The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of Uruk~ HQ Review

The first show of the season to actually impress, but wait! Let’s get a few things out of the way. This is a Gonzo anime, which means I would probably go through the WOW(great first half) HMM(things start slowing down) WTF(Gonzo messes things up) MEH(Disappointment) cycle all over again. Regardless, it's been a while since I experienced such hotblooded parody action that I was sort of fooled that the entire show would have been like that, if it wasn't for the little twist towards the end.

Having watched this on Youtube, I didn't want to make a post on it as I wanted to take proper screencaps, not to mention the fact the spoofing of so many RPG clichés made this worth rewatching, as having played games of this genre for as long as I can remember, taking note of them gave off a overwhelming sense of nostalgic satisfaction. We join Jil and his band of merry adventurers comprising of all the job classes you'd find in the game of this sort, be it the full armored, axe wielding Berserker class(who looks a hell lot like Alphonse Elric), the magician, the archer and the rogue where they embark on a noble quest to rid the world of the evil overlord Druaga.

At one of the many floors of the dungeons in the Tower itself, our man Jil, who's a swordsman by the way, almost single handedly takes out a mob of monsters, much to the adoration of Fatina, the party mage, who rewards him by embracing and gyrating erotically against his side. Did I mention she's voiced by Hocchan? That's not even the best part of it(more on that later) So as it turns out, Jil is the chosen one(surprise, surprise!) as he is bestowed with Gilgamesh's sword, who turns out to be some old kook that is now king. MONGRELS! With his newly appointed task as hero, Jil gathers his most trusted allies, although Neeba, the party archer, refuses to acknowledge the latter as their leader until Jil faced him in a duel. Unwilling to fight among his own, Jil refuses to do so, and challenges Neeba to a fight if he still insisted on doing so. Wait, what? Needless to say, melee > range once again, and the party sets out on the biggest mission of their life, not before Jil promises the princess of the land that he would return one day to marry her.

As they approach Mordor Druaga's tower, Jil's party faces their first strong adversary, a seemingly high leveled Dark Knight who goes by the name of uh.. Black Knight. Utu, the party tanker then reveals to Jil that he would return home to get married after all this was over, which turns out be his epitath, as he charges head on against the Black Knight, only to be killed in a single blow orz Overwhelmed by his friend's sudden death, Hero Jil, as he now known, uses his secret attack, the 「SONIC BLADE」 in the longest charging scene in recent memory, and weird enough, the Black Knight just stupidly stands there and gets his ass wh00ped.

10 years later, yeah that's right, a decade after that, the party finally arrived at the dreaded Tower. As they set foot into the Druaga's domain, Fatina is attacked by a tentacle monster. Now, if you're thinking of the consequences of how an anime female character being attacked by multi membered lifeform would look like, then good work, that's how it took place. Watching Hocchan cry out helplessly as she is tentacle raped by the monster which slowly probes her all over, complete with erect nipples and fitting expressions to boot, gave me an arousal like no other xD To add insult to injury, her male companions simply stands there and they enjoy the spectacle unfold, before finally cutting her loose.

After the fun was over, the party heads up higher up the tower, which means an even stronger boss awaits them. Sure enough, a large fire breathing dragon threatens to wipe everyone out, as it unleashes a destructive fireball towards Jil. Sadly, he dodges the attack, only to have Kally, the rogue, get toasted by it. Man down. Once again, Jil goes berserk at lunges into the jaws of death, although this time around, he finds himself in a bind. Thankfully, like the typical recurring rival character, Black Knight makes his appearance and assists Jil, stating that he would be the one to defeat Jil. He had to then ruin the moment by signing his death warrant by mentioning that he would return home to get married after the battle was over. With that, the dragon lets off a fireball which instantly kills B.K. D'oh. Cue angry Jil who destroys the dragon. Then there's the power rangers, so to speak, which comprises of Druaga's strongest officers, but let's go into that, since Jil dispatches them with relative ease. Just before they finally reach the top tower, the party, or what's left of it, find themselves being pursued by a large mob of monsters. Neeba volunteers to stay behind to fend them off, but Jil will have no part of it and knocks the latter out, claiming it was his battle from here on. In yet another display of retardation, Jil then abandons Neeba and proceeds. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

Now I know in a lot of games, the final boss tends be rather anti-climatic, Druaga just takes home the prize with his physical appearance. As the pair consisting of Jil and Fatina face their greatest nemesis yet, it turns out the evil one is actually Jil's dad. Just wow. As the Nico video comments roll out, I was banging on the keyboard in laughter as Jil unleashes his final form, which looks to be some Gurren Lagann ripoff, which comes complete with drills and shit, although he uses a huge hammer and squashes Druaga like a bug lawl. Big explosions, and Druaga is finally defeated. Yes.

If everything so far sounds ridiculous, that's because none of it actually took place. Jil actually passed out at the very beginning during the confrontation with a monster and has been dreaming about those chain of events ever since. Talk about vivid imaginary. Being no more than a mere burden to the rest of the party, Jil and company find themselves in a dead end, and this time around, no crazy plot h4x(or so it seems) to get them out. Welcome to the Tower of Druaga.

What can I say? The whole experience was an acid trip, and having rewatched the entire episode twice on youtube before getting hold of the HD version, I have to say Gonzo once again snared me with yet another great first episode. With that said, this is worth following for the time being, although I've yet to see how the story unfolds now that it's all serious business. Speaking of which, there is actually another version of the same episode which takes place concurrently as Jil was KO'ed, which is puzzling, since I have no idea which is supposed to be the proper one. I barely caught a glimpse of it, but it seems to be far more serious that the one we just watched, not to mention a whole slew of characters being introduced. Since we know it's not going to be a parody from here on out, I pray that the quality is consistent, although it's yet to be known how the show will be being serious business and all. For the time being, Gonzo's latest offering looks good, and do look out for the HD version of the alternate take should it get released.

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