First Impressions / The Tower of Druaga

OP Sequence

OP: 「SWINGING」 by ムラマサ☆ (Muramasa*)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Summary:

Inside the Tower of Druaga, a group of adventurers come across a caravan that was completely destroyed. They also come under subsequent attack, but one of their members, a teen by the name of Jil, defeats most of the bad guys in one strike, and he’s able to easily slay the final monster who tries to ambush him. As it turns out, Jil is known as the Hero who is on a quest to defeat the evil Druaga. He had been granted this destiny by the Goddess Ishtar after the forces of man could not defeat the forces of Druaga, and the previous hero Gilgamesh had even give Jil his own sword. Jil had set out with four allies, but he first had to prove himself to Neeba, the archer of the group, and he had also wooed a beautiful princess before he left, promising to marry her when he returned.

During the journey to the Tower, one of the group’s members – moments after revealing that he was going to get married back at his hometown once this was all over – had been killed by the Black Knight. The loss of his friend had caused Jil to use a special attack that promptly defeated the Black Knight, but Jil refused to kill him because he realized that the Black Knight knew the sorrow of battle. Jil and company had eventually reached the Tower after a 10-year journey, and the first monster that attacked them was of the tentacle variety. It caught the only girl of the group, Fatina, but Neeba had kept Jil from saving her because he wanted to get a good look at her while the tentacles probed around her body. They defeated the monster after Fatina got mad, however they were soon faced with another monster – this time a dragon.

The dragon killed another one of the group members, and just as things were looking bad, the Black Knight showed up to help. However, the Black Knight had also admitted that he was going to get married back at his hometown once this was all over, and the dragon had then killed him too. This in turn caused Jil to awaken a new power that promptly defeated the dragon, and he used this same power to defeat some strong knights further up the Tower. As they near the top, the remaining three hear more forces of Druaga catching up with them, so Neeba volunteers to hold them off while Jil and Fatina go ahead. Jil didn’t want this and knocked Neeba out, but he nevertheless left Neeba behind to the advancing horde. A little later, Fatina had come close to confessing her feelings to Jil and had wanted to run away with him instead of fighting, but Jil remained confident that a miracle would happen, and he suggested to Fatina that they get married once this was all over.

When the two finally confronted the evil Druaga, they found him to be rather diminutive in size, and they were shocked to learn that Druaga is actually Jil’s father. In any case, Druaga easily knocked Jil down, and it was the sudden appearance and equally quick defeat of the innkeeper who Jil had once drank and partied with that caused Jil to fully power up. Unfortunately, even in his most powerful form, Jil was unable to defeat Druaga. Just as he thought that he was going to die, Jil got a vision of the goddess Ishtar who reminded him that his friends are always by his side. Realizing this gave Jil enough of a boost to defeat Druaga, and right as the story concludes, Jil wakes up. He is actually being carried by one of his allies after having been knocked out by the first monster that attacked them back at the caravan location. Their group is now being chased by a horde of monsters and soon reach a dead end, but Jil still doesn’t even remember where they are. Fatina has to thus remind him that they’re in the Tower of Druaga.

ED Sequence

ED: 「塔頂者たち」 (Touchousha-tachi) by KENN
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Wow, that OP sequence was definitely not what I expected for a fantasy series like this. Never mind the fact that the song was the upbeat kind that sounds like it would go well with a comedy series, the entire present-day setting made me think that Druaga was going to pull some sort of .hack plot where we find out that all the characters are only playing an MMORPG game. And after watching the first episode, it’s still not clear if they’re going to try something like that. The ending meanwhile was more of the standard fantasy variety with how it shows various settings and characters, and Kenn (the voice actor for Jil) turned out to be a decent singer.

Gonzo, you win this round. As some of you might know, the ending of Dragonaut left a really bad taste in my mouth in regard to the animated productions that Gonzo does. But, with this first episode of Druaga, they might (emphasis on might) have won me over again. When I originally looked at the promo material for this show, I thought it looked like Ragnarok crossed with RomeoXJuliet, and that didn’t sound too appealing. I never imagined they’d start with a parody episode that made fun of all the kinds of poor writing and plot devices that you can find in these types of stories. And it was all hilarious, from the sudden death flags to the tentacle monster to the cheesy way Jil defeated Druaga. Of course I don’t know if this kind of humor or storytelling will be able to hold up in the rest of the series (Dragonaut didn’t start off so horribly either), and I suspect the series will be much more serious from now on since everything was just a dream. If nothing else though, this first episode has convinced me to watch a few more. I’m optimistic about this, but very cautiously so.

To add on to all that, Gonzo and its partners actually delivered on their promise and uploaded the fully subbed episode on crunchyroll and on YouTube – with fairly good translations no less. I’m curious to see if the new distribution model will make Druaga (and Blassreiter) super-popular and well-known among the English-speaking community, but for now, it just feels like we’re living in the future.

88 Comments

  12. This show looks good fun, but i hope a fansubber picks it up, i dont care if they straight up steal the gonzo TL, its just…
    I have no idea how people watch their tv/anime on such bad quality streaming sites, all the quality is lost on crunchyroll/youtube… Stage 6 used to be good but they’re dead now..

    Alotta these anime are partially about the sense of spectacle from those moments of intense animation, that cant be put across well in grainy dodgy-vision

    Cyph
    Reply

  15. Oh man, oh man, that was one of the funniest episodes I’ve seen in a long time. I really cried from laughing to much. I just hope they’ll be able to keep the series and its comedy fresh for awhile. Oh and I usually don’t watch streaming ever but wow the youtube quality was absolutely great =].

    Cyn
    Reply

  20. THUMBS DOWN.

    I’d rather watch Kurenai than this dumbed-down otaku garbage. A real great choice Gonzo made when they said, “From now on we’ll only create ‘otaku’ and ‘cool’ anime.” Now what they’re making is animu.

    Slightly Bald Wizard
    Reply

  25. Dragonaut was CRAP….not Shuffle or to-Love-ru crap, but pure Celine Dion Power of Love CRAP!! Barf!

    Just saw the first episode of this Drauga show… seems like some weird MMORPG type anime like Hack:infection or Crapnarok…. Soo Stoopid.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Lithium17
    Reply

  26. This was quite a pleasant surprise cause since it’s being offered for “free”, one might imagine how much effort the team working on it would put in, not to mention the translation.

    However it turned out to be decent, with some good moments and all in all quite a funny episode if you understand the jokes/puns/etc.

    I was slightly scared that the anime would keep on the parody track for oncoming episodes, so it was a relief to find out that it wasn’t going to be like that and like some others here I didn’t really feel like looking forward to the next episode after watching, but listening to the OP changed my mind gravely.

    Oh, and after checking all 3 available streaming options, I have to admit that BostTV is the best option if you’re a quality geek like myself.

    Using the “&fmt=18” code on Youtube isn’t completely awful either, but Crunchyroll is horrible, more so for me since I’m using a pretty big monitor.

    ~sp

    Saph
    Reply

  28. Wow, definitely a couple grades better than what I was expecting. Really, my bouts of lolling were only subdued by my amazement at how much more enjoyable the first ep was than that .hack/crap, Ragnacrap, MMOcRaPG stuff it was first portrayed like. I have some concern about the turn to deathly-serious-hope-the-real-show-isnt-like-this change at the end, ahd that maybe they spent all their comic material on the first episode, but very entertaining nonetheless.

    Oh yeah, and after this is over, I’m going back to my hometown to get married! XD

    kadian1364
    Reply

  29. crap or not, gonzo making the show available, subbed, on the internet is good stuff. This is where American TV networks have gone already (or rather, finally) with sites like Hulu — and you can either whine about fansubbers killing the industry or you can DO something about it. Bravo. Now to wait for the inevitable wobbling to the crap side for those Gonzo production values.

    Mike
    Reply

  36. >>I’d rather watch Kurenai than this dumbed-down otaku garbage. A real great choice Gonzo made when they said, “From now on we’ll only create ‘otaku’ and ‘cool’ anime.” Now what they’re making is animu.

    Either you’re joking or you’re a joke.

    Either way, this first episode was a lot funnier. I was really suprised that it turned out to basically be an action-comedy as opposed to the more serious-looking trailer. Good stuff.

    Washi
    Reply

  42. Not too bad for a first episode. First episode is like an animated version of Space Balls with a fantasy RPG setting mixed with some modern day parodies and references. Really liked the “power of friendship” and the whole Gurren Lagann style animation at the end.

    hcl4
    Reply

  61. Being on NicoNico, it’s raw of course. I’d highly recommend checking out the Ura version Omni, you’ll get a nice kick out of it especially now that you’ve seen the Omote.

    Shouta
    Reply

  63. I bought it for $2 just to try out the PSP version and the such. Hopefully japanese anime devs will release more like this, but its unfortunate that this most likely will not be the trend lol.

    ninjikiran
    Reply

  65. imo this episode was pretty terrible, and the show looks like your average terrible-cheesy “adventurers in a dungeon” anime, i wouldnt be surprised if its going to be the same thing it parodied in its first episode.

    Drayen
    Reply

  66. I feel so dumb, expecting this to be something like Escaflowne..Instead, it really did feel like watching an ep of Gurren Lagann, and I had to double check it still wasn’t April 1st >__>;

    If this parody-ness is how the series will actually be, then count me out. I have a terrible backlog and too many new shows to check out..

    rustyx
    Reply

  67. -.- best and only $2 I’ve ever spent on an anime episode…it was so worth it…
    Man Gonzo was really messing with us when they released Dragonaut…(that hurt!)..But woah this one was a shocker! The promos didn’t look any good…but woah…that first episode was awesome! XD
    “After this…to get married” – Never going to say that for awhile now…I kinda feel like staying alive for awhile.. >.

    Aki
    Reply

  68. Even though the video quality on crunchroll was terrible, it was a fun watch. It’s also the only new series that’s ready-subbed so that’s great! I might just keep stream-watching it as it comes out.

    This was much much better than Amatsuki (slow paced = boring. Too many pointless scenes. Can’t help thinking that Geass would’ve covered the whole episode in 5 minutes)
    and Itazurana Kiss (terrible production quality, probably half the staff of Macross Frontier)

    Yukiruchan
    Reply

  71. Having watched both, I can easily say both are equally as great, and so far, im seeing in the future two versions of the eps, which can be alternated, so like 1A, 2B, 3B, 4A or something like that can be possioble.
    At any rate the ending of the two versions are the same, as is the preview. I hope they reveal that its just people playing the MMO, because that would make sense, as well as have the entire thing make sense, etc.

    At any rate. This version would be the lulzy version, whilst the other is hte “serious” version where we get a look into this anime’s Nagato, how mages attack, and some other win.

    Rauzes
    Reply

  74. well, that certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. LOL. All the poking fun at the cliches was hilarious.

    Though I can’t believe people are complaining about paying $2 for the episode. o_O

    zalem
    Reply

  83. I haven’t laughed so hard watching an anime in a while. It is easy to name a few classics that ToD made fun of, such as Gundam, Gurren Lagann, Eva, Saint Seiya, Star War (“I’m your father”) and whatever tentacle hentai that crossed your mind. Call this “otaku xxxx” if you will. But sometimes a cheap laugh is what we need in a season.

    Matroid
    Reply

  84. Wow, was this a lot of epic win. I cried from laughing so hard and judging from these comments, I wasn’t the only one. I can only hope the rest of the series lives up to the genius of the first episode.

    langley
    Reply

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