Druaga no Tou: The Sword of Uruk

The Sword of Uruk diverges rather heavily from its prequel. Instead of "everyone happily going on a hiking trip", the story is centered more on betrayal and vengeance - PG style. Unfortunately, the animation quality hasn't improved much from season one, but they have finally stopped cramming in weaksauce CG like Gonzo's previous projects (ie. Druggynaut, BlAss-rater, etc.). Fans of season one are more likely to enjoy this due to the obvious reason of "sequel", but they are enough flashbacks to make season one optional. Art: 7 Hokay, so its no longer a secret that Fatina is so bangin' hot and every man in Uruk wantsto have her babies. But not even the Scarlett Johansson of Meskia can keep us entertained if all the fights in this show look like Street Fighter Alpha. Hell even Pokemon had more exciting battles. So... what I mean to say is don't expect any Soul Caliber from this show. Sound: 7 Fairly catchy OP, although most of the attractiveness is in the form of a smokin' hot blonde mage (magess?). There's really not much to say about the sound, cuz honestly, who cares? Character: 9 If there is one redeeming aspect of the Sword of Uruk, it would be the addition of new characters, as well as the expansion of previous ones. One gripe I had with season one was the shallow-ness of the entire cast. This just... happened, no one knew, no one asked, no one explained. This time around, there is some back-story to explain the reasons for the characters' actions in season one. As random as they may be, any explanation is better than no explanation. Jil forming a new party with Neeba's old comrades was a good move since it gave an opportunity for them to say things that they couldn't in season one. Enjoyment: 10 To be honest, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this show if it wasn't for Fatina. There must be something about that bangin' hot body that makes me laugh at all the lame gaffs in this show. For those of you who don't like hardcore, bloodthirsty, action animes I high recommend you to give this a look. Ditto for those of you with a soft spot for tsundere blondes. And oh yea, Fatina is a hottie.

Hmmmmmmmm, what to say about this anime. I thought it was "alright". Nothing compared to the first season, which I enjoyed WAY more. I'm gonna try to keep this spoiler free, but that may be hard to. Story - 6 The story for ToD had POTENTIAL. But it lost it for me. Most of the episodes felt like a burden to watch, and I only watched cause I wanted to see the end. There's Jil and his friends climbing the tower, little girl with some back ground story following them, and then some things happen etc etc. But what I HATED about it was howDULL they made it all. It all seemed so familiar like I was watching the same episode over and over. And then when things do change up, it's some type of stupid plot twist. If you decide to watch the ending, you will see what I'm talking about. Art-8 I liked the art, it was colorful, it was nice, and the action scenes were well done. But you know what kills a good fight scene? Crappy CG monster models. Seriously, that KILLED it for me. At first I thought "Oh, they trying to do more like they did with the Druaga fight from the first season". But it looked pretty stupid at most parts, and it rarely got better. May sound like I'm wailing on it, but to be truthfull, the CG was the only thing that bugged me besides the story plot. Sound-9 I liked the voice acting and the action sounds were fitting. Never really much to talk about in this area. Characters-10 Best part of the anime. The unique characters. To be honest, some of them just sucked, but than they decided to give us gold in the form of Fatina and Melt. My favorite thing about the whole show is how they all seemed to have their positions in the plot. This character is the nagger, this character is leader, this character is gonna be a bitch. Reminded me of an MMO. Real diverse, and filled with jerks. Enjoyment-7 It was kinda hard to enjoy because of the story, but I still managed to give it a 7 (which stands for gooooooooood). It was dull and boring at some points, but than theres points where I thought to my self "this anime is worth my time" and in a way, it was. The jokes are funny, most of the actions scenes are well done, and the characters are well built. As long as you don't mind the CG monsters and the rather boring story line (Untill you get to the end. There you can decide if it was worth it all or not) this anime was good. Overall, I rate this anime a 7. Worth my time, but wasn't all that great.

It's generic fantasy done fairly well on the surface, but ultimately it's a hollow experience which reeks of missed potential. Though I haven't really spoiled anything explicit, I do refer to a fair amount of events in this review, so it won't be for those who don't want to know any details of what they'll see. Plenty of SoU's merit rests on our shared experiences with the characters from the previous season. It also does a satisfying job of tying things from AoU's storyline into this one, though unfortunately it fails to improve on AoU's foundation or deliver satisfying resolutions of its own. SoU started offpretty strong, with an exciting build-up in the first two episodes as the old crew gets reunited, and some fun adventures through exotic landscapes and fiendish new enemies in the more threatening Mythical Tower, culminating in the somewhat emotional 7th episode which was in my view the high point of the series. Some of the characters here receive interesting glimpses of characterization and there's hope that the story will continue to do things with them. And yet, by its end the show has devolved into a chaotic, ugly blend of clichés, yet more boring betrayals and often shaky dialogue whilst seeming to take itself far too seriously for the crap that it's giving you. It features a very weak and kind of ridiculous "battle against heaven" and unimaginative fights lacking the animational potency or enough unconventional features to be interesting. The most frustrating aspect of the DRUAGA story is that none of the characters ever received as much investment and care as we could have hoped: At the end of the day they're just vocational "Climbers" who seem to do it without even needing an objective, apparently because there's so little else to do in their world. This is pretty aptly conveyed by the point at which Utu, carrying a wounded Fatina, angrily demands to know why they're putting themselves through all of this to follow Jil, and what his reason is for going on (out of the blue, after seeming perfectly fine with not having an objective this whole time). I could only put my head into my hands when Jil replied "because I'm a Climber", with both of his sidekicks seeming mightily impressed by his response and no longer questioning what the hell they're doing. There are a huge amount of characters all aiming to reach the top, but all this does is weaken the focus (that might have been used to make core characters more interesting) and muddy the waters as to who wants what, or most importantly why they want it. At the end of the day the show just fails to get you to care enough about the characters given that their purpose, backstory and aims seem so empty and unexplored. The old crew are by the end of the season your typical auxiliaries who can't really participate in the end battle alongside Jil by dint of not being the "chosen ones", so they ended up pretty much spectating. The deaths of a few mostly forgettable side characters really fail to make things feel more serious, while lazy writing ensures that some characters don't even receive any worthy closure to their stories at all, and feel utterly pointless. Betrayals will also have as little effect on the characters as they do on you and we can't even relate to the characters because of how undeveloped they are, how ambiguous their blank faces are about their emotional states, and how little detail we have upon their motives when they make decisions which often don't seem logical. Female characters are mostly seen falling for male ones, being rescued or fighting supportively rather than independently so there's nothing refreshing there, while the 'chosen couple' is also very bland, given their dull personalities and almost universal lack of real bonding between them throughout either of the two seasons, with most of us inevitably having opted for Fatina over Kaaya. What kept TToD - SoU alive is that it remained a pretty fun adventure, it was easily watchable and had a nice atmosphere almost entirely thanks to its good OP's and ED's - these are graced by fun songs that draw you into the world a bit more and wrap each episode in nostalgic, magical feelings. I'd imagine it's because of these feelings and the (albeit somewhat primitive) connections we established with Fatina, Utu, Melt and Coopa that we're all a little sad to leave the world of Uruk for good. Despite this, it just didn't manage to make its best characters more than fun sidekicks for the most part, or to make its story compelling enough given how unclear and shallow the reasons behind everything relating to the plot are. It suffers from the same weaknesses of its predecessor in the domain of animation (gaping lack of facial expressions) and just doesn't really have what it takes to be a superior anime. With attempts at humour that are passable but no real improvement on its predecessor, it's as if SoU tries to be lots of things but in the end doesn't really do anything that well. 4.5/10

What the hell happened? Those four words generally sum up my disbelief at the second season. Granted I know this show isn't a beacon of comedy, I understand that but holy crow did they ever suck the humor out of this show, except for the third episode you may be hard-pressed to find any sort of humor in this season, it's like the creators decided no we're not going to include any comedy in this season. Without the comedy this show ultimately suffers, the pacing starts to slow the show down considerably and you feel like watching this show is almost like a chore instead ofsomething you want to watch. But I have to digress, the Voice acting is sharp, However, I think it's a shame Melt does not have as many lines as he did in the first one and thus the comedic factor is lost. The leads do a great job though but sometimes it feels as if they are sleep walking through the script. Nothing bad to say about the animation, it's really gorgeous and it seems that reducing the amount of CGI helped the show for the better. As for the new characters I have to say I was dissapointed, without trying to spoil anything I have to admit I was suprised with Henaro, I never saw that coming, that character was well done. Elevating Utu and Fatina to major characters helps the show out a lot, and it's great there is a new group this time instead of the previous group. The Four Coffin Knights were not interesting. I have to say I ended up caring for none of them including Mite. So frankly I have to say that I wish GONZO had thought harder about how to write the Second Season because it felt rushed and at times incomplete.

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