The Tower of Druaga -the Aegis of URUK-

[Assassin]

yes i was rather surprised by that as well....does he really currently possess the blue crystal rod? that would be a pretty kool twist.

I gotta say the ending of this ep totally and completely saved what i thought would be a mediocre anime with wasted potential. I guess Gonzo had this planned out from the beginning and used the first season to get all the character and story development done. The last 5 min made it go from a decent anime to a "holy shit, this is awesome" anime.

I can't wait to see what the second half of the tower holds...all this time people never even made it half way up, and those who finally did this time almost got killed just fighting the guardian. I'd hate to see what kind of crazy monsters the top half holds. I bet we'll get to see the black knight and the other funky knights in season 2.

Edit:

It seem like ep 13 will be a summary after all like i predicted....or maybe even a preview of season 2. It doesn't seem like they'll continue the current story line since it had a pretty nice ending and nothing substantial can happen in another 20 min.

also.

To come back to the animal I mentioned in the sequel-thread.

What animal is this? (in the last episode it was shown beneath that handkerchief when the tower collapses)
The first time I noticed it was shortly before the fight against the Dragon.. it popped up on Jil's shoulder and everyone was acting normally...

What are you talking about? can you provide a screen shot of said animal?

[xtallography]

I believe this is the animal in question (time stamp: 22:33):



I also thought this was an excellent last episode from the first season. I just wish we didn't have to wait an entire year to the next season. I can predict that I'll have to watch the whole thing over again next June just to jog the memory. I thought that it was interesting that Fatina was able to see through Kaaya almost instantly. It does set up the motives of revenge and love very nicely for the next installment. Like everyone else, I was not expecting the king Gil scene. It makes me wonder if its a case of... you defeat the monster you become the "guardian" on the bcr. Also sets up the "killed by his own weapon" and "killing your hero" standard if Jil does him in. Something to look forward to.

Some things that strike me as odd about the ending though...

Jil and the rest were flushed down to the base level of the tower were they not? Meaning, they would have to climb back up the tower and defeat the guardian again just to get the key for the crazy flower dna helix combo stairs that neeba and kaaya went up. However, the summer is over and I thought that meant the demons were much stronger now. Does that mean they have to wait for a year for another summer because I have a feeling neeba and kaaya aren't just going to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I'm curious how gonzo is going to handle that.

[KrayZ33]

the monsters are all dead (they disappeared), he doesn't have to "climb" it again.

well ok, they have to climb, but without monsters or any resistance.
Unless they have a respawn timer :/

But there is something which is still very confusing... I thought the tower would collapse after the defeat of druaga and so Kaaya + Neeba are basically cut of from the rest... but the tower seems to be still intact.

And why were they flushed out anyways? I mean it's somehow odd that only the upper celling (where all the loot is) is flushed and even collapsed... this was really only done to separate Jil from Kaaya+Neeba.

Plus, I wonder if the rest did actually survive that water-ride (Coopa etc)

[animus]

Wonder how good/bad this MMO is gonna be.

[ForteCross]

lol, i dont think its gonna get released before the second arc... anyways... really good ep, so they actually did or did not kill druaga? and it is just me the one that see's this like castelvania symphony of the night?

[Buffalobiian]

They haven't met Druaga yet. He's found on the top of the tower that Neeba and Kaaya are climbing right now. Though according to Neeba, Druaga's already killed by Gilgamesh, so there's no telling if it revived, or some other monster/remnant took it's place.

That big monster was only the guardian of the real tower.

Talking about real tower, I think it might be feasible for Jil to wait, say, a year for the next summer, if there are monsters. If that top tower is the original tower, then it's got 60 floors, as opposed to....was it 5 in this one? Then they're only a team of two, while Jil will be catching up with a team of no less then five (I'm counting on their remaining two parties join up).

[Kraco]

It was a good ep but I can't understand, no matter how much I think of it, why Jil didn't simply start to climb the stairs after Neeba and Kaaya. Why did he just stand there screaming Kaaya's name? He thought that was all of the tower, but Neeba clearly explained it wasn't, so there shouldn't have been anything unclear for him. Or is his head so full of bone that he couldn't accept the tower didn't end there? Quite a hero, indeed. He deserved to get flushed down for such stupidity.

Still, the guy was so unbearably naive I think this all was a good lesson for him. Like has been said before, the next time, if a next time exists, he won't be so innocent. In fact he should still be grateful to Neeba. The whole tower and crystal rod business doesn't look quite as simple as most seem to think, so it might have ended bad for Jil in his current form had he ascended to the second tower.

Edit: Regarding Jil and Fatina, what reason would Fatina have to try again? She was obviously in for money alone, and also because she was dreaming of Neeba. Now it should be pretty obvious to her Neeba was never interested in her, and I'd judge receiving riches is not so guaranteed any longer. Besides, if Sir Kelb remained alive and is a man of his word, Fatina might already receive some compensation. She might take that and hit the road. She shouldn't be like Jil who was never in for anything concrete but just to prove something to himself, and I guess others, and so absolutely can't be satisfied with an outcome like this.

[Buffalobiian]

Regarding Jil and Fatina, what reason would Fatina have to try again? She was obviously in for money alone, and also because she was dreaming of Neeba. Now it should be pretty obvious to her Neeba was never interested in her, and I'd judge receiving riches is not so guaranteed any longer. Besides, if Sir Kelb remained alive and is a man of his word, Fatina might already receive some compensation. She might take that and hit the road. She shouldn't be like Jil who was never in for anything concrete but just to prove something to himself, and I guess others, and so absolutely can't be satisfied with an outcome like this.

I'd think the reason they'd do it again is to get a reason out of Kaaya and Neeba. They both like them, and were obviously shocked when the betrayal happened. I think Fatina might be reluctant to go with Jil at first, but she'll join as soon as they start climbing.

Talking about betrayal, how many did the red ghost say Jil will suffer? We've just had two, and from what I remember, it was around five, so don't be surprised if more of this happens next season. (no doubt, I will be{surprised})

[Assassin]

She said 3 betrayals....i think gilgamesh was the 3rd one. It wouldn't make sense for there to be another one next season....the new season ought to have its own story line.

As for the summer of anu, didn't they say it happens every 5 years? So they can't just climb up next summer in hopes of weaker monsters (if they're not all dead, which seems to be the case)...they'll have to face the tower at full strength.

[Buffalobiian]

She said 3 betrayals....i think gilgamesh was the 3rd one. It wouldn't make sense for there to be another one next season....the new season ought to have its own story line.

As for the summer of anu, didn't they say it happens every 5 years? So they can't just climb up next summer in hopes of weaker monsters (if they're not all dead, which seems to be the case)...they'll have to face the tower at full strength.

Which, I hope, results in a solid and longer (>/=24 eps) series. If they took everything seriously, I can imagine this could be something of awesomeness.

[Kraco]

As for the summer of anu, didn't they say it happens every 5 years? So they can't just climb up next summer in hopes of weaker monsters (if they're not all dead, which seems to be the case)...they'll have to face the tower at full strength.

Actually the monsters are totally irrelevant - before the Guardian. After all, their objective is just to get to the half-way point and defeat the Guardian to summon the key and thus the stairs. Now they dropped nicely all the way down, so they could actually even climp up the same way, avoiding all the monsters, whenever they can assume a new Guardian and a new key is waiting. Before that it's useless to go unless they intend to wait up there - with a hoard of food.

However, if I was Jil I would go at least part way up when there are no monsters - and burn down the stupid door that dropped them into the mud bath time after time. That door doesn't deserve to live...

Edit: If you think about it, though, it wouldn't even be unreasonable if the next series starts at the half-way point. Perhaps we will see a new fight against a Guardian and summoning of the key and stairs at the very beginning. Even the fight against the Guardian is somewhat irrelevant but they could show it just to introduce Jil and whatever new companions and powers he has.

[Buffalobiian]

Edit: If you think about it, though, it wouldn't even be unreasonable if the next series starts at the half-way point. Perhaps we will see a new fight against a Guardian and summoning of the key and stairs at the very beginning. Even the fight against the Guardian is somewhat irrelevant but they could show it just to introduce Jil and whatever new companions and powers he has.

I like this idea, especially if they're full pros and completely kick ass. That at least would show they actually learned something from this season's climb.

[ForteCross]

i think that they would have to fight with all the other monsters again... i mean, if the guardian has to respawn why not the rest of the monsters? only this time we will have stronger monsters (no summer right now...) and they wont be able to avoid them like before, becouse then they had like 1k climbers... right now i dont think someone will want to climb again... if they can just go all the way up without any monster that would be lame... and then there would not be any reason to flush them out... im hoping for atleast 2 or 3 chapters about them climbing all the thing over again (getting the party, defeating the dragon and then the guardian) and i would like 24 or 52 chapters this time... or 37 chapters like the epic death note :P

EDIT: this is my post number 37 :P

[Kraco]

Chapters? Are you talking about manga, or something?

Anyway, I don't particularly desire to watch the same stuff again, wasting precious episodes, that's why I said it could be better if they started it already from the half-way point. I mean, if they can't even reach that point, then what use would the second season be in the first place? To have anything new in, they need to reach the half-way no matter what, so it's all the same to skip what we have seen already. The Guardian would be only interesting because we pretty much know its power level and thus by how easily Jil defeats it, we can gauge how much more powerful he is than during the first time through.

[shinta|hikari]

Good point. I don't want to watch a repeat of season 1, though I think they would need to show how he gets the party together before attempting the climb again.

[Yukimura]

If the monsters do respawn they'd have to also explain how Jil and co. would break the hax shield all on their own. Only the people who actually knew what they were doing brought any counter measures against the Guardian. I'm still not 100% sure whether Pazuz knew about the rest of the Tower or not but he was definitely more prepared to fight the Guardian than the rest of the parties at least.

I would hope we'll get at least a shortened tower climb (if you skip all the silly eps and team building eps it didnt' really take that long the first time around) with some preparation scenes before hand showing Jil getting the team back togeather as well as finding/learning of some random magical item that can also take down the shield or reopen the 2nd half or otherwise Flashdance the plot around the issues I've just raised. Heck, the monsters could just stay gone and the party could do a relatively easy reclimb and get flashdanced into the 2nd half by the Kayaa looking spirit girl, anything's possible.

[KrayZ33]

what makes you guys think that the monsters do respawn? when that "Druaga" has been killed all the monsters despawned.... I don't want to believe that they showed that to us for no particular reason

and why do they have to kill the guardian again?

[Kraco]

The assumtion was the next season would follow in the footsteps of this season. Though it could as well not do that, and present something quite different. However, it's easy to assume so, because this is one of those series that really strongly was centered around a certain idea, in this case the tower and whatever mythos surrounded it. Basically everything in the story was connected to it. So, it makes sense to think the trend will continue. We don't know any better, after all. Not yet.

Killing the Guardian spawned the key that summoned the stairs.

[Assassin]

well we're all thinking in terms of rpg's where monsters respawn after a certain time....but 'realistically' speaking, the monsters have to come from somewhere, whether thru monster eggs or thru birth. Given enough time (say atleast a year) im sure the monster population would grow if there's no climbers killing them.

[shinta|hikari]

I think the monsters in that tower are more mystical than biological, meaning they can probably pop in as easily as they disappeared.