Tower of God is a masterclass of world building

When I learned that part of Solo Leveling’s journey as a multi-media entity was being a manhwa, that brought me back to one of my only manhwa experiences, Tower of God. Which was also an amazing read.

(I was also curious if it had also ever gotten an animated adaptation. Yup. Five years ago. lol)

No matter what you seek, wealth or power or transcendence, you will find it at the top of the Tower of God. Every floor requires an increasingly difficult tests to ascend to the next floor. The series depicts a vast and diverse cast in their efforts to climb the tower.

I’m not really planning on spoiling anything but…

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The real star of Tower of God is the titular tower itself. It is the mutant offspring of the TARDIS and Castle Ghormangast on steroids. The number of floors is unknown and each one is the size of a continent. The author has said there are civilizations that don’t even know they are in the tower. 

Instead of air, the tower has something called shinsu, which is also like magic or psi energy or the force. The higher you go, the denser it becomes, making deadly for normal people. And you have to make a contract with the deity-like administrators of each floor to manipulate shinsu.

So, every floor is like its own world and it gets more dangerous and more magical the higher you go.

While there is a protagonist (Twenty-Fifth Baam), the cast is sprawling and characters come and go. Sometimes character die and sometimes they just leave the story that we see for a while. They all have their own motivations and schemes and they form a fascinating tangle.

I would have to go back and reread Tower of God, which is now much longer compared to when I read it, to try and summarize the story. Particularly after the first arc, the Floor of Tests, because after that, the cast and the setting and plot explode. 

The overall plot is a ‘Chosen One’ story but there is a lot going on. The fact that the plot doesn’t strangle itself is a wonders

I’ve also read that the manhwa has periodically gone on hiatus due to the author’s health issues (which I have no idea what those are) That makes me wonder if we will ever see the end of the vast story of Tower of God. Heck, the site I was able to read an English translation is gone.

But it is an impressive work no matter what.

Beyond Bloom explores the low fantasy space

During one of my innumerable trips down rabbit holes on TV Tropes, I found out about a web comic called Beyond Bloom, a low fantasy about two flowers who have become people.

Beyond Bloom seems to be an obscure webcomic so I figured I’d do my small part to spread the word.

Beyond Bloom begins when a nice young man named Yokiro encounters Tatsuma and Sikue, two magical girls who are actually evolved flowers with magical powers. Tatsumi is poisonous and Sikue is the antidote. He decides to wander around the wilderness with them.

If there is one thing I would say that about Beyond Bloom is how cozy and small it feels, at least in the six chapters that we have so far. Our protagonists aren’t in any crazy epic quest. Magic and other supernatural stuff is rare to the point of almost not existing. All the supernatural stuff seems to have been created by the same person.

When Beyond Bloom says it is low fantasy, it commits to it.  There’s clearly a lot more going on (a dragon shows up at one pout!) but it is taking its time to get there. It’s like the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring where it’s just the hobbits leaving the shire.

And the characters are genuinely sweet. Yokiro and Sikue are both adorable. Tatsuma has a temper and can be a jerk but does care deep down. I have a feeling that if Beyond Bloom gets mainstream, she’ll be the most popular character.

I’ve discovered a lot of media via TV Tropes and Beyond Bloom is a fun addition to that list. Reading it has been a pleasant journey with characters who I want to follow.

https://beyondbloom.webcomic.ws/bookarchive/

TV Tropes got me to read another webcomic

 Looking up a visual reference about poor handwriting on TV Tropes has led me to archive binging a webcomic called Sleepless Domain. Which is how TV Tropes works. I end up reading new series of books by clicking on random media and then I see something I want to follow up on.

It’s been a while since I’ve tried a new webcomic though. If Sleepless Domain reliably updates, I do intend to add it to my regulars. I’m halfway through the archive and still having fun.

Sleepless Domain is a relatively gentle deconstruction of the Magic Girl genre. While it clearly has the potential to get dark and serious, Rick Veitch’s Brat Pack is my benchmark for dark and edgy deconstructions so I’m holding to calling this gentle.

Okay, spoiler time 

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Sleepless Domain takes place in a nameless city that is protected from a seemingly endless nightmarish monsters by some kind of force field and magic girls. The city is so isolated that it may be the last human stronghold in the world and yet it resembles a modern city. (I actually wonder if the pre-monster world was incredibly advanced and this represents a setting of scarcity)

And when I say magic girls, I mean straight up Sailor Moon style magic girls. Well, to the best of my knowledge since all I know about Sailor Moon comes from pop culture osmos. Teenage girls turn into super powered versions of themselves, complete with costumes. They are even called magic girls in the story.

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Okay, after we get introduced to a team of magic girls, most of them get killed in the second chapter. The apparent protagonist loses her powers saving the last member of the team, water-powered Undine.

Basically, as far as my pool of references is concerned, it was like Applejack, Rarity, Pinky Pie and Rainbow Dash got killed, Twilight Sparkle lost all her powers and Fluttershy is the only one left to figure out what to do next.

Wait? Does that mean My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic Girl show? If that’s the case, I know a lot more about the magic girl genre than I thought.

On the one hand, Sleepless Domain makes it very clear that the magic girls are child soldiers. The setting does seem to justify it because powers go away when you reach adulthood so the city needs middle schoolers to fight the monsters. But they are still child soldiers and they clearly do die.

On the other hand, Undine really is like Fluttershy. Despite being extremely self-depreciating (even before the survivor guilt), she is also incredibly sweet and always wants to help people. There is definitely a hopeful vibe running through the story. Of course, this will make the inevitable bad stuff more painful.

There are a lot of questions clearly ahead. How do the magic girls get created? What is the apparently the evil being who killed Undine’s friends and what is their relationship to Undine? Will Undine and Heartful Punch fall in love? (Sleepless Domain is very LGBTQ friendly which I like) 

The setting and the plot and character development are all good enough to keep me reading.

https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/

When Footloose isn't a movie from the 80s

Recently, after I realized that now that I am a father, Kevin Bacon is actually the bad guy in Footloose, I discovered the webcomic Footloose, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. 

 

Footloose follows Keti Jones, who starts off in a version of the modern world where magic and werewolves and such are known to be real. She quickly ends up in a dojo in Fey, where things are a lot more complicated and magical. Picture Hogwartz in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign being run by a very laid back dungeon master.

One of the things that kept me interested in the comic is that, in Fey, the laws of genre are actual natural laws. Things will happen because like they would in the movies. More than that, Keti suffers from Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means she is always going to be pulled into the middle of situations.

At first, this is played purely for laughs and the series reads like a teen comedy with half-werewolves and grumpy mech. However, as the first story arc develops, things get very series and grim. We later learn that things were so goofy and silly at the start because her guardians were trying to keep her in the comedy genre to keep her safe.

The web comic also does very good job having a large cast of characters and spending time with character development and pretty much all of them. Even though some of the developments are very predictable, after all genre is natural law, it's still a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, I can't talk about a lot of the things that I've really enjoyed in Footloose because that would be spoiling too much. I will say that I had no problems archive binging my way through the series and the spinoff about Cherry, the transvestite magic 'girl'. 

Footloose has not become my new favorite web comic. However, it adds its way onto my regular meeting with and that's not as easy as it used to be.

http://www.footloosecomic.com