Tower of God: Turtles Everywhere

[Lethologica]

What do you desire? Dynamic fight scenes? Intrigue and betrayal? Magic and mystery? Romance? Or something that transcends them all? Whatever you desire—it's definitely there...in the Tower of God.

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Gosh, has it really been seven years since Baam ran headlong at a giant eel? What a dope.

[halfeye]

Looked at it, didn't like it, having to scroll down and down and down is annoying.

[ImperatorV]

Been a big fan of ToG for a few years, the plotlines and games are great, it does suffer from some cast bloat though. The art starts weak and later becomes awesome.

Not a huge fan of the current arc, but then again it's just getting started and I was also disappointed in the Hell Train arc when it first got going, but once we got into Hoaquin and Boro's former team's backstories and the running battles against team White it turned into my favorite arc period. So maybe SIU will surprise me again with this floor.

[Kantaki]

Just started reading.

Interesting so far.

Mr. Crocodile is Comedy Gold.

[Ibrinar]

Sadly the character who likes to call everyone turtle has been relegated to unimportance for quite a while. (Some people say because he is harder to draw but that is just comment section chatter don't have an official quote.)

Looked at it, didn't like it, having to scroll down and down and down is annoying.

Heretic! That is the only proper way to read comics with multi page chapters! I even use an script to get manga in that format, switching pages is far more annoying any introduces slight load times on many sites.

[Lethologica]

Depends on what's loading. Trying to read Kubera on LINE with the fan translation got too annoying because the overlay slowed down the page so much.

It's not like LINE is the only place to find Tower of God, though. *cough* Other sources have pagination.

[Cluedrew]

Wow, I'm not sure I will pick this one back up, but if you want to read a story about possibly the most heroic hero ever, try Tower of God.

Are the new translations good? All the good translations of it I knew of disappeared during Naver's (?) purge, at the end of the workshop arc.

[ImperatorV]

Wow, I'm not sure I will pick this one back up, but if you want to read a story about possibly the most heroic hero ever, try Tower of God.

Are the new translations good? All the good translations of it I knew of disappeared during Naver's (?) purge, at the end of the workshop arc.

The official translation can be wonky. And inconsistent with how names are spelled. The first bit gets better over time, the second doesn't.

[Anteros]

The translation on the webtoons site I use seems fine. At least I haven't noticed any drop in quality. It is definitely one of my favorite webcomics, although I admit that I liked the earlier arcs a bit better than the current stuff.

If nothing else, the art is amazing. It always cracks me up when you have webcomic creators saying they can't draw fast enough to keep their update schedule, but then you look at things like ToG which release 10X the content every week, and it's better drawn anyway. It just shows the difference in work ethic some people have.

[Knaight]

If nothing else, the art is amazing. It always cracks me up when you have webcomic creators saying they can't draw fast enough to keep their update schedule, but then you look at things like ToG which release 10X the content every week, and it's better drawn anyway. It just shows the difference in work ethic some people have.

I'm pretty sure that ToG is made professionally by a team of people, and distribution and the like are handled by another group of people. That has implications on output compared to a comic made by someone with a job outside of the comic, or by a comic made by someone who is handling the whole business of having a webcomic.

[Anteros]

I'm pretty sure that ToG is made professionally by a team of people, and distribution and the like are handled by another group of people. That has implications on output compared to a comic made by someone with a job outside of the comic, or by a comic made by someone who is handling the whole business of having a webcomic.

Where did you get that idea? Everything I've ever seen says it is written and drawn by one Korean guy. I used to read his (fan translated) blog posts sometimes and there was never any mention of a team there either.

There's a team that translates them and releases the comic in English, but that doesn't have anything to do with the amount of content SUI pushes out.

[Lethologica]

Yes and no. SIU does all the work of making the comic, as far as I know. On the other hand, Naver's relationship with ToG and other sponsored webtoons is a little like being published in a manga magazine, so SIU can take advantage of Naver's general marketing efforts and such. He probably didn't have to develop the ToG mobile game or the ToG figurines, for example, and he doesn't have to buy his own ads (or sell ad space, for that matter). So there's a valid point to be made about webcomic authors having to spend more of their time on the business/technical side, pushing Kickstarters and putting together merchandise and so on.

It's still really remarkable that SIU can put out quality art at the rate he does, though.

[Knaight]

Yes and no. SIU does all the work of making the comic, as far as I know. On the other hand, Naver's relationship with ToG and other sponsored webtoons is a little like being published in a manga magazine, so SIU can take advantage of Naver's general marketing efforts and such. He probably didn't have to develop the ToG mobile game or the ToG figurines, for example, and he doesn't have to buy his own ads (or sell ad space, for that matter). So there's a valid point to be made about webcomic authors having to spend more of their time on the business/technical side, pushing Kickstarters and putting together merchandise and so on.

It's still really remarkable that SIU can put out quality art at the rate he does, though.

I'm not saying it's unimpressive, just that the comparison to more standard webcomic authors is all sorts of iffy.

[Anteros]

I'm not saying it's unimpressive, just that the comparison to more standard webcomic authors is all sorts of iffy.

What's iffy about it? I was talking about the ones who regularly claim they can't keep up with the art output, yet you have people outputting 10X as much at a higher quality.

I really doubt uploading the pages to their site or advertising is taking up the time difference.

[Cluedrew]

To Anteros: How about a full time job? A lot of webcomic artists actually do it for fun and don't make enough money to live off of off their comics. If they make any money at all. Not that it applies to every complaining artist, but there are definitely some.

[Zalabim]

SIU definitely has one or more art assistants. It came up in the author's blog when I was re-reading ToG, and I'd heard about them in some Naver-related news a while ago too. SIU did not always have assistants though. It still feels like a fairly recent addition, to me.

[Fri]

What's iffy about it? I was talking about the ones who regularly claim they can't keep up with the art output, yet you have people outputting 10X as much at a higher quality.

I really doubt uploading the pages to their site or advertising is taking up the time difference.

Lots of big name Naver webtoon authors are professional comic author comparable with manga artist in japan, with drawing webtoon as their day job.

Most webcomic authors are amateurs that draw webcomic in their spare time and has to do other jobs or studies to survive.

Basically, pro manga artist are employed by an actual company, and they have actual deadlines and such, but in exchange, they got actual salary, support, and all the things you'd expect from an office worker.

It's as simple as that.

[Anteros]

Lots of big name Naver webtoon authors are professional comic author comparable with manga artist in japan, with drawing webtoon as their day job.

Most webcomic authors are amateurs that draw webcomic in their spare time and has to do other jobs or studies to survive.

Basically, pro manga artist are employed by an actual company, and they have actual deadlines and such, but in exchange, they got actual salary, support, and all the things you'd expect from an office worker.

It's as simple as that.

Most of the artists I was referring to (Erfworld, Goblins, etc) the comic is their job. Obviously if they have another job and the comic is a side project it's a whole different thing.

SIU definitely has one or more art assistants. It came up in the author's blog when I was re-reading ToG, and I'd heard about them in some Naver-related news a while ago too. SIU did not always have assistants though. It still feels like a fairly recent addition, to me.

Interesting. I hadn't heard he acquired any assistants, and I didn't see anything when I searched either. I haven't been keeping up with the blog lately though.

[Fri]

Most of the artists I was referring to (Erfworld, Goblins, etc) the comic is their job. Obviously if they have another job and the comic is a side project it's a whole different thing.

Salary, man. Pro manga artists in japan or korea are actually employed by a company, and get paid per month/week depending on the amount of pages they churn. It's no difference than office job there, only even worse for your back and you do it at home. IIRC for pro manga artist in japan they're actually paid per page (which the magazines and mangaka would discuss the rates first in their contracts and so on) so depending on your contracts, you might get paid say 100 bucks per page and you have to send them a 12 page chapter per week, and so on (Discounting royalties).

Most webcomics, eventhough it's their daily job, it's basically freelancing. I'm not saying you can skimp out while you're freelancing, but it's definitely different culture, payment, responsibilities, and so on. It's like difference between being novelist who got paid only from royalty, and a magazine author who's employed and have to provide an article a week for the magazine BUT get paid monthly by the magazine as long as the magazine get published.

Edit:

I feel bad for keep distracting the subject, so I just want to affirm that yes, I can say that tower of god is one of the best, if not the best webtoon out there.

[Anteros]

I feel bad for keep distracting the subject, so I just want to affirm that yes, I can say that tower of god is one of the best, if not the best webtoon out there.

It really is one of the best. There's not really much contest. What else is there? Kubera is the only other Webtoon I can think of that's even in the same ballpark of quality.

[Fri]

I can think some others that I like as much or more, but not an epic fantasy.

[Knaight]

I only read it because of this thread, and while I'm not caught up and thus can't give a conclusive review I've found it pretty mediocre. The art is rock solid, and it's pretty clear that some of the mediocrity comes from the translation being pretty terrible, but the whole concept and the characters just haven't b een up to par.

[Zalabim]

It ebbs and surges in parts, but if you don't like what you're reading in, let's say the first one or two dozen chapters, it's probably just not your kind of story. It has some wonderful climactic points if you like the story though. We're right on the precipice of another cliffhanger this week, in fact.

"I have to read this comic."

[Lethologica]

There's a common feeling I get from this genre of manhwa. Tower of God, Magician, Id, Kubera, City of Dead Sorcerer were all like this for me. (Some that weren't: Veritas, The Breaker, The Gamer, DICE.) That is: they're dedicated to withholding exposition for as long as possible. I get drawn in by the hint-dropping from the shadows, and then grow increasingly frustrated when the context never steps out of the shadows to reveal itself properly. It's sort of the flip side of how many long-running shounen manga repeatedly establish an arc context, resolve it, and then reveal that there was a bigger deeper arc underlying everything all along.

I'd probably still read all of them if I were organized enough to keep track of all the updates, but as it is, I'm pretty much just sitting on ToG out of the lot. (Okay, so Veritas ended, and The Breaker and Kubera are on hiatus, and I don't want to read The Gamer anymore...fine, I'd be reading half of them if I were more organized. Meh.)

[Ibrinar]

Anyway my opinion on it:

The overarching story is imo a significant weakpoint in that it doesn't really has managed to make me care about it, partly because what the story is about is still vague. Sure he follows Rachel a bit, he climbs the tower and will sooner or later become op if he is not defeated, and of course there is the stuff about the ruler family and why he lived in some hole. But the last two are just open question keeping them open forever is not enough to maintain my interest in them. I don't care about anything about Rachel and the climbing part is just standard battle manga stuff.

I like the main duo though and I liked them as trio too. The fights are entertaining. The settings allows for very varied localities though I would be probably be more interested in the overall setting if I had a better picture of the overall world.

[Olinser]

As you can see from my long standing avatar, I have been a fan of Tower of God for a long time :P

I'm still waiting to see what happens when they finally figure out that NOBODY has ever reached the top of the Tower. I'm still convinced that the whole thing with Baam is that he, for some unknown to us reason, can get past the current top level.

My personal pet theory is that

Spoiler: undefined

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When Zahard made his deal with the tower for immortality he also demanded that nobody be allowed to climb higher than himself. So when he stopped on 134 that meant the Guardian simply will not give the test to anybody - even Irregulars.

So they need Baam to kill Zahard for anybody to climb higher in the tower.

[Anteros]

The overarching plot definitely drags quite a bit. I started reading fairly early when I was under the impression that the plot would actually develop, and now I'm too invested to quit.

It does move a little bit sometimes, but I certainly understand the frustration with withholding information. Personally I feel like the art, and the characters make up for the slow pace, and the update speed helps as well, but I understand it's not for everyone.

[Olinser]

The overarching plot definitely drags quite a bit. I started reading fairly early when I was under the impression that the plot would actually develop, and now I'm too invested to quit.

It does move a little bit sometimes, but I certainly understand the frustration with withholding information. Personally I feel like the art, and the characters make up for the slow pace, and the update speed helps as well, but I understand it's not for everyone.

Well there's some withholding information, but a lot of background information and further information on a lot of characters can be found on the author's blog (which has been translated).

For instance, that's where you can find out the designations of all 12 month series weapons, Zahard's contractual immortality with the Tower, the fact that Rachel

Spoiler

Show

actually IS an Irregular, but that she 'cheated' because she didn't open the door herself but went through after Baam opened it

,

or the fact that the top of the Tower

Spoiler: undefined

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is actually only the 134th Floor, that there ARE more levels above it, and that nobody has gone further up.

[Fri]

I actually understand the problem on why most manhwa feels like second rate compared to manga, eventhough technically, the art, the premise, or the story is in par.

It's the lack of editor. It's very noticeable. Even non-webtoon that's published in print magazine and not needing prolonging chapters. It's why a lot of manhwa with good premise feels like they're meandering, wasting time on unimportant plot, having action scenes that just feel prolonging the story, etc. Japan is experienced with sequential art already for almost a century, and they have a lot of experienced editors. Other countries that started doing comic in the same feel, haven't got any experience editing them yet.

[Rynjin]

I actually understand the problem on why most manhwa feels like second rate compared to manga, eventhough technically, the art, the premise, or the story is in par.

It's the lack of editor. It's very noticeable. Even non-webtoon that's published in print magazine and not needing prolonging chapters. It's why a lot of manhwa with good premise feels like they're meandering, wasting time on unimportant plot, having action scenes that just feel prolonging the story, etc. Japan is experienced with sequential art already for almost a century, and they have a lot of experienced editors. Other countries that started doing comic in the same feel, haven't got any experience editing them yet.

"Having editors" is both a boon and a bane. Editors meddling with creative control has been a long standing problem in both western comics and Japanese manga. It's at least partially responsible for the rapid decline into suckage Bleach undertook as an easy example (editors pushed for Kubo to take the series in a direction he did not want to, and as a result we got the Soul Society arc. Then we got the Soul Society arc again. And again.).

For every success story of an editor improving the story with this kind of relationship (Toriyama's editor pushing the Cell saga, for example. 19 and 20 were supposed to be the main villains, editor didn't like them, we got 17 and 18, he didn't like them, we got Cell, editor suggested he transform like Frieza so we got Semi-Perfect Cell, he hated the design of Semi-Perfect so we got the final Perfect Cell) you get two stories of it not turning out nearly as well (from the same manga, similar meddling during the Buu arc is what made that arc kind of a slog overall).

So while the raw technical side may suffer a midge from lack of experienced editors, we can at least be certain that what we're seeing is the artist's true vision without outside influence or pressure to change the story. For better or worse.

On the subject of Tower of God specifically, I was actually thinking about making a thread myself about a week ago (I went looking for one and didn't find it). I caught up to the current chapter several months back (Bam was just beginning to fight Hoaquin as I recall, and Khun was trolling Rachel) but stopped. Need to catch back up again.

Agreed that not nearly enough Rak is in the more recent chapters, and when he IS there he doesn't accomplish anything. I did find my interest waning after newer, edgier Bam first appeared and I don't really take a shine to any of the new cast. I don't DISLIKE them, but the Baam/Khun/Rak trio was awesome and needs to come back to center view.