Waking Dead

Oh my, what have we here? It seems somebody showed Haruhi to the staff at Gonzo; here’s another opening episode that bares zero resemblance to the rest of the series.

Let me point out that although this is allegedly episode one of Tower of Druaga, there is another episode that shows the same events from a different perspective – and I would imagine the true perspective. This particular episode is a real curveball, being a parody of just about every fantasy anime and RPG cliché known to man. And I laughed like a fucking goon all the way through it.

There’s little point in me trying to explain the plot to you because everything changes with the next episode anyway, suffice it to say that our band of not-so-merry warriors are climbing the Tower of Druaga in order to defeat the dark lord himself. This episode, however, distills the entire plot of the series into 24 minutes. And then adds a bunch of random comedy elements, tosses it all into a blender, and serves over ice.

I’ll tell you now that if the letters D and D bring a knowing smile to your lips, and you’ve spent more than a few levels playing a console RPG, this is really going to appeal. Just about every joke they could think of gets an airing, along with one trully inspired hentai pisstake that had me pausing the show so I could stop laughing. The show looks lovely as well, the animation of the final battle scene a colourful pastiche of Saturday-morning shounen crap. I loved it.

But that leaves me with something of a dilemma. I can’t really recommend the show based on the first episode because the rest of the series is a much more straight-forward fantasy action affair. And compared to this moment of genius, it’s probably going to be quite ordinary. Either way, I’ll keep watching it for now because I happen to like straight-forward fantasy action, although I suspect the best way to get a grip on this show is to watch the alternative opening episode instead.