Tower of God is one of the first webtoon I've read, and it has really grown on me ever since-
To start off, there are a lot of aspects about ToG that have declined over time, but I will be mostly focusing on the artwork, for that seemed to be the biggest issue for me.
The art for Season 1 wasn't the best, but it was alright, and you could see it improving over time. By the end of Season 1, it was starting to look really nice, and the unique art style of ToG was beginning to form. Season 2 was peak: artwork, story, characters, everything was the best the webtoon had seen (and would ever see). Those days of reading ToG is unforgettable, and I really miss them.
Now, Season 3, it starts off alright, but you can see the decline in the quality of the illustrations due to SIU's health decline. The story is still alright though, and it was enough to keep me engaged. But it really starts going downhill after a bit, and the dialogue, artwork seems to be noticeably much worse. To devoted fans of ToG like myself, who have reread the entire series more than 5 times, we love the story and the feelings of reminiscence we get when we reread our favorite parts, and would mostly follow through to the end, but things get much worse.
I remember back when the most recent update was Season 3 Chapter 81, I had completely caught up for the 5th time, and I went on a break to allow some more chapters to release so I could read them at once. The ratings then were bad too, but it was readable, and I was fine with that amount of quality, I was willing to follow through and see to the end. However, I just returned to resume my reading, and it is just absolutely horrendous.
Okay, so... what happened to SIU and all of the illustrators working on ToG??? I started my 6th reread from the start to read to the current newly updated chapter (Season 3 Chapter 227), and as before, all the way through the start of Season 3 was great. But, as I got to like Season 3 Chapter 70 ish~ I could really notice the change in quality, and was like, "Yikes, I got a long way till Chapter 227, and it's already this bad?" I could see that the ratings for the most recent chapters were all super low, and out of curiosity, went to check one out...
Holy moly, the art does not resemble ToG at. It literally looks like SIU has gone missing, all of the assistants have been replaced, and the new assistants have never read the previous chapters before. The art is something you'd see in a 3rd-rate webtoon, and everyone looks frickin weird, proportions out of place and all. Like, I was fine with some art deterioration, and lower quality dialogue & story, but wtf it isn't even ToG anymore. I mean, for such a big webtoon, one of the most famous worldwide, is it that hard to find someone to draw like Season 2? I understand that the story can become worse, and dialogue may not always be upstanding, but how is the artwork completely different!!? Who knows who's truly at fault here, but there are so many talented illustrators in this world, I honestly don't understand how the current illustrators for ToG were employed and what SIU is even doing anymore. Being the author of a hit-series is definitely hard work, and we the readers understand that there are many health implications that occur during the process, but if it's going to be this bad, to the point where it isn't even recognizable, just drop a nuke and end the story. When Miura passed away, Berserk seemed to be lost forever onward, but it's still going on today, almost as good as it was before. And even though everyone criticized Noblesse and God of Highschool for their crappy endings, at least Noblesse and God of Highschool still somewhat resembled their original quality towards the end, ToG hasn't even ended and it is just over. Unless SIU scratches Season 3 and starts over, or if things turn back to what it used to be at least now, ToG is the biggest loss of potential in the history of webtoon.
The rating I put for Tower of God is solely based on the series from start to the end of Season 2. Unless I see any changes from now forth, I shall part from this series for the time being. I would continue from Season 3 Episode
81, but after seeing that it gets unreadable at 227, I see no point.