This recap contains spoilers for Tower of God episode The Crown’s Fate.
Disclaimer: Pre-release screening and screenshot materials for this recap were provided for GGA by Crunchyroll.
Content Warning: An image in this article depicts profuse bleeding. Reader discretion is advised.
Well now, what the heck was all that? In all seriousness, this week’s Tower of God, The Crown’s Fate, is a weird one. To put it simply; it splits a relatively even difference between another action scene, some plot advancement, and a metric ton of exposition. This isn’t the show’s best episode so far, but it might be one of the most interesting.
What’s In The Box?
Let’s start with something simple since despite its only marginal relevance it’s one of the cooler things introduced here. We learn what the deal with Aguero’s suitcase is in The Crown’s Fate and it is quite a thing to behold. The box, as it turns out, can both store an infinite amount of things and also clone anything inside it. This, in fact, is where Aguero’s been getting all those chocolate bars he keeps bribing Rak with.
He deploys the thing twice in the action scene that opens the episode. First by making a ton of duplicates of the crown to sow confusion among the Regulars attempting to get it. The second use is even more interesting; we learn that back in the battle royale test, Aguero actually squirreled away some of his would-be rivals in his suitcase. Three of them, specifically. This team reappear here to help Bam and friends before calmly disqualifying themselves from the crown game. It is, admittedly, kind of an out-of-nowhere swerve. We’re not given any indication before this that these people exist beyond some very oblique foreshadowing 2 episodes back. It does, however, serve to further build Aguero’s character as a master planner.
B Side
Rachel’s team is the other thing this episode introduces. More formally, at least, than their brief appearance last time. We don’t get names for anyone other than Rachel herself, but the three have an interesting dynamic that seems to mirror Bam’s team. Rachel herself is Bam’s counterpart. The tall oni-like figure is Rak’s, and the Jahad princess is Aguero’s. (That’d be the same girl who taunted Anaak as an “impostor” last episode.) The Princess also seems to wield another of the Month swords. One imagines there aren’t too many blades out there that are bright red.
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Despite the sinister connotations at the last episode’s end, the three actually help Bam’s team. Exactly why is not revealed here, so it’s hard to say if it’s because Rachel’s calling the shots or for some as-yet-unknown purpose? This actually works out pretty well for Bam’s team until one of the Regulars–a masked ninja woman wielding a cudgel–goes after Rachel. This leads directly to The Crown‘s Fate‘s biggest revelation, which is quite a doozy.
Knockout
It goes like this: Bam dives in front of Rachel to protect her from the blow. Bam gets hit on the head. It’s a nasty wound, and our boy seems like he might genuinely be a goner.
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Then he….turns into light? It’s not entirely clear what’s going on at first, but there’s a blast of golden energy. Then time appears to freeze, the spirit of Bam’s Black March sword appears (making her first appearance since episode 1), and seems to stop Bam from killing the ninja woman. Then he conks out, entering some kind of coma that he’s still in at episode’s end. All of this is quite abrupt and it’s the first instance of general shonen “power level” stuff that we’ve seen so far, but it’s a much odder iteration than the usual.
We do get some indication later in The Crown’s Fate that the energy Bam releases (or more accurately, briefly turns into) is Shinsu, the same magical energy that seems to keep much of the tower running. This doesn’t explain much, though. It’s quite an unusual sequence all around, a decidedly interesting take on the usual shonen protagonist powerup.
Roses & Coffee
The remainder of The Crown’s Fate is….exposition. Interesting exposition, to be sure, but quite a lot of it at once. This sequence follows not any of our usual protagonists but Lero-Ro, one of the test administrators. (That’s him up at the top of the article). We learn a few things here, but much of the conversation between Lero and fellow test admin Yu Han Sung is rather oblique and cryptic. Not just on our end, either, as Lero is notably agitated after talking to Sung. Elsewhere in the tower, we get a peek at Yuri Ha Jahad for the first time since the premiere. She and her crew are doing, well, something in a ruin overgrown with giant roses. The dialogue implies that news of Bam’s power burst has spread quickly throughout the tower, but we sadly don’t get to see her for much longer than that. The episode closes with Rachel going to visit Bam in his hospital room, our boy still out cold from earlier.
All in all this week’s episode is quite the headscratcher! Strong sequences still abound, of course, and the Crown Game arc is over, but it definitely feels like a lead-in to greater things. As a side note, Kevin Penkin‘s score, while it’s always been great, felt particularly excellent this week. Rachel’s leitmotif in particular is really something to hear, and Penkin’s signature trick of using dubstep-inspired wobble bass to signal that things are about to get intense never gets old.
Until next time, Tower of God fans!
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