Summary
Tower of God Season 2 is available onCrunchyroll, while the manhwa can be read on Naver’sWEBTOONplatform.
Tower of God season 2, episode 9 was an important point for the story as Ja Wangnan and the gang prepare themselves to head up to the Workshop Battle held on the 30th floor of the Tower. In this episode, we learn more about the soft-spoken Kang Horyang, with his backstory finally being revealed in what was the most compelling part of this season so far, and serves to set up a fated encounter between Khun Aguero Agnes and The Twenty-Fifth Bam’s new friends.
While animation quality has been this season’s bane, Kang Horyang’s story showedthe kind of strength in storytellingthat madeTower of Godso popular on Naver’s WEBTOON platform.
Khun Aguero’s Team Prepares to Go “Devil-Hunting”
A Case of Mistaken Identity Is About to Ensue
Picking up from where the last episode left off with Khun’s eerie conversation with the chatbot EMILE about Bam, Khun is interrupted from his daze by Ms Apple, who is trying to give him information about the"Devil of the Right Arm". A picture of him has been floating around on BOX, a popular networking site in the Tower, and it appears that he’s on the 28th floor. On the 28th floor, Ja Wangnan and the gang saw the same picture and thought that the man in the centre of the frame looks a lot like Kang Horyang, but Horyang knows who he is: Cassano Beniamino – his brother.
The Dark Origins of Kang Horyang
The Truth Behind His Powers Is Revealed
Cassano and Horyang were abandoned in the Middle Area as kids; a place where only Rankers from certain families are allowed to give birth. Cassano and Horyang were sold off to be test subjects at a Workshop facility. They have no qualms about using abandoned kids as test subjects to make powerful weapons. Horyang described living a life of relative happiness together with Cassano, another subject who was raised together with him as siblings.
By assimilating the devil into our left and right sides respectively, Cassano and I gained incredible strength and a mysterious madness that changed our bodies and minds.
– Kang Horyang
They were happy living to be under the care of a researcher at the facility who treated them like humans, andthe two became very attached to her, with Horyang describing her as their first love. She even gave them their names: Ilmar and Cassano Beniamino. Soon after, their nightmare began for real as they were turned into Ignition Weapons; weapons that have assimilated the Shinsu of a soul, making them the most powerful weapons.
These weapons were then made to assimilate with living humans, with half of a “devil” given to Cassano and the other to Ilmar. After they assimilated this weapon, their caretaker disappeared, and years of experiments later, they were transported somewhere. During this move, Ilmar saw Headon, the Chief Administrator of the Tower and when he awoke next, he found himself inside the Tower. The power enabled him to climb with minimal difficulty, but the guilt of using a power he gained through the sacrifice of others (99 999 others, to be exact) made him stop at the 20th floor; however, when he heard a rumor about someone who looked like him appearing on the 20th.
Despite using his left arm, this individual dubbed himself"the Devil of the Right Arm", meaning that Cassano came to find Ilmar in the Tower. Ja Wangnan and the others offer to accompany Ilmar when he goes to meet Cassano the following day. The backstory is the most compelling aspect ofTower of Godseason 2, and gives the group’s goal of participating in the Workshop Battle another layer of urgency.
You Are Like Me
Kang Horyang Asks Jue Viole Grace About the Origins of His Power
Later that night, after the group agreed to go with Horyang to find his brother, he stepped out for some air, waiting on Viole so they could speak one-on-one. Horyang asks about the “monster” he saw emerging from Viole as he regenerated during their first fight and during the battle against Urek Mazino. Wondering where he got that power and if it has anything to do with FUG, Horyang tries to get answers, but Viole doesn’t know anything about it either.
In an attempt to draw it out, Horyang engages Viole in battle, and the brief moment when he unleashed his right arm had a flash of genuinely beautiful animation, but the “fight” itself was sluggish and uninspired. Stopping short of hitting Viole when he saw that he wasn’t going to retaliate, Horyang begs Viole to tell him the truth because he thinks it has something to do with the Ignition Weapon experiment. If that’s where Viole got the power, it’s likely that more children survived the horrors of the Workshop.
All Viole knows is thatFUG were keeping a strange red lighthidden on one of the test floors and after submerging Viole in a Shinsu bath, the unidentified creature wound up inside his body. Hearing this, and knowing that Viole would never sacrifice another for power, Horyang gets ready to leave to meet Cassano by himself without telling the rest of the team. He tells Viole that he sees the team as his family before departing.
Elsewhere, Khun’s prepares to leave too, but Gyetang is sick, so Michael volunteers to take care of him. That leaves only Khun Aguero, Ran and Novick to do the mission while the rest stay behind. While the issue with the visuals that has plagued this season of Tower of God continues to be a major point of contention, the story itself, especially in episode 9 has been very interesting, compelling viewers to watch from week to week through grit teeth hoping that the major moments won’t lose the impact they had in the original manhwa.
Tower of God
Tower of God is an anime series based on the South Korean webtoon by SIU. It follows a young boy named Bam who embarks on a perilous journey to ascend a mysterious tower, where each floor presents unique challenges and tests. The tower promises to grant the deepest desires of those who reach its top. Along the way, Bam forms alliances and confronts adversaries while uncovering hidden truths about himself and the tower.
