The Tower of Druaga ~the Sword of Uruk~ – 05

Summary:

Jil, Fatina,and Utu start traveling up the spiral stairwell inside the Mythical Tower, but a great wind blows them away and deposits them in a barren landscape. There, they find an unconscious Henaro and wake her, but Gremica and Ki are nowhere in sight. The group is then attacked by a red dragon, but the dragon oddly disintegrates after a moment, and some dark monsters appear instead. Outnumbered, Jil and company run, but they soon realize that the monsters can’t enter the shadows, so they take refuge under a rock pillar. Unfortunately, the sun is on the move, meaning that the shadow they’re hiding in is growing smaller by the minute. They catch a break when Gremica – whose group is also using the shadows to protect itself from the monsters – forces Ki to cast a spell that shows Neeba’s footprints. Those footprints allow Jil and company to spot the exit in the distance, and they approach it by running from safe shadow area to safe shadow area.

The last leg of the distance has no safe areas though, so they topple a nearby pillar to create a path with shadows that they can run through. Doing this still leaves them short of the exit however, and they’re saved only after Melt – who is still with Uragon and the Golden Knights – uses his magic on the pillar, kicking up enough dust to blot out the sun. All of the monsters are destroyed by this, and Jil and company successfully make their way to the exit. Meanwhile, back in Meskia, King Gilgamesh questions why he personally killed a man earlier who had been trying to make a direct appeal to him. Feeling that he’s become harmful to the people, he attempts to kill himself, but he’s stopped by his other self. His other self tries to convince him that the people are not worth pitying and that God lost interest in him as the hero. His other self feels that they should be angry like Druaga, and all this leaves Gilgamesh wishing that Ki would save him.

Preview

Well, this was a decent episode, but it wasn’t anything special or particularly interesting until maybe the final moments with Gilgamesh. For the most part, the story followed the tried and true formula of Jil and company reaching a new level and having to figure out how to get past some obstacle to move on. There’s plenty of action with those owlbear-like monsters, but I had hoped that the writers would go with something different by this point in the story (admittedly, I’m somewhat impatient to see the showdown with Neeba and Kaaya and the other Gilgamesh). Doing things this way though does give them time to develop the characters more, and this week’s spotlight was on Gilgamesh’s inner struggles. They’re making the old man seem like a decent guy who is having a hard time fighting the influence of his other dark self, and I guess this is supposed to make us feel more inclined to support Gilgamesh and want his dark side to be taken down, freeing him of the curse. That seems a bit too straightforward though, so maybe there’s another plot twist in there somewhere. Regardless, for the time being, the journey continues to the next level of the tower.