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Summary:
Inside the Tower of Druaga, both Neeba’s group and Jil’s group are up against some spider monsters. Whereas Neeba’s group is fighting a few at a time though, Jil’s group is running away from an army of them. Ahmey finally directs Jil to make a stand on the far side of a rock bridge, and with some magical help from Kaaya, she jumps over everything and drives her weapon into the bridge, sending all of the monsters into the dark ravine below. Afterwards, Ahmey asks if anyone else in the group has experience climbing the tower and is discouraged to find out that no one has. Ahmey herself has made it as far as the Garden of the Lion in the Shrine of Emery, and it doesn’t make her feel much better that her companions don’t even know the names of the levels. She thus has no choice but to teach them that the tower has eight shrine levels – Tin, Lead, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Emery, and Sky – and that each shrine has several gardens. They are currently still at the very bottom, in the Shrine of Tin.
Elsewhere in the Tower, the mage assassin Pazuz comes across a Kusarakk monster about to crush an adventurer, and he ends up turning both to stone because they’re in his way. Neeba’s group discovers these bodies shortly thereafter, and Neeba decides to continue pursuing the mage despite Kally’s warnings. They set up camp that night by a lake, and Fatina goes for a swim, but when she emerges from the water, she’s approached by a strange blue-haired woman. Fatina gets scared enough to fire her weapon, and the commotion draws Neeba and the others to her. The strange woman has disappeared though, so Neeba decides to look around. The woman eventually approaches him when he’s away from the group and comments on how it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other. After Neeba tells her to stop appearing in front of his friends, the woman questions if Neeba can really reach the top of the tower with this group and wonders what’ll happen if he defeats Druaga. She then disappears again because Kally is coming, but not before she kisses Neeba on the cheek.
Meanwhile, Pazuz is using a crystal ball to watch Jil’s group eat dinner and decides to direct a group of Kusarakk who are in his way towards Jil instead. Unaware of what’s coming, Jil is later performing guard duty while the others sleep and is surprised when Kaaya suddenly blows on his ear. She’s there to switch places with him, but the two end up chatting since Jil can’t sleep. He asks her if she thinks that they’ll be okay climbing this tower, and he goes on to talk about his own inexperience, including how he was cut from his brother’s group. In response, Kaaya suggests that things will work out and cites how Jil is stronger than he looks. Jil then brings up the topic of why Kaaya is climbing the tower, so she makes up a story of wanting to cure an ill brother with the Blue Crystal Rod, but she quickly tells him that it’s just a joke. Suddenly, Kaaya senses a large group of Kusarakk coming, so they wake everyone else. Coopa thinks that they should run away, but Ahmey knows that the Kusarakks would quickly find them.
The only strategy Ahmey can come up with to have each of them scatter in different directions so that the monsters can only go after one or two of them, thus allowing everyone else to escape. Jil opposes this idea because he knows that even tougher monsters await them further up the tower, and so if they run away here, then they’ll never be able to reach the top. He convinces the others to make a stand, and when backed up by a shield spell from Kaaya, he’s able to hold off the Kusarakks while Melt and Ahmey do some damage. Meanwhile, Neeba’s group had earlier heard the Kusarakks moving and is now rushing towards Jil’s group to help them. However, by the time they arrive, they find all the Kusarakks already defeated, and Jil’s group sleeping after the exhaustion of a successful battle.
Preview
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Well, there was lots of fighting with inconsequential enemies this week, though Jil and company did finally win their first big battle. While it’s nice to see that Jil and friends can be pretty strong if the situation calls for it, that’s still pretty typical fantasy RPG-type fare. I’m waiting for something really major to happen, at least on the scale of Gilgamesh being assassinated, except without the oh-he’s-not-really-dead part. Like I mentioned last week, the series has done a good job at hinting that there’s something bigger at play here, particularly with regard to Neeba and even Pazuz (why does he even care about Jil anyway?), but not enough of that has actually entered into the plot yet.
Speaking of which though, one of the more interesting parts of the episode was when the mysterious woman suddenly appeared in front of Fatina. For one, I didn’t realize Yukana was voicing a character in this series (using a C.C.-esque voice to boot), so that was a pleasant surprise. The credits label her as “Succubus”, which sounds rather generic, but her role seems more important than that since she’s shown that she’s already well acquainted with Neeba. She refers to Druaga as Druaga-sama, so I assume she’s on Druaga’s side, however the question still remains why she and Neeba know each other – since she’s a succubus, maybe she seduced him in the past or something. In any case, she probably won’t be showing up next week since the preview makes it look to be a light-hearted episode with armored cartoonish mice and Neeba growing animal features. Perhaps they’ll be able to return to some of the same style of humor from the first episode.
Series looks extremely nerdy and keeps it very close to the RPG features in a game.
C.C.’s voice? I wonder what part did she play?
They should just make Neeba the main character. He seems more suitable.
Usually they make the main character so dumb, but have speacial power, its typical a shounen anime.
Is the power immunity to pain? Or was that merely for comic effect.
But i dislike Neeba and his group hope they die on the way 🙂
Why did they make the first episode a parody that made fun of all the kinds of poor writing and plot devices that you find in typical shounen anime…… and then make an anime with poor writing and plot devices that you find in typical shounen anime?
phatmlrd: LOL, i like ALL episodes so far XD you could say i have bad taste? anyway, i just enjoy it, don’t overthink things man -_-
Though I enjoy this show myself, and is the only anime of this season that i’m watching, i’m surprised your still blogging this. I would think a show like this is too generic to blog >.>
@phatmlrd
that wasn’t even the first real episode. If you watched the Ura version of episode one you’d know that the serie had a serious start just like the following episodes.
@Shinndou where can I find the first REAL episode? It doesn’t seem Gonzo has published it anywhere. It’s hard to find for me.
I love this show. I think it’s probably the best anime so far this year. The characters are lovable and not a bit Naruto-ish, the story has a lot of fun elements, and the world setting is very unique. The only thing I’m worried about is that how they are going to wrap up so many wonderful things in 13 episodes. ToD deserves 26 episodes.
I don’t know if this is a well known fact of not but there is a Druaga SRPG for the PS2 titled “The Nightmare of DRUAGA – Fushigino dungeon”. I just Purchased it at my local Game Stop and it’s actually a Prequel to the Anime.
Here is the story set up taken out of the Manual –
“Three years have passed since the Druaga War. The Kingdom of Babilim has been restored to its former glory. Gil and Ki are to be wed and Gil crowned King on the morrow. However, fate has something else in mind… Monsters suddenly raid the city. Gil rushes over to the shrine. The shrine maidens tell Gil that Ki has been kidnapped. A masked female sorceress kidnapped Ki and headed for the Tower of Druaga. Outfitting himself in radient gold armor, he rises to his feet. He must head once more to the Tower of Druaga.”
Other info in the manual –
Characters-
Gil – “Donning his golden armor given to him by the chief god Anu, this prince of Babilim saved the kingdom from the dark ruler Druaga. Three years have passed since the war, and the ravaged land has finally been restored. With his upcoming wedding to Ki and his coronation at the kingdom’s Restoration Ceremony fast approaching, Gil has been extremely busy of late.”
Ki – “Favored priestess of the goddess Ishtar, Ki has been granted divine powers. She is filled with excitement over her upcoming wedding with Gil, but is a little worried about having to lose her priestly powers once wed. A mysterious sorceress suddenly kidnaps Ki the day before her wedding.”
Skulld – “Shrouded in mystery, this female sorceress shows up whenever creatures of the dark appear. An ominous mask hides her true countenance, but she seems to resemble Succubus (the dark priestess Gil once defeated). Her abduction of Ki and flight into the Tower of Druaga resurrects a nightmare that should have ended three years ago.
“The Druaga War” – “Three years ago, the Sumar Empire invaded the neighboring Kingdom of Babilim and erected a tower that reached the heavens in an attempt to obtain the Blue Crystal Rod that lit the skies of Babilim. However, the celestial light was obstructed by the tower’s shadow, and the seal that locked away Druaga, Lord of Darkness, was broken. Druaga entered the tower, released his minions and hid the Blue Crystal Rod. Ki ventured into the tower, but was imprisoned by Druaga on the top floor. Donned in his golden armor granted to him by the chief god Anu, Gil managed to defeat Druaga and rescue Ki.”
I have yet to play it but the ending of the game should be somewhere close to the flash back we saw of Gilgamesh (Gil) defeating Druaga and then getting curesed.
The character Skulled although I cannot see her face looks a lot like that elven woman shown in the credits.
Anyway I just thought some of you would find this information interesting.
@vent
If you search for the real episode on veoh, it’s called the ura episode. i don’t think anyone has subbed it though.
Although i actually like this show, it seems to have a generic storyline so far. At least this series isn’t a clone of Ragnarok (but you never know what Gonzo can do). I’m finding the characters the most interesting aspect of this show.
Also, For being a 13 episode series, this show is going kinda slow. i mean, almost one third of the series is finished and they JUST reached the first floor of the tower. Unless Jil and his little party take some crazy shortcut or speed things up, I’m guessing Gonzo will have to rush some episodes.
Hm… a very biased and balance combination of opinions. =\
I am still going to stick with the main character. Neeba and the gang’s blatant disrespect towards Jil made me angrily squeeze an orange to a pulp. Jil’s group also lacks experience in teamworking, which also made my eyes squint for several seconds. Conclusion is, Jil over Neeba, brunette over blonds–yes, it’s VERY biased and prejudice.
Lastly, one factt still remains that bothers me a lot, and tortures my slumber during the cool nights. That is, the succubus: NEEBA, get the ^&$%! away from my beauty queen!!!
If there’s any character worth watching this anime for, it’s Coopa.
https://randomc.net/image/Tower%20of%20Druaga/Tower%20of%20Druaga%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2018.jpg
I think the sucubuss is Skulld who is mentioned in my last post.
Oh wow, I didn’t realize this was just 13 eps. Unless there’s a planned sequel, they’ve been wasting a whole lot of time.
Here I was thinking, “Hey, I accept that episode one was the exception to the rule, and I can try to enjoy this show as a straight fantasy dungeon-crawler. They actually talked about the Tower a bit (although how they know there are only eight main shrine levels when “no one has ever climbed to the top” raises some interesting metaphysical quandaries I assume we’re supposed to disregard), the main group had their first real team-building event/battle (even though the scene cut away in the middle), and even some intriguing back-story developing with Neeba. Things are looking up (optimistic thinking).” But now I think this should’ve been done at the very start, without the Gilgamesh faux-assasination + prison break that seems to have no bearing or purposeful effect on the direction the plot is going.
And I keep on reading over and over again how there are actually two “first” episodes, one actually serious. Is not the “kommicle” episode 1 subbed on Youtube the same that aired in Japan? This all seems needlessly complicated.
Strider: Thanks for the info dude. From what you’ve played of the game and seen of the show, would you say that this anime is one geared towards fans of the game, and that some prior knowledge is required to get into it? Because I feel like I’m missing something that prevents me from liking this show more.
I have yet to play the game since I just got it and I haven’t had any time but in the game you play as Gilgemish known as Gil in the game and what you play is the flash backs we’ve been seeing of when the King fought Druaga. I would definately say if you play the game you’ld would most likely find more enjoyment from the anime since it really seems to be like a direct sequel of the game.
http://www.famitsu.com/k_tai/news/1214816_1350.html
RAWR!
actually, skulld (from nightmare of druaga) isn’t succubus, although it leads you on at the start that she might be. the actual answer is bizarre and involves time travel and is kind of retarded. but she’s not actually succubus.
the lastest episode confirms that yeah, the blue haired girl in this ep is succubus, druaga’s #1 henchman. the reason she’s ghostly is the reason ki is ghostly, they’re both dead. succubus was originally killed by gilgamesh during the events of the first game – she was impersonating the goddess ishtar, but gilgamesh saw through the illusion and destroyed her.
anyway, the “elven looking lady” at the end is supposed to be ishtar, i believe. kind of strange she’s made no appearance in the series, although that might change in the last episode.