English Dub Review: Tower of God “The Crown’s Fate”

https://youtu.be/YNpWwUozSdE

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Bam and his team defend their position as the Tower’s grueling bonus test reaches its thrilling conclusion. Since Bam is stuck in the throne and can’t help out in battle, Khun is left to pick up the slack and does so in a very creative way that reveals even more about Bam’s enigmatic ally. “The Crown Game” is ultimately forced to reach an early standstill, but the results speak volumes for Bam and Rachel’s relationship and what exactly is going on with their complicated dynamic.

Our Take:

The past few episodes of Tower of God have done exceptional work at highlighting some of the characters outside of Bam’s group, but “The Crown’s Fate” comfortably shifts the focus back to out favorite trio of Tower climbers. Bam’s hands are tied since he’s the crown bearer, which allows Khun to rise to the occasion in some very entertaining ways. Khun shows off a very powerful skill of his that also explains why he’s always carrying that briefcase around with him. It’s evidently much more than an attractive fashion accessory. It turns out the Khun’s briefcase operates not unlike Felix the Cat’s Magical Bag of Tricks.

Khun has a whole pocket dimension of sorts inside of that tiny thing, but it can also do a lot more. Anything that Khun places in the briefcase will get replicated, which retroactively explains what seemed like a bizarre plot whole two episodes back when Khun suddenly had a fake crown from out of nowhere. This a very effective way to convey this exposition and it’s encouraging for how the future of the series approaches similar territory.

Khun can create duplicates with his briefcase, but he also inexplicably has a whole team of allies stowed away in there, too. In what seems like it must be a huge violation of sorts, Khun lets all of his briefcase friends loose and uses them to help defend Bam. Suddenly their team of three balloons in size and nobody seems too worried about losing their lead. It’s very satisfying to see Khun turn things up a notch and orchestrate such an effective takedown of his enemies, but it’s hard to not feel a little bad for Rak. He’s turned into the most neglected character on the show so far and he feels especially useless during Khun’s work here. He’ll hopefully get to assert his control again in an episode or two, or the Tower can just throw some more chocolate bars his way to appease him.

Tower of God has carefully teased Rachel’s motives since her reintroduction into the series, but she seems to be on a totally different page in this episode. The previous episode poignantly concludes with Rachel apathetically condoning Bam’s death, but in this installment she actively fights to keep him safe. Her goals become more confusing when she announces that she’s not even interested in the crown. All of this is contradictory to what’s been show before with Rachel, but her actions here feel genuine. It’s possible that Rachel has to put up an act for her teammates, but she has ulterior motives here that do involve Bam’s safety after all. The episode concludes with another cliffhanger in reference to Bam and Rachel’s relationship, but this time Khun also gets roped into the growing narrative.

Rachel shows affection towards Bam in this episode, but he goes even further to prove his level of devotion. It’s only when Bam sees that Rachel is in danger that he springs into action and abandons his post on the throne. He’s willing to give up his victory to keep Rachel safe, but this stressful moment manifests itself in a surprising way in Bam. He basically turn into pure Shinsu energy as he rushes to Rachel’s support, which destroys the crown in the process. “The Crown’s Fate” is an episode that’s full of busy and impressive action sequences, but the animation during Bam’s Shinsu burst is the episode’s visual highlight. The music during this whole powerful moment also does a great job to enhance the drama of the scene.

Bam’s Shinsu metamorphosis destruction of the crown leads to there being no winner for this bonus test and it ending in a communal draw. It seemed inevitable that Tower of God would need to resort to something like this because someone getting to the top immediately would be too easy of a fix and too quickly. This is a solution to that problem that actually works and it proposes the idea that “wild card” tactics to end tests is something that’s actively allowed. Bam wasn’t disqualified for the crown’s destruction. He’s even rewarded in a strange way because it solves his whole Black March bet with Anaak in the process.

At the same time, the paranoia that these results elicit in people like Lero Ro hint at the more compelling idea that victory was never actually on the table with this bonus test. It’s just been another underhanded opportunity for Tower Administrators to learn more about their prey. There have already been enough instances where the rules of the Tower have been fluid enough to imply that something deeper is afoot here and that this isn’t a place that should be blindly trusted. After what Bam demonstrates here he’s now absolutely one of the Tower’s priorities and there are going to be a lot more people than just Rachel that have their eyes on him.

“The Crown’s Fate” is another more subdued episode of Tower of God that isn’t afraid to take its time, but there are still major developments present here despite the prolonged focus of the lingering bonus test. In retrospect, “The Crown Game” perhaps didn’t need three episodes devoted to it when every other test has received a fraction of that much attention, but it does help the series establish more of a believable and comfortable pacing. After what’s been established here it wouldn’t feel ridiculous to have a major test in the anime comprise four or five episodes. “The Crown’s Fate” advances the show’s story and character dynamics in exciting ways and as the season nears its half-way point, it feels like Tower of God is about to head into its next chapter now that Bam possesses new powers and he and Rachel are reunited.

And yeah, Khun knows how to freaking rock a ponytail.