In a surprise move today, the Crunchyroll website announced that it had to take down the first streamed episode of Gonzo's The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk, which had only been streaming on the site for three days. Crunchyroll's official blogger, using the name "Shinji," made the announcement saying it's "not Gonzo's fault or anything" and that "Gonzo and CR are working hard to bring you the rest of the episodes." He did not explain what was meant by "having to take down" the episode.

There has been no mention or announcement yet, on the news page of Gonzo's parent company, GDH. So it's not known whether this removal is a permanent thing, or just the result of some kind of glitch that can be fixed. The fact that Gonzo's other series, Blassreiter, is thus far still on Crunchyroll suggests that today's move may indeed just involve some difficulty with Druaga itself.

Reading comments and suggestions on various forums discussing this development, many people are expressing the belief that Gonzo disapproves of Crunchyroll's "pay what you like" policy. But Gonzo/GDH itself announced last week that it planned to test the "open-pricing" system on Crunchyroll, for the sake of gaining "valuable feedback and insight directly from customers." It would be surprising if the company decided to pull the plug on that experiment after only three days.

Other comments suggested that the issue is with Crunchyroll's own mechanism for paying, which some claimed wouldn't work when they tried to make a payment.

Meanwhile, Crunchyroll reminds fans that they can still watch Druaga at YouTube, BOST TV, and BitTorrent.