Dear, Ani-nouto: 10 Reasons why Tower of Druaga is Awesome and Gonzo is still Hated. at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Dear, Ani-nouto: 10 Reasons why Tower of Druaga is Awesome and Gonzo is still Hated.

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Popularity: 10% [?] Published by tj_han May 4th, 2008 in Anime

To the Sniper of the Blogging Shadows:

Dear Author (who is aptly named after the law that says major alkene products are those which are tertiary substituted),

You have innocently asked why do people hate on Gonzo, because Tower of Druaga is so awesome. This letter shall explain why, in ten reasons.

1.Tower of Druaga has the best opening sequence of the season, outing even the infectious O2 of Code Geass and the long-awaited reunion of Kanou Yoko and Sakamoto Maaya of Macross F. The latter of which I think is way overrated but that’s for another day. ToD’s opening is charming, with slick animation, creative placement of credits, a fantasy within a fantasy alternate universe approach that never fails to be interesting and an oddly-catchy song that goes "Swinging, Swinging". Upon watching said hypnotic sequence, one is tricked into thinking the rest of the show is fantastic. Even if it isn’t.

2. ToD is the best anime so far which incorporates fantasy J-RPG-like elements. Most of these shows fall flat in flames, such as .hack, Night Wizard etc because it is very difficult to animate the stylish attack moves in these RPGs as they do not make any logical sense and do damage in terms of numbers and statistics. Also, most of their plots are really simple and linear journey types which translate poorly to the screen. ToD’s beauty is that it’s actually a parody of the JRPG anime conversion, as exemplified by the first episode, and then the battle scenes. The battle scenes are shocking because they either a) skip it and show the result or b) convert the graphics into 8 bit pixelated characters a la the early Final Fantasies. Cleverly, this solves the issue of budget and looking stupid when casting Firaga or Omnislash on a non-moving target waiting to be hit by it.

3. The same reason why FF Tactics is the best Final Fantasy in terms of gameplay, the freakin job classes! ToD has job classes too! That alone makes it very cool. Job classes and elemental powers make any anime cool. Jil’s job class in ToD is the Guardian, which is a highly defensive and high HP unit that can equip heavy armour, whose role is to be a meat shield. Ame would be some sort of Dragoon, with her strong lance weapon stat and high Physical Attack and speed stat. Then we have the offensive mage and defensive support caster respectively. And the little loli mascot. The other team led by Niva has archer, rogue/thief, warrior, flame mage.

4. The comedy is brilliant. The roper dance is seriously hilarious as well as the other various traps in episode 5, such as the team having to perform something interesting to pass a gate, similar to the Japanese variety show that has this rating meter.

5. The character designs are quite nice/cute. The flame mage girl by Horie Yui is cute. I dig her high magical attack stats and fire elemental affinity.

6. The main character is distinctly likeable. He daydreams a lot and has a dad who does the roper dance. Jil doesn’t even have a sword most of the time and instead fights with a shield and either a stick or a little stick. That’s like zero offensive capabilities. So, so cute.

7. I suppose that’s all the reasons so far. It doesn’t have a strong story nor deep characters, but ToD is just the best of the RPG anime genre. So far at least.

8. So why do people hate GONZO? It is because GONZO makes shit shows, complains that they have no money to make good shows, then makes record-breakingly expensive shit shows like Afro Samurai, cancels would-be good shows like Mardock Scramble, does not make Gate Keepers sequels, inserts panty shots into Full Metal Panic, destroys original material in adapting and worst of all, betrayed our love built up through the classics of Last Exile, Gatekeepers, Vandread etc with the likes of Drago "JINNN GIOOOO" Naught, Glass "break this shit" Fleet and Afro "Black Man with sword chopping things up" Samurai.

9. But thankfully, just as it took years to shed the good image it created via the first batch of excellent shows, it’s now in the midst of shedding its image as a clueless corporation producing bad shows. If you look at its production history, the amount of good actually outweighs the bad, particularly in recent years. 2006 was actually their worst year, with only Pumpkin Scissors arguably considered decent. Red Garden (subjective), NHK, Glass Fleet and Witchblade were all examples of why people would hate GONZO for.

10. Look at this list: Tower of Druaga, Burst Angel, Pumpkin Scissors, Basilisk, Speed Grapher, Monte Cristo, Sunabouzu, Kaleido Star, Last Exile, FMP, Gatekeepers and 21, Vandread, Saikano, Blue Sub 6, Yukikaze, Brave Story etc shows that they do have quite a lot of excellent shows. And they are also the first anime studio to stream their shows with English subtitles and embrace the Internet. And their CEO speaks English! The current season is not bad too. Blassreiter is much maligned but actually good, SA is decent, ToD is godly. And the seiyuu of Jil in ToD is Kenn, who can actually sing (the ED).

Popularity: 10% [?]

19 Responses to “Dear, Ani-nouto: 10 Reasons why Tower of Druaga is Awesome and Gonzo is still Hated.”

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1 tj_han 1442 comments May 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

Funny thing is, this post didn’t actually reply anything to Ani-nouto’s comment. OOPS.
2 blissmo 20 comments May 4th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

Hmm, I just watch anything that sounds good
3 Impz 41 comments May 4th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

SA is decent
4 Owen S 144 comments May 4th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

LOL, tj. Good job at going off-topic. At least you’re smart enough to appreciate Saikano. I approve of this Gonzo apologetic.
5 Impz 41 comments May 4th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

SA is decent? Like wtf. Has writing academic papers dull your senses of gonzoification?
6 tj_han 1442 comments May 4th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

Impz: It’s ok what. The girl is cute. Not Kaiba standards of course, but SA is still an average show watchable.

Owen: The true perpetrator of the Sook Ching were the Taiwanese and Korean troops.
7 LianYL 785 comments May 4th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

While talking to tjhan over this, I realise he has a Gonzo meter set in place like me just to rate Gonzo shows.
8 G-Man 55 comments May 4th, 2008 at 7:55 pm

How did Afro Samurai pass the cutting room floor? How!? SMH

I am G-man!
9 Impz 41 comments May 4th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

The girl is cute? HIKARI IS CUTE even with that voice that doesn’t match? ARe you really serious or being sarcastic because I suck at reading sarcasm. She’s like the bloody weak point of the show -.-
10 dKiWi 73 comments May 4th, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Counter-sniping ftw!

And wow text-based fanboyism really does suck people in. I thought ToD was crap from the first half of the first episode but I guess I’ll give it another go.
11 gia 5 comments May 4th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

#11 Gonzo is aware of its role in the greater industry, and at least attempts to help that industry trudge forward.

As for Special A, I really enjoyed the first couple of episodes of the manga, enough to go out and buy everything VIZ has released to date (and then to read everything else via scanlations). So, starting from a not-having-read-manga position, I thought the show was pretty good, and Hikari’s voice didn’t bother me at all. Still doesn’t, actually. Just to throw that out there.
12 wolfx May 5th, 2008 at 10:07 am

>>2006 was actually their worst year, with only Pumpkin Scissors arguably considered decent. Red Garden (subjective), NHK, Glass Fleet and Witchblade were all examples of why people would hate GONZO for.

Pumpkin Scissors was horrid crap. But compared to that, how can NHK be something Gonzo should be hated for? As a standalone anime it was awesome. Probably tj_han is one of those manga-was-better-than-anime people?

And you forgot Gankutsuo as one of the GONZO greats.
13 zaeris 4 comments May 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

@woflx

he did mention monte cristo, well I’m glad someone else mention suna bouza. yukikaze? I’ve never heard of this Gonzo title before guess I will check it out.

Alot of gonzo titles can be like as an anime stand alone rather then an item compare to its precedent. Chrono crusade and Bokurano are geart titles but all the manga-to-anime hater are a deterance when your just trying to enjoy the show for its own quality.
14 tj_han 1442 comments May 5th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Zaeris: I’m not particularly concerned about the conversion in terms of accuracy, but somehow I didn’t finish both Bokurano and NHK. I guess if there wasn’t manga for both, I would have. They are alright. GONZO’s worst manga adaptation is actually GANTZ and their stupid fabricated ending. I hate them for it.

Yukikaze is an OVA about a sentient fighter jet.Back in the old days, it was considered the pinnacle of CG, sort of like Macross Zero.

Chrno Crusade is shit too. Seen that. Wolf X, I did mention Gankutsuou.

Pumpkin Scissors is actually quite good, the first 13 eps aren’t particularly interesting but the final 13 eps wouldn’t be that great if the first 13 hadnt built the series up. The final 13 episodes are seriously high level GONZO stuff.

Nobody seems to defend Red Garden. I thought this was seriously a good show that is underrated. Most people dislike it because the girls are stupid.
15 wolfx May 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

I actually liked Pumpkin Scissors before the art became from good to bad, and finally to shit. Then there’s the whole hostage situation “final arc” which seemed to take longer than it should have, with 2-episode-long flashbacks. Shrug. Maybe i’m just disappointed that it turned out into the typical GONZO show where it disappoints towards the end.

My bad on Gankutsuou. The England didn’t register in my brain. lol.
16 Deranged 27 comments May 6th, 2008 at 6:43 am

Meh, the only studios I really know are Sunrise for train crashes and Xebec doe horrific manga to anime adaptation… I may have to change those perception or fall back to my old stance of ‘who actually cares?’

Druaga is enjoyable to me… Thats enough…
17 Windspirit 3 comments May 7th, 2008 at 6:10 am

Can’t believe you didn’t mention Norio Wakamoto’s voice acting as the door full of whim.
Every scene in anime with Norio Wakamoto is WIN.
I even watched 15 episodes of Hayate no Gotoku crap just because Norio Wakamoto was the narrator…
18 qqq 1 comment May 12th, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Pumpkin Scissors,SA- main stuff AIC
solty rei,seto no hanayome -main stuff GONZO

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