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[Tower of God (Season 2)]
AKA: 神之塔
Genre: Fantasy/Action
Length: Television series, 26 episodes, 24 minutes each
Distributor: Currently available streaming on crunchyroll.
Content Rating: TV-14 (Violence, mature situations)
Related Series: Season One
Also Recommended: El Hazard; Endride
Notes: Based on Korean webtoon by S.I.U., published by Young Com
Rating:

Tower of God (Season 2)

Synopsis

With Bam apparently dead, we get some new oddball characters; some more shady actions by Rachel (no surprise, there); some nefarious activities by Tower management; and some even MORE nefarious activities by a group opposing Tower management.


Review

Tower of God is, at the most superficial level, a parade of quirky people with quirky names, quirky appearances, and quirky powers, engaged in shonen battles within a loose team format (their membership changes constantly, though), in contests that range from incredibly contrived, to occasionally Squid Game- simple. With Season 2, we find that both the Tower management, AND their opposition, are, we shall say, morally compromised. (The group rebelling against King Jahad bears a name I won't use, since it's close to a vulgarity in English.)

The show's combatants include many non-humans, while the technology presented ranges from archaic to futuristic, though I'll note that suddenly the cast has cell phones complete with a "digital assistant" named Emily. Emily has accurate information about everything- including, say, the locations of opponents, and how to escape/avoid traps during the contests, so I'm a little surprised her services aren't more widely used. The variety of intelligent species, and the variety of technology, contribute to the show's refusal to allow the audience to really orient itself in time or place, but that didn't bug me as much as the lack of information about the cast.

By now, of course, it seems the cast is enormous. (I recently read somewhere that humans can only maintain 150 relationships with people. I think we may have already exceeded that with the ToG cast.) The problem, for me, is that new characters here often just suddenly appear, without being named (at least at first), engage in cryptic conversations with others (cryptic, because we have NO idea, at the time, who these characters are, or their motivations, or even what the hell they're talking about); but then all this becomes critically important when the meandering plot eventually coalesces into some sort of structure at its Crisis Points, one of which occurs toward the end of each of the halves of S2. (I'm told that this season constituted two story arcs in the Webtoon this is based on, "The Return of the Prince", and "Workshop Battle", respectively.) It's hard for the audience (OK, maybe it's just hard for ME) to keep track of the contents of conversations if they're sans context.

This season we get some hints about the management of the place- in addition to the King of Jahad, the Ten Families are mentioned, so there are oligarchs too, I guess. (I'm wondering about the King, who's never appeared in the show so far; I've also wondered if any of the "Princesses", who are appointed to that post, have ever met him either.) The Wiki article on ToG says that Khun Agueros Agnes is a scion of one of the 10. Khun returns this season, which I very much liked, since he's always been my favorite character in the show. As before, he's a master strategist. He knows about what Rachel did to Bam, and resolves to keep an eye on her. But we'll say that even Khun can't know everything (even with Emily's assistance.)

New this season is Ja Wangnan, a blond guy. When I first saw him I thought he'd be another smarmy BS artist like Shibisu in Season One, but he turned out to have much more character than I expected. Ja even manages to bring onboard Jue Viole Grace, who was originally definitely NOT a joiner. Viole's the stand-in for the (presumed dead) Bam. We're told early on that he's working with the revolutionaries (the ones with the vulgar name), and he's apparently received some power enhancement from them. More could be said, but I'm not gonna say it. (Note: Jahad must really be pretty tolerant of revolutionaries, since wearing a badge (of sorts) that says, "I'm a revolutionary" could otherwise get you in trouble.)

Another newbie is Yeon Yihwa, who I gather is ALSO from a prominent Family. Her particular power is casting flame, but she has control issues with it. But just like the guy in Holy Grail who was turned into a newt, she DOES get better.

We get the return of Rak Wraithraiser, a reptilian character (Khun calls him "gator") who we remember from the initial elimination rounds in Season One. I do like his uncluttered berserker personality; it reminded me a bit of Ben ("It's clobberin' time!) Grimm from Fantastic Four. Another returnee from Season One is a sleeper deus ex machina character, brought in near the last minute to help resolve one of the (two) crises.

I didn't care much for the games themselves; that's another one of my impressions of the show that hasn't changed. I never DID quite understand the rules for the first game in Season Two (with the rooms and the "remotes"); that one seemed contrived enough to be in Classroom of the Elite. On the other hand, much later we'll see the teams playing a game as simple as Capture the Flag. (Grampa prefers it simple- like the kid's games in Squid Game, but maybe WITHOUT the carnage there. Those who MUST have complexity should be forced to play Fizzbin (from Star Trek).)

I kept wondering if SIU ("Slave In Utero"), the story's creator, has some outline, somewhere, of the characters' backstories and motivations, and some plan for the general course events will follow- OR, alternatively, maybe they're just making it up as they go along. (I kind of lean toward the latter hypothesis.)

And the Miscellany:

-The visual montage used in the OP of the first half of the season reminded me a bit of that of Moonphase. But the OP used in the second half of the season is much more conventional.

-Speaking of Moonphase, I was once again struck by the amazing ability anime characters have to survive being impaled squarely through the chest.

-I'm sorry, but no one's going to take someone NAMED "Beta" as a serious threat, WHATEVER powers they have.

-OK, I'll allow ONE character (Rak) to have a size-changing ability; but the bee guy's ability to ALSO do it seemed a bit much.

-THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH ANAAK!!! (The lizard girl.) One of the few characters the show HAS bothered to give a backstory (a tragic one, in Season One), she just has cameo appearances THIS time. (Blame the teams' ever-changing compositions. I saw that the studio producing the show has changed; for some reason, I noticed a difference in appearance more for Anaak than any of the other characters.)

-New candidates Miseng (a little girl) and Goseng (apparently her guardian- I didn't think she was her mom, but the show is, once again, unclear) disappear from the story completely later on. Does the place have any kind of age limit for participants?

I DO wish there was more of a coherent, consistent plotline here, instead of the story just really coming together a couple of times. (The Wiki summary of the webtoon story makes some sense of it, but there's much less of that in the anime adaptation.) Wearily, I cried out, "Context, context!", but received it not. The only invariable thing here seems to be Rachel's treachery. I guess we should be reassured that there are SOME things that don't change in the ToG universe.Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Crunchy says 14+, "Profanity, Smoking, Suicide, Violence". I don't remember a suicide this time (there was one in S1), but there's certainly lots of violence (including, as I said, impalement.)



Version(s) Viewed: Crunchyroll video stream
Review Status: Full (26/26)
Tower of God (Season 2) © 2024 Tower of God Season Two Animation Partners
 
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