First Impressions / The Tower of Druaga

Summary:

As they continue their journey, Jil and company find themselves climbing up the side of a mountain and are confronted by a pair of cyclops-like monsters at the top. Coopa uses some bombs to create a smoke cover that they then escape under, and Jil happens to save an old man in the process. This old man turns out to be Gigi, a Guardian who used to be famous, and he reveals on the way to the next town that he came to see his idiot son. Once they reach town, one of the first things that happens is that Jil is that he gets his wallet stolen, and the thief quickly gets away. While Jil is being depressed, the group sets up camp, and Coopa cooks dinner. Melt soon notices that Coopa is putting sea peppers into the food, and she continues to do so even though she knows he hates them. He gets even angrier when he finds out that she’s been using them every day without telling him, and it leads to an argument that culminates in him firing her.

Coopa thus leaves the group and happens to sees the boy that stole Jil’s wallet heading into a cave. She follows him there to try to get back the wallet, and the boy – whose name is Yury – gives it up because Jil had almost no money in it. Coopa then turns her attention to the giant water tank that Yury was attending to, and Yury explains that it’s what powers the Basket of Dingir lift. He lets Coopa put some lightning stones into the water, but she accidentally puts in an entire backpack’s worth and starts a chain reaction. The impact of the bubbles coming to the surface causes Coopa to lose her balance and fall off the ladder, so Yury has to catch her. He gets embarrassed though and ends up insulting her weight, causing her to get angry and wishing to see his parents. Yury, however, reveals that he has no parents. His mother is dead, and his father Arga is said to have stolen the Spear of Enki and run away from the village after monsters appeared in the lightning stones mines. Unlike everyone else though, Yury believes that his father had actually gone to fight the monsters, and his goal is to find the Speak of Enki at the mines as proof of that.

Coopa decides to go with Yury, and so the two make their way through a dark forest to get to the mines. Jil and company meanwhile have learned that Coopa is with Yury, and since Gigi is the father of Arga – and thus the grandfather of Yury – they decide to go after the pair. Along the way, they encounter the same two monsters from earlier, and though Gigi helps take down one of them, the other knocks him out. Coopa and Yury are also discovered by monsters, and the two get chased all the way to the mines. Even though Yury had said that he’d protect Coopa, she’s the one who carries him to safety after he trips, and she also leads the two monsters away from him. Coopa gets cornered, but fortunately Jil then swings in to save her. With Coopa’s help, Jil, Melt, and Ahmey defeat both monsters and save Yury. In the aftermath, Yury finds the broken tip of the Spear of Enki on one of the monsters, and they discover the rest of it at a nearby tree. This causes Gigi to realize that Arga had indeed been trying to protect his family. The following day, Coopa officially rejoins Jil’s group, and they depart the town after saying their goodbyes to Yury and Gigi.

Preview

I talked earlier this week in the Bleach post about how I don’t like bratty kid characters. Those sentiments extend to here too since this week’s Yury fits the bill. It doesn’t help either that the entire story about his father and that spear feels tacked on (both literally and figuratively). I would have preferred if they had just focused on developing Coopa (annoying as her voice can be sometimes) instead of him. The only spot of that I saw was when Yury insisted on protecting her because he was the boy, and Coopa looked sad for a moment, as if she had heard or experienced something like that before. That’s a vague hint at best though, and it might not even mean anything – she could have felt that way because of how Melt treats her too. In any case, I hope they do a better job of character development in the future and (when they’re doing serious stuff instead of comedy) stay away from these one-shot episodes that don’t really add anything to the overall story.

21 Comments

  7. This episode was by far the weakest. I hope it doesn’t continue to be like this, I might actually have to drop this show. And there is NOTHING WRONG with Coopa’s voice, it’s chipper with just a pinch of cute. Don’t hate

    frubam
    Reply

  10. While this episode wasn’t exciting as the previous it was a solid episode all rounder.
    In this episode Jil is levelling up as a guardian, Coopa solidify her position as the team helper with the miscellaneous work, lol at melt trying to carry his bag. Never send a man to do a loli’s work.

    zaeris
    Reply

  11. It’s like hotdogs. If someone, say, offered you free hotdogs every week, you’d eat them. But you find they are plain, taste bland, and made of totally unoriginal ingredients (with sketchy animation quality to boot). But since they’re free, and of an assured legal quality (stay with me, we’re still talking about hotdogs here), you continue to eat them. However, after a time, you’d get sick of them. Now I’ve found that, in a fairly quick fashion, I’ve had my fill of Druaga. I have no contempt, or personal insults, or condescending feelings of pitty for those that will continue to follow Druaga. I simply say, “May you continue to enjoy you’re anime-watching!” I have some better hotdogs to eat.

    kadian1364
    Reply

  12. @kadian i can see where your coming from. But I have enough free time to follow all the anime series better than Druaga so I have the time for it. Also the vast majority of anime is original, I can deal with an anime that’s not too original. That in itself is somewhat original for me.

    Vent
    Reply

  14. I heard that one of the p2p releasers got arrested in Japan. Other sharers are affected by the news. There may be a down-time for certain series in the net, especially the HQ ones.
    Druaga is pizza, not hotdog, so if some hotdog fans do not like it, it’s normal.

    test
    Reply

  15. Wait a sec, how come the these pics are so good? This was up close to the same time as it was put up on youtube, and there wasn’t even a raw that i was aware of out for it. This a raw in full resolution?

    frubam
    Reply

  16. I’m positive these are not YouTube quality. End of story ^^

    I like coopa voice, while I don’t understand why people would dislike this episode it’s a good episode to me. Coopa and melt interaction have been one of my favourite enjoyment when watching Druaga.

    Now you’re free to dislike the show and stop watching, Hell! I would recommend it to the haters so I don’t have to listen to your complaints in the next several episode. I don’t mind criticism but its 6 episode already, if you haven’t found your reason to watch tower of druaga its best you find something else to watch.

    For those of us who enjoy an old rpg style anime like The Slayer will find this series enjoyable.

    zaeris
    Reply

  18. Look Gonzo is subbing this and releasing it on 3 streaming sites, there is really not much need for raws because the main reason raws are uploaded are for fansubbers to use.

    Only HQ raws are needed but they end up on a lower priority to who ever provides then.

    Drakron
    Reply

  19. This episode and the last one were the weakest, IMO. There are apparently only 13 episodes, so why are they bringing in NEW characters like Yury that no one cares about, much less developing those characters?

    Mark
    Reply

  20. raws in Japan are or were meant for ppl who wanna watch stuff in good quality , over and over without fussing with videotapes. subbers just happen to be lucky to know how to get their hands on em.
    however the sometimes deliberate low quality raws mean one thing – they can’t be used to make pirated DVDs

    tonbo
    Reply

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