You know how when there’s all this hype over a story and then you finally get to it, and it just doesn’t seem that special? That’s Tower of God vol 1. Granted, the anime is the thing that really took off and I’m looking at the comic strip version that the anime’s based on, but still. This seems so generic, I don’t get it.
Basically, there’s this mysterious tower, and if you get in (and apparently only the chosen usually are allowed) then you have to fight/confront a variety of challenges on each floor to work your way up. This is basically most every dungeon or tower story ever so far. The protagonist Bam wants to find his friend Sarah who seems to have willingly entered the tower, and save her from whatever, because she’s the only person has ever actually known somehow. So there’s the mysterious main character who seems pretty clueless but ends up getting really lucky/hidden powerful when it really counts. Basically, the main character of nearly every one of these kinds of stories. Bam manages to get into the Tower uninvited (that makes him an Irregular) and starts working his way up. Along the way he catches the attention of a pair of mysterious individuals one of whom gives him a special weapon that seems to work for him and hardly anyone else, and he’s also poised to join up with a team. The main goal is that if you get to the top, God or whatever power is up there will grant you a wish. Naturally, no one’s trustworthy, and there will probably be all kinds of deception, treachery, reveals of dark pasts, etc.
Maybe things get better the further into the story you go, and backstory/history gets more filled in. there’s hints that Bam has some kind of unusual origin, and he’s warned that one of his teammates might be more dangerous than they appear, so maybe things get interesting, and maybe Rachel (Bam’s person) has reasons for wanting to leave him for the tower (I already know something about her since I saw a spoiler bit about a major twist but that doesn’t seem to relevant yet), but there’s nothing too interesting about the open chapters of the story.
It’s kind of interesting in some of the hints about various characters and situations, the art’s not bad, but there just doesn’t seem to be anything that super interesting that would explain how or why this was a hugely popular webtoon that got itself a hit animation. I haven’t seen the anime, but still, I don’t get it. This seems like it could be entertaining for a while, but stories like this almost always just get old, and start to drag. Maybe it’s just the anticipatory dread, but I wasn’t all that grabbed.
