(L+CR) Youjo Senki (Saga of Tanya the Evil)

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Xical

I like how you put it, and at the same time I can see the point of Ghostfriendly, and that make me going to ask this:

What is the target audience of this anime adaptation?

Original (LN) followers?, manga ones?, ppl who have a slight idea of the story?

ppl who don't know anything about this and are watching out of curiosity?

And whats is the objective of this adaptation?

Make promotion of the author and/or boost LN/manga sales (even if they end in the red when the season ends)?

Try to recoup cost and earn a little with the bd/dvd sales and merchandising ?

Fill an slot in the transmission with something acceptable, even if they end earning nothing?

So many question to try to understand why this adaptation is going this way-

I myself do not really know, and it would be hard for me to effectively guess what the overall expectations of the series are or even could be after a single episode ... could just be me though.

Still, those are good questions, I think, but perhaps they are not the best for this thread ... they might be better suited either for the LN thread because they could very easily touch on material not shown in the anime thus far, or with an individual poster via vm or pm.

For now it might be best to keep the focus on the content of the first episode proper and not go too, too far afield in here.

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Xical

I like how you put it, and at the same time I can see the point of Ghostfriendly, and that make me going to ask this:
What is the target audience of this anime adaptation?
Original (LN) followers?, manga ones?, ppl who have a slight idea of the story?
ppl who don't know anything about this and are watching out of curiosity?

Good question. I think more people generally watch anime than read Light Novels, so they probably want to publicise the novels. Making adaptional changes is compatible with that.

Flower, I can understand your liking the animation for its ugly-cute, ugly-war quality.

Harry Dresden, the German sides really strikes me as Kaiserreich rather than Nazi, apart from the big red flags on the building. Soldiers even have spiked helmets.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

I'm assuming that not everybody in this setting can use magic? That makes those flying soldiers valuable, esp. given the shortage of manpower. I gave a fourth option for Tanya, which you haven't covered, in my last post; ground them, punish them, get them back in the air once they've learnt their lesson. If she had the mental flexibility to make dedicated but insubordinate recruits into more obedient ones, rather than automatically writing them off. Or if she had simply told them that they'd put their unit in danger and risked many more lives, idealistic men of that type would have responded and learnt the importance of orders. Instead, she simply insisted on blind obedience; the action of an anal-retentive commander who values her precarious sense of authority more than her men. Who her words and expression in the final scene glaringly imply that she sent willingly to their deaths. I've gathered an impression from your other posts that Tanya isn't even interested in Germany fighting the war effectively or winning it, so much as keeping herself alive and getting promoted.

Them being too full of their own abilities and refusing to follow order make them dangerous for their own comrades. I know anime does that a lot, a hero that refuses order and save the day and the like. Just to say, that's awfully bad written, there's no way an army allows that without punishment. Just to say, Tanya could have shot them right there on the battlefield without even waiting to go back and no one above would have said a word of complaint.
This is an army, not a bunch school students.
Tanya actually went a very very peaceful way there, ordering them to go back in the country, where their insubordination could be dealt with without them endangering others, and at the end get some proper assets out of them. But those FOOLS refused that order AS WELL. There was no persuading them, they were refusing to listen to anything said by their commander. All Tanya could do was to get rid of them by putting them in a place where they won't endanger others. They died there? Too bad. if they didn't refuse to be sent back to begin with, that wouldn't happen. They CHOOSE DEATH and Tanya just complied giving them a chance to die without endangering others in the process. They said it themselves. That type of reckless soldier isn't going to live long enough to be an asset to anything or anyone. This is a darwin award here for them. Their own stupidity killed them. And it only killed them withotu killing anyone else, which is a good thing.

Also, lol at the argument. They would have answered that they were saving men that were getting killed by the artillery, meaning that they were more useful that way. They had no intention to listen because they were persuaded even after all that that they did the right move and that their officer is a child who doesn't know a thing.

Their value as it stands is null. You can't train a soldier who refuse to listen and disobey to do its own thing all the time. And in the current condition they're waging war, they don't have the time to spend to educate someone stubborn like that. So you push him away as a dangerous element to keep near you, and that's what she did. They refused that? Fine, go in that pilebox and try to survive there.

Originally Posted by Harry Dresden

Episode 1


The Bad[LIST][*]The MC is horribly unlikable. Not "Oh the MC is such an anti-hero" unlikable. Not in "Oh we are following an interesting villain as protagonist" unlikable. It is plainly "I want this thing to die" kind of unlikable. The MC is sadistic, the MC is psychotic, the Mc feels like a shonen villain so far. The kind of who licks their tongue and enjoys murdering puppies and beheading their lackeys for the smallest error.. I REALLLY hope there's more to this loli than that...[*]The show seems to have a VERY strong obsession with Nazi Germany. Which is, ehhhhhh...We'll see how it goes. Japan loves that kind of thing, which is always walking a very thin line. [/LIST
Might stick for more but the show is REALLY making me uncomfortable and the art style is REALLY hard to get past.

- the MC isn't anything like that. Quite the contrary in fact. Would never "behead puppies" for example as that 's just plain stupid thing to do that will lead her nowhere, waste of time and waste of animal lives for nothing. MC don't do things that aren't rational nor logical to begin with.

-This is NOT WW2. How many time will we need to say that?
-There is NO NAZISM either. The whole uniforms are WW1 uniforms, so this is the german empire BEFORE NAZISM. There is no such ideology in there, and furthermore, in that parallel verse, Germany was ATTACKED rather than being attacked, so they're just defending their land. So not only it's not glorifying nazism, but it's not even glorifying military conquest either. Considering how harsh it's painting war, it's certainly not glorifying war either.

[SPARTAN 119]

Just a little bit of trivia: The weapons which appear in episode 1:

Lebel 1886 rifle: Francois Republic infantry rifle

Mauser Gewehr 98: Imperial infantry rifle

Mondragon semi-automatic rifle: Imperial mage's rifle. Interesting fact, the Mexican-made Mondragon was sold to the Germans in real life, and actually saw service as the weapon rear-seat observers in airplanes before enough machine guns were available for the task. The weapon did not see much use in the trenches (contrary to what Battlefield 1 implies) as it proved unreliable when covered in mud. Thought it was interesting to see the Mondragon in a similar role in this alternate history.

M1917 Fusil Automatic:: French semi-automatic rifle, never saw major combat. Francois republic mage's rifle in anime. It appears that mages are routinely armed with semi-automatic rifles, while infantry are still equipped with bolt-action.

Vickers machine gun: Used by Francois Republic infantry. Odd considering in real life it was a British weapon.

Kanone 16 150mm heavy field gun: Imperial artillery (I think).

[AB079]

I'm having a really huge deja vú, this thread is having the exact same shape as Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin. People with different opinions while one or 2 users try to post their knowledge of the source.

Please guys, stop this bullshit. There is always people who don't share the same perspective and they have all the right to make their own ideas of what is this series showing here. Clarify things as someone who knows the source is alright but literally quoting everyone with a negative opinion and almost spoiling things to stomp on them is not healthy, unless we're talking about cancerous discussions like what constantly happened on Hibike thread.

[Master_Yoma]

Well that is one evil kid but powerful one at that but that side seem to be doom if there surrounded on all sides like that

Now that is trench warfare

[Yamada II]

Episode 01

Liked the war parts. I expected more evil from Tanya, but throughout most of the episode she didn't do much. That was until she ran into the enemy mages. She pulverized them. The animation over there was pretty nice. And those explosions are something else entirely. And then it was revealed that she sent those two guys who pissed her off to that pillbox to get them killed. And then her face after her plan succeeded. That was what I wanted from this show. Looking forward to more awesome explosions and more evil loli.

[Kismet-chan]

While I'm not a fan of them just plunging head first into the story as opposed to starting it off like the novel or the manga, I still enjoyed it. (In some stories, starting right in the thick of things can be a great way to jump start a series and get the reader/viewer immediately invested. This is not one of those stories, imo.)

Maybe it's because I had a better idea of what I was getting into than someone who hasn't seen a drop of the source material? Either way, I was entertained. Yes, the character designs are inconsistent and some other frames look pretty stiff, but I've seen worse. The voice acting was also well done across the board.

[D-Joe]

Episode 1 is "Other character vision's Tanya", so i assume episode 2 will be "What is Tanya actually thinking", that said this show doesn't have any preview so far so just a guess.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Master_Yoma

Well that is one evil kid but powerful one at that but that side seem to be doom if there surrounded on all sides like that

Now that is trench warfare

So far the evil is an informed attribute at best. What did she do that was so evil? Send insubordinate soldiers away? Kill enemy soldiers?

I don't know if the two idiots could have been retrained. On the one hand, taking a bunch of kids, a lot of whom rebellious and all of them idiots (because everyone is, at that age), and turning them into useful soldiers is what armies do. Even and especially in war time. And they were good enough to survive their own stupidity, so there's that. On the other hand, some people just won't learn.

[Tenzen12]

Well she is resourceful enough to not waste bullets of execution squad at least. Even if choice she make is wrong per se. It was still cruel and calculative. And if she continues get rid of everyone who oppose her in similar fashion calling her evil might not be inappropriate.

[Gan_HOPE326]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So far the evil is an informed attribute at best. What did she do that was so evil? Send insubordinate soldiers away? Kill enemy soldiers?

I think it's more about the fact that she seems to enjoy killing them. You get a rather different feeling from a soldier who kills because he wants to defend his comrades/country and one who does while getting sadistic pleasure from it. I mean, the latter may even be MORE useful to a point, but in peacetime he's going to be a dangerous psychopath. The anime prototype of that that comes to mind is FMA's Zolf Kimbley, who basically only fought because he enjoyed blowing people up and had a laugh when everyone else was barely clinging to their sanity.

And hey, that Tanya is supposed to be "Evil" is right there in the title. And who are we to argue with the title ?

Still, I do find perplexing the signals sent by the show, I don't understand if the scene where she dealt with insubordination was supposed to show her as evil - and failed spectacularly, because the sadistic thing to do there would have been to shoot the soldiers in place personally - or instead to give us a perspective of her as harsh but not completely unreasonable. It seems ill-informed to expect anything but a severe punishment as a consequence of disobedience on the battlefield, especially in a situation where it was so pointless and was reiterated afterwards. And I'm not a war lover or anything, but if one has to look at how these things went in reality, well, she was probably more forgiving than a good chunk of real life WW1 officers.

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I don't know if the two idiots could have been retrained. On the one hand, taking a bunch of kids, a lot of whom rebellious and all of them idiots (because everyone is, at that age), and turning them into useful soldiers is what armies do. Even and especially in war time. And they were good enough to survive their own stupidity, so there's that. On the other hand, some people just won't learn.

Absolutely right. Again; if officers genuinely concerned to save lives were told that they put more lives at risk than they protected, they're going to realise their mistake.

Light novel readers probably have a lot more detail on Tanya's thoughts and motivations so that her apparently sadistic, callous, over-authoritative anal-retentive character comes off as efficient and effective. I'll venture a guess that Tanya's POV in the novels asserts her own essential rightness, without deep self-criticism or self-doubt? That can be persuasive, but should invite reader criticism rather than deflect it; we don't have to regard her actions as correct or effective just because she does. For a start, as Babylon 5 put it, anyone who is always right can never learn. They are a static character; the story may be likeable enough if they are likeable, but if not...this is why Great Expectation is one of Dickens' best, and Nicholas Nickleby one of his worst.

Ender's Game displayed some bearable characters similar to Tanya, because their success against truly imposing odds was based on thoughtful, evolving tactics and teamwork. If Tanya didn't have overpowering strength, or met something stronger than herself, she seems set to be killed by the character qualities she regards as strengths. Beating the odds would take imagination she hasn't displayed. Her squad would be no help, because she treats them as resources or tools, rather than trusting or developing their skills or decision-making ability. Where is Roy Mustang when you need him?

[alt_account]

Originally Posted by Gan_HOPE326

I think it's more about the fact that she seems to enjoy killing them. You get a rather different feeling from a soldier who kills because he wants to defend his comrades/country and one who does while getting sadistic pleasure from it. I mean, the latter may even be MORE useful to a point, but in peacetime he's going to be a dangerous psychopath. The anime prototype of that that comes to mind is FMA's Zolf Kimbley, who basically only fought because he enjoyed blowing people up and had a laugh when everyone else was barely clinging to their sanity.

And hey, that Tanya is supposed to be "Evil" is right there in the title. And who are we to argue with the title ?

Still, I do find perplexing the signals sent by the show, I don't understand if the scene where she dealt with insubordination was supposed to show her as evil - and failed spectacularly, because the sadistic thing to do there would have been to shoot the soldiers in place personally - or instead to give us a perspective of her as harsh but not completely unreasonable. It seems ill-informed to expect anything but a severe punishment as a consequence of disobedience on the battlefield, especially in a situation where it was so pointless and was reiterated afterwards. And I'm not a war lover or anything, but if one has to look at how these things went in reality, well, she was probably more forgiving than a good chunk of real life WW1 officers.

"Saga of Tanya the Evil" is a tagline added onto the anime title. The series title by itself, "Youjo Senki", only translates to "Little Girl War Chronicles"; I suspect the anime producers only added on the "Evil" stuff to try to preempt the ...slightly deviant/pedophilic impressions the title might otherwise give off on its own.

(If you're wondering whether the Japanese title really gives off the same connotations as "Little Girl War Chronicles" in English, it does. In fact, the author of the light novels noted in the afterword of the first novel that he thought the publishers were crazy for allowing him to publish his manuscript pretty much as is, with its title and content. On the content side, however, I will note that the series does rather defy its title; the author's concern was moreso regarding the novels being extremely dry and dense texts delving into topics such as military strategy, religion, and history.)

Point being... y'all will be working too hard if you're really trying to interpret Tanya's character as evil, lol. (You could say the anime is also trying a bit too hard with stuff like that dramatic closing closeup of Tanya's expression, though -- playing up Tanya's "Evil"-ness as a viewer hook.) Basically, don't worry too much about it; the "evil" messaging is all pure marketing.

...

Anyway, as to the episode itself: as a pretty big fan of the light novel and manga and a huge fan of Yuuki Aoi, I was looking forward to this a whole lot. Aoi-chan's performance still managed to surpass all expectations, though! This is gonna be freakin' great.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for ep1:

I kinda question who this anime is catering to. At the least, all of my expectations were betrayed... in the bad way.
Youjou?!
.....................Not exactly cute. The female character designs in general.

Senki?!
.....................And now we have Strike Witches.

So you don't really get girls or war, but this magic thing with a crazy girl. To be honest, with everything going on (or not going on), I can't say I cared too much about what seems to be a big revelation that the girl is evil or crazy.

And on top of that, it seems the anime just throws the audience into the middle of everything, despite already not being the easiest-to-watch genre out there. Which totally makes sense in convincing the viewer it is worth a watch.

So yeah, nothing to really compliment in the first episode. At least it waIffy on bothering to continue with it. I'll see.
At least it wasn't another light novel involving the protagonist going into another world that is fantasy-ish. Oh wait, she said salary-man.............

And just because it is back-to-back season-wise and both involve war and magic with girls...
Izetta was better.

[IceHism]

This episode reminded me of the first part of rogue one. I'm not too sure why they decided to jump around and start in the middle of the action.

And the art and character design is even more atrocious than I thought.

[D-Joe]

果心堂 ‏@kashindo 1h1 hour ago
幼女戦記戦況報告新聞によると、2話で一旦過去の話に戻るようですね。

Well accroding to newspaper report today, next episode they will do the flashback, just like my(and many people i believe) expectation.

Btw the news paper looks pretty cool.
https://twitter.com/youjosenki/statu...18584456499201
https://twitter.com/kashindo/status/817599260975693825

[Flo]

As someone who read the LN and Manga, this anime left a very sour taste in my mouth.

I also feel like Studio NUT is pushing too hard on this "Hey Look! Look at the loli, she's soooo EDGY and EVIL! LOOK AT HER!" gig

[gocav]

Originally Posted by SPARTAN 119

Just a little bit of trivia: The weapons which appear in episode 1:

Lebel 1886 rifle: Francois Republic infantry rifle

Mauser Gewehr 98: Imperial infantry rifle

Mondragon semi-automatic rifle: Imperial mage's rifle. Interesting fact, the Mexican-made Mondragon was sold to the Germans in real life, and actually saw service as the weapon rear-seat observers in airplanes before enough machine guns were available for the task. The weapon did not see much use in the trenches (contrary to what Battlefield 1 implies) as it proved unreliable when covered in mud. Thought it was interesting to see the Mondragon in a similar role in this alternate history.

M1917 Fusil Automatic:: French semi-automatic rifle, never saw major combat. Francois republic mage's rifle in anime. It appears that mages are routinely armed with semi-automatic rifles, while infantry are still equipped with bolt-action.

Vickers machine gun: Used by Francois Republic infantry. Odd considering in real life it was a British weapon.

Kanone 16 150mm heavy field gun: Imperial artillery (I think).

You sir, are my hero today. I caught the Lebel 1886 and the Vickers gun, didn't notice the Gewehr or the m1917, and was wracking my brain over that Mondragon, so thanks for clearing that last one up for me.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So far the evil is an informed attribute at best. What did she do that was so evil? Send insubordinate soldiers away?

She purposely condemned 2 soldiers to death by sending them to a pillbox after she "supposedly" decided not to kill them for insubordination.

For those 2 soldiers who wanted to fight, they prob wouldn't have been sent home anyways as there was a shortage of personnel. They could have been sent to another unit where they would have died for the Fatherland in glory.