Climbing the Tower: Tower of God: Season 1, Episode 1

Originally published in “The Webcomics Weekly #100: Centennial (8/18/2020 Edition)” at Multiversity Comics. It's been lightly edited to keep the article current with added notes in italics & parenthesis, but reads mostly as it did when I began the project.

Tower of God
Tower of God: Season 1, ep. 0 - 6;
Episode 1 - “BALL”
Updates: Mondays
By SIU
Reviewed by Elias Rosner

What do you desire? Money and wealth? Honor and pride? Authority and power? Revenge? Or something that transcends them all? Whatever you desire—it can be yours if you climb the tower.

These are the words of Headon, and Rachel, relayed to us during the opening few minutes/first chapter of the massively popular “Tower of God,” the first comic to make its way from Korean into English on Webtoon way back in 2014. Recently, (in 2020,) “Tower of God” got an anime, Tower of God, (with a surprise sequel in 2024,) and for our 100th issue, I thought it’d be fun to compare the two, taking the corresponding comic episodes and contrasting them with the anime episodes, one anime ep. at a time. With Crunchyroll & Webtoon partnering, we’ll be seeing more such adaptations, like this summer’s adaptation of “The God of High School.”

We here at The Webcomics Weekly don’t get to review many long running series due to the way the column is structured, and at 400-some-odd chapters and over 6 years (10 if counting Korean publication,) this would not be within the usual wheelhouse. Plus, how often do I get to discuss adaptations from webcomics TO TV/Movies versus the other way around?

I’m gonna seize the opportunity.

Three things to note. One: do not spoil the comic OR the anime in the comments. While I have seen the 13-episode, first season, I have not read the comic prior to coming in and the same may be true for others. Some of you may have just heard of “Tower of God” today. If so, follow along with me! There will be spoilers ahead for ep 1 so watch & read and then come back.

Two: I will not be discussing the merits or problems of the storytelling/art/dialog etc except when contrasting how the show & the comic approach the presentation of information and the existence/lack thereof of crucial plot points. This is to keep these kinda short, (cue all my editors laughing,) since it’s not a 5 Thoughts like our usual TV stuff nor a regular review.

Three: I will be reviewing the dub of the show. I don’t want to hear about it in the comments either. I chose this because I often prefer the dubs but more specifically because I find it more interesting to compare the additional layer a dub brings, this being a comparison between the English-translation of a Korean webcomic to the spoken English-language translation of a Japanese show which was adapted from a Korean Webcomic by three companies in three countries: America, South Korea and Japan. Translation choices are made to suit the ear and fit the flaps. What is lost and found in those choices can be revealing.

Episode one, “BALL,” corresponds to the first seven episodes (hereafter “chapters”) of the Webtoon (#0-6) and the differences, while slight, are apparent. With the benefit of a wealth of future chapters, the anime is able to go for a more expansive look at the world, dropping in lore that was missing from the webtoon, and retooling the current mechanics effortlessly, like the laying the groundwork for the politics of the tower (Princesses of Jahad,) the importance of the pocket for language translation, and giving a more concise and visual explanation of the tower. I appreciate the balance the anime tries to strike between throwing us into the deep end with Bam, leaving us to piece things together ourselves, and explaining the more mysterious aspects, whereas the comic’s first few chapters are just one big infodump.

The choice to cut or rearrange events/conversation so different information is conveyed is a good one. Comics have the space to explain more intricate events and rules because it’s faster to read than to listen to the same paragraph explanation of what an irregular is or how the pocket works. TV does not. Almost all the information we learn from Evan and Lady Yuri’s conversation before Yuri drop-kicks Bam is extraneous and would pad out the episode unnecessarily. Instead, the kick is turned into a surprise moment, one major purpose of the pocket demonstrated rather than explained, and the tension of the scene is not lost.

The same is true for Bam’s test. In the comic, the presentation is far more traditional “third-party character(s) narrates aloud/in their head for the benefit of the audience.” In the anime, information is only doled out as necessary rather than ahead of time, preserving the stakes and retaining and enhancing the tense atmosphere of The Tower. In fact, the biggest change from the webtoon to the show is in regards to Headon’s role & knowledge.

Headon knows Bam’s name in the show whereas he doesn’t in the comic. He’s the one who threatens Lady Yuri over interfering in the test and mentions the King of Jahan’s connection to the weapons, and he’s far more conniving in the anime, with the show going out of its way to have him smirk evilly much more often. It reorients the goals of the characters in that scene for a longer term arc and it felt more grand, more epic in scope rather than the pre-rendered cutscene that runs before the start menu of the game that is the Tower of God.

Brief aside, one place where the comic has a leg up is clarifying why the hell Bam’s name is The 25th Bam. I thought it was a title or, like, he’s the 25th version of Bam but nope, apparently it means 25th Night, as in, he was born/found on the 25th night. Adds a new level of sad to his character.

Rachel & Bam’s relationship is another place where the show does more early on, to the benefit of the narrative. We’re shown why Bam finds Rachel so important, teasing the origins of Bam himself and his super-special-awesome-main-character status, as well as effectively showing what is driving Rachel, who is absent from much of the episode. Our first encounter with the two of them together, Bam chasing Rachel, is also far more bittersweet and less creepy than it comes across in the original.

All in all, I’m far more taken in by the first episode of Tower of God than I was by the first 6 (and a half) chapters of “Tower of God.” The next episode begins with the second half of Chapter 6, kinda, and for anyone who is ahead, I'd be grateful if you could put the timestamp/panel of which chapter SIU says he included the eye in the comments. Because I looked. And I could not find it in either the comic nor the show. Though maybe that was because they changed Headon’s final line from Chapter 4 in the show to “I look forward to seeing what’s coming next. Very intriguing.”

See y’all in a week for “3/400.”

Elias' Commentary: