The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Tower of God: Workshop Battle

The Workshop Battle has begun and with it the battle for Bam's freedom—and perhaps even his soul. But can Khun and Wangnan's team of misfits overcome both Bam's original team and his new FUG-chosen team—especially when FUG and the Workshop seem to have plans of their own for the young slayer candidate?

Tower of God: Workshop Battle is based on the Korean comic series by SIU. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

Wait… didn't I just finish reviewing this show? Wasn't I free from watching it squander its source material with sub-par animation and poor pacing? Oh, Preview Guide, how you have wronged me!

Melodramatic joking aside, this episode does a lot right. It focuses most of its attention on Bam's original team, rather than Wangnan's or the FUG team. This is a good choice because we've already spent a good amount of time with those other groups in recent episodes. While they are still going strong, Bam's original team has somewhat lost the cohesion they had when Bam was around.

This is mainly because of Endorsi. Without Bam around to make her want to temper herself, she has started to give into her own ego—lying to her teammates to achieve her personal goals and seeing nothing wrong with that. Of course, the biggest problem is that her current goal is to take out Jue Viole Grace—unaware that it is actually Bam in disguise. However, it seems likely that she, along with everyone else, is actually being manipulated as well.

In this episode, Bam is separated from the FUG team. He ends up spending the entire episode in a shielded room, completely unaware of the game going on outside along with the consequences if he doesn't return soon. Yet, somehow Endorsi finds him. All this points to someone on the outside: someone who knows that Bam can't resist helping someone in need and someone who knows Endorsi would blindly rush to kill those who rebel against Jahad.

So, yeah. This is a pretty good episode until you start to think about the actual game we're presented with. I'm confused by the rules of this game, and I've watched the explanation five times already. The idea is that every one of the 1488 regulars in the area gets a gun with a special bullet. The first 248 to shoot someone with said bullet will be immediately transported away to where the main battle will take place. On the other hand, you can also flip a switch on your gun that will teleport your target to the main battle arena when shot instead of yourself. This is where the confusion comes in.

To unlock that second option, you have to use your first bullet to take out another regular. But if that action teleports you to the main battle arena, what does it matter if subsequent shots could be used on your allies? You're not there to fire it. Or is the idea that your gun remains after you're gone so your teammates can use it to teleport themselves by putting their bullets in the unlocked gun? Honestly, the fact that I don't fully understand the rules massively lowers the tension. I don't know what our heroes are aiming to do or what it would take for them to lose. Rather than being in the thick of things with them emotionally, I'm just kind of detached and hoping things work out.

So in the end, this isn't the worst Tower of God episode. In fact, it's better than average when it comes to much of last season. However, despite the good character work and mystery building, it's still got the same problems in how it tells the story, and I'm not sure this production team will ever overcome that flaw.