An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Seasonal Selection – Tower of God Episode 6

I actually found this episode to be one of the more interesting lately, since it wasn’t focused primarily on the action, and featured (in addition to some mechanical exposition) some good growth and exploration of our characters. Not Bam, but I’m coming around to the idea that this is one of those stories where our lead is more or less supposed to be a window into the cool and creative things we’re going to see while personally staying on the more bland end in order to not throw the audience out of their element or upstage the actual feature.

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Seasonal Selection – Tower of God Episode 3

Another episode, another test. I guess simply qualifying for the Tower is going to be a meaty arc – there’s some promise that we might move on shortly, but all the same it’s been a good deal more than I would have expected from the pitch.

This, in turn, gives a good deal of artificiality to the Tower. Unlike The Abyss in Made in Abyss or many other mega-dungeons, even ones that have something like a man-made structure, there’s clearly an order and formality to the tower. Someone is clearly in charge, and the challenge is one set not by uncaring nature or divine providence but by human or human-like authority… which ties in to Khun’s previously stated interest to go full malicious compliance on the Tower, passing it (which means playing to win) but refusing to play the way the Tower intends.

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Seasonal Selection – Tower of God Episode 2


Welcome to exposition, and something of a meaningful change in tone. The episode starts with the stare-down between Khun (the blue-haired dude), Rak (the giant lizard man), Bam, and the strange multi-eyed creature that Bam was prepared to fight. Rak intends to hunt strong prey to make himself stronger, and has figured Bam for his mark since he’s recognized Bam’s sword. Khun also recognizes it, and takes an interest in Bam because he’s curious. Khun’s interest is very different; he’s taking a pacifistic approach to the number-reduction trial, preferring to make allies and wait out other people killing each other down to 200.

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Seasonal Selection – In/Spectre Episode 11

Here we get it, Iwanaga’s fourth solution and the big climax of In/Spectre. In episode eleven. It’s well-done and at least takes advantage of some of the benefits of being an anime rather than a manga. In Episode eleven. This is the big one – the final push against Steel Lady Nanase and the last shot to foil Rikka’s scheme. This is episode eleven.

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