I loved part 1 of ToG but now it's annoying

Starts off very well, the first season is great the second one starts well too but it goes downhill from there it becomes incoherent and it makes little sense, keeps inventing things out of the blue and characters relations become completely ridiculous without bothering to explain much of what happens.
It’s a pity really but it keeps getting worse. I'm still hoping it gets back on track thou, much wasted potential here imo.
First season is an 8-8.5, second season depends on the arc, goes from 3 to 6.

Edit (end S2): In any case, even with the downfall as a whole it's a decent manhwa with some very bad parts, it just became a more generic/classic shounen with lots of fights and too many weird and incoherent stuff going on, some completely off imo, the author sometimes notices his blunders and tries to mend it later but sometimes it's like putting a bandage on an exposed bone fracture. Lack of consistency and the Rachel plot are the main bad aspects imo.
I've read many many mangas with MC's with plot armor, but this is the first I've ever seen a bad guy with such a thick plot armor. I have been waiting for that b**ch to be taken down but I'm foreseeing that she'll be there till the end... a pity, I can see her either having a change of heart at the last moment or play as gollum for the story.
I'm also have lot's of troubles with time frames in the story, the timeline seams a bit strange to me, like, how many thousands of years passed since the 10 families took power? are all chars immortal? or they just have ridiculously long lives?and so on.
One thing this series still does very well is the power balance, I mean, the MC and companions and all their enemies are really weak, they really don't hold a candle to any of the real powers in the tower, even now that still holds, I wonder just how many chapters will it take for them to shorten the breach... 1000? And that there is the main good thing in the second season imo, the training of all the several parts, the transition from newborns to fledglings ready to fly..

... Last updated on September 30th, 2019, 6:34pm

My favourite among all the mangas, mawhas and webtoons i have ever read, deserves 11/10. Read it from beggining to end like 4 times already.
First: the setting. climbing a tower with increasingly difficult levels in order to make a wish? that doesn't sound too original, but luckily for you, thats just the tip of the iceberg. There is no black and white in the tower, but vast spectrum of colours (almost said shades of gray). There are numerous factions, factions within factions and sidestorys that are part of a whole. Climbing floors is secondary to the strugles to survive and fight against the factions trying to kill/use/both the characters. Everyone has his own agenda and you can expect betrayal at every corner.

Second: the MC. Normally you have two kinds of mc, the week, pathetic and whinny (kurokami) or the cocky asshole that just keeps on running his mouth (veritas comes to mind). Baam is neither. Even though he starts beeing realy weak, he is brave, but awere of his shortcomings. And he doesn't get riduculous powerups (veritas again). He neither does that of "conveying feeleings through his fists" (samuray deeper kyo, one piece, keinichi) when after fighting the most wicked mfker and defeating him they become best friends.

Third: side characters. Yes there are lots of them, but everyone has his unique personality. Some you will love (like the mighty Rak) and some you will hate (deeply) and some you will love and hate at the same time. All have their screen time and it is never wasted.
Yamake-dono, you should consider reading more than 3 chapters before writing a review, "knight saving damsel in distress"..., you dont even know what the story is about.

For now the series is very solid, and also entertaining, but nowhere near great. The part 1 was like a big setup, and put a good platform for part 2. So, part 1 was very entertaining, but not really that great for a perfect score.

All in all, this is a very good series with a lot of potential to be great.

Honestly It's a good series, but personally i dont really care for side-characters especially if they're not my favorite. This manhwa has MANY side charas, and the author sometimes heavily focus on side-chara. if you also dont like it, I dont recommend it.

This series... oh boy. Where do I even begin?

Pros:
- Gorgeous art
- BADASS MC (middle of the story)
- Great side-characters
- Good story
- Ok story development
- Ok character development

Cons:
- Slow story start
- EXTREMELY angelic MC
- EXTREMELY dense MC
- EXTREMELY frustrating MC
- Many many side characters

I seem to be in the minority when I say that this series is not the best thing ever. Don't get me wrong, ok. This series has a pretty great plot that does have a good depth to it. Most everything in this series is great. Most everything. This being said, I dropped this series for one reason.
And good christ. I can't emphasize this enough-

The main character is *UNBEARABLE.

The main character, Baam, is the Angelic type. This means that he is so goddamn selfless that he would rather suffer for his friends than be happy. While this isn't the worst personality trait, Baam takes it to the EXTREME. Every single time he needs to make a decision, he always puts his friends first. Again, while this isn't necessarily bad, Baam is just quite frankly annoying about it. And what makes this worse is that his illogical though patterns don't ever go wrong. He's even more OP than Kirito and he's just so annoying and so much of a cry baby. He is the type that I hate.

Most of his friends around him are pretty great however. I personally enjoyed most of the side characters.

* But even if you hate the Angelic character, you will still enjoy a certain part of the manga. Here's why if you want to know: .

... Last updated on October 15th, 2017, 7:12pm

ToG is the best webtoon i have ever read, even though it started a bit boring and at one point I was even thinking of dropping it ... but ToG got better and better! I love all the characters, especially Baam/Viole, because he really is loveable and has an interesting background. The art is also really beautiful, I can't get enough of it ^^

This webtoon is one of the most overrated series that I have ever read. Since people kept praising it decades ago I decided to give it a go, and turned out to be a big disappointment.

Premise seemed good at the beginning, you are just nobody whose background was shrouded in mystery and get plunged into the world of darkness without anything, you met someone who taught you about life, then said person had gone to climb a tower, and you proceed to follow that person.

When I was reading it the first time, I thought this series is one of those survival horror series where you were taken to this random place and you have to survive, else you will die and the plot will revolve around investigating the mystery of the place, and deep dive into the system you were forced to partake in. However, none of that happened at all. What I actually get, is a generic subpar shounen series that was initially masked as a more darker survival genre. The author used the mystery of the tower initially as a box of mystery/carrot dangling around in front of you as a reader to keep reading, however since the ascendancy of "rachel" character, the carrot turned from mystery of the tower, to confronting her instead. There's a lot of stuff we don't know, and about 200+ chapters in, the author doesn't even explain anything about the tower and kept putting new stuff and billion new characters I don't give a damn about, to add more confusions.

The lore doesn't seem believable to me as a reader, what is this place? a country? mega structure? is this the whole planet that shaped like tower? or just big building out of nowhere? how can it take YEARS to go from different floors? don't they have an elevator? why do they devise random games like rugby games for example? if the premise is to sus out the irregular, or strong players whose existence will bring about chaos to the status quo of the tower, wouldn't it make sense to have a plain fighting tournament instead of complicated nonsensical games like hide and seek for example. It really breaks the immersion once you as a reader, have to concentrate about how the rules being set up and how these characters have to follow/break the rules, instead of just focusing on the actual storyline.

Every tournament/games seemed to follow the same pattern: you have your set characters, and the author throwing in bunch of new characters out of nowhere, and there's always a "set up" to where your character trying to follow the rules, then finding out they are already being set up by the administrator / whoever set up the game in the first place. It is amusing to me, that almost every characters are still alive, despite the fact that literally the people in power want you and your party member dead and it reeks of plot armor to me. The same thing like the fact that this Rachel character that has been kept dangling around in front of me, still alive after all that ordeal. When you think the tournament is over, there's always a new "set up" / trap waiting to be unfold and it is really comical at this point. You can't have a simple tournament/game without any of that crap, it feels like the author is putting new trap in every games to the point that it devoid mystery anymore. There's a lot of conversation that have nothing to do with plot progression and rather talking about the rule of the games to the point that I got bored reading it and just want the plot to move on.

The main character is also unbelievably naive, and lack of character development even after all that backstabbing he went through. His attitude of trying to save everyone while putting everyone else in jeopardy is just repulsive to me. On top of that, he did manage to save everyone (so far as I read) because of plot armor. Too much side characters. Instead of focusing on his initial groups, the author kept adding a lot of characters even more than one piece for example Luffy has like 8-10 crews tops. In here you have more than that and they don't have any substantial background and just more body to be put in the story to overly complicate the plot without adding more subtance.

In summary, the first arc was decent, it follows the survival mystery genre, then it devolved into generic shounen trash. Not that I hate shounen, I do like shounen, but this series doesn't know how to make a good shounen series. It tries to be survival genre and shounen at the same time and it falls flat. I am dropping this series and so should you.

... Last updated on April 19th, 2024, 8:25pm

Rating is around near the end of Season 2 (280 chapters in), it would have been a 7/10. But Fuck Rachel.

Now I'm gonna add this a disclaimer and say these are all my opinion, you are free to disagree so we will all just be free to disagree. I'm writing this on my own, not speaking on behalf of anyone.

Art: 10/10 (Season 1 is not any means great but it does get better in Season 2. Likewise the world seems very more interesting visually after Season 1. Character designs are kinda hit or miss but nothing that is off-putting imo. Plus points atleast for keeping the visual interest and development of time through casts changing their clothes. And also, you get a considerably diverse enough set to differentiate each)

Characters: 6/10 (Too many and no big character developments. If you want a more character-driven story with growth, this may not be for you. I would say some are interesting even if many of them seem like walking tropes. Would've been nice to have more interactions and emotional growth of the characters)

Writing: 4/10 (it relies on a lot of foreshadowing then dragging on for so long you forget why you should care about now. Too many questions. Not much answered. Suffers from too much sometimes. Dialogues are not interesting, character interactions are same-y/awkward. You get only 1 out of 5 interesting dialogues/interactions post season 1. Has confusing moments) A lot of exposition due to worldbuilding. I do not know what is the purpose of a lot of things at this point.

Khun Aguero Agnes- 10/10. This is my only regret in putting down this comic for a while til it gets completed. I have some problems with how he is handled at times but he's consistently what makes this comic enjoyable for me. He needs better character development outside of being with Bam tho 🙁

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I like:

-The art: the art gets better. They have nice details, the backgrounds give a feeling of vastness and interest past season 2. The areas in the 20th floor giving us a nice view that there is some resemblance of living outside tests and the test places are nice. The tower looks pretty empty for the 1st season so it wasn't as interesting. Almost everyone looks sick in season 2.

If anything, the author really improved the worldbuilding aspects in the second season. Since it's a fantasy story, it makes for an immersive read. And in my opinion, it is one of the interesting things in the whole webcomic because we don't know much about the Tower. There are some lore bits in the author's blogs that are nice finds as well.

-Imo, the morally gray characters or atleast the morality. While it's still the subject of heated debate, it's still a fairly refreshing take on most stories since the MC and the character's aren't inherently evil or good. So it's not something sugarcoated for the most part and there are consequences for the actions for most part.

I'd explore more about our MC Bam later on but sadly from this point onwards, i dont have much to give him..

The series also gets a plus point to me atleast for not sexualising the female characters so I'm gonna give the author that. It's not something unique but credit is where credit is due.

What I don't like:

-The pacing. God the pacing. There are a lot of subplots, some enjoyable, some not, some absolutely unnecessary. Not necessarily bad because it gives some breath between chapters but there are lots of times that'll make you think "What was it all for?".

I think the author does indeed planned it out due to some foreshadowing elements but see this: the readers don't get to see
the plot about the main two (Bam and Rachel) move for the most part. It took more or less 150 chapters for them to meet u. Just as we thought the MC will leave her alone, the girl baits him yet again to chase her because she knows his past. If you were to cut out a lot of the chapters in season 2 and combine those, you'll get a very short compilation. We do not get info about Bam's origins until 200 chapters in after season 1. And now we're on the 3rd season, still no interactions between the two so I'm not waiting another season just for a few panels of MC being naive and Rachel doing crazy shit again so Bam would go after her

I think for the most part, it's enjoyable to see other characters since it's about tower climbing. However, the results of these long-awaited interactions of the main two are well, disappointing.

-Characters. They are a hit or miss. As much as I do like a lot of them and understand why they climb the tower, once you get a villain that has the same tragic backstory as every other else, it doesn't have the same effect.

Unfortunately, if you ever do like a character that is not Bam or Rachel, you would be disappointed about the treatment of the others in the later story as individual characters of their own. A whole lots.

My pet peeve would be characters that get hyped up a lot then turned into comic relief.(like Boro or Rak) The character's don't have very meaningful interactions save for a very few. And my biggest gripe is when characterization is sacrificed for plot reasons for smart characters like Karaka and Khun. Or when the characters just act as fodders to make some of the member's care for their death and thus need to avenge them.

And another thing that's more of disappointment rather than criticism is the lack of conflict between characters? Even if some characters do say things and such to MC, it doesn't really push through and there are times where someone might think the characters should have conflict (NHS station, Khun/others and Bam regarding Rachel, Bam's choices) but nothing much really changed. Aside from FUG.

The MC is yet another hit or miss. Oh boy. This is where the bag of worms come in. I do not absolutely recommend reading this work if you can't handle naive MCs. Our MC is understandably compared to that of a child as he's literally raised in a cave by the girl. I won't say he's too deep, I think he's almost inhuman.

He grows a bit in Season 2 but it's mostly wanting to save his friends because he's afraid of being alone. The problem I have with him is his moral compass which just changes...just cause' .It could be interesting concept but can make or break to certain readers. Like I said, he is a bit of a child so he is still exploring some concepts. He is still not the sharpest tool in the shed unfortunately and continuously refuses to learn from his mistakes.

-It is repetitive.
2nd season is just...full of this. Hostage here, hostage there, FUG here, FUG there. So if you are not fan of the MC being hellbent on saving every time a teammate is held hostage (plus points if it's a character who has no impact much in the story), this would be hard to read through. Power-ups one after another. I think it also suffers a bit of plot convenience/devices. Again, not entirely bad, just makes one go "Oh x item has this use for this very exact situation. What better way to showcase it than to use it exactly in that situation without telling the reader's beforehand about what it can do." And powerful characters showing up at the nick of time to save Bam.

-No much threats and Confusing at times. And lots of plot armor cause hey it's plot.

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IMO, It's a series better read as a whole after it's finished because the pacing is slow for the plot part. I wouldn't call it action. I'm not sure about the main genre but it does feel like shounen for the most part.

Just don't expect too much action in Season 1 and the fights imo are not comparable to stuff like One Piece, Naruto, where there are battles as there's more energy blasts exchanges. The dialogue is again nothing particular for a lot of part. It can get repetitive (look at hostage situation, MC attitude) with some few twists, some nice, some not, some meh.

I'm dropping it for a bit then pick it up maybe years later when it's finally done and maybe I'll reedit this. Overall, it's not something I would personally suggest if you're not into worldbuilding and not too fleshed out characters. My suggestion however, is to give atleast season 1 and some of Season 2's arcs a try first to see if you like it or nah. You may enjoy lots of things better than mme/

... Last updated on July 3rd, 2021, 11:14am

Seriously WTF just happened to this webtoon ? Starting from Workshop battle arc it seemed to have lost all it's charm...

what is the purpose fro Baam climbing the tower now to chase after Rachel to confront Rachel and then do what Musings of Naruto chasing after Sasuke written all over it....

Shame because i thought this Webtoon really had potential, but the author completely took the wrong turn starting from that workshop battle arc which was hyped up so big but failed at everything....now we are left with too many useless characters who serve no purpose, Lame MC who has no purpose and Plot that could have been an epic grand scale adventure turned into obsessive and Voyeuristic attempt to cling onto something