Tower of God

The first season of ToG was amazing. Twists, betrayals, and atypical characters were everywhere, and the season ending was a particular highlight.

But at some point early in season 2, something went wrong. The tone changed: a large proportion of the plots became predictable or boring or pointless, the author wrote far more characters than he could meaningfully sustain, etc.

All that said, ToG at its worst is better than many series at their best (e.g. Noblesse) - if that weren't the case, I would've stopped reading a long time ago. As is, I still habitually read each new weekly chapter as it's released, hoping for the brilliance of the first season, but this expectation is basically never met.

I wrote a very long tedious review about how good this manhwa is, and how it will improve over time. Sadly, that does not seem like it will happen.

People argue that season 2 is where things started declining. To be more precise, I think the first 40-50 chapters of the season 2 is super solid, in some ways better than season 1. The art is better and establishing a sense of mystery and foreboding was also quite well done.

That is... until the workshop battle. That's where things REALLY went downhill. It feels like the author transformed into a totally different person.

Possible reasons for the declining quality?
(1) author's habitual wrist problem, which apparently still needs surgery or some effective long-term treatment --> affects the coloring, art, and how many quality panels you can dedicate
(2) overall health --> less creative, less logical flows, bad dialogues, tendency to draw things out, etc. Being a comic writer is tough on one's health.
(3) stopped giving a damn --> hey it's a problem that many artists face. It's possible the author just stopped giving a damn.

Here are my tips to the author:
(1) take a long ass hiatus: no one gives a shit about this manhwa at this point
(2) work on improving health: meditation, proper sketching posture, exercise, diet, etc.
(3) improve on art, especially action scenes
(4) announce to publishers that the last 120 chapters was all part of a lame joke - a demonstration of what poor story writing is all about
(5) start a whole new workshop battle and actually make it good and logical OR take the story in a whole different route.

The most appealing aspect of tower of god is its world building. But it suffers in its execution and details. The first season was very good at the execution and details, and combining that in conjunction with a dedicated wiki page gave the series a sense of balance and mystery. I've been reading Tokyo Ghoul and I'm amazed by the level of sophisticated dialogues and plot building. But it still manages to establish that sense of macro-level big scale that leaves people wanting more.

This webtoon is amazing , SIU is genius , i finish reading and it is the best thing i've ever read , the story and the world , everything about it is so refreshing , the thing that surprises me the most is , there are characters that didn't make any appearance and yet the development they get is outstanding.

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 ^^

I couldn't agree more with Rennov.

A lot of people, after ToG became popular, started complaining that it's a rehash of fantasy elements seen in other mangas; I would argue that it, in actual fact, is not, but the logic which equates this irrevocably with a bad manga is beyond me anyway.

The author knows exactly where this story is going. He is not pulling tricks out of the hat or grabbing at straws to stretch this out. If you read the afterwords in season two you'll realise this, and also that there was no way he could have foreshadowed some things in the ways he did without knowing what was going to happen. The foreshadowing might be subtle, and it might be seen only by those who read the notes The Company attached to the end of each chapter to find out about the ToG universe, but it shows how truly, truly vast the universe is, and just how much the author knows what is happening, and will happen, in his story.

(I have only one last thing to add, and that is to those who say Baam is the standard protagonist who is kind to everyone: what have you to say over the workshop battle now, then? More specifically S2 Chapter 72?)

Tower of God doesn't have a single original or interesting idea in it. It's a RPG aspired story with a messianic main character with a million rehashed fantasy elements and dizzying amount of characters. It's the dollar grocery store fantasy paperback equivalent of manga/manhwa with mediocre writing and poor art. Reading this feels like playing a table top RPG with a novice Dungeon Master. The author clearly has a lot of ideas he wants to play with but he just doesn't have the skill to properly world build while being engaging at the same time. Maybe some can enjoy this series if this is first kind of RPG style fantasy you've encountered but by no means is this anything noteworthy.

The uncomfortable truth about Tower of God is that if it was a Japanese manga instead of one of the first popular korean webcomics, it wouldn't have nearly as much hype.

I've been read ToG since long time ago and I still conclude that this manhwa is top-class (even the season 2). Yet, even few (maybe a lot) people say the opposite. I'll just say, "this world is truly vast"...

I started to read this webtoon because of it's high popularity and high rating.. and people might strongly disagree with me, but I hated it.. the story was really boring, many characters appeared, and I couldn't stand it more.. even though I hated it, I forced myself to read more chapters, just because I wanted to see if the story might get at least better, but I was wrong.. it was really~~~~~~~~ boring, so I dropped it...

You nailed it - I have nothing to add but an agreement.
My biggest guess is that the author runned out of juice - not even a surprise since he's been keeping up pretty well before recent arcs. The biggest problem the author faces is that he has created too many important characters before they even appeared - now he doesn't know how to weave it all perfectly, thus the arcs drag like no other.

This manhwa is by no means a masterpiece. The art is only mediocre and the characters are rather shallow. There isn't a lot of back story given to the characters and many of the side characters appear to only exist for the sake of fulfilling a stereotype. The problem is there are so many characters being introduced with only a small fraction of them being explored at all. TOG also suffers from boring and stereotypical villains which lack depth. There has also be a slow downgrade in the story. It is becoming rather predictable and cliche. The redeeming point of the manhwa is the plot, which is new and refreshing.The concept of a tower that grants power to whoever can reach the top is an interesting idea, and finding out what is at the top of the tower is the draw of the manga. The main character, while cliche, has his own set of problems that make the plot even more interesting. Therefore, TOG is good but not great.

I thought I would give this story a try since everyone raves about how great it is. I read season 1. The main character is typical. The one thing that drives me nuts is how the story keeps imposing questions but so far hasn't given any answers. Also, the main characters obsession over lahel is really starting to get on my nerves. I think I would of enjoyed this manga more if I would of waited until it was completed before reading.

The rating doesn't lie, this is one of if not the best comic currently around (up there with Historie, Kingdom, and FMP Sigma)

I just started it yesterday and in one day finished to the current 170th chapter

What people said about world building is true, it's as detailed as Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei but in a far greater scale

This comic resembles Baccano with it's seemingly multiple protagonists and spanning over few years, without constrains like highschool and the like

The characters, there are a lot, i mean A LOT, maybe about a hundred recurring characters? But each and everyone of them has depth not like that crap Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon which you don't care anyone in it

You must read this epic thing

Btw, Koreans truly love their MMORPG

Also, ANDROSSI FTW