Tower of God Season 2 Review

Posted on January 26, 2025 by dreager1

We had to wait a long time for Tower of God to make its big return so everyone was eager to see just how good it would look. Well, unfortunately the series isn’t one of the more big budget ones to put it mildly. The story is a 10/10 though so the series was always going to be great unless they changed something about the plot. Fortunately the cuts weren’t all that bad here. Some stuff is missing to be sure but all in all I thought they did an impressive job with it. It’s no season 1 but this show was definitely a lot of fun.

The story takes place a long time after season 1. Our new main character is Wangnan who is trying to climb up the tower but he has been having a hard time so far. He owes a lot of money to the local Yakuza so this is his last chance. There are a scary batch of recruits this time around too including the mysterious Viole who is the latest Slayer candidate. Since he is sponsored directly by FUG, getting on his bad side would not be a good idea. As luck would have it, they are placed on the same team along with a variety of other colorful characters. Will they be able to succeed or are they all doomed to die? In the meantime, the old characters like Khun are still making their moves to climb the tower and get justice for Baam.

There is a lot going on here as you would expect since this was always a very dialogue heavy series with a lot of storylines going on. This one adds a whole lot of characters to the existing roster which was already quite sizable. There is definitely a lot to keep up with here and the story has to move fast so don’t expect to have too many moments to relax and digest what just happened. Naturally I tend to enjoy fast pacing so that was pretty fun. I’d say it is still enough where you can understand what is going on even without reading the original manhua. It makes things easier for sure though.

So the story is super compelling as always and that’s why I say the series was destined for greatness. As for the animation, it’s not bad. It went for a more traditional look than the first season and while I think that can be good to show off the higher power levels, it really isn’t taken to the fullest. This animation style feels very familiar after all but it doesn’t have the same budget that bigger titles have. So as a result the fights aren’t super fluid or tend to have a lot of movement. At the very end of the season we get some quick cuts but that’s about it. The big punch with Viole and Urek is still a lot of fun even if the animation isn’t super high tier or anything though. I guess it’s another moment where I would give the story itself the most credit.

Fortunately the soundtrack is still really good like in season 1. There are a lot of reused tracks but they still age well. The cliffhanger theme when Urek is fighting Viole is definitely the best one. The openings/endings aren’t as catchy as season 1’s were but they are still good. I’ve listened to them a whole lot and at this point I’m used to them but I still couldn’t say that they are elite or really stand out. They do work better when you ignore the images though. The first opening’s is still criminally low budget. There were some artistic ideas there but they failed.

The decision to make this season 2 cours was definitely a really good one because of how much content there was to adapt. They will probably need 4 cours in order to adapt the Hell Train arc properly but we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully the wait isn’t super long for the next season because it’s rough to have to wait for so long each time. The next arc is my personal favorite of the series after all so I need it right away!

Wangnan makes for a pretty fun main character and I would say he’s a lot more fun than Baam from the first season. That kid was nice enough but Wangnan has more of a personality. He has dreams and aspirations and works hard to make them come true. He may not be the most powerful fighter in the tower but he doesn’t need to be. He just needs good allies and gets some decent feats as the season goes on. He’s more of a comedic lead but that doesn’t stop him from getting serious moments as well. He does what he needs to in order to go higher in the tower.

Miseng is one of the main party members but she can’t really fight much which puts her in a tough spot. The tower is a cruel place and trying to climb it without being able to fight is a really terrible idea. I feel bad for her of course but cmon now. This is just not going to work. She just ends up holding the team back the whole time and since she knows it, this causes Miseng to make some pretty bad moves the whole time. The whole thing is really just a wash for her and she should probably have gotten kicked out of the exams earlier. It only gets rougher the more you climb up after all.

Then there is Goseng who is in a similar boat as she can’t fight. What’s with all of these civilians trying to climb the tower? It’s just such a bad idea and the series sets up a little romance for her but you can’t imagine it ending in anything other than a tragic way. It’s just not possible to climb while constantly having to protect others. She doesn’t seem to be working on her abilities either so for now she isn’t rising up for me.

Akraptor is the tough guy who seems unhinged at first but has a soft side. Still, this is finally someone who can really fight so I am on board with having him around. He is able to keep his cool and keep the others in line when needed. He also tries to put up a fight against Viole although going for cheap shots against Horyang wasn’t smart with how high the stakes were. The guy adds a little spice to the team dynamic by being someone who can’t 100% be trusted so I appreciated that.

Horyang is another pretty powerful fighter and he’s got a sinister past. Definitely someone to keep an eye on and he gets a big role in the arc as other figures from his past turn up. I think he can be a bit too soft spoken but once his mini arc starts, he did get more serious and pro active. So I would say I hesitantly like him. I would like him to do more in the future though instead of just being dragged around a whole lot. He also needs to not make such a reckless move in leaving the heroes again since that just puts them all in danger.

Yeon is a pretty high ranking individual among the family hierarchy so when she shows up you expect a whole lot out of her. Unfortunately she can’t control her flames which is a classic way to nerf her. She’s not bad but considering how much hype the flames themselves get, it can be annoying to see people blocking them or straight up tanking the blasts. She absolutely needs to improve her abilities and do it quickly. Fortunately for her, Tower of God is one of those titles that doesn’t put a ton of stock on speed so she will still be able to tag speedsters even if it doesn’t make sense. Still, you need more than flames to win in this world because being a one trick pony is a recipe for disaster.

Viole is the power hitter that the team needed so it’s always good to have him around. He also doesn’t live up to the hype as much as you would want in the show version. As the slayer candidate his abilities are supposed to be absolutely legendary and on a whole different level yet he doesn’t look quite as overwhelmingly powerful as you would expect. If anything it just seems like his aura is slightly greater than the others which isn’t the all powerful buff that you would think it is. I would have liked to have seen more out of him.

Even so, it’s clear that he is stronger than the rest of the guys on his team so that’s good. Additionally just the fact that he stood up to Urek even for a moment was impressive since everybody else was chickening out immediately. When you are trying to climb the tower, you sometimes have to have a defining moment where you stand against the strong and this was it. It’s a lesson that the other characters could definitely learn from.

Take Prince for example. He may have looked tough at first as one of the villains but the instant he joined the heroes, the guy lost all his hype. It’s not like we needed another kid type character on the crew either. He doesn’t really contribute much at all except to hold the heroes back so I can’t say that I was a big fan of his either. On the whole you can see why I preferred the team from the season 1 group. I tended to enjoy everybody there while here the team can be hit or miss.

Then of course we have Khun’s team led by the man himself. Khun is solid as always here as he thinks 3 steps ahead and always has a plan. This is around the time he became a full time strategist. In season 1 he was also rather dominant physically but I suppose by this time the opponents are getting stronger. I would like to see him fight more though because I have to assume he’s still stronger than a lot of people. He doesn’t see into every possible contingency nor does he win every battle but on the whole he looks good. Khun is great at adapting to the circumstance and always keeping a confident demeanor up no matter what.

Dan is the new recruit Khun finds who has super speed. Uh oh, we all know how super speed can get kinda dicey when it comes to power levels right? Well, naturally it’s not all that good for Dan and he doesn’t get to show it off as much as I would like. The show does a good job of making him immediately likable though. I thought he was a really well developed character though and somebody who was just fun to root for.

Most of Khun’s other members aren’t all that memorable but there were two others who left an impact. First up is Novik who is one of those strong guys who is always overshadowed by having someone more powerful than him on the team. That has to be rough to know that you are pretty powerful but will never get that elusive #1 spot. Doesn’t feel all that fair right? Well he doesn’t let it get him down. It’s a bit hard to gauge Novik’s strength as well because he’s often either much stronger than his opponent or much weaker. There’s not really much of an in between here.

Then you have Ran who is a lot of fun. The guy is super confident and powerful. He reminds me a lot of Killua from Hunter X Hunter. His smugness is definitely deserved with how easily he dispatches his opponents. I like his fighting style so you could say that everything about the character is great from start to finish. He’s really fun to root for and gets a good amount of screentime. Khun definitely did really well to recruit this guy.

Shibisu has his own team as well which is a mix of new characters and old ones. The guy has really come a long way from being more of a loudmouth to a strategist who is treated a lot like Khun. The first season set up the seeds for this and the payoff was really good. He’s still not really a fighter though so tactics are really how he shines in the battles. If you take that away from him then he will really be in a tough spot here.

One of his new recruits is Vespa who is a strong fighter. Vespa brags a lot about having an awakened form and being the fastest but ends up fighting people who are either faster or who have hax which is unfortunate. I still like the character though. I don’t like Verdi as much because she seems borderline evil. She likes to collect people as puppets and brainwash them. That’s not exactly hero behavior so I don’t know what she is doing with these guys. I guess it was one of those strategic partnerships to look the other way but that isn’t a huge consolation to me. You have to reign that “Anything goes” attitude a little bit or you will become the villains.

Endorsi is also part of the group but she really does whatever she wants. It’s fun to see her absolute freedom though and continues to be one of the more powerful fighters. She gets a lot of hype on this one and also on an intellectual level as she quickly figures out that something is a little off about Viole. I definitely look forward to her continuing to have a pretty big role.

Anaak also gets her own solid fight so her fans should be pleased. Her durability gets a lot of respect and she is a high end fighter as well. For the most part you would expect her to be able to defeat most of the other fighters in each group. She is quick to want to get revenge for Baam which I appreciate. That’s how a real friend does it. Unfortunately I would say Hatz looks far less impressive. I really liked him in season 1 but it’s clear that he has lost to the power creep. Gone are the days where he could fight on par with Anaak. Hatz gets his own sub plot ad everything but he just doesn’t have the edge that he used to which is a shame.

Then on the FUG team we have Refejo at the helm. He’s a rather mysterious guy who seems loyal but is always having a backup plan at the ready. In fairness to the guy, trusting anyone in the Tower of God is a really bad move so I don’t blame him. His suspicions turn out to be correct more often than not. He ends up making for a really good villain and is one of the standout antagonists here. The guy can back up his tough talk really well.

Varagav may be stronger but the guy has less character. We get to see him fight Endorsi but that’s about it. I do like the foreshadowing with Baylord Yama being mentioned though. Beta was a more impressive villain as he really gave Viole a tough fight. The guy was pretty whiny so I won’t say he’s as likable as some of the other villains but the guy made his presence known. He really gave all of the characters a really tough fight throughout.

Another villain is Quaetro but he stops being a threat early on. His fight with Wangnan was a lot of fun though. For the most part the fights in the series tend to be serious so having a little comedic moment once in a while isn’t bad. His partner Chang gets even less to do but does seem to be stronger. Maybe one day we will really get to see him cut loose although it feels like the power creep has already passed him. The series really moves fast when it comes to powers.

That’s not even counting characters who appear but haven’t fought yet. Karaka gets a few appearances to gloat and look tough. He’s a solid villain so I look forward to him getting a role. Then of course we have his master Jinsung who gets even more hype. The kind of guy who doesn’t mind walking into a villain’s base all on his own just to talk smack. Now that’s a good level of confidence that I like to see.

Of course Urek towers above all of those as one of the strongest characters in the whole franchise. The guy loves a good fight and really shows off his power. Definitely someone you will want to see more of and he really steals the show even with a very limited amount of screentime. It will be a while before he does anything again so you better savor the moment while you can. His appearance was like a glimpse into the end game.

Then we have Xia Xia who isn’t the strongest villain but she still finds ways to shake everybody up so I can appreciate that. She is crazy in a very dangerous way with no tactic being out of bounds. I thought she did a good job of playing everybody and while her role isn’t large, it was impactful. She’s almost like the reverse Hwaryun who also trolls everybody constantly. Hwaryun gets more hype though since as a guide her foresight is pretty much unstoppable. She will always be on the path that she needs to be. Granted, it doesn’t stop her from being knocked out but you always assume that she got knocked out at a good time for her or something like that.

Emily is a mysterious figure and most of her scenes had to get cut out for the anime. Not that it changes much since she keeps the mysterious aura either way. I wasn’t crazy about the subplot in regards to her true identity but I did like the idea of a texting app that everybody was using in order to stay ahead. That added a fun wrinkle to the Workshop battle arc and kept all of the characters guessing. The more mind games in Tower of God the better!

Still, any scene with the Traveler would usually be pretty uneventful and dare I say a bit boring. I just didn’t care about the guy and not even the anime adaption would end up fixing that. He doesn’t appear a ton fortunately so that worked out. As one more miscellaneous hero, Rak shows up for the second half and even gets some fights. I would say he is an unfortunate victim of the power creep so don’t expect him to look too overpowering but he gets his share of fun moments. He’s not exactly my favorite character but the guy is super loyal so I really appreciate that.

Somebody like Cassano can learn from that. Cassano is a solid villain but you wonder how far he has thought ahead in his plans. he makes a whole lot of enemies out of pretty much every faction which can’t be a good idea for his long term health. He’s a solid fighter but not one of the top tiers. I guess relative to the average fighter he would be considered near the top though. I think he works as an interesting wild card and just needs at least one more power up.

Then of course we have Rachel who is still a standout character. She’s just an absolute blast and always shakes up the tower. It’s clear to see why she is considered one of the destined ones by the tower itself. She also has the most brutal moments in the series. She doesn’t appear much in the second half but of course you can look forward to seeing a whole lot more out of her down the road.

Overall, Season 2 was definitely a blast. It’s a great show even if it’s not downright elite the way that season 1 was. There is a lot going on here and a lot of plot developments set up for the next saga. Regardless of how the animation ends up looking, the next part should be super elite. Although of course I will be hoping for better animation as well because why not have the full package right? A series like Tower of God absolutely deserves every bit of effort it can get. I definitely recommend this title.

Overall 8/10

The God of Highschool Review

Posted on August 18, 2024 by dreager1

It’s time to talk about one of the greatest webtoons of all time! It’s second only to Tower of God and it was real nice to have the two as rivals for a long time. This series eventually ended though and Tower of God looks like it’s got enough energy left in the tank for at least another 10 years. So I guess this one won’t be taking the top spot but it is still an elite title. There are just so many great fights here and the artwork is fantastic. In terms of power levels I don’t think any Webtoon will ever pass this one. It just got so crazy in a good way. It was really an experience reading through this one.

The series starts off with several characters being invited to the God of Highschool tournament. It’s a big tournament to find out who the strongest fighter is. Naturally everyone wants in on this because it’s a huge opportunity to fight for pride, money, or just about anything really. The world will really open up to you if you are able to win the whole thing so you can’t let an opportunity like this slip you by. The main character of this story is Mori Jin. (The way they say the names it can be hard to tell which is the first name and the last name at times but either way you’ll know who I’m talking about) He loves fighting so this is right up his alley. Maybe he will even get to make some friends as he goes through the matches.

The first arc is really all about the qualifiers to actually make it to the world stage. As you can probably guess, it’s a lot of wins in order to even make it that far which is why this takes up the entire anime. You’ve got multiple rounds and of course this is also where you get to meet the main characters and learn a lot about them. It’s an extremely important intro and even within this arc you have several mini arcs like a wedding, the first battle with the supernatural, etc. This is a very busy series and I can assure you that it only gets busier as the series goes on. You won’t be finding much downtime here but of course that’s just the way that I like it!

As the main character is Mori Jin we will talk about him first. This guy is based on the same origins as Goku so it’s pretty fun to see the similarities. Mori loves fighting and having a good time. He’s generally a pretty easygoing guy who isn’t complicated. Mori says what is on his mind and just keeps it moving from there. He is someone you can easily respect and also someone that you can really count on when the chips are down. There is a whole lot to the guy. As the series goes on we learn more and more about him. There are tons of twists about his true character and for fans who read the original legend, it’s fun to see all of the references. It’s played a lot closer to the original source material than Goku ever was.

As the series goes on they incorporate more and more of the legend and Mori’s character gains more and more depth. This does unfortunately mean he has to be reset quite a few times in connection with the legend. It’s a series where I highly recommend reading the comments after each chapter because it adds a whole lot of context and depth to each scene. This is one of those series that won’t really spoon feed you the information. You either know it or you don’t and you will get left behind. There are really no negatives to be had with the character though, he is an amazing lead and a complete credit to the series.

Then we have Mira as the main heroine. As the series goes on there are a few other characters who try to steal that slot but nobody ever quite comes close to her. She has a really good character arc as she initially starts off as the weakest of the trio. She loses a number of fights and has low confidence but this gradually changes as she fights more and gains experience. Mira consistently gets stronger as the series goes on and she is an absolute top tier threat by the end. It was always fun waiting to see the big 3 team up again as the series went further and further. Since Daewi and Mori are always super focused on the fighting, she helps keep them grounded when there needs to be time for some emotion.

Finally Daewi wraps up the main trio. He has a bit of a rough start as his friend gets injured and so he really goes all out against Mira. In the show especially they made a big deal about how violent he was but this part I never fully understood because it was a tournament match. All of his attacks were well within parameters and Mira had no complaints about this either. Sure, in a normal situation he may have gone easy on her but that would have probably just been plain insulting. So I didn’t have a problem there. As the series goes on Daewi does make some really questionable decisions though.

Aside from Mori who tends to see things in a black and white view, most of the other characters get corrupted and have to sacrifice part of their morals. So I didn’t agree with some stuff here but for the most part Daewi was doing his best to help stop the villains and save the world. He also gained quite a lot of power by the end of the series and is one of the only characters who is really a main character in every part of the series. It was always fun to have him around.

Go Gamdo is one of the first tournament fighters to show up and unfortunately for this guy he is really just used for hype. He is dismantled rather easily and unfortunately for him he had to fight a particularly brutal opponent. It’s why you should really only enter tournaments like this if you are absolutely crazy because there’s always one jerk who’s going to try and torture you there. I give Go props for not giving up right away but he definitely needed more experience.

Ma Miseon is another early tournament fighter and she was pretty fun. What I really appreciated about her is that she was a strong fighter who had a good honor code. She would stay in there and fight fair all the way to the end. That’s something I can really respect and her fighting style was fun to watch. She may not have gotten to appear a whole lot in the series but she did end up being memorable as a result.

Baek Gang is one of those characters who started out really minor but really got big by the end. Uma helped keep him relevant for most of the series. In a way he started to even take over Ilpyo’s role as the strategist. His fighting style is fairly simple but effective and he has a good share of emotional moments. He even gets to use Charyeok. Wait, what is Charyeok you ask? The most underdeveloped power system you can think of. It barely even matters to be honest so I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t dislike it or anything as it leads to some good twists but I feel like it didn’t have much of a reason to exist by the end. You could skip it and nothing really changes about the series. At least nothing significant except that it is used as good foreshadowing. So I guess I’m sort of talking both ways here. Hmmmmmm, okay in the end I suppose it’s good that we have it here…I guess. It is a way to have some good cameos from historical figures and everything.

Byeon is one of those characters who is technically really strong but had the unfortunate luck of having to fight Mori Jin. So he’s basically used as a hype tool although I can appreciate that he made it pretty far in the tournament. The guy clearly has skills even if he was doomed from the start. He seemed like a likable guy for while he was around.

Ilpyo Park is one of those characters who started out as an extremely awesome character but got a little dicey from there. He made for a super good rival with a terrific backstory who helped Mori get better. He stole the show in all of his scenes in season 1. Unfortunately after a point he became like Shikamaru where he was willing to get super corrupt and go through with some bad plans. I know we had a ton of twists with the guy but I still felt like he went way too far the whole time. Also he didn’t keep up with the power creep as well as you would expect and really stopped doing things early on. I would have preferred he got less of a role if it meant he could have been less of a yes man though. He sort of got stuck with the worst of both worlds the way that it all turned out.

Seungah was a good supporting character and she definitely did a good job of following Ilpyo’s orders. She is a strong fighter in her own right which is how she was even able to execute on his plans. Her role isn’t very large but she is an earnest fighter and it was fun to have her around. She definitely had a rough time of things during the series but still didn’t give up. Ma Bora is a fighter who showed up early on but didn’t do as much as you would expect. Her sheer physical abilities are impressive but she doesn’t have a lot going on for her beyond that. I’d say she entered in one of those awkward spots where she was really strong at first but couldn’t keep up with the power creep and ultimately got overshadowed before she could show up for more fights. Not really my kind of character though so I didn’t miss her much.

Taek Jegal is the first really serious villain in the series and he was a lot of fun to have around. Yeah he’s basically your classic kind of villain and the guy has no honor code. That said, he has a cool design and his shark abilities are absolutely brutal. The guy is obsessed with power and continues to hone his skills a whole lot. He may have gotten power creeped rather quick but while he was in the spotlight you were always guaranteed a good time. He had a lot of aura and it’s always important for your first big villain to be memorable like this so I was really satisfied.

Gang is another one of the early villains to show up but he’s not nearly as impressive. Basically the guy is super petty and one of those bully type characters who likes picking on the weak. Once it’s time to fight a strong opponent he breaks down and it’s all over for him. I was surprised when he returned at one point but he never really made it to the top of the verse. There’s nothing to really like about him either. He’s just an obstacle for Jin to take down.

Jugok is a character who got a little too desperate and it cost him. He needed to be stronger in order to protect his family and his friends so he effectively sold out his soul and that still wasn’t enough. I suppose that touches into the darker side of any universe where there are massive power imbalances. The depressing thought here is that Jugok could train for the rest of his life or even 1000 years and never come close to the rest of the characters. He’s not a god or demon so he just can’t bridge that gap. Replicating the steps that someone like Mujin Park took would also likely be impossible. So you feel bad for the guy when he starts to lose everything but there isn’t much that can be done for him.

Hyangdan is just one of many characters who gets a raw deal as a result of this. It’s why there is always so much tension and characters wanting to murder each other here. The villains are absolutely ruthless the whole time. If you get in the way then you will be destroyed, straight up that’s how it goes. Jeon was at least a more powerful character who was able to indirectly get some revenge. As one of the Six (That group gets a ton of hype but it’s not always earned) he has a great amount of magical ability. I think he referred to it more as alchemy but the conversions let him summon giant rockets and things like that. The fact that he could stand up against angels and everything showed off his power well. I would have liked some more direct revenge but yeah this was a good character.

One team that felt a bit like a waste of time was Jang, Jin, and Na. Basically one of these characters was a dropout from ages ago so he decides to get back into high school. People mocked him for a while but he never took it to heart. Jang ends up falling in love with him over this but the age gap is way too crazy for that to ever work out. They get the emotional moments and everything but this group was absolutely doomed from the start. You knew from the jump they would never be relevant either which is why it’s borderline a waste of time. You can’t win with all of the teams of course but yeah I didn’t miss this group when they were gone.

Gwum is one of those characters who is a victim of always fighting powerful opponents. The guy is a beast in his own right but is just completely dominated when it counts. I liked the confidence at least and he grew on me a little bit but just not enough in the end. There are so many characters in the series that you have to be more than decent to really stand out. He’s yet another character where just one more fight could have helped to push him over the top. Marin Lee is one of those random villains who is so petty and off putting that it’s almost funny. He uses beach tanning cream to keep opponents from hitting him. I mean it’s crazy silly but it actually works so I guess I have to respect the hustle here. It would have been nice if he could have been a little stronger and more competent though. Give him more to do beyond just being a random villain to be taken down you know? His whole group were basically scrubs though and cheap shots and hostages were the only things that kept them in the game for a while there.

This pretty much wraps up all of the big characters from that opening arc. From this point on the cast would only continue to expand more and more as the series went on. The story had 6 main sagas, each one being fairly long considering that the series had over 500 chapters. I’ll go into some of the later characters now but considering the tournament style of the series there are also a bunch of characters that are basically one shots and never got big. Others are fairly big but it’s been long enough where I don’t fully remember them. It’s definitely the kind of series that has tons and tons of replay value whenever you want to read it. It’s what I love about a long series like this. The better it is, the more replay value it gets automatically. Now lets jump into some of these characters:

Mori Hui is probably the most tragic character in the series. You knew all along how his character had to end but he was just so awesome the whole time. The series does a great job of making you real attached to him all the way through. I won’t say he is higher than Mori Jin or anything like that but you could sympathize with him more. It’s hard knowing that your existence is really just that of a replacement. In a lot of ways he reminded me of Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Through it all though, no matter how many times things got tough or discouraging, he never gave up. Mori Hui fought for his friends all the way through. I’d definitely like to see him return some day in a sequel series or something. This series has so many different magic abilities and supernatural elements that you can’t tell me it’s impossible.

Dante is definitely one of the big standout villains who came in later on. He felt like a hero in the way that he would adapt and get stronger after every single fight. He was never static and wouldn’t just stay at the same level. So he would lose and keep on coming back. It was done in a really effective way so I never felt like he had lost all of his hype or anything. Gaining more and more strength was just how he fought and it’s a copy style like Amazo. The guy also has a great design which never hurts.

There’s not a lot to say about the 3 America fighters: With Hawk, J Doggy, and Anna but I did like that they were going for a full Supergirl homage with the last one. They each represented different parts of America and I always love how we’re portrayed in any foreign media. They really have a very specific view of us that’s for sure. The President showing up in the first chapter with the nukes was absolutely brilliant. As long as you can have fun with this kind of thing then it’s a blast and I always like to have good fun.

In general I’m not going into depth with most of the global fighters but it is pretty fun. More so than the characters, it’s fun to see how each country fights. I feel like the author actually put in a good amount of work to try and make every country authentic to their fighting style. It is a tournament so naturally a lot of countries do lose in round 1 but that was inevitable. I feel like the author treated them all fairly. Perhaps there are a lot of stereotypes in there but that’s a way to easily recognize each country.

Mori Dan is a really good character. There is some extra context to this guy for sure but the main thing you have to know is that he loves a good fight but is very resourceful and clever. He’s good at not picking fights that he can’t win while at the same time still stepping in if anyone is being too shady. It can be a bit annoying seeing some more powerful fighters trying to mess with him the whole time but Dan never backs down and only continues to get stronger. I tend to be on his side for pretty much every situation.

Then we have Dean who basically ends up being his rival. Dean looks real impressive all things considered. The guy starts out as basically a nobody but keeps on polishing his skills until he’s a top threat, at least for the portion of the series that he was in. He helped to keep Dan sharp all of the time. Unfortunately Dean would usually be on the wrong side of every debate which did not help him out at all. I would usually lose quite a bit of respect for that guy.

All of the original judges tend to be pretty fun. Judge O had a cool dragon even if it didn’t get a whole lot of screentime. Judge P was one of the only people who could actually talk to Mujin Park openly without fear or having to mince words. They had a good dynamic there even if Mujin often looked pretty bad by the end of the scene. The guy just couldn’t be honest with himself all the way to the end.

Judge Q is definitely one of the guys to get the biggest role here. His cards were fun and the guy was always looking pretty good. I would say he never struck me as being quite as strong as the story wanted you to believe but to make up for this he did get several super forms. They at least helped to put him in the conversation more than he would have been otherwise. The guy also had a lot of confidence the whole time which I always like to see in a character.

The real standout hit was definitely Judge R though. His powers were absolutely crazy by the end and he had some good plans. Obviously he is rather insane like a lot of the other villains but he would really flaunt this and the way he went about his goals was good. He was definitely extremely impressive when he first showed up even if he would eventually get surpassed as most characters do.

All right Mujin Park is one of the central figures of the series and easily one of the coolest characters of the series. He made for a super excellent villain all the way as he just kept on grabbing power up after power up. It was super impressive and one of the things I liked about him is his versatility and resistance. At some points he had absolutely no shot to do anything and he knew it so the guy would just buy his time. He wouldn’t worry about anything until the time was right. He would team up with Mori and anyone else as needed. His ultimate goal was to protect humanity and while this had some holes poked into it by Mori and the others over time, it was a good goal at its core. Humanity could easily be wiped out with all of these powerful threats around.

He’s a villain through and through with no real wiggle room there. You absolutely can’t make any kind of case for him being a hero or even an anti hero. He wouldn’t even dispute that. The whole idea is that he is being a complete villain in order to unite everyone. Mujin Park believes that only an extreme route like this will allow the humans to survive and the series makes some compelling points in his favor. Ragnarok is a huge one for example as the gods show up and start murdering humans in the millions in only a few short hours. Humanity was completely defenseless without Mori Jin showing up to help. The thing is, it’s hard to just have one hero be the only thing standing between you and complete obliteration. So Mujin Park wanted to eradicate all non humans and at the same time do whatever he could to make humans perfect. This involved a lot of really dangerous experiments and unethical actions. His origin story also ties into this.

In a way it’s an inspiring story about how a normal human literally surpassed all of the gods due to his own creativity and determination. It’s an absolutely insane feat and I don’t think anyone else has even come close to what he pulled off here. So he is a villain to be sure but you can definitely admire the strategy that went into this. It’s why even Mori Jin respected the guy a lot even after he nearly murdered the hero’s friends like 20 times in a row. There’s just a big difference between respecting someone and actually agreeing with what they do. You want to be careful about how you do that though because people who can’t handle nuance may come at you real quick.

Kim Ungnyeo was a fun mentor figure. Unfortunately due to the way her powers work she doesn’t get to appear as much as I would have liked. In her true form she could definitely deal quite a lot of damage but I suppose the series had no shortage of top fighters. Na was another mentor type figure who didn’t get too many fights. He definitely helped Mori get stronger though so he did his job. You know that he could fight really well as one of the Six even if he wasn’t one of the main starring roles though. Seo wasn’t too remarkable though. He was good for his connections and intel. He could get a whole lot of people to rise up for a fight but on his own I never thought he was all that.

My favorite member of the Six was definitely Kim Dooshik. This guy was always ready for a fight and had a ton of guts. He definitely would not be hiding behind anybody or anything like that. Whenever he was on screen he was going to be taking names. There was one fight in particular later on where he was clearly weaker than his opponent but he just kept on getting up over and over which was really impressive. Definitely a good way to show how determination is key here.

Taejin gets a ton of hype when he shows up. After all, he’s related to Mori and this guy has insane amounts of power even without a summoned spirit or being part god. He just relies on natural strength and that kind of character is always a lot of fun in any medium. The more gimmicks and supernatural powers you have, the more it becomes easy to really celebrate a character who is just fighting on his own and still doing well. It’s just really impressive and speaks to his absolute power. I would have liked him to have done more though. The amount of hype he gets from his first appearance is impressive to be sure but it’s maybe a bit overplayed. By the 20th time we see it referenced, you feel like you just get it already and want the whole thing to move on. I would have liked even just one more big fight for him.

The King is one of those guys who may be old but he’s still a super strong fighter. The guy absolutely mastered all of the various elements to the point where even the more powerful fighters had to respect him. He stayed relevant for a very long time. I may not love him as a villain but I did love the moveset. So when a certain character became the next king I was definitely stoked because we got to see the attacks used in a more dynamic way. Yeah that was definitely a lot of fun!

Sujin Lee is a very interesting character. She was absolutely awesome for when she first showed up and was a super threat for an entire season. She gave Mori some killer fights and was an amazing rival. Then out of the blue she put on a ton of weight and became more of a comic relief character. It was easily one of the most disgraceful things I’ve seen happen to a character. I thought they couldn’t be serious but she never recovered her former hype. Instead she would talk about food and get wrecked. This kind of plot is never fun to me. Do that to one of the lame characters but not the cool rival! So even though she fell off rather hard, I remember her good moments very fondly.

Then we have Mandeok Sang who was like a weaker version of Mujin Park. One thing I appreciated about this guy is that he kept on returning over and over again. He was extremely persistent and actually kept up with the power levels for a while before he was ultimately shut down. So I give him massive respect and props there. It would have been nice if his goals were a little better though. It felt like he wasn’t truly thinking for himself and was more of a puppet by the end. It weakens the whole premise of his group to be honest but I did enjoy having him around as a wild card. He stayed relevant for a very long while.

Xiaochen is a pretty fun villain who really got a super big role as the series went on. Not only was she really powerful but she was a loyal friend. She was doomed to a large extent because she fell for guy who already liked someone else though. Still, she remained chipper the whole time and never let herself get down about anything. She’s one of those side characters who really made a name for herself despite the smaller screen time.

Drake is a character who does better than I would have really guessed. He’s introduced as what I can only call a two bit villain the whole time but surprisingly he does some real damage. With a last name like McDonald it’s easy to poke fun at him as well but I suppose in the end it’s undeserved. Still, I never quite ended up liking the guy. He’s just not my kind of character I suppose.

Saturn is a lot more fun although you may overrate her abilities based on the title. Most of the other planetary characters are incredibly powerful but she just happens to have the name and is a normal villain. She’s definitely got a mean side and really starts cursing at random points once she is done eating. It’s an amusing gimmick and also one that makes her memorable so it was definitely smart of the series to do this to keep her relevant the whole time.

Axley was the most interesting of the villain trio but as bad luck would have it, he was also the one with the smallest role. It’s a shame because he had a great intro and the most interesting abilities so I wanted to see him use more of those. He’s consistently around but never really the focus if that makes sense. I still liked the character though.

Dan Ahan was a really good supporting character. She’s not a big fighter like most of the cast but she really provides good help to Dan the whole time. I don’t really care for how the series ended her character because it went in a really weird direction but beyond that she was solid. There aren’t a whole lot of human characters who left a mark on the series so that was already impressive.

Mori Jung is another rather tragic character. In some ways you could say he is even more tragic than Hui because they have similar character arcs but this guy had no kind of support network to help him out. So he ended up really being all alone which sucks. The guy is strong and held himself together well but ultimately was not in a good spot from the beginning. I liked the guy, he made for a good wild card.

Uma is a character who got introduced fairly late into the series but was a lot of fun. Her power level was just high enough to stay relevant even as the series started to approach the end. She ends up doing a lot more than I would have expected, especially considering that the rest of the fighters in her group didn’t get to do much at all. It’s always good to have at least one member repping a group pretty well though so she definitely did good there. When Uma shows up you always know somebody is about to get clubbed to death.

It’s really telling just how crazy the series is when you have Satan showing up as one of the more hype characters. I remember people cheering in the comments when Satan had his big return. People were stoked to see him and he ended up being the big ray of hope for the heroes. It certainly underscores how fierce the new opponent was. God of Highschool loves to really increase the power ceiling and what better way than by having a villain absolutely dumpster the previous strongest in the verse right? Get used to it because this happens a whole lot. Yes, the power levels go so crazy here that I often have power level issues with the series. It almost goes without saying but yeah whenever one of the old characters shows up and takes a hit from these guys, they should be dead instantly. That’s just common sense imo. Satan is unironically a pretty fun character here though. He just loves having a good fight and constantly evolves as he fights. His fighting style is crazy and his battle with Mori is still one of the best in the series. I may even have that as the absolute best fight in all of God of Highschool to be honest. The name of the series gets funnier and funnier as the power levels go higher and higher to be honest.

Odin’s character here was definitely a lot different than you might have expected going in. For starters he seems more like a complete demon than one of the gods. The guy is absolutely insane much like all of the other cosmic characters in this series. You really can’t trust any of them but he does stay as one of the top threats throughout the series. At no point does he get power cliffed too hard. I suppose excluding the final battle of the series which power cliffs everybody by a wide margin. You can’t really count the final fight in these things as they always make sure to go all out.

Beelzebub is another real powerful guy but lets talk about Zeus. One of the fun things about Zeus is that he’s easily one of the more emotional villains. This guy absolutely hates humans and isn’t afraid to say it. He wants to put the absolute fear of god into them and goes around murdering people like crazy. Out of all the gods this is probably the one that you want to fight the least. It’s also unfortunate for the heroes that he is easily one of the strongest as well. So if you go up against him, odds are that you are not going to be walking away. He is just going to decimate the competition.

Michael is another one of those really strong cosmic beings and naturally he’s rather twisted the whole time. It was fun seeing him show up even if by this point he was quickly getting surpassed by the others. The guy loves his cheap shots and is definitely not the type to play fair. He has a killer design though which really helps to keep him memorable the whole time compared to the other fighters like Uriel.

Tathagata is one of those villains that was hyped up for a crazy long amount of time so you were really looking forward to seeing him get some action. His power levels are also crazy high. It’s no exaggeration to say that this guy could solo many different manga and anime verses. The series does not hold back with him at all and that’s part of what makes the fight so much fun. There is also this constant back and forth with him and Mujin Park on who the actual final boss is. They keep you guessing all the way to the end with both characters getting massive amounts of hype. You will have to read the series to see who ends up getting that spot though.

Okay so that was a lot of story and a lot of characters! Definitely feels like you went through a full adventure there and I can assure you that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Read the whole series yourself to really see all of the characters and events. When you’ve got hundreds and hundreds of chapters like this series does, you can see how it’s easy to squeeze a ton of content in here. The series definitely had its low moments as well but that’s where the length really comes in. There are scenes and even arcs here that could have doomed a lesser title down to a 2 or worse.

When this series fell into a slump, trust me when I say it was a huge one. Definitely like nothing I had ever seen before or at least something only in very rare circumstances. In a series this long, you’re not surprised to see it making all kinds of mistakes. That’s just bound to happen to pretty much any title of this size. You had babies getting murdered, some animal violence, and generally a lot of terror. The series goes out of its way to show that when the villains win, the universe really goes to a bad spot. Even when the heroes are winning, there is usually something bad happening. The main important thing is that the positives outweigh the negatives for the series though and they definitely do here. The sheer hype from each of the fights and arcs is just insanely impressive to the point where it’s just hard to top.

The final fight went on for months and the series even throws a few fakeouts in there. There were different points throughout the series where it felt like the whole thing was ending, only for a whole new arc to start. I will admit that sometimes this could feel like a bit of a waste with certain plot elements being incredibly overdone, but deep down I was just happy to see the series continuing to go on. As long as you don’t mind Mori getting nerfed a whole lot throughout the series then you should be good. Also, I do get why you would want to nerf him at times because otherwise it would be hard to write around his power. The guy really does Goku proud by the end of this.

The art is also really solid. It’s definitely not as detailed as something like Solo Leveling but it makes up for this with incredible fighting choreography. The battles all look amazing and you can really follow the movements. Each battle is something to be taken real seriously and because the series has such a global element to most of its plots it is nice to see the different fighting styles go up against each other. You’ve got karate, taekwondo, etc. They all get their shine which I appreciate. Of course Taekwondo tends to look the best since that’s what Mori uses but that’s to be expected. He’s the best in the business after all.

I also really like how the series changes backgrounds a lot. What I mean by that is at first you have people fighting within a stadium, then they’re jumping through the city having fights outside, finally you have battles in outer space. With the exception of Mori Jin, you tend to feel the power levels gradually rising as the series goes on. It also rises by enough of a sizable difference where it’s fun to compare the past with the current. The series really has a good balance there. Now as a whole there are a ton of power level complaints I would have. As the series gets higher and higher this is yet another inevitable thing to an extent. Nothing that would hurt the score but yeah I was skeptical for a lot of different outcomes.

One of the big debates/topics that keeps coming up in the series is about which side is truly good though. You have 3 main groups: The humans, The gods, and the demons. You’d think this should be pretty straight forward but it’s tough. The humans for example have tons of villains all over the place. We’re talking domestic terrorism, psychopaths, mass murderers, etc. Basically the humanity you’ve all grown up with. The series is not subtle about its critique of humanity and how they will always be starting new wars and are ungrateful. No matter how many times Mori saves them, they continue to try and hunt him. Additionally, humans are particularly cruel with their experiments. When they capture a god or a demon, it’s usually a fate worst than death.

Then you have the demons led by Satan…obviously they’re pretty evil. They tend to just murder everybody so it’s not as dark as humanity. At the same time, survival of the fittest is the only way they have ever known how to live. They all keep murdering each other until they rise to the top. They have to keep their strength up or they will be destroyed by the gods or humans. I wouldn’t say they ever get sympathetic though, at the end of the day they are probably the worst of the 3…maybe. I would rather get caught by a demon than the others as my death would at least be quick but there really aren’t any heroic ones.

Then you have the gods, well they really don’t care about anything except their own greatness. They like hunting humans for sport and pick a lot of the fights. Like the demons there don’t seem to really be any heroic ones. They’re just perpetually bored and their idea of a good time is just murdering the various humans and causing a lot of problems. So in some ways you could say they’re the worst because a lot of the issues are their fault. Since Mori Jin basically represents all 3 forms at one point or another, he gets to make nice with some humans and demons (Not really any of the gods though tbh) which leads to some interesting plot points.

All in all, I thought the series did an excellent job with the world building here. After all, no group is ever purely good when it becomes large enough. There will inevitably be some traitors within or people who just get tempted by the dark side. These people are often very motivated to keep moving up the ranks while the kind ones get content. That happens again and again here so you really can’t trust anyone in the series. We even get the Superman type debate here.

Mujin Park feels like Mori can’t be trusted because he’s just too powerful. As the series goes on Mori can throw entire planets. He could eliminate Earth if he has a bad dream and gets up the wrong way. With that kind of power, Mujin feels like there can never be peace unless they are all terminated. He’s big on the whole “Earth is for Earthlings” thing. Ultimately he becomes a complete dictator as you can probably guess but he made for a very compelling villain. I tend to love it when villains really have a whole misguided sense of justice like this. You can root against them while totally getting how they came to this spot. He was really a true highlight in the series.

The series had so many “endings” as things kept ramping up again that it’s hard to say which would have been the best one. I don’t love the actual ending we got because unfortunately I would say they chose the wrong person to be with Mori in the end. It doesn’t really work even when you look at it in the best interpretation. Still, the characters mostly all got closure so the series definitely has that going for it. You can’t say that it was rushed, I remember a bunch of people kept begging for the series to be over for months and months before it finally ended. Meanwhile I was just enjoying how comically large the fight was getting. Look, the best kind of final fight is where every cast one by one goes up against the main villain and gets crushed. That’s always absolutely epic and this series had such a massive cast by the end that it makes sense how long it all was.

Overall, I could go on for sure but that’s enough for now. This is absolutely the kind of series that has a lot to say even if the fight scenes are the top priority. I would definitely recommend checking out God of Highschool as soon as possible. It may seem like a daunting task at first glance but once you get into it then the series will really go by quickly. It’s got a fun tone to it and especially in season 1 there is quite a bit of comedy to balance out the serious moments. It never totally goes away of course but the latter half of the series tends to be so serious that there just isn’t as much time for the comedy. So definitely enjoy it while you can but the series excels in both tones.

Overall 9/10

Solo Leveling: Ragnarok

Posted on August 1, 2024 by dreager1

The sequel to the original Solo Leveling has just started so I expect it will be around for a long time. I’ll be here for when it finishes though and I already know this is going to be a great one! Lots of action right out of the gate and by the end of the series you know there are going to be tons of feats. Hopefully it can be the next Boruto and be a mega hit.

Overall 8/10

Digimon Liberator

Posted on April 26, 2024 by dreager1

It’s been ages since I started a new title on the Webtoon site so this is definitely going to be fun. There’s not a lot of chapters up yet so you could say that I’m really here on ground zero. So far it’s off to a pretty fun start. I can easily see this being a long running title if they want to go the distance. The art is really solid and I’m always up for an SAO type virtual experience. I’ll have a review up for the series once it eventually concludes.

Overall 7/10

The God of High School

Posted on August 9, 2021 by dreager1

I should probably create a category for Manhua/Webtoons at some point but for now I’m putting this in the manga category as a place holder. I’m finally caught up with the series just as it’s about to end. It’s been a great journey and the series holds its own with the all time greats. I’ll have a review up for this series as soon as it ends.

Overall 9/10

God of Highschool Review

Posted on July 18, 2021 by dreager1

It’s time for another Webtoon adaption. The God of Highschool got a ton of promotion back in the day. I dare say that from the 3 Crunchyroll productions they gave this one the most publicity by far. It’s a tournament with a ton of action so what’s not to love right? Well, after seeing it I can definitely say it’s a great title. I did have a bit of an issue with the art style but the animation itself was great without a doubt.

The show starts with some politicians making a deal only for the entire island to literally be slammed with a giant hand and those guys are murdered. With nobody left in the way, a tournament is announced called the God of High School. If you win this tournament then you will get whatever you wish for. Anyone can enter it as long as they’re in High School so people flock to the tournament from all over. Winning this will take skill but these characters are ready. Still, the whole situation is rather sketchy…is there more to this tournament than meets the eye?

The God of High School is a show that goes fast and doesn’t mess around so you really have to make sure you keep up. You can probably identify moments where there are scenes that would be skipped to make the pacing work better but you always get the key details. I haven’t read the Webtoon yet although I plan to do that shortly. So I can say with confidence that even without reading the source material you’ll be able to keep up.

The last few episodes are also the best ones in the season so this really ends on a high note. You’ll absolutely be hyped for season 2 by the time you’re done with this one. It almost feels like they would need to change the name soon though since it seems like it won’t really be relevant to the next season. I guess if you think of the title as being a title in universe as opposed to referring to the tournament then it works out pretty well though.

Since I mentioned the art style lets knock that out now. The thing I didn’t like is how everyone’s nose and ears are always shining bright red as if this is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I haven’t seen a show do that before. The closest I can think of is the permanent anime blush in shows like Accel World. I dislike that art style as well, I dunno it just doesn’t seem natural and it can be a bit distracting.

It takes away from the visuals in general. Interestingly, I quickly took a look at the original trailer for the show although I think it was a conceptual trailer since the animation studio looked totally different and it shows events from the complete first season which is an odd choice. There were no glowing noses/ears there so I don’t know why they were added here. Perhaps this is how the art looks in the Webtoon and they wanted to be accurate but it just doesn’t work. I do like the chibi scenes when they occur though. I think Chibi works really well for quick humor bursts. We see similar techniques used in Tower of God and Demon Slayer to great effect as well.

The animation is great though. There’s a lot of finetuned hand to hand combat here. It’s easy to see how this company would then go on to do Jujutsu Kaisen later on. That show took this one’s fundamentals and then improved the animation with a lot of great energy effects and even more wrestling type moves. In a way you could say the studio used this anime to train and then mastered it with Kaisen. There are definitely no complaints with the animation here, the fights are all very high energy and get you in the moment. The shading on the darker moments also helps show the intensity of a scene very well.

I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot as well. The theme song is great and the more you listen to it, the more into it you get. It’s got a lot of replay value that’s for sure. The images for it are also hype. Then you have several great themes in the show like the Young Tiger theme as well as Mujin Park’s music. Each one helps to build up the hype and as this is completely a battle story, it’s not surprising that the music would be geared that way.

Now lets talk about the characters here. The main character is Mori Jin. He loves fighting and is trained in the arts of Taekwondo. Mori is very confident in his abilities and believes he can take on anyone. Winning the tournament is prize enough for him so he has no real wishes to be granted. He’s a nice guy who sometimes projects sob stories onto others but always does his best to help his friends.

Mori’s a pretty charismatic guy and I was definitely a fan. He’s quick to jump into the arena when a match is going too far and that’s something I was glad to see. Mira loses some points for trying to constantly tell her teammates not to jump in. It’s just the right thing to do. It goes against the spirit of the tournament to be torturing your opponent and for Mori I imagine it was especially personal since the villain was using Taekwondo.

The show doesn’t go into it a whole lot but I do like how each of the different hand to hand fighters use unique fighting styles here. You’ve got Karate masters, self defense, sword style, etc. Mori never falters throughout the whole season so he was a great lead from start to finish.

Then we have Mira who is one of the first characters to appear in the show. She doesn’t crave battle the way that Mori does but her sole goal in life is to get the Moonlight sword back into the spotlight. She wants to prove that this style is good and it was her father’s last wish. She will do whatever it takes to make the sword popular again which is a good and bad thing. The good thing is that it gives her drive and something to fight for.

The bad thing is that it limits her. She seems to fight a lot better without the sword most of the time. Her enemies seem to be able to use it with more skill than she does. Additionally it also sidetracks her from her goals like when she was quick to jump into a wedding with someone she didn’t even know. That was the weakest part of her character arc to be sure. How do you marry a random celebrity when you’ve known him for 5 minutes?

Mira was quick to throw her friends away at this point too so it’s good that they beat up the guards and forced the issue. Mira also doesn’t believe in interrupting matches as I mentioned before so that ends up hurting two. From the 3 characters she had the shakiest resolve to be sure, but she can fight and tends to do well in battle. Eventually maybe she can catch up to the other two if she masters her sword.

Then we have Daewi as the third member of the crew. He is fighting to save his friend who is currently dying. It’s a pretty rare condition so even the nanomachines that the GOH tourney providers have only may give him a chance. Daewi is the mature member of the 3 so he usually tries to calm the other two down or just stay out of the way so they don’t embarrass him. For the most part he’s a rather decent guy.

There is one point though where he loses it and very nearly becomes a villain. He beats up some random punks but they initiated so I don’t even count that to be honest. You can’t pretend to ignore them forever so take them out and that’s that. Now if he murdered them that’s different, but I didn’t necessarily get that impression. It’s hard to say though, I suppose they might have been dead.

Daewi even attacks Mira in rather savage fashion but I would say it’s in a completely different league than what Manseok did in the first episodes. Daewi didn’t torture her or anything, he landed a few solid blows and then she went down. Now, he was about to attack again before he was stopped which would have crossed the line but ultimately no extra hits were landed. Perhaps this is something where it’s more dragged out in the Webtoon but from the anime it doesn’t seem as shocking and savage as the characters acted.

I suppose you’d expect him to hold back more when fighting a friend and yet the characters always talk about how you better not hold back or they’ll take it personally. It might be an unspoken rule where you should still hold back I suppose. Regardless it wasn’t quite as crazy as you would expect so I didn’t lose a ton of respect for him the way I would if a character really turned traitor like that. It does mean he’ll likely never catch the top tiers of the series like Mori, Ilpyo, or Taek but he’s reasonably in the middle somewhere.

The resolution to the plot did feel a bit cheesy and perhaps unearned though. Mori was really mad at Daewi at first and then a few minutes later they’re back to being best friends. That part I will say felt rushed and it seems like they wouldn’t get along so easily like that. Additionally, I don’t see how Daewi was looking so good. Mori seemed to be way stronger but more on that later.

Ilpyo was easily the best character in the series though. I liked his confidence and he’s just a classy guy. Ilpyo felt like he would be the main character in another title. He has cool fire powers and even a nice super form that he can use at will. The guy’s hand to hand skills are completely out of almost every other character’s league. He misses the first half of the season but once he shows up at the end he gets a great role.

It’s clear that he would have beaten Mori if he wasn’t sandbagging to teach him the whole time and at full power I would have gone for him over Taek as well. That guy’s abilities are hard to deal with but the same is true for Ilpyo. I hope he gets a lot to do in season 2 as well because he’s just a blast to follow.

Then we have some of the various fighters from the tournament. First is Seungchul who likes to fight using intelligence and wit over brute strength. This makes him difficult to defeat although at the same time it doesn’t seem sustainable. At the end of the day you need pure power to back up your moves. Then there’s Gamdo who is a martial artist that likes fighting with honor.

Unfortunately he’s in the wrong tournament for that because these fighters are too desperate to win. They don’t have time for honor or things like that. I liked the guy but I feel like he may never appear again. Then you have Manseok who was surprisingly weak. Seriously the guy talks really tough and after getting embarrassed he breaks down into tears and never appears again.

I’m sure he will return but it’s going to be hard to take that guy seriously. He’s like a textbook bully who can take on weaker fighters no problem but ultimately gets outmatched by the stronger ones and doesn’t have the confidence to continue. I didn’t like that guy so I don’t mind him getting taken out. It was just really surprising.

Taek is one of the big villains of course so we have to talk about him. Now this is a villain I could get behind. He made for a great antagonist who kept on getting stronger and forced the heroes to keep up with him. Hi goals about wanting to be the strongest and proving that he wasn’t a loser was intense. The guy is whining a lot in a sense but he continues to get stronger on his own so at least he’s doing something about it.

His rivalry with Ilpyo just worked really well and was the best dynamic in the show. Whenever he was around you knew things were about to go down. The scene where he nearly took Mori down with a single strike was a very intense moment and was also good hype for Ilpyo. I also liked how he kept remembering how Ilpyo beat him up that one time. Shows why he wants revenge on everything. It’ll be hard to top him as the next arc villain.

Taejin is worth mentioning because he’ll clearly be getting a big role soon but this was not a very impressive start for him. He got beat up pretty quickly. Yes, he left big craters in the ground and looked strong but Mori could probably pull such things off by the end of the series with his impressive power ups. Taejin gets a ton of hype so to see him tied up and beaten so early on…it was surprising to say the least.

Then we have the tournament organizer Mujin. This guy’s pretty interesting right now. He’s clearly not a hero with how extreme his actions are at the moment. It’s strongly implied he’s the one who took out the island in episode 1 although we don’t know for sure. He’s searching for the Key and it doesn’t sound like this is for heroic reasons. Perhaps he is a hero who just seems shady at times but right now I see him being a very interesting third party character who keeps everyone at the ready.

It’s a shame he had to play defense for the whole season though as we couldn’t see what he could really do yet. The fact that he was able to put up barriers to block the giant summon from the villains was impressive though. The guy’s tough without a doubt but I want to see him in the ring. He has a bunch of members in his organization who are powerful as well but most don’t get to do a whole lot yet.

I expect we’ll see them all fight more soon. They beat up on the random monsters but anyone could do that. Q gets the biggest role as he shows a lot more emotion than the others. He gets upset when one of his comrades dies and even confronts Mujin. There’s a lot of life to this guy and he disregards procedure if it gets in the way. It costs him a lot of money each time but he doesn’t back down.

There are other characters running around here of course like in the tournament and assassins from the mysterious organization that is also trying to find the key. I won’t go into those guys because they haven’t done a whole lot yet. You’ll want to watch the show to see what they’re doing. I am pretty interested in how that will play out since it seems like that will be more of a focus in season 2.

While the tournament was the main plot there were definitely times where the outside world was more interesting. There’s just so much happening out there and I love tournaments but the other parts were so appealing too. It’ll be fun to see how the heroes contribute since in theory most of them are still weaker than the grown ups. Mori is probably an exception to that though.

The Power levels in the show could be rather suspect at times though. From the start Mori is portrayed as being so much stronger than Daewi and Mira that you can’t believe it when he is having an even fight with Daewi. Particularly since given the circumstances Mori shouldn’t be holding back and is going in hot to make Daewi regret attacking Mira. Somehow Daewi is not only holding his own but even winning at times. That didn’t make a lot of sense.

Then you have the celebrity who had his own Charyeok manifestation and yet he got knocked out in one blow. How? This guy is a part of a dangerous organization and had a lot of abilities. That didn’t make a lot of sense. Granted, in general Charyeok seems like a pretty vague power scaling system. Effectively you borrow power from some kind of legendary figure and turn that into power. One character uses Lu Bu for example while another one has Jaws. (Or just a random Shark) Then you have Mori who doesn’t need to borrow anything since there are other factors at play here. Way I understand it is Mori is the legendary figure, I won’t say who for now. It’s a pretty good way to explain why he is so strong.

Charyeok has a lot of different manifestations so the best way to think of it is just as a form of Ki and then you get any kind of special ability. I don’t see how you can lose with it so quickly though. Power levels aside, I do like how the characters just launch into the fights. A benefit of the fast pacing here is there’s no time for chitchat so often times the fighters just start swinging their fists and don’t stop. The opponents have to figure out each other’s abilities in silence. Nobody stops until one person is on the ground.

The God of High School may start out fairly realistic but it jumps up into superhero world by the end. The last episode or 2 in particular suddenly turn this into something like DBZ and I’m all up for that. It was a pretty powerful match-up at the end and the designs were really good for the powered up modes on the hero and villain.

Overall, The God of High School is a great anime that I would recommend. You won’t be disappointed here. It’s really over in a flash at only around 12-13 episodes but each one covers a lot. You’ll likely end the show with a ton of questions since it doesn’t mind opening up a lot of plot elements that don’t go anywhere yet. It’s why you just have to wait until it’s continued or check out the written version. You’ll get introduced to a lot of characters but I dare say you’ll actually remember most of them. They’re all fairly unique and have their own personalities. It may take a little while to fully learn the names but that will come in time. My only real gripe here is that I wish they would take away the Rudolph nose part of the art style. It just doesn’t fit so maybe in season 2 it’ll be cut. With this review done I’d say it’s a good time to check out the Webtoon and see how the adventure continues.

Overall 8/10

Tower of God

Posted on April 24, 2021 by dreager1

With the anime review out now I figured I’d also post the web toon post. Of course this series is still going to I’ll have a review up for it when it ends. It’s definitely shaping up to be the most elaborate universe I’ve seen since One Piece with how many different factions are running around. The cast is huge at this point with a huge variance in power levels so I look forward to seeing how this concludes. It’s my first manwa/manhua and paints a very impressive picture of them to be sure. The art is really nice and it goes without saying that the characters are spectacular.

Tower of God Review

Posted on April 24, 2021 by dreager1

Tower of God is one of those anime titles you saw everywhere. The amount of promotion it got was insanely widespread which is impressive. I’ll give Crunchyroll this, they absolutely know how to promote their materials. I would argue ToG and that tournament show got way more promotion than their third webtoon production but I guess by that point they felt the awareness was pretty good. You couldn’t turn the corner without seeing this one and now I’ve gotten to check it out. It’s an excellent anime to be sure and it’s the kind of show that gets better and better the more you think about it. Usually when you sit back and relax as you think about a show, movie, or game the score might stabilize a little lower since you’re past the initial excitement. This is one of the reverse cases as I walked away from the show thinking it was great; Then after reading a good chunk of the web comic, thinking about it some more and basically ended up going from re watching some clips to the whole show this is really a masterpiece.

The show starts off with a character explaining what the Tower of God is. It’s a tower that goes up to the heavens and contains everything that exists. Any answers, power, or goal you want can be attained by climbing it. Due to the tower having such prizes, the risks are also great. We then cut to a boy named Bam and a girl named Rachel. Rachel wants to see the stars some day and she tells Bam not to follow her as she vanishes. Bam decides to follow as best he can though because he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He grew up along in a cave with only Rachel’s visits to break up the monotony of each day.

Bam suddenly appears outside the tower where he is allowed to take the entrance exam. He passes and makes it to the tower’s ground floor. He really doesn’t care about the tower or any secrets it may hold, but he does intend to climb the tower so that he can see Rachel again. He wants to understand more about why she left him and how the stars can be so important. He meets up with a mysterious boy named Khun and a powerful dinosaur hybrid named Rak. Together, these three must rise up the tower and conquer the various tests but can they pull this off?

Right away you can see how this will be quite the ambitious series. The Tower is huge with an unknown amount of floors and each floor has a game/challenge that must be completed in order to make it to the next floor. Each challenge can range from an episode to several and there is always the possibility that you might die. You’ve also got a ton of lore ranging from the 10 great families to Jahad and his Princesses. Then you have the Rankers, assassins, and a bunch of other factions all running around.

Part of the fun of the series is that everything’s all one big mystery. Bam has never even been outside before so he knows nothing about this world. We all have to learn about it along with him and most of the answers won’t even be in season 1. The web comic is around 500 chapter so far and this one covers the first 75 so it’s the tip of the iceberg. It perfectly covers season 1 of the Web comic though so the timing was really on point here.

The writing is also really excellent. A big part of the show are the various mind games as everyone tries to out think the other. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems and while characters may tend to overthink things at times, it pays to be cautious. Around every corner is someone who is absolutely brutal and may slay you without a second thought. The power levels in the universe can also get quite drastic as the characters have to remember that while they may be strong…they are only on floor 1. The higher you go the more crazy the opponents will get.

Right away you can tell that the animation style here is a little different. It seems to be modeled after the web comic and has a little less detail at times. It flows together really well for the action scenes though and the character designs are on point. I definitely liked the animation quite a bit and it does shine for the battles like Hatz vs Anaak or Yuri styling on the others at the end. It’s all very smooth and flows into the next scene well.

Where the series really shines though is with the soundtrack. It’s got a very interesting techno theme. In fact, I’d say for the most part the soundtrack sounded like they got it from Toonami bumpers and commercials. The whole thing felt a lot like I was watching Toonami which is pretty nostalgic and also very unique. It’s not a soundtrack I would have immediately connected to Tower of God but it absolutely worked well.

As for the characters, well I have to say that Bam is probably the blandest main character I’ve seen in a while. It may be a bit strong to say he’s the blandest I’ve ever seen but he has to be in the conversation. He’s always got a lifeless look on his face and is basically a one track character who can only think of Rachel. I have to say I was not a big fan of his. This is one of those titles where all of the supporting characters ended up being more interesting. Not to say that Bam is a bad character but if anything you think of him more like a plot device ready to go see Rachel as opposed to his own person. Due to the ending of the season though, you’ll want to see where he goes from here.

There isn’t a lot to say about Rachel in this season without spoilers. She leaves Bam rather quickly and then he sees someone who looks like her in the tower. Can it possibly be the same person? Either way the fact that she ditched Bam so easily and basically told him to stay in a dark cave by himself will probably set off some warning bells for you. She’s a very interesting character to be sure. She definitely wouldn’t rank as one of my favorite characters or anything but I don’t dislike her. If the show was playing her up as a misguided hero or someone we couldn’t understand then I probably would be in that camp. Again it’s hard to say much more for now but I am intrigued at how her plot goes.

Khun is definitely one of the standout characters here. He’s the strategist of the team and those do tend to be a lot of fun, particularly when they are confident in their abilities. Characters like L, Lelouch, Kurama, Eren, Kurapika, and other strategists who know how to break down a plan and acknowledge their own abilities tend to be great. If you’re a genius who isn’t confident like Armin or to a lesser extent someone humble like Shikamaru tend to not excel quite as high for me. Khun is one of those geniuses who knows he is a genius and tends to rub it in everyone’s face.

That’s part of what makes him such a fun character. Whenever he is on screen you know that something hype is about to happen. Right from his very first appearance you already get a good feeling about him and he ends up being one of the most loyal characters in the show. He’s constantly thinking about how to help Bam. Khun’s physical abilities also seemed very impressive when he was able to speed blitz to the crown so he can fight as needed. Then you have the third member of the group Rak. Now, from all of the big characters in the series I felt like he didn’t live up to the hype as much as some of the others. Mainly because the show has to balance a lot of characters so not everyone gets their chance to shine but Rak doesn’t really get to fight any big opponents.

He talks really tough the whole season so I’m hoping he ends up being very impressive but you start to have your doubts after a while. Still, as a comrade he is absolutely someone you want to have on your team. He may not admit it, but he has a good bond with the other characters as well. His chocolate gimmick is also a lot of fun and his brute force contrast to Khun’s intellectual approach gives their team a lot of balance. They may be at odds a lot of the time but at the end of the day Rak does listen to him.

On one of the other teams we have Shibizu. Like Khun he is also a strategist although he’s more low key about it. He may not be a super genius or anything but he is able to figure out most puzzles rather easily. He doesn’t have a lot of skill as he’s more of a standard human but he has a lot of determination and does his best to help out his friends. Like Bam he’s not super stoked to climb up the tower for any one reason and is able to try and help others out without just thinking about himself.

Then you have Hatz who is my favorite character in the series. It’s a pretty impressive title because this series has quite a few high tier characters such as Endorsi and Khun who could be the best character in many other shows or secondary characters like Anaak and Yuri who are also quite solid. Part of why Hatz is at the top is because his intro scene was dynamite. His line that “running away is only for opponents stronger than me” was really good as he attacked the strongest opponent in the area at the time. His twin blade style is also unique as he throws a sword in the air to block an attack while he deals with the other one. His skills are definitely on point.

Hatz gets quite a few action scenes here so I look forward to him fighting again more soon. The third member of the team Anaak is also a really powerful fighter though and someone who sticks out since she has the title of Princess of Jahad. Her Green April is a tough sword to stop too since it can alter its shape and strike from any angle. It’s the kind of weapon you don’t really want to mess with. Even without it she has a good deal of super strength and speed to back her up as well though. That makes her a very solid all around character. While Hatz has his whole thing about being honor bound at all times, Anaak just wants to crush the Jahad family at any cost. We see her origin story and why she wants to do this as well.

Next up is Hoh and we’re finally at one of the weaker characters in the series. The guy gets jealous from day 1 at how much stronger everyone is and so you can’t help but shake your head whenever he is on screen. You can tell that things are going to get dicey for him from day 1. I’m cool with someone just wanting to go up the tower and not making friends but Hoh’s jealousy just makes him such a petty character. I don’t think he quite deserved the big send off/funeral everyone gave him.

Then you have Serena who is more of a normal human like Shibizu. She has a bit of a rivalry going with him and they have a decent fight. Like Shibizu she feels a little out of place next to these guys who can crush mountains but she does well for as long as she can. Her character arc also has a bit of a surprising end to it so that was not something I had expected. Finally there’s Lauroe from their team who is quite powerful. The guy is constantly sleeping and whenever you have a character who is always asleep you can be sure that he’s hiding away a lot of power. His battle with Anaak was quite impressive and so was his big blast of Shinsu. Not many opponents would have been able to endure that. Lauroe’s a very laid back guy and while the sleeping may be a bit much, he’s a decent character.

Endorsi is another one of the standout characters here. She has absolute confidence in everything she does. Whenever Endorsi is on screen you know that someone is going to get absolutely crushed. It’s part of why she’s so much fun. Her only weakness is that her high heels tend to break which is something the anime has a little fun with. Regardless, in a straight fight you can expect that she would absolutely crush almost anyone in this tournament. Her skill are just off the chart and while she at first tries not to get close to anyone, she eventually gets caught up in the spirit of things. At the same time though, she’s not someone you can easily trust as her goals always take priority. You just have to make sure that your existence isn’t in her way. She was very close to passing Hatz as the best character in the series but at least if we go purely from the anime she is still behind him.

Then for one of the other supporting characters we have Paracule who is just annoying most of the time. He’s incredibly weak and is very quick to betray the other characters when it suits him. He’s not someone you could ever trust and he’s always whining. The character is around mainly to serve as a character to dislike but that doesn’t make him any better. It’s hard to even picture how this guy has made it so far. He is quite lucky that’s for sure.

Yuri doesn’t get a whole lot to do here but that makes sense as her abilities are far beyond anything we are expected to see this early on in the tower. You can think of her as a completed Princess of Jahad. A single blow is enough to destroy multiple giant monsters at once and there are few who could hope to be her equal. Then you have the mysterious gate keeper of the tower known as Headon who tests those who wish to join the challenge. He is definitely someone you can expect to be quite powerful although he hasn’t made a move yet. Whether you’re a regular or an irregular he lets you move up the tower. This guy appears to have big plans so we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

Then we have some of the rankers like Lero Ro. This guy’s pretty fun. He definitely has a merciless persona to him as he isn’t afraid to put people in their place but at the same time he has more of a conscience than a lot of the other characters. He still wants to have a fair tournament and games here after all and suspects that something is up. He’s quite sharp and has quite a few mind battles with Hansung Yu. I certainly look forward to seeing what he does next. You also have Quant who has a lot of speed at his disposal and is pretty strong in his own right. He’s a lot more headstrong though so you can see how these two would make for a good team. Quant tends to take everything very literally and personally but I like the energy he has. He also does not care for traitors in the slightest.

Hansung Yu is easily the shadiest of the rankers though. He appears to be playing all of the sides so we’ll have to see how that plot goes. He’s also clearly a lot more powerful than he lets on but that makes sense since you would expect the ruler of the floor to be at a high level. Lo Po Bia Ren is one of the assassins’ of the tower and is a bit of an odd ball. He seems to have a real form underneath his animal costume but we never get to see it. It’s also hard to say if he’s still around as if he has more than one body at the ready or if it was a robot. Either way he’s a very intimidating villain to be sure. He doesn’t hold back and has a very creepy vibe to him. He’s not quite able to hold back his giant monsters from attacking either. He’s not really my kind of villain next to most of the others so I wouldn’t rank him too highly but he was a very real threat.

Finally there is Hwa who is a mysterious character. Her first appearance has her taking on Endorsi in a straight fight so her abilities are actually pretty good and she mostly sticks in the background after that. Needless to say it looks like she will be playing a big role coming up. I’m liking her character so far and there’s a lot of potential here.

There are other characters of course but I think that sums up most of the big ones. I tried keeping the review fairly spoiler free so you can jump in and see all of the twists and turns. In adapting 75 chapters into 13 episodes you can bet there are some changes but for the most part the series only cut minor stuff out. A ton of Urek Mazino references were cut for example but he won’t be appearing anytime soon anyway. There were a few questionable changes that could come back to bite them if we get a season 2 though like completely changing one character’s personality in the final episode and Khun’s final conversation in the final episode. Both are things you can easily walk back but do go against what initially happened.

For Endorsi, a good chunk of her one way romance with Bam scenes were cut out but I’m cool with that. In the web comic she is pretty much obsessed with Bam to the point where she is constantly flirting with him so the fact that the show dialed down her character is fine with me. The only change that’s a little regrettable is they cut out quite a few of Bam’s speeches which helped to really make him stand out as a character. Perhaps that is why he came across as bland in the show. In the web comic he has easily become one of the best characters although that’s more due to season 2 content than 1 so this wouldn’t have brought him to the top but it would have helped him rise quite a bit. Either way you are safe to jump straight to season 2 of the web comic if you don’t want to wait for the show.

The show ends on a rather perfect note with how episode 12 finishes also. It’s just such a powerful moment as the credits song plays. Honestly this could have been the perfect way to end although episode 13 is pretty interesting as a way to see a different side of events. It’s a good way to connect the dots and all. That said, the very last shot of the season is definitely a huge spoiler for season 2. I’m thinking it’s mainly there for the web comic fans so they would already know about the twist. In fairness to the show, I think most people figured out the twist in the web comic immediately. It’s sort of like Tobi from Naruto. The instant he appeared most people connected the dots. It’s a similar thing here so it’s nice for fans to see this guy but…I would technically still consider it a spoiler.

It’s rare that there is so much to talk about for such a short series but that’s part of what makes Tower of God fun. The lore is already absolutely massive in the series and it’s why you can easily see this going on for hundreds of episodes. There is so much to cover and I skimmed over most of the lore in this review but the show breaks it down well. I also really enjoy the way the games are presented. Each game is quite unique and you really have to think your way through them in order to win. Just relying on power won’t help although it is useful. I would say it’s a little like Phi Brain in that sense. My favorite game is definitely the Crown game though as that was a blast but a close second is the very first game as the opponents had to be reduced from 400-200. Less strategy in that one but it was a great way to introduce the characters.

Overall, Tower of God is definitely an elite title. There are less than 20 TV shows I’ve ever seen that were able to grab a 9 star rating and this one is good enough to join them. The characters are fantastic and a whole lot happens. It’s rare that you see a show be able to cram so much into each episode but when you’re adapting 75 chapters into 13 episodes it makes sense that you have to move fast. Especially with how big the web comic chapters are. All told, the show is an excellent adaption and I do hope we get season 2 at some points. There’s enough chapters for at least 5 more seasons minimum and since season 2 of the web comic is close to 4 times as large as season 1, a 52 episode season would be pretty nice to see. Either way this is just the tip of the iceberg so I hope the franchise continues on. If you haven’t seen the anime yet then I would recommend changing that right away!

Overall 9/10

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