[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by willx

Oh, I don't hate Miho or anything, I feel mostly ambivalent towards her, albeit there are moments where weakness, uncertainty, and other traits make me despise her - and make me think that she's a useless waste of space.. but that's true for many characters. I absolutely hated Shinji from Evangelion for example. He absolutely ruined the entire series for me. I hate weak, whiny and indecisive characters .. heck, I hate those people in real life. No ounce of pity.

You don't hate, just despise. You like decisive characters. I think the show would be substantially less interesting if Miho was such a character, but to each his own.

So with that said, let me respond to your question with my own question: Have they shed the blood, tears, sweat and otherwise shown such creativity, ingenuity and brilliance in this journey to convince you that they deserve to triumph over a Maus and a Jagdtiger?

Being a 12-episode show, obviously it was impossible to track down every minute of them training and still show their character development. Nevertheless, it is shown they do train, and in Ep7 it is shown they do do more than the minimum even before they figure the school was going to go down if they don't win.

Even in Ep4, sorry though their performance was, in the ambush they actually managed to get at least as many hits on the supposedly veteran St. Glorianna than they took in return. You just don't notice them because the Matildas have thick armor and Oarai's guns are weak...

Even as early as Ep5, you may note that Miho was able to send out the freshmen and volleyball teams out on independent recon work while Alice in Saunders still has to vector people. So even at that early point they are showing a higher level of independence (and it takes competence to be independent in a useful way) than many teams we see. You might also notice that by then they can smoothly switch formations.

By Ep11, who is the better team is undeniably clear. Do you really need to see their work-up plans, marks for various exercises and various other documentation before you agree that they clearly worked harder and better than other teams?

Besides, effort is relative, and if you consider Oarai's efforts inadequate, look at KMM's skill indices (among other things their 18 effective guns were apparently being outshot by Oarai's 3 effective guns, leading to Maho's belated decision to move up a blocker and fire drawer). Add how much more time they had to train than Oarai's thrown together team. Estimate backwards towards how little time they must have spent training to achieve such low proficiencies. Does such a team deserve a win no matter what equipment they have?

Even if you say "I'm sorry. I can see that Oarai's team is just brilliant while KMM truly sucks but I just don't see how they can win", that is different from being "happy" if KMM wins, or that KMM "deserves" to win, or to be "unhappy" if Oarai manages to win.

Originally Posted by Tak

Well, what do you expect, every single crew of that tank to show up and give Miho a high-five?

What about Oorai's student council? They have been a jerk collective for the past 11 episodes and where is their punishment?

They could have at least have done that scene together, since the whole team was present.

Originally Posted by willx

I'll have to go back and watch it again, but I believe it went on for more than one episode. I also recall it going "back and forth" something like ..

"Oh, we're coercing you into doing Senshado" (-)

Let me take an apologist stance:
Oh come on, that was necessary and the benefit of 30,000 people exceed one. Besides, Miho was quickly game to the new situation. Maybe they realized that Miho just needed a little pressure to "get back on the horse". Miho was much better for it, let's not forget. If she actually joined "Incense Ceremony", she would be that old ditzy self and never regain true happiness.

"Oh, by the way, if you don't win then you have to do the Anko dance!" (-)

Well, surely this is still in the fun and games category. And as you said, they did join in in the end.

"Oh, by the way, if you don't win the school is going to get shutdown, SO YOU HAVE TO WIN! PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE!" (-)

Yeah, what could they do? They had been trying to keep it quiet, but Miho has to spray cold water, leaving them with no choice.