Tower of God Ep.10 – Moving On

I was right, Bam’s design really looks best with some red in it! See what I mean! It brings out his features and adds some interest to the characters. Not to mention that it really underlines that he is the Red Oni to Kuhn Blue Oni. What’s that you say? Rak is the red oni? Puhlease…

When I first noted Bam’s costume change a few episodes ago, I went on and on about the lack of red and I think I promised to stop talking about it…ooops. But ‘cmon!!! He looks way better with red!

Here’s something I never thought I would say at the beginning of this series. Now really, if you told me back in episode 3 of Tower of God that I would say this some day, I would have called you a dirty liar. But only in my head. I’m not very confrontational. Still here we are and I’m saying it. Way to subvert my expectations, show! I missed Rak. I was honestly happy to see him reunited with Kuhn and Bam and back in the main story line and his presence was welcomed.

It’s sort of a great sign when a series can make you miss a character without forcing a sob background story down your throat or something. Rak is a barely established character with a few strong but simple characterizations and hardly what I would generally call compelling and complex character building. And yet he brings so much to the story and his actions hold way more meaning than they should. At some point Tower of God managed to build an actual character out of an archetype caricature and I didn’t even notice. Smoooth!

One thing I did always know I was going to say is: I miss Yuri! I have wanted to see more of her since episode 1 and the series just keeps teasing us with her presence but never actually giving us a proper view. This time her equally fascinating team were just milling around as she sat on a huge dragon of some sort. It was such a fascinating scene with hardly any context and no explanation at all. Now I want to see her even more..so mean!

This is neither here nor there but have you noticed how often people sit on each other in this show. It’s such a specific mannerism that’s never acknowledged and I love it. This week Rak and Kuhn inverted their traditional roles since Rak is smaller, now.

The episode itself was pretty straightforward. In the aftermath of last weeks events, the remaining participants pull themselves back together and contemplate the future while waiting for the placement exam results. The decide to have a funeral and wake for Ho and think about what comes next. Some decide to leave of their on volition, other’s fail and the group is whittled down to the best and most perseverant.

Oh, we also find out that the Tower has alcohol. Maybe we already knew that. We know it for sure now! And I personally found out that drunken Hatz is my spirit animal. If ever I get Isekaied I desperately want to get drunk with Hatz. I do not want to climb the Tower though so he’ll have to meet me. Maybe Hatz can get Isekaied instead. I keep writing Tower of God fanfiction instead of reviewing it. I’m sorry guys.

The first half of the episode was a nice return to form as far as I’m concerned. It gave closure to the previous arc and set up the next one while giving all the characters a nice little breather and a chance to enjoy themselves while shining a little.

And then the last half of the episode brought the tension right back up. Have I mentioned that Tower of God has some of the best pacing in recent memory?

For the entire episode, Rak has been going on about how the “slow turtle”, the other spear bearer who passed the first test, just disappeared. He is rather distraught about it but no one pays much attention to him because… well he’s Rak. The rest of the contestants do think about it a little but give up soon enough as no one seems to know anything about the guy. But I’m thinking this is going to turn into some important foreshadowing. I’m just not entirely sure of what.

However, it may be tied into what happened with Yuga, or should I say Lo Po Bia Ren. I actually remembered that! I had to look up the name Yuga though. So apparently the cute little wave controller instructor was in fact a spy or some sort. He was sent by the Royal Enforcement Division (?) to retrieve Black March and Green April and get rid of Anak.

So far so good. We know the 13 month swords are extremely powerful weapons and whoever is in charge does not want them just floating around as it could upset the balance. We also know that Anak is a problem. She only exists because her mother broke the rules and it stands to reason that Jahad would like her to not exist anymore. All of this is in line with everything we know.

So why exactly did Lo Po have to threaten Yu Han Sung? Why didn’t they even tell the director what was going on? Is there some type of strife within the leadership of the Tower? My assumption would have been that if this Royal Enforcement Division had simply told the director that they were eliminating a participant and taking the swords, he would have had to obey. Or is this Royal Enforcement Division and the administrators two different and competing factions? Sure there has been some seeds of dissidence from Lero but that was mostly suspicions and frustrations. This looked more like an actual attack and it changes a lot of what I had assumed the hierarchical structure of the Tower to be.

But mostly, the scenes between Lo Po and Sung just served to tell me that Sung is pretty awesome. A far more interesting character than I thought and one to really keep my eye on. There are only two episodes left in the season so there’s not much time to keep said eye on it but it sort of reinvigorated my interest.

One finally but of exposition we got out of the episode is that there is an administrator test. In fact, that’s the test Jahad took that made him so powerful. But why is there such a test? Like who put that test together. It seems to only be available under very specific circumstances. Obviously there has to be an authority above Jahad to grant him the power after he took the test. Maybe not anymore but at least there was at the time. Right? Why is no one interested in that guy? I bet it’s the big eye of Sauron thing Bam keeps seeing.

Speaking of eyes, why does Rachel have cat eyes? She’s the only one that does. Oh I forgot to mention it. Rachel is in a wheelchair now just really driving home that damsel in distress trope and for some reason, convincing me more than ever that she is going to betray everyone. Well Bam at least.

Anyways, this was a great episode and I can’t wait to see the next one.