A new day, a new season of anime! This time, rather than going with something on which I have preexisting information, I’ve decided to take a look at something totally sight unseen. In this case, that means Tower of God.
My first impression? Good or bad, I’m in for a trip. The first episode clearly establishes Tower of God as being something of an ontological mystery: we don’t know where we are, why we’re here, or what most of this universe is like. We start knowing nothing and the main character, Bam, doesn’t know a whole lot more so we aren’t let into it the details. The show takes the strategy of skipping all but the most absolutely essential exposition about our setting or setup to focus on what the characters are experiencing.
In this case, what we need to know is this: Reach the top of the Tower, and everything is there. It’s not put this way, but it’s clear that any wish could be granted at the top of the Tower. What is the Tower? Where is it? Why is it? What’s it’s story? We don’t know that. What we do know is that a girl, Rachel, is resolved to climb the tower in order to see the stars. It accepts her, doors opening as she dissolves into light to enter. This despite a boy, Bam, with whom she seems to have some sort of mutual caring relationship, begging her not to go. His desire to reach her again seems to open the tower for him as well, as he’s taken by the great doors that materialize and brought to a strange new place.
In that new place he meets a rabbit monster, Headon, who is the keeper of the Tower and brings him to a test to determine whether he will be allowed to climb. Before Bam can take the test, he runs into a princess and her assistant who give him a translator device and, while trying to stop him, end up helping him pass the test (get past a giant white eel creature and smash a mysterious black ball). The Princess, her navigator, and Headon talk a good deal about present events.
I will admit, I actually like the sparse and somewhat confusing “exposition” here – Headon and the Princess talk about things they would already know (and Bam and the audience don’t) in a way consistent with already knowing these things. We learn that there’s some kingdom in the Tower, at least twenty floors (since the 20th is referenced), and that Bam, as an outsider who opened the doors himself, is something called an “Irregular” who might therefore have great hidden power. The princess lends Bam a magic sword because he’s cute, and he goes up against the Eel.
The Eel is successfully navigated at first, and Bam goes after the black ball. It doesn’t break at first, and he flashes back to his past: in a dark space, chipping away at his ceiling before it gave way into a brighter upper world and his first meeting with Rachel. Their conversation indicates that even Rachel’s world was somehow enclosed and dark, leading to her wanting to leave it in order to see the stars, which Bam likened Rachel to even in the more distant past.
In the end, Bam needs the help of the magic sword, a sentient item who manifests a humanoid form and agrees to serve him properly because, exactly as with her former owner, she finds Bam kind of cute. I have to admit, it’s somewhat funny just how arbitrary this all is. The ball breaks, and Bam is instantly teleported up to floor 2 before he can return the sword (the loss of which could, apparently, see the Princess executed along with half the other things she does, presumably giving us a reason to see her again on the climb).
Floor 2 is another test we’re introduced to, a battle royale where four hundred hopefuls have to halve their number by any means, the last two hundred standing being allowed upward and onward. The killing begins and we see some new colorful characters that will probably be with us for a bit. The episode ends before the Floor 2 test is resolved.
I do like the way the universe is put together, or rather isn’t. The people of the Tower and the hopeful climbers seem to include all sorts, a wide assortment of fantastic creatures expressing a schizophrenic level of technology and magic with swordsmen, snipers, dragon-people, giants covered in eyeballs… Headon was the first nonhuman humanoid we were introduced to, and the shots of the second floor seems set to convince us that he’s normal. Similarly, there are both medieval elements and ones that are suggestive of sufficiently advanced technology/magic, where the line between the two has blurred such that they’re no longer able to be distinguished.
I also like the art style. It’s very sketch-like, and feels more unique and whimsical than most anime coming out right now, which fits the fact that the universe we’re seeing is a strange one in which we’re clearly not supposed to be comfortable with the familiar. It still looks good, even though it probably saved a good deal of budget, and I think it conveys at least a little meaning.
The pacing in this first episode is… interesting. It feels like it’s rushing, but not necessarily in a bad way: scenes actually linger on what’s going on, it’s just that there’s so much fresh information (because we and Bam are starting at nothing) that it’s still a rush to absorb it all, and recognize just how much is still missing. Pearls of knowledge are falling like hail, and you can only grasp so many.
If there’s anything I have trepidation regarding, it would be Bam’s character. He’s clearly lost and in over his head… and there’s only so long that you can play the card of the lost newbie, in over his head, winning through the power of Heart. Some of the fundamentals probably shouldn’t change. I think it’s interesting that we have this very small perspective, but it’ll wear thin if Bam is continually saved by fortune (or the writer) giving him a free pass. He’s still got time to get his feet under him, though, and if he does it will all be worthwhile.
To make a comparison, Made in Abyss has a very similar setup to Tower of God here – An individual (Bam/Riko) journeys through a mysterious magical realm of both wonder and threat (The Tower/The Abyss) that can only be traversed in one direction, in search of someone dear to them who has gone before (Rachel/Lyza). But in Made in Abyss, Riko is knowledgeable, and acts as the audience’s guide to her world and the depths of the Abyss, while Bam here in Tower of God is utterly ignorant. This means that the experience, for the viewer is actually flipped around just like the direction of travel: we approach the Abyss as scientists, awed by the depth and complexity of its details. We approach the Tower as supplicants, awed by the vastness and mystery of its scale. Not that there isn’t Mystery in the Abyss or complex details in the Tower, but right now I think they’re coming at the same sort of setting and story from opposite directions.
I didn’t know what to expect starting out here, but now that it’s begun, I’m very much looking forward to seeing where Tower of God goes.