Tower Dungeon Volume 1 by Tsutomu Nihei. Translation: Sam Malissa. Kodansha, 2025. 9781647294540. Publisher’s Rating: 13+.
Princess Ignelia has been taken to the Dragon Tower, where most of the troops who tried to rescue her have been killed. Each village is to send someone to help, or to hand over twenty bushels of grain as a penalty. The people in Yuva’s village decide he should be the one to go. He’s fine with that; he even feels like he might be able to help. With his grandpa’s old helmet and shield in hand, he sets off for the tower.
There he finds a group of beat-up warriors trying to deal with a monster on the tower’s fiftieth level that has killed many of their comrades. Yuva is sent into the tower with a group of soldiers to try to take it out. He isn’t given a weapon or much of an explanation, though he is carrying two barrels for the group. Along the way they face a door guardian, a slime monster, and other dangers. It’s all pretty spooky and weird, which is reinforced by the sense of the mountainous size of the Dragon Tower that Nihei’s art creates, as well as some of the more bizarre character/creature designs. My favorite of the “creature” designs is the messenger who arrives toward the end of the book.
By the end, the soldiers are ordered home. But three new recruits, including Yuva, are left behind to try to bring back the princess.
I’ve read the three volumes published in English so far and have no plans to stop.
