Tower of God Season 2 Episode 25 Review

Welcome back to Anime Rants! As I watched this episode, I was consistently surprised with how much I enjoyed it. Even though I feel like the second season ruined the chances for a truly good story, I can’t help but love the background music and colorful animation. This episode in particular felt intense and beautiful. Let’s review.

Episode 25: Return of the King

Episode Rating: 7/10

The episode begins by telling us the truth about Emily, AKA Emile 01. The Workshop Regulars wanted to develop human-weapon hybrids to use to control the whole Tower some day. The first tests included creating a human ignition weapon – like Cassano himself – and dissolving a human ignition weapon into a sentient solution. Both experiments were successful. “Emily” was the “human ignition weapon” who had her humanity completely robbed. She now exists in a flask of solution, believing she’s still human and reaching out to the world as Emily the interactive chat-bot.

Cassano is the one who has Emily’s flask at the current time. He plans to use its power to change the corrupt ways of the Tower. While Cassano explained everything about Emily, I couldn’t help wondering if the female researcher – Sophia – was evil or not. This episode made it seem like she saved Emily’s life, which would be an act of good. But the visuals still framed Sophia with an evil smile, suggesting there is an underlying evil to her character. I don’t know what to think about this yet. Maybe I’m reading her expression completely wrong? What do others think?

Elsewhere, Bam, Khun, and Rak are fighting Reflejo, who is using an unconscious Hwaryun as a meat shield. Khun solves the issue by using a legendary magical item that resembles a shard of glass. Anyone whose heart is pierced by the shard will be magically “sealed” into the glass dimension and can presumably be retrieved later. Khun stabs Hwaryun with the mirror shard, sealing her safely away.

As the fight continues, it becomes clear that Bam is more powerful than before. He has unlocked the power of the Thorn of Enryu. It’s around this point where we hear Reflejo’s tragic backstory. His family was slaughtered by a Princess of the Ten Families. For some reason, she allowed Reflejo to live, but blinded him for beholding her “beauty.” That’s why Reflejo hates the Ten Families and joined FUG to fight them. To be honest, that’s understandable. Under his mask, his eyes are sewn shut.

Meanwhile, Endorsi and Hatz were fighting the Mad Dog and the angel girl, whose name is apparently Ron Mei. Endorsi slams Mad Dog into a crater in the ground, while Hatz moves in and captures Ron Mei. The FUG members have lost. In addition, Xia Xia the rabbit girl decides to help Bam by guiding Endorsi and Hatz to Kang Horyang. Despite her weird attachment to the idea of Viole being God, Xia Xia can be very cute.

Going back to the fight inside the mountain, Reflejo reveals his last trick. In the event that the weapon (the thorn of Enryu) falls into the wrong hands, FUG would melt the new thorn user and everything else surrounding them with lava. Reflejo doesn’t mind dying to make sure FUG’s false savior also dies. He’s in a state of despair that Viole isn’t the God that he wanted. At his signal, a FUG Ranker begins to release lava into the mountain. Bam and his teammates won’t survive long.

Lero Ro helps out by fighting the FUG Ranker who was pouring the lava. (Side Note: Lero is so cool! Love his makeup, too.) Reflejo gets knocked down as the platform crumbles into the lava below. As he falls, he grabs Bam in a desperate attempt to take his enemy with him. For a hot minute there, I actually wondered if Bam was going to die and pass the torch to Wangnan. He even saw his life flashing before his eyes. But Endorsi and others arrived just in time and saved Bam in mid-air. That was pretty epic.

I just have one final note to add for this episode. Remember how I said Bam saw his life flashing before his eyes? Well he actually primarily saw memories of his interactions with Wangnan. (Not Rachel, the girl he loves, but Wangnan – another boy.) I’m not sure, but I think the narrative was trying to imply that Wangnan’s ring gives him some kind of spiritual connection to Bam. However, it was executed in such a way as to seem like Bam was madly in love with Wangnan. And hey, I would totally ship that. I just thought it was a little humorous.