Without saying anything about why the downtime happened, Crunchyroll has announced that Tower of Druaga episode 1 is back on their site, both the streaming and downloadable versions. Once again, you can see details on Druaga and BLASSREITER’s availability online at the bottom of my first date with Druaga.

I feel like this should be a Scooby Doo mystery: The Case of the Disappearing Anime Series!

Crunchyroll has announced that for the time being, they’re taking down Tower of Druaga. Why? I have no idea; all they say is tha it’s not GONZO’s fault.

BLASSREITER is still available on CR, though, and other sites (YouTube, BOST, and apparently BitTorrent) are still streaming both BLASSREITER and Druaga, and in BOST’s case offering downloads for iPod and PSP. At least now BOST’s is free.

Still, though…I wonder what happened? Speculation, anyone?

According to Anime on DVD, BOST TV– the ugly middle child in GONZO’s release of Tower of Druaga and BLASSREITER –has given up on making people who didn’t sign up early pay for the episode and is now offering the episode for free to everyone who signs up. (Those who already used points to buy the episode will have them refunded.)

Their free offering includes a streaming 640×360 copy of the episode– higher res and smoother looking than YouTube, and way less choppy playback than Crunchyroll –and DRM-free downloadable versions for iPod and PSP. BOST’s iPod and PSP versions are slightly higher-res than Crunchyroll’s, though of course BOST doesn’t have the high-res downloadable CR does.

So now there’s even less reason to download fansub versions (Druaga now has three such releases, which have been downloaded over 6,000 times)– the BOST streaming version is pretty decent quality.

So, about twelve hours ago a subbed version of Tower of Druaga appeared on the Internets. First off, I want to say: don’t be the kind of douche who downloads something that’s being freely (or nearly-freely) given through other means. Seriously, $0.01 gets you a perfectly acceptable permanent DRM-free copy PLUS iPod and PSP versions.

I was kind of curious as to how many people would download it though, so I kept a watch on the data on some sub sites and now, about 12 hours after it went online, nearly 2500 people have downloaded it. Now, maybe some of them just didn’t get the message that GONZO was offering a legit sub release already (I already ran into one fellow who had no clue), but all of them? I don’t think so.

Of course, by comparison, the 51st episode of Hayate no Gotoku (which went up only 20 minutes before the Druaga ep) has seen about 13,000 downloads between its two versions, and the first ep of Code Geass R2 has been downloaded over 15,000 times in the ~8ish hours subbed versions have been available.

Of course, it’s hard to judge even roughly how many people would have downloaded a Druaga fansub if there was no legit version available, but the evidence certainly suggests that making it available legally, affordably, and conveniently cuts down on the sub-viewing quite a bit. And again, some portion of that 2500 is probably simply unaware that a legal version is out there. Good signs! Though I still say people who download the fansub and intentionally ignore the legal subs are douches.

For details on the different resolutions and stuff for these GONZO online releases, check here.

• Title: BLASSREITER
• Studio: GONZO
• Genre: Action/Horror

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥♥

• Animation: &heats;♥½
• Characters: ♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥ (ED only)
• Overall: ♥♥♥ (What can I say? I have a zombie fetish.)

Thoughts:
I was kind of amused that the episode almost started out like a Law & Order episode, with a couple of dumbass cops coming across a dead body. Except that it had a twist I’d LOVE to see in an L&O episode someday: the body turns into a monster, fuses with a bunch of stuff around it (including surgeon’s knives and the ambulance), and kills a bunch of people. Who wouldn’t love to see Jerry Orbach (may he rest in peace) deal with that shit?

Right, anyway. These monsters are known as “Demoniacs,” and no one knows where they came from, but there’s a special team to deal with them. Unfortunately, this particular Demoniac appeared at an ambulance next to a race track, and it interfered with the race, fusing with a motorcycle. It got into an accident with Germany’s top racer: Gerd Frentzen, who survived but lost the use of his legs. Fired from his team and dumped by his girlfriend, Gerd only gets bromantic comfort from his old pal and former racing student Hermann, who is a member of the team that handles Demoniacs, XAT.

Then suddenly a hot female doctor-type appears and hands Gerd some free medicine, which he decides to try out. If you couldn’t guess that he somehow become a badass (complete with legs) and trashes a Demoniac, you haven’t been around anime for long, have you?

On a more technical note, if DRUAGA’s characters look a bit like Romeo X Juliet’s, BLASSREITER’s share more with Dragonaut’s– though decidedly less ridiculous and boobalicious. Though the aforementioned hot doctor had pretty goofy hair. The art style is a little bit lighter-colored and less vivid than Dragonaut though, which seems kind of odd for an action series like this.

The action is all rendered in CG, a little over-CG’d in my opinion. I dunno, I’m not very into the oddly smooth feel of most CG action, so that was a little off-putting for me. The actual content of the action scenes was pretty awesome though, and I think we can expect plenty of badassitude from the show.

On the audio front: I like the occasional jazz riffs you hear in the background music, even if they sometimes seem kind of randomly placed. The ED theme was a nice, catchy R&B tune– there’s no OP in the first ep, but I’m hoping it’s awesome. Maybe sort of along the lines of Darker than Black’s op, abingdon boys school’s “Howling.”

Anyway, I’m curious as to where we’re going to go with the series, so I’ll be picking up episode two fo’ sho’. I don’t know about you, but I’m already anticipating finding out that the medicine Gerd took being related to whatever makes Demoniacs to begin with. ♥

So, it’s been just over 24 hours since the first episode of Tower of DRUAGA ~the Aegis of URUK~ hit the Internets, and on YouTube alone it’s been viewed over 22,000 times. Back on Crunchyroll, I don’t know how many times it’s been viewed or downloaded, but the top donor for the hQ episode is one “The_Onigiri” who paid $50 for the episode.

Meanwhile, the first episode of BLASSREITER is out. It appears to be accessible at YouTube, Crunchyroll, and BOSTTV with the same specs as Druaga (which you can see here), so there you go. I expect to get to a first date of it today (it’s currently downloading; I paid $15 for the HQ download).

Sum-up of my findings on the various downloads (prices, resolutions, etc) are after the review!

• Title: Tower of DRUAGA ~the Aegis of Uruk~
• Studio: GONZO
• Genre: Fantasy/Comedy

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥½

• Animation: ♥♥♥
• Characters: ♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥½
• Overall: ♥♥½ (Warning: This date may or may not be representative of future dates.)

Thoughts:
Secondary warning: this review will, of necessity, contain spoilers for the first episode. Read with caution! I’m also including full details on how to get the different versions of the episode at each of the three sites hosting it. They’ll be after a jump at the end.

Right, then, on with the show. As promised: the high-quality version that Crunchyroll is selling for a minimum donation of $0.01 (NOT for free as previously reported– sorry guys) is both DRM-free and reasonably high resolution (854×480). It’s not HD, but it’s perfectly acceptable. The subs are good-quality, simple white text tucked at the very bottom of the video, virtually never in the way of the action. It is at least as good quality-wise as your average fansub.

The show’s visuals are as expected from GONZO: pretty decent-looking both in terms of art and animation. It’s generally a little bit softer and rounder than Romeo x Juliet, but otherwise similar. The art styles change when they’re parodying something specific, which brings me to the plot.

With the exception of a brief bit at the beginning, the entire first episode is a particularly glorious dream-version of what might happen, imagined by the main character, Jil. It’s actually all pretty amusing, especially the references to Gurren Lagann, Evangelion, and tentacle porn. I really enjoyed the episode as its own thing.

However, it made things really unclear in terms of where the series is going. It introduced the main character to us, and a few side characters, but it’s hard to get a grip on those side characters based on Jil’s imagination-versions of them. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that the group of character you see Jil with during the ending credits is not the group you see him with for the episode (although the episode-group appears in the clever opening video).

So, while I found the episode pretty fun, I have no clue what’s going to happen from here on out. Will it be a bit more serious? Stay a comedy? Continue parodying other shows? Noooo idea. So, sorry folks, I can’t really recommend whether to watch the series or not based on this episode! I’m definitely going to pick up the second one to see where this goes, though.

Now, as promised: I actually went through the process of all three sites’ Druaga episodes and have full instructions and details after the jump. I also included an image from each so you can compare the quality. I hope they don’t screw up the layout.

Read the rest of this entry »

EDIT: I may be incorrect about this– per the comment of a user, I went through the process fully this time, including putting my credit card info again, and I DID get an error due to the attempt to charge $0.00 on my card. When I get home later today I’ll play with it more on all the sites and give a full report. I hate it when I’m wrong!

So I went through the process of buying the high quality copy of Tower of Druaga. The way the system works is that you can elect to pay $2, $5, $10, or “Other.” In “Other” the number you specify must be in X.XX format, but you CAN put in 0.00 and download the episode for free. I’ll report on the video and sub quality when I get back to my computer tonight and watch it.

I want to encourage everyone once again to try and pay at least a nominal fee, even if it’s only $0.25. Think of it as proving that anime fans don’t completely suck.

If you’re curious, I paid $10– not because I’m willing to pay ten bucks per episode for anime generally (hell no!), but because I want to show strong support for this experiment. The price I’ll pay for future episodes will probably depend on how much I wind up liking the series, but I expect I’ll pay at least $1-2 per episode from now on.

For those of you who are downloading the high-quality version: how much are you planning to pay?

Attention otakumart shoppers, this is just a reminder: GONZO’s new series BLASSREITER (Germany! Zombies!) and Tower of Druaga ~Aegis of URUK~ (Fantasy! Classic games! Uh…towers!) are both airing this weekend– Druaga airs at 1am April 5th in Japan (so about 12 hours from now) and BLASSREITER’s debut starts at 2am on April 6th, about 36 hours from now.

Why do these matter so much? Because they’ll be available subtitled in English legally practically at the same time they air. And you can watch them for free in low-qual and buy them (at your own price) in high-qual if you like ‘em. Here’s the word straight from Crunchyroll:

We’re going to have the new episodes streaming for free with some ads that make money for the show’s creators. if you guys really like it, you can make a donation and you get to download a high quality version to play on your computer and keep - the best part is you guys get to decide how much you want to donate to support this project!

Yeah, okay, I know most of this is repetition. And I’m going to repeat again: watch it legitimately. If you see raws or subs uploaded onto TokyoTosho or AnimeSuki or anywhere else, ignore them. Why? Because GONZO is trying to do the right thing for the industry by moving it forward, and I think most of us would like the other companies to move forward with them, so we want GONZO to be successful in its attempt. (Not to mention: zombies in Germany? Fantasy worlds with towers full of monsters? HOW CAN THEY LOSE?)

GONZO parent company GDH has announced that they’ll be testing an “open pricing” system with both BLASSREITER and Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK~ on Crunchyroll this coming season (and if you didn’t know that GONZO was digitally releasing English-subbed versions of both shows on Crunchyroll and other sites, come out from under the rock and breathe again).

The episodes will be made available to English-speaking fans on the same day that they air in Japan, and users will be able to determine their own prices.

This model is designed to services the more market-oriented direction developing in online distribution. And by allowing the users to determine the value of the product and make their voices be heard, GDH derives valuable feedback directly from consumers. Popular titles could generate high offers, with revenues going back to the content providers to offset the costs of distribution and development of future projects…As the first content holder to embrace a “pay-what-you-want” model, GDH will study its feasibility to advocate it as a key to further cultivate the Japanese content business backed up by anime fans all over the world.

In other words, GONZO and CrunchyRoll are going the Radiohead route, at least to try it out. Guys, I HIGHLY recommend paying at least a nominal sum. I’d love to prove to the world that we ARE willing to pay for anime that we can get in a timely manner, instead of just being total leeches.

Read the entire press release under the jump. Read the rest of this entry »