Anime Review - Tower of God Season 2 Episode 1-2 (2024)

Tower of God Season 1 surprised me, and I was excited to see where Season 2 would go. While I’m new to this show, the wait between Seasons 1 and 2 has been four years, so fans have been waiting a long time for the continuation. After watching the first two episodes, I’m more conflicted than anything else.

Right off the bat, this show is a huge downgrade compared to Season 1. Season 2 was animated by The Answer Studio instead of the original studio, Telecom Animation Film. The difference is night and day. While it does not look bad, and it is not poorly animated, it feels generic. It looks and feels like every other fantasy-like anime currently airing. Due to the shift in style, a lot of the show’s charm is lost.

The show picks up where Season 1 ends, then jumps an undisclosed amount of time forward and follows a new lead, Ja Wangnan. Ja can’t seem to get past the 20th floor of the tower and is in serious debt to a loan shark. He is given the opportunity to try and the tests again and make his way up the tower. If he fails, his organs will be sold to pay back his debt.

Ja Wangnan is somehow worse than the Season 1 protagonist, Bam. This might not be entirely true as we are only two episodes in, but based on first impressions, his loud and obnoxious attitude is annoying. While Bam was a bit one-note at the start, he was at least not annoying. Additionally, the rest of the side cast is nowhere near as likable as in Season 1.

Even the soft reset vibe of Season 2 is kind of frustrating. The ending of Season 1 left the narrative open to head in an interesting direction, but Season 2 completely shifts focus to this new lead. This shift leads the show to kind of stall its engine, needing to rebuild its momentum. However, it introduces some interesting ideas, such as the introduction of FUG. FUG is a criminal organization that aims to go after Zahard. We see this mainly through the character Viole, who is cold and calculated.

The ending of Episode 2 planted the seeds for the next episode that engaged me, but for most of the first 2 episodes, I wanted to know where Bam is, where Khun is, hell, where Rak is. The narrative change is just so off-putting, and I do hope that where this season starts connects nicely to the characters from Season 1 as the season continues.