Kami no Tou: Tower of God – 06

「ポジション分け」 (Pojishon wake)
“Position Selection”

As we near the halfway point with Tower of God, news came via Twitter this week that the animation on the series is completed. While that’s certainly welcome news (this show has been one of the great unknowns of the season, postponement-wise) it’s worth remembering that the animation being finished doesn’t mean that the episodes themselves are. There’s the matter of voice recording, and compositing, editing – any of which could potentially lead to a delay. Still, this is a bit of hopeful news in an anime season starved for it.

As for the show itself, after a couple of action-driven episodes this was very much a quiet week in Lake Woebegon. Given the shambles of the testing group in general, a break of several days had been declared. And even once that was over, rather than resume their test the group was sent into training instead. And at last the crucial concept of “positions” is introduced. These are the roles individual members will take in future team battles. Lero-ro doesn’t make it clear whether these assignments are based strictly on the individual’s natural proclivities with Nen Shinsu, or something else, but they aren’t offered as a matter of choice.

For Bam, the choice of Wave Controller (the rarest of all position assignments) is a fortuitous (though perhaps not coincidental) one, given that the instructor is two days late and it takes him an extra two days to awaken after his injuries. During this time Rachel pays a visit and asks Khun to tell Bam that she’s not Rachel at all. Khun is quite skeptical of this and of Rachel generally, and her answer – that she and Bam would only be weaknesses for each other in climbing the tower – doesn’t seem to convince him. But he does pass the lie along to Bam when he wakes, who for his part seems quite aware of the deception.

Another new concept – contracts. As Bam learns, one must be made with the guardian of that floor of the tower in order to be able to manipulate Shinsu. This proves a rather exhausting encounter for him, but Bam does manage. He’s been befriended by the kindly Hoh (Shioya Fumiyoshi), a fellow wave controller who seems concerned for Bam’s ability to keep up, but the youngster soon begins to surpass him in the training. Meanwhile the others are engaged in their own training sessions – Rak as a Spear Bearer, Khun as a Light Bearer. And Shibisu and Hatz are both Scouts, whose training including gathering ten friends (something Hatz especially finds rather difficult).

Ranking among the Fishermen are Anak and the “imposter” girl, whose name we finally hear uttered – Endorsi. These two only have eyes for each other – their fellow aspirants are of little interest (or threat). The matter of these Jahad princesses (who Laure refers to as “troublesome women”, which Endorsi doesn’t refute) is obviously rather complicated – involving the ruler of the tower and the various noble families – but it’s clear Endorsi considers Anak an outsider. And soon it becomes clear why – Anak is the orphaned daughter of a slain princess, and Endorsi refers to her as her “niece”. Anak professes to be driven by revenge for what happened to her parents – and Endorsi is at the top of her list.

A bit of housekeeping may be in order here, as regards proper names in Kami no Tou. As with Kingdom, we have an additional layer of complexity on top of the usual matter of inconsistent Romanization (with Korean it’s even more inconsistent) – in this instance, all these people and places have Korean as well as Japanese readings of their names. Names are passed through Korean to Japanese to English, at each stage being tweaked to account for localized pronunciation. As such you may variously see Anak referred to as a princess of “Jahad”, “Zahad”, or even “Zahard”. For my part I’m going with the official anime translations (not just for the princesses but names like Shibisu as well), which seem as close as any (for example, Korean has no “Z” sound – thus “Jahad”).