Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

Series Information

ANN Encyclopedia | AniDB | AnimeNfo
OP: “Swinging” by Muramasa☆
ED: “Tōchōsha-tachi (塔頂者たち)” by KENN
Production: Gonzo

[ Episode 1: The Great Tower of Druaga ]

Hot damn. GONZO has outdone themselves with this shining gem of promise and hilarity!

I fell for this series instantly and I’m loving it so much! When I first saw the promo images and synopsis I had come to think of Druaga being something else entirely than what was presented in this first episode. Haha. GONZO, you really managed to get me with this one. For now, based on this introductory episode, you have won me over and I’ll forgive you for Dragonaut. You’ve got the animation looking beautiful and the music is something I’d loop over and over. The main character is engaging and the premise is looking so solid. Druaga has become one of my instant favorites of the new season!

Jil starts out as the hero of the story, giving us a quick explanation of his life and from there we’re given an hilarious ride through a ton of clichés and scenes that only a really bad anime would use seriously. I particularly laughed hard at the one where a character would mention what they’d do after a battle is done and is immediately killed after declaring their dreams. LOL! I’ve seen that used too many times, especially in videogames (which Druaga is also derived from). The tentacle scene was obviously blatant and even the characters had their fun seeing Fatina’s body, particularly her breasts, get squeezed. Hell, there was even parodies of Evangelion and Gurren Lagann in here and some major fun-poking at the concept of using friendship (especially those that are dead) as a force of power to defeat the enemy! I can go on and on about some of the other clichés but I’ll just end up typing too many “LOLs” than I’m comfortable with.

While it wasn’t too surprise, this entire episode turned out to be a dream. Yup. Just the dream of Jil who in reality is a total newbie at the hero business (he was actually knocked out since the very beginning when those monsters rushed at him. Jil and his team are now cornered and I have no idea what to expect in the next episode. It seems like things will get more serious from hereon out but I suspect that comedy will still be around, just not a whole ton of it like in this episode (yes, I know about the other “normal” version).

Overall, Druaga really impressed and surprised me. The first episode alone shows a lot of promise, especially after seeing so many characters will be involved in the story through the OP and ED sequences. Speaking of which, the OP sequence was totally not what I had expected. Seriously, the main characters are all running around in modern day world with an upbeat song (sung by Muramasa*) while the ED is completely different and uses the expected fantasy-angle in both appearance and sound. I’m very optimistic about the future of this series and will definitely be watching. Druaga is pretty much my Friday show unless Amatsuki can beat it out (which I have yet to see). Please GONZO, make this awesome from start to finish!