Kurogane’s Anime Blog

Thankfully, whoever was behind the “bright ideas” of the last two weeks, gave up and uploaded this week’s ending in full on Youtube, albeit split in to two parts.

That said, the ending episode begun with Jil’s plan and the subsequent valiant efforts of the others, finally managing to slay the “Druaga” they’ve been fighting against, with Jil dealing the final blow using Ahmey’s drill-spear. It was admittedly a good battle fought.

The big shocker comes no doubt in the form of the revelation that there’s another Tower, on top of the one that Jil and gang have been climbing so far, with Neeba and Kaaya the only two people who knew about it, and subsequently “betraying” their team mates to climb it themselves. Definitely, I was wondering what was the true motives behind the both of them, as it seemed that the screen time was drastically running out, but I’m pretty impressed that Gonzo decided to end the series with a absolute cliffhanger, and announcing the “Sword of Uruk” for 2009. No wonder the OP had the poster of the series with the date stated as “2009″ all this while.

All in all, Druaga has been a good watch, despite seemingly wasting time throughout the middle parts. The humor was pretty enjoyable at times, albeit many would wished that Gonzo instead dedicated more effort to build up the characters and the story earlier instead of later.

The only major developments came at the last three episodes, and despite a general lack of time, I would say it was nicely written off, and since Gonzo has decided on a sequel to it, let’s hope all the mysteries would be solved properly the second time around. There is much potential to be had for the Druaga series, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t want to see Gonzo to waste it all again.

Author says:

This looks like a good time for me to say something about superiority of actually buying the episodes (I spent 1100 BOST points, or about 22 U.S. dollars thus far), and to lampoon Kuro’s cheap-ass lameness. But I won’t. What Crunchyroll is doing is just nasty. The deal was to show the series for free on YouTube. We don’t know why GONZO agreed to that, and the deal made little sense to me, but since they did, they should have followed through with it. Now we know that either Cruncyroll or GONZO is not trustworthy (if GONZO made the decision to truncate the episode, it’s them; if Crunchyroll made it behind GONZO’s back, then the obvious).

In short, Kuro is still lame for not paying for his show, but he made his decision based on the information available at the start of the season, and was deceived. That is inexcusable and outrageous.

While Author has gotten the point of my post right, i.e. they promised us free streaming but instead didn’t fall through, I feel compelled to reply to his accusations that I am “lame” because I do not pay for my anime.

Yes, he has it right, I do not pay for the show, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am “lame”. Given an unlimited amount of money, I would probably choose to spend at least 50% of it on anime, but sadly, being a student and also living in a country where the exchange rates make all but only the upper middle classes and above to be able to afford splurging on foreign stuff, I’m just plainly too poor to afford anything beyond the usual necessities every month.

But that doesn’t mean I do not support the buying of originals. I purchase a number of english-translated manga imported from the US every month, at the price of RM 34 or so, per book, and I have actually bought original DVD’s before. There’s also a whole bunch of Megami I import in each month to the tune of RM 50 a month. The prices are all of course, converted accordingly to the exchange rates.

However, let me put in to context, the imbalances of our buying power compared to the exchange rate. 1 US Dollar is equivalent to Ringgit Malaysia 3.2 at current rates, so a USD 10 manga is priced at around RM 32-36 here, after the inclusion of shipping fees and such by the bookstores. Yet, the buying power of the ringgit and the dollars are roughly the same in their respective countries, so a dollar converted to ringgit here immediately gets 3x more buying power (rough estimates again), but in reverse, a ringgit converted to a dollar has its worth reduced 3x. Not very fair.

So imagine paying USD 34 for a single volume of manga, USD 50 for a magazine and USD 180 for a DVD, and you’ll get the idea of how horrendously expensive to be a paying otaku over here. It’s hard not be “lame”, but hey, if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. I wonder if Author would’ve been willing to spend USD 70 (that’s the amount of ringgit that 22 USD converts to) on Druaga, if it were priced as such.

So apparently, the people behind the free, subtitled streaming of The Tower of Druaga (Crunchyroll I presume), decide to only upload the first 5 minutes of episode 11 on Youtube, while helpfully providing the link to the Crunchyroll streaming with the full episode. In fact, the sidebar description now reads “Watch the full episode (It’s free!): (insert CR link)” instead of “Free streaming of this episode also available at: (insert CR link)” that has been the usual of the previous 10 episodes.

I find it highly annoying, especially because I have been using Youtube much more, and I do not really like the CR site much. This blatant attempt to force the Youtube viewers to their site (meaning account registration and etc. etc.) is highly insulting and reeks of profiteering, even more so when the show is actually nearing it’s end, especially with the story turning a lot more darker and deeper in tone compared to most of the series. I had been looking forward for my usual fix of Druaga on Youtube, but this has left me in despair.

In fact, hints of this had emerged already during the upload of last week’s episode, where a sizable portion of the upper half of the Youtube upload was basically a billboard for Crunchyroll. I was quite irritated, but merely shrugged it off, but this tactic of uploading only the first 25% of the episode and forcing the rest of the viewers to their own site really takes the cake.

I sincerely hope it might be all a mistake and a botched upload, but the evidence points all to the contrary. I do hope that the people behind this realize that this is not the way to attract more viewers to their sites, and in fact causes quite the opposite, especially since there was a promise to fully stream the show on all the three sites that signed up initially.

Meanwhile, I await for my HD raw of Druaga episode 11 to finish.

This episode was a fucking riot, with all the random traps and stuff. Those who loved the madness of episode one would definitely love this episode with all it’s hijinks.

Basically, Jil and co. try to take a shortcut that’s filled with traps, that when stepped on, activate a variety of jokes, such as turning them in to 8-bit sprites, exchange their genders, turn them in to furries, make them in to kigurumi mice, clone them in to versions of Koopa and etc. Bloody hilarious, especially the gender-change one. Jil made me laugh so hard when he enjoyed his new-found big boobs. And WTF was with that random onsen appearing suddenly?

As if that wasn’t enough, at the end of the cavern, they have to perform a funny act to please a door (voiced by the GOD, Norio Wakamoto) so that it would open up for them. Various things are tried, including Kaaya doing a cat impersonation (kawaii!) and finally, in the end, Jil decides to perform his family’s secret Roper Dance, but fails because Neeba did it first.

Man, this episode was sure whacked. Seriously, Gonzo, what are you trying to do with this show?!

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPnvxmE6d4

Okay, this show has turned rather interesting now. King Gilgamesh managed to survive unharmed from the assassination attempt, apparently due to the curse of Druaga, and Kaaya is probably way more older than she looks like. At the least, it seems that she and King Gilgamesh knows each other, and she also knows a lot more about the tower than she lets on about. While she also seems to give off a feeling of innocence, she sure does know how make people see things her way :). This show might not be so cliched as I thought.

Koopa and Melt finally get some well-deserved screentime, and Koopa is definitely win. When she did that “Mikuru-beam” pose, I half-expected “kira~kira~” stars to pop out lol. Minorin-sama is definitely having fun doing her voice.

Wonder if we’ll see a KOOPA BEEEMU!

Boy meets cute girl… ahh, typical Gonzo.

Yeap, this episode totally makes me go… “Ahh~ this is truly a Gonzo show.”

You have the hotheaded idealistic protagonist in Gil.

You also have the complex, interrelated multiple plot threads going around, half of which are going to be used randomly then discarded.

You also have the cute, female lead in Kaaya, voiced awesomely by Fumiko Orikasa. She pretty much is gonna make this show work for me, elsewise, I probably dunno what to watch for.

Let’s see how episode 3 plays out, after the oh-I-saw-it-coming-from-a-mile-away twist they did at the end of this episode.

P.S. More Hocchan x Roper action would be quite win.

Thanks to heads up from a few people, I discovered that there’s a ura version of it as well. It’s basically set in the same time, only from a different point of view, and more of the characters are introduced, including Minorin’s Kooba, where she seems to be playing the cute but sharp “tsukkomi” character type. She’s the loli with the grey hair and black ribbon in the OP, btw.

Kaya is also introduced, and like most Fumika Orikasa roles, she’s instantly noticeable and likable, playing as, apparently, an ojousama who wants to explore the tower as well. Also we get to see more of the real Fatina (Yui Horie), and she’s like Yoko + Naru at the same time. I love it.

For those who want to watch the “ura” episode 1, unfortunately the only source of it I can find is from Nico Nico. Actually, it does make me wonder, will they only show the “omote” or “front” episodes only for free, while the “ura” episodes are going to be only for paying customers? I hope that doesn’t happen. Most likely this is just a one-time only thing. However, if it does prove to be correct, then Gonzo has definitely got a shrewd business plan.

UPDATE: After doing additional research, it seems that the “ura” version was only aired on GyaO, the Japanese partner for Gonzo’s video streaming plan. Without having to mention, it is for the paying customers only. I don’t see them making it a viable plan for different POV episodes for the future ones, but if they do… I sure hope they can pull it off.

Holy shit, that was a pretty unexpected start. They so blatantly made fun of so many RPG clichés, I keeled over laughing.

Best parts has to be the “I’m going back to my hometown to get married” taboo, Druaga going “Jil… I am your father”, the “I don’t want to fight you, so you’ll have to defeat me first!” part with the stag beetles comparison and the “Hero Jil: Final Form!” with the hammer parody. Lastly, the single most best part…

*Roper tentacle rapes Fatina (Yui Horie)*
Hocchan: Iyaaaadaaaaaaaaa~~
Jil: We need to save her!
Neeba: No, wait! Look!
*Roper continues to tentacle rape Hocchan*
Jil: We really should save her!
Neeba: Not yet! It’s just getting good!
Jil: Not yet?!!
Neeba: Hold on! Just a little bit more….
Fatina: *pissed off* WHEN THE F@#$ ARE YOU PERVERTS GONNA SAVE ME!
Neeba: Okay, let’s attack.

God, that was just… priceless.

Thankfully ( or not so thankfully), it seems that’s not exactly the real story, more like a omake style joke episode. They’re probably going for a “WTF LOL?” opening just like Haruhi for this one. Still, this show has piqued my interest enough to keep on for the 2nd episode.