple characters speak about features of the outside as a legend, such as stars and the sky, and the irregular Urek Mazino has an entire organisation based around finding a way out (here's an example of the author using his blog to give essential information about how things work within his setting). Rachel is definitely a wasted character in ToG however - particularly as she is the only person in the first season interested in the outside and who may have been there. On the otherhand, the fact Rachel wants to see the stars, and the way she talks about them, implies she has also not truly seen the outside world either. Unfortunately for the audience, her obsession with the stars and her fairy tale like view on the outside world doesn't interest Baam over his fear of being alone, so we don't learn about it. This left Rachel as a figure on the outside of the plot instead of someone pushing people forwards. I think the point is her vagueness is supposed to belie the fact that she is not the perfect friend that Baam thinks she is and she clearly doesn't adore him. A better writer would have given her something to do to distract from her basically being a living plot device, and also made Baam's stalkerish behavior something the plot actually noticed too. Not something you have another woman call romantic (ugh). Effectively, the outside is this vague utopia in the story - it kind of has to be to justify the actions of Rachel who chases it. To a degree the biggest mystery of the tower is what exists outside it. Also sorry if this was a bit too much information from outside the anime, I just wanted to point out the setting of the tower had the potential to be interesting in this adaptation, but it was poorly conveyed. A definite flaw in the webtoon, but the information about the tower was at least made available via the blog posts there (which early translators of the series kindly put at the end of each chapter). |
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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@R.Obliv Thanks for the info. The structure really does resemble AoT more than MiA so that was a fine comparison and further exacerbates the storytelling problems. This is basically if like Mikasa was the protagonist of AoT instead of Eren. I think Rachel should have been the MC, Bam reduced to a childhood friend support role or cut out entirely (if the author really wants a male MC then give Bam a goal other than chasing Rachel) and now I definitely think it should have just started on the first floor instead of outside the tower since every floor is the size of continent(which is insane, wish that was one of the first things they showed us.)
It seems the world is as interesting as what I thought was hinted at in the beginning, and yea it looks as tho the author just isn't capable of correctly conveying it through the story or characters. Shame, I really did feel like it had One piece levels of potential if it was just told differently. |
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Zendervai
 Posts: 197 |
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I think maybe if the show had started on the first floor and did the set-up through flashbacks scattered through the season, it might have worked better. Make Rachel a mystery at first and don't explain why Bam is looking for her, and don't explain her motivation until later. When it's all upfront, the vagueness hurts it, but if the set-up is slowly introduced, the complete lack of substance to it would be more disguised by being slowly parceled out.
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Calsolum
 Posts: 898 |
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I read ToG a few ye4ars ago and... I loved every panel of it. But back then I had all of season 1 and uhhh maybe 300 chapters of season 2? I don't remember, it was a long time ago. Thing is once I caught up and started reading weekly... it got really frustrating. it moves at a snail's pace and the enormity of the world prevents you from following a group for a long period of time. Every once in a while you'll have a few chapters or alot following characters you don't care about or exploring backstory and lore and all that important but less interesting stuff.
ToG is just too dense for its own good. I love the series and fully intend to finish the story... but it's release schedule just sucks. That's my opinion at least. Now with that said and the insight of limited future chapters I think the column writers are missing the appeal of the story but their complaints are unfortunately, reasonable. IF they were willing to invest more time and attention to the series they would see that a lot of the events, terms, motivations and characterizations DO pay off. It's difficult to explain any of it without spoiling future events but everything is deliberate. From Bam's lack of personality to all the causal name drops. That said using the information we have on Bam to explain his motivations and personality is more than enough. Some might say that he has none. And that's the answer. His entire world is Rachel. He has nothing else but her and what SHE taught him. He says this and maybe people think it's just a main character being melodramatic but he's being literal. Bam is a naive child with little to no social experience outside of wanting to reconnect with the first and most important person in his life. His depth and range of emotions is very limited but what child starts sprinting moments after they've learned to crawl let alone walk? It may be the thing you hear most about ToG and to the point where it becomes annoying but give it time. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't but bit by bit everyone changes and moves forward by leaps and bounds. Even Bam. Later on, he stands on his own, runs on his own and pulls/pushes others forward. Finally Rak is ToG's best aligator. This is non-negotiable. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5854 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Calling Bam stalkerish is not realistic. Being called a stalker is a negative description, for people who actual stalk people to harm them essentially. The first episode is so vague, that it literally seems like Rachel is saying goodbye as she is evaporating into the air. Judging solely by the first episode it looks like Rachel is abandoning Bam at the last moment. There is no context other than wanting to see the stars. Did Rachel discuss her leaving Bam to himself, beforehand. If so, the anime doesn’t say or show so. What else is Bam going to do, wander around a countryside starving to death that seemingly has no people around other than Rachel. Maybe the webtoon has more insight into what happened, but based on the anime everything is too vague to know what is truly going on between Bam and Rachel. |
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R.Obliv
Posts: 31 |
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Perhaps I'm going a bit too far with that comparison, but it does seem like Baam doesn't consider what Rachel wants and thinks only about being beside her. It's very easy, even if it wasn't intended, to read Baam as a stalker is all I am saying. |
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Charou
 Posts: 123 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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Takes a lot to get me to drop a show with Hayamin in a main role. I mean, I made it all the way through Price of Smiles. All. The. Way.
3 episodes of this trite, cliched junk and I was done. So much MANIC DIALOGUE and FRANTIC SLAPSTICK and BAD TROPES LIKE HERE MC-KUN HAVE THIS SWORD BECAUSE YOU'RE MC-KUN and moments where you can almost feel the thud of something clearly aimed at the webtoon fans missing everyone else and just hitting a sad little wall, like those crap-tier 'retro' cartoons made in an echo chamber pandering to the fanbase that simply aren't as anywhere near as good as their makers seem to think... You know, with the way this show was hyped, I jexpected a slick HxH-alike or Naruto Tournament Arc lite with a focus on sakuga and interesting powers but I didn't even get that. I got several characters flat-out yelling their lines like it's a Japanese TV comedy routine, poor old Jiraya himself Otsuka Houchuu playing a poor man's Giraffe from Revue Starlight, and then THAT seiyuu, Risen Star of Snark and Shade Tsuda Kenjirou, playing a character I barely even remember...and although I know there's some genuine moments of sakuga deeper into the season, I just can't sit through all that mediocrity to get there. And, to iterate why this is unusual, I went back and watched all of the non-filler Naruto *and* all of Boruto to get to the sakugafest that was episode 65 of Boruto, so it's not like I'm averse to a long haul to get to the good stuff. But...Naruto *starts* good enough. I was genuinely entertained by the first episode, and most of the canonical ones after. As with HxH. As with YuYu Hakusho, even though it does a complete 180 after its first season from monster of the week supernatural detective show to all-out tournament brawl. Point being, they knew to hook you early without showing their hand too much. Somehow the makers of ToG missed the memo that your first episode doesn't have to be a banger, but if it really sucks, and the second isn't much better, that third is fighting a losing battle. I just got the feeling that the production committee knew they'd only have one real audience: the legion of webtoon fans who, happy just to get an actual animated version, don't exactly have the highest expectations (I did check out the early episodes of the webtoon --uh, yeah...). But they're playing with the big boys now...and, oh, it's not pretty. One good thing must be said: while the Made In Abyss comparisons hold some water, I think they'd be scarcer but for Kevin Penkin's frankly overqualified and wasted presence. The GF didn't notice his music because the show was so glaringly bad; I noticed it, clung to it, for exactly the same reason. If this is what we can expect from Crunchyroll Originals, I...am not expecting much. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5854 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I get what you are saying, but if you are only going by the anime, no one knows what Rachel wants, including Bam. |
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