1 It's not always so bad... Yutaka Izubuchi did not direct _at all_ before RahXephon, and I'm here to witness that his direction was absolutely outstanding, enough to give the likes of Tatsuo Sato a serious workout. As for Gonzo... Tower of Druaga. Well, in both cases we have the case to worry, but it does not have to suck, even if it does not follow the "heroic poetry" route.

2

Well, Gainax gave us the "Gainax Ending", but they later got better (e.g. the magnificent ending of Petite Princess Yucie) so maybe this kind of thing isn't forever.

One can hope that Strike Witches will be the exception, not the rule. There are a lot of ways it could go wrong, though.

3 *twitches*  Whats this about Druaga?  They made an anime out of that game?

4

It's running this season. The first episode was a Haruhi-like joke, but the rest of the series is being played straight. Initial reactions to ep 2 and 3 in the blogs I've been following were pretty negative, but apparently it's picked up and some people have gotten hooked on it.

Which is surprising; generally, anime adaptations from RPGs have been crap.

5 It's not crap, but it's not high art either. It's had some interesting twists and is following two groups, led by half-brothers. There's no rancor in their rivalry; in fact, rivalry might be the wrong word for it.

I followed Druaga through ep 5 so far, and on the basis of obligating myself to purchase the series, have to say "It's not worth spending money on, but if it were broadcast TV, I'd kill an otherwise empty half-hour watching it."

One thing I did not expect was the sheer size of the tower. Operating alongside the "traditional" adventurers is an entire army seeking to invade and destroy it. The "old" tower, destroyed by King Gilgamesh, was 60 floors, but it resulted in a strange curse/blessing. Major spoilers: In one episode, he is assassinated, and the next day he's just fine; it's definitely linked to the curse. However, I am near certain that Kaya is his daughter and princess, and Ahmey is an imperial guard detailed to help her.

I will give it props for the unique OP, which mixes the modern with the medieval surprisingly well.

6 Well, good for them.  I certainly can't think of any RPG-to-anime conversions that have gone well ( which is strange; you'd think plot heavy games like RPGs would make for good animes. . . ).

Nonetheless, I'd find myself with bad associations.  If your going to make a Roguelike game, *mark it clearly on the packaging*.  *shudders*

7

Most RPGs are not plot-heavy; that's the problem. Most of them concentrate on the details of growth, acquisition, and combat -- and while that's usually pretty entertaining when it's interactive, it soon becomes deadly dull just to passively watch.

Sometimes anime adaptations from RPGs give up all pretense to seriousness and spend their time making fun of the genre. That was the point of last year's Master of Epic. That series didn't really try to tell any kind of continuing story, except perhaps for "The further adventures of the Waragecha V". (Gonzo did that one, too.)

8 Gainax's second big project, Top o Nerae! Gunbuster did not have a Gainax ending.  In fact, it has one of the best endings in anime.  But they did plenty of stumbling after that, lord knows.

9 Toren, as you know, it was primarily Evangelion and Mahoromatic that made the "Gainax Ending" notorious. Since then they seem to have gotten it together.

10

Actually, their first production, Royal Space Force, had a Gainax ending.  Off to a good start!

It's still an amazing movie, anyway.

11 SDB:  We'll have to disagree on that, with the proviso that, I wouldn't be shocked that when you hear the word 'RPG', your thinking different archetypical titles than I am.  That said, there's certainly more plot in your average RPG than, say, your average platform game.

( and more coherent than your average fighting game... )