Druaga no To is slightly odd, and slightly good. A lot of the most fun ideas the writers threw in were nothing more than nifty baubles. Golfing wizards, 8-bit sidetracks, piss-take episodes – they kept me happy. But it’s a narrative medium, and Druaga should be judged as a story, not as a procession of inventions. Which would be why it rates as merely good, and not Roperlicious.

After the first few episodes I was worried about a gulf emerging between Druaga as parody and Druaga the heroic tale. At the end of the day I came round to the fact that the jokes were reasonably integrated, and merely added colour to the journey. And later, in a mood of mild contentment, I decided to afford it the same kind of po-faced treatment I gave to Soul Eater – and ask what precisely it is the show offers as a tale of heroes. Which would be, I think, a pretty decent protagonist, general competence in the writing/animation/music, and a bunch of good jokes – which make it pretty personable. Wait, “Personable”?

The reason I think of the show like that is probably because of the aforementioned idiosyncrasies. It mixes these comic baubles into a show which wears well-worn norms with comfort – and because it does this so naturally, the show has personality. Druaga does its level best to get in touch with the empathetic heart of these fantastical hero stories. It’s a show which knows that this stuff holds onto its viewers by providing a feeling of exploration, of being on a nice trip (or daydream) – not just by trotting out the comforting clichés. And because it’s specifically a heroes story, let’s take a look at our main man.

Jil is personable, he’s a slight variation on the swordsman-ascendant, but he’s not all that fascinating. The up-front point, the series slogan really (‘aegis of Uruk’), is his wish to be “one solitary shield”, it’s an obsession with protection. At the same time, as far as his character make-up goes, the keystone appears to be the dishonour piled upon his dear departed daddy.

The journey really moves past this initial motivation (and if series two chooses to reveal that his pa was a true hero after all, then it’ll do its credibility no favours) to reveal Jil’s true personality, as an earnest heroic type. The key to his character, more so than that “shield” guff, is his self-reflexivity. He says to himself “I’m a wannabe hero”, he’s self-aware, self-critical, he constantly adjusts himself. That self-adjustment shows him as a true one for all and all for one bloke.

My thought on Jil is that he is, as one fellow in the pack of climbers, “other directed“. He’s obsessed with others, and with how they see him. His journey isn’t about any goal, it’s about what he wants to be. And that issue with how he is perceived explains his reaction to his father being painted as a “coward”. In a tale of heroes that’s a pretty rare characteristic – it’s often the one reserved for somebody who could be a hero, or who sits in the heroes shadow. But for Jil that aspirational courage is why he’s the hero.

Now if this were more of a classic shonen and less of a fantasy RPG, I’m sure his belief in friends would mysteriously empower him (as parodied in Druaga ep.1). But it doesn’t, his strength is his own, and rightly so – he just has to make the most of it, to constantly become more who he wants to be. If Jil wants to become something else, Neeba is eternally the same. He’s the inner-directed man – a man on a mission. Heroic, solitary, sexy, morally grey. A cowboy, a lone star, a bit of a dickhead.

Neeba has some cause (which I really wish we’d been granted a better idea of) that drives him up a bigger tower than Jil had envisaged. Because of this cause he mucks with Fatina in bastardly ways, and generally does what he has to. And this all-consuming motivation is shared by our heroine, Kaaya.

The thing is, she’s clearly sympathetic – but acts on the same grounds as Neeba. These are the two faces of ruthlessness – the reluctant and the unpleasant. They possess knowledge, but, invariably, because this is Jil’s story, this knowledge takes a slightly absurd role. It makes antagonists of them. Neeba and Kaaya don’t talk about it, but while their knowledge excuses their actions, it separates them. It’s that separation which seems to be their sin, which is a bit much when Jil’s quest is really to become a one man army.

If we look at their interactions with Jil, they’re both unsettled by him. In the series as a whole this is where the opposition lies, not with the enemies. Pazuz acts in mysterious ways, and Druaga is the worlds ugliest grasshopper, the actual character conflict is between heroes. Neeba comes out with “your friends will surely die”. He’s the informed pessimist. Meanwhile Kaaya looks for Jil selfishness – tries to convince herself he isn’t really one for all, that no guy can be that decent. And now, for series two, Jil gets his own cause – to catch up with the treacherous duo. But I’m sure he’ll be retaining the same priorities he brought to his quest to become a shield. That he’ll be both driven and personable. The iconic figure here is surely Ahmey

Ahmey is at once driven and sympathetic. She’s a gritty wise striver, who sees through Kaaya and gets a soppy played-up death scene. Looking at that deathbed scene, we get to see Ahmey achieve her goal in failing (lol, loser). And so we see quite clearly the kind of deceptions that a show like Druaga thrives on. Ahmey has her cake and eats it, she’s selfish as a climber and selfless as an exemplar – well, she never really gets the chance to screw everybody over for her goal. And, having been a good girl, she’s conveniently reunited in death.

Druaga offers us betrayals, conflicts, and contradictions between goals and personal ties. But it doesn’t actually want to explore this territory, it just wants to build a show around it. It isn’t conceptually designed, these personal conflicts feel like dramatic glue. But they seem to glue together some pretty nice stuff, stuff like gunner-mages, like battles on icy cliffs, like awesome cat impressions, the kind of stuff I like. So when I compare it to a show like Soul Eater, I can’t say that the core themes are so well managed or so worthwhile.

But nor is the style so brilliant. So how can it compete in the great beauty contest? It competes for our time because those vital dramatic roots are still there. They may feel, in their most artificial moments, like the constructions that glue together the baubles – but really there’s an equal relationship between the style and the substance. Without the heroic appeal nobody would feel the kind of ties that can (and will) bring the audience back for a second season. These here heroic roots ain’t the best in the business, but at least they’re there – and there in a distinctive enough form to give the show a feeling of personality that goes beyond the decorations.