So I finally got around to watching the two last episodes of Druaga no Tou and it’s not a lie to say I wasn’t disappointed. That is, I didn’t exactly have sky high expectations of it from the start and that’s probably why I kind of enjoyed it all. I mean it won’t win any oscar’s for its great story and compelling characters but somehow the premise with the tower and hoardes of monsters struck home with me as it reminded me of a sort of inverted Undermountain from AD&D.

The pacing of the story and the way it played out also felt like an old-school hack ‘n slash adventure session, complete with encounters, ambushes and boss fights. The only thing missing were longswords +2 and various magical trinkets but to be honest I’m glad they skipped that whole part because I feel it would tip the show over to being just tacky, instead of being slightly tacky but aware of it and twisting it to its advantage.

It’s a fine line they walked too, and I can totally understand if anyone felt the show was one big trainwreck but I couldn’t help but feel they really understood what kind of material they were working with and gave it nods all the time. I even found the ‘filler’ episodes to be completely hilarious because they ‘could have happened’ if only they were slightly more serious.

Despite my overall good impression of the show I can’t help but being irked by the 13 episodes format and the cliffhanger ending. Sure it’ll get a second season but why couldn’t they just do it all at the same time and finish it properly? Instead we have to wait for the followup and any feelings I had for the show will have cooled off significantly.

Even if I now know there will be a second season I instantly knew I was going to be disappointed with the ‘endind’ when I saw the halfway-through commercial break and they were still fighting the last boss. I feel it’s almost a rule that if the show hasn’t reached its climax before halfway through the last episode the ending is going to suck, and while it was true here I’m not gonna judge the show by it since it wasn’t a real ending.

Also Kaaya’s ‘dark secret’ gave me a real WTF moment. Ok, so she already knew the real blue rod wasn’t there but what’s so horrible about that? If Gil had any balls he’d just follow her to the next part of the tower instead of standing there gawping like an idiot. Oh well, atleast the boss battle was really awesome so I could still get enjoyment of the last episode and I’m actually looking forward for some more tower adventuring full of monsters and traps!