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

[AB079]

^Sorry about that, hmm can someone answer on the LN thread? so we avoid any type of spoilers.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

I meant self-aware of how ridiculous it is. :3 In any case, yeah, this is not one for me.

And that's what I meant as well. It's self aware on the ridiculous part and shows it very well. For example, something that won't spoil and don't require knowledge from the novel to understand. Later on, there's a character called Marie Sue. Yep, that's her real name.
And that's only a not spoiler/easy to understand example. It's self aware on the oretuee.

Now you may find ridiculous things that aren't ridiculous and in that case it's obviously not self aware of ridiculousness it doesn't have to begin with (that sentence is starting to be weird ), but that's another problem.

[HandofFate]

no signs of the effects of the genderbending.
but I really feel the fantasy self-insert for bored real life salarymen that want to be a badass lol.

and in the context of a company drone, I found most of Tanya's line funnier than the scene portrays it

[SPARTAN 119]

An alternate World War I where mages are commonplace and are used as air support. I am definitely enjoying this so far, however, with Izetta fresh in my memory, I am all to aware of how this could turn out.

Am I the only one who found the "This program is a work of fiction. All persons, groups, places, laws, and names appearing in it have no relation to the real world" kind of hiliarious when it is blatantly obvious that they are clear parallels to the First World War?

Also, one minor note involving differences between the LN and anime and a possible translation error:

Spoiler for Minor LN spoiler (not really, but putting it in here anyway):

The LN stated mages have a maximum flight altitude of about 10,000-12,000 feet, a more reasonable altitude given the constraints on oxygen availability. The anime subtitle stated 10,000 meters- 2 kilometers above the top of Mt. Everest, an elevation at which it would be impossible to breath without oxygen, not to mention bitterly cold. Is this a translation error?

[Gan_HOPE326]

Originally Posted by Zefyris

Tanya isn't evil anyway. She's inhuman, yes, a monster even (not talking about her magic power her but her mindset and mentality as a whole) but evil? Definitely not. All her decision makes perfect sense and are the most efficient to reach the desired effect.

That sounds like a very weird definition of 'evil'. Decisions that make sense and are efficient can be taken for either good or evil ends. And the purpose of this war doesn't even seem to be something especially good, so you can't justify her as 'yes, she's ruthless but she does it for the greater good'.

Originally Posted by Zefyris

That theory technically makes sense. First of all, such situation (having to battle on many fronts like that at once) never happened so it's a theory coming from the fear of getting attacked by the various countries around them at the same time and how you would deal with it.
The whole point here of that strategy is to keep on the defensive, stalling the enemy advance as much as possible rather than trying to win, and avoiding putting too much soldiers in one side. Then having enough soldiers as a internal mobile force, that can be quickly dispatched through the network of trains and various transport, to get where they're needed and push back the enemies putting too much pressure on the defence line. Technically, if you're going to defend your country against several forces at the same time, that's pretty much the only option you have. You cannot really do it in any other way. The empire has more than enough soldier and fire power to win against ONE country at a time, but not enough to fight on equal terms on every front at the same time. So you fight in inferiority on most fronts while slowly moving back, and try to solve the problems with a force that isn't stuck on a specific frontline.
Any other choice would lead to defeat anyway.

It would only make sense if the Empire was attacked by all its enemies at the same time and had to defend itself. Then it would be a desperate situation and that plan could make sense. But while the intro doesn't state it outright it seems to me this is a war of aggression on their part. They mention only 'potential' enemies. So the Empire felt threatened but wasn't outright attacked (which matches pretty well with WW1, Germany was amongst the aggressors). In that situation it's just stupid to be the one who opens the hostilities. Hitler opened a second front when he already had a much more secure footing by attacking the Soviet Union and that still lost him the war. Earlier, they used Blitzkrieg to take out as much of the enemy forces as they possibly could. In WW2 they took Poland and joined with their Soviet then-allies in order to not have an eastern front. Either way, fighting on multiple fronts that way is suicidal. Unless they're the only once having flying mages their "highly mobile" unit ain't this much good either - in fact one must wonder why the hell are they still fighting in trenches if they have flying mages. They seem a big enough game-changer to warrant completely different tactics.

[Anh_Minh]

Well, that was disappointing. I did not expect this series to be a "look at how overpowered the MC is" yawn fest.

Originally Posted by Flower

That sort of question might be better asked in the novel thread for more details and such, as it could quickly branch into areas not yet covered in the anime....

Eh... I haven't read the LN (or anything other than the blurb) but "This time, Tatsuya's a little girl" is pretty much what the first ep made me think.

Originally Posted by Gan_HOPE326

Eh, I mean... even if they were doing it because they thought it would save the lives of other soldiers, what if in doing so they let down the pressure they were supposed to keep, allowing the enemy to encircle their army? That would have led to way more soldier deaths. Of course all that "tactics" seem to be in this show is mages zipping around and shooting random people, so sure, maybe what they did could have actually helped more ...

Spoiler for maybe spoiler:

Even so I'd still say she's in her right to do so. And basically that's what they said when they asked "we're here for victory or death": to either be allowed to continue fighting or rather be sentenced to death than go back home in dishonour. They're being fanatical too. To sentence them to death "by fighting" so to say is still being gracious to them, as their honour is preserved. Being shot by a platoon would have been a far worse blemish for them.

(anyway, dropped mid-episode out of boredom)

Agreed. Anyway, someone's got to man those pillboxes. It might as well be them.

[Tenzen12]

So going by show description Tanya is reincarnated salaryman, huh. I don't mind they skipped that part. Actually it sound like something that should be adapted out altogether.

As for war of aggression, didn't Tanya called enemies for that?

[Elestia]

Pretty good episode so far they skipped a couple of chapters straight into the action. I guess the decision was to grab the viewers attention and they manage to do it I guess. However, there are some seriously terrible design choices for equipment and character. In particular Visha is a design choice I will never understand why they drastically changed her appearance. The next grevious offense is the god awful horsey toilet seats the Republic mages were using. Seriously!? They couldn't have used the mangas version instead?

I kind of rolled my eyes when the mook villain was such a cliche bad guy, appearance and all. So far I might do it enjoy it, but might have to lower my expectations a bit until the next episode. Maybe they will do a prequel for the next episode.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Gan_HOPE326

That sounds like a very weird definition of 'evil'. Decisions that make sense and are efficient can be taken for either good or evil ends. And the purpose of this war doesn't even seem to be something especially good, so you can't justify her as 'yes, she's ruthless but she does it for the greater good'.



It would only make sense if the Empire was attacked by all its enemies at the same time and had to defend itself. Then it would be a desperate situation and that plan could make sense. But while the intro doesn't state it outright it seems to me this is a war of aggression on their part. They mention only 'potential' enemies. So the Empire felt threatened but wasn't outright attacked (which matches pretty well with WW1, Germany was amongst the aggressors). In that situation it's just stupid to be the one who opens the hostilities. Hitler opened a second front when he already had a much more secure footing by attacking the Soviet Union and that still lost him the war. Earlier, they used Blitzkrieg to take out as much of the enemy forces as they possibly could. In WW2 they took Poland and joined with their Soviet then-allies in order to not have an eastern front. Either way, fighting on multiple fronts that way is suicidal. Unless they're the only once having flying mages their "highly mobile" unit ain't this much good either - in fact one must wonder why the hell are they still fighting in trenches if they have flying mages. They seem a big enough game-changer to warrant completely different tactics.

She doesn't do that for the greater good, but she does it because she is involved in that mess and doesn't intend to die in the frontline. So best way to survive AND to get promoted so that she can get away of the frontline to a safer job on headquarters and the like.
Getting promoted faster implies getting outstanding results and not losing your subordinates stupidly, btw.

Then that's where you're wrong. This is a 100% defensive plan. look back at the part where they explain this, the german units never cross the border during it.
This war wasn't started by the germans, they are the one being assaulted, and the whole plan 315 was to answer the threat of the various alliances going on all around them that could lead to having to wage war on several front.
This plan shown is exactly made to counter the case where they're attacked at the same time so like you said it makes sense .

Also several things abotu trenches and mages :
-this is the first big war involving mages. Meaning, they didn't move away from strategy of any previous war they had just like lots of strategy in the beginning of ww2 were kept the same as ww1 for lots of side, and lead to some heavy beating for generals who didn't adapt to the technology evolving. This happened before that as well, it's a recurring phenomenon in history. You can actually see another example of that phenomenon (which really happened history) in this episode with the french uniforms. Clearly they were not tailored or in proper colouring for war in trenches, and the French army had a lot of peoples dying with headshots during parts of that war, as their uniform was evolving.
- the rare mages aren't enough to invalid the trenches' usefulness and by by far, just like planes were not in ww1.
quite the contrary actually. One of the technology associated to those mages is guiding artillery shot by giving precise coordinate (the platoon they're sent to rescue was doing that until an enemy company took their for target, forcing them to hide or die). As such, being in the open really isn't an option as the artillery gets extremely precise coordinates of moving platoon on open ground, and they are as a result really ruling the battlefield. Hiding from the mage's sight (as if a mage comes too close to see in the trenches they'll be targeted by enemy mages/sol-air defences) is a very good idea.

[Ghostfriendly]

Surprised that some people seem excited about this anime. The main character seems tediously overpowered, has a horrible voice, and my futile efforts to get inside their head were proved futile when I learnt from post 1 of this thread that she is in fact a Japanese salaryman. A premise this bizarre has to be stated in the first ep for the series to be comprehensible. Though it still isn't clear why a salaryman is going on about God. The idea that the Western Front couldn't create a ruthless monster like Tanya anyway, or that corporate culture can create a more monstrous soldier than the battlefield, is laughable. It might work as a satire of corporate ruthlessness, but I didn't see that in ep 1.

By tediously overpowered, btw, I mean that Tanya seems to simply be more agile and powerful than anyone else rather than relying on skill, tactics or effort.

I suppose people talking about Nazis are looking at all the red flags on the German buildings.

Originally Posted by Zefyris

All her decision makes perfect sense and are the most efficient to reach the desired effect.

Such as having two valuable specialists killed, simply on the principle that they had disobeyed orders in combat? Punish them enough that they obey orders, and you have two usable subordinates, rather than corpses. The sneaky way she had them killed wouldn't even be the best way to terrorise her surviving command. Tanya's actions denote a military or corporate culture that deifies absolute obedience, rather than being the best solution. You've made a great deal of the accurate military background in the LN. The series seems sound on that score, but no more than I'd expect from a military setting.

SPARTAN119, probably the witches could wear oxygen masks if they went any higher? In Izetta you could see why the mains were the way they were, and that's a big advantage straight off.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

Surprised that some people seem excited about this anime. The main character seems tediously overpowered, has a horrible voice, and my futile efforts to get inside their head were proved futile when I learnt from post 1 of this thread that she is in fact a Japanese salaryman. A premise this bizarre has to be stated in the first ep for the series to be comprehensible. Though it still isn't clear why a salaryman is going on about God. The idea that the Western Front couldn't create a ruthless monster like Tanya anyway, or that corporate culture can create a more monstrous soldier than the battlefield, is laughable. It might work as a satire of corporate ruthlessness, but I didn't see that in ep 1.

By tediously overpowered, btw, I mean that Tanya seems to simply be more agile and powerful than anyone else rather than relying on skill, tactics or effort.

I suppose people talking about Nazis are looking at all the red flags on the German buildings.



Such as having two valuable specialists killed, simply on the principle that they had disobeyed orders in combat? Punish them enough that they obey orders, and you have two usable subordinates, rather than corpses. The sneaky way she had them killed wouldn't even be the best way to terrorise her surviving command. Tanya's actions denote a military or corporate culture that deifies absolute obedience, rather than being the best solution. You've made a great deal of the accurate military background in the LN. The series seems sound on that score, but no more than I'd expect from a military setting.

SPARTAN119, probably the witches could wear oxygen masks if they went any higher? In Izetta you could see why the mains were the way they were, and that's a big advantage straight off.

Technically they aren't valuable, since they don't follow orders. In a short time spawn they disobeyed twice, and the first time they clearly put their platoon in danger by separating themselves from the rest.
So the only choices there was here was
-sending them home (first choice actually she did, they refused it)
-executing them on the spot (that officer sabre is used for this fairly regularly for a good reason). It was her second choice, but she didn't do it due to the fact that this may cause her remaining troop to get dissident instead, or at the very least to get a bad influence for promotions.
-expelling them from her sight and her platoon, in a place where they cannot cause problem by insubordination. As just sending them to another platoon around her doesn't solve the problem. If an allied platoon dies from those two's stupidity, that put other platoon including Tanya's platoon in danger just as much.

Also, she didn't had them killed. It's not like pileboxes are 100% to be destroyed or anything. That's quite a dangerous place to be, but that a place where some soldiers HAVE TO be. And rather than obedient and valuable soldiers, may as well put there soldiers that cannot be trusted for more important missions.

[Friday]

The 1 thing about Tanya you don't do....disobey

actually, Im looking forward to watching the rest of the series

Tanya vs Izetta.....hhhmmmm....

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Zefyris

Technically they aren't valuable, since they don't follow orders. In a short time spawn they disobeyed twice, and the first time they clearly put their platoon in danger by separating themselves from the rest.
So the only choices there was here was
-sending them home (first choice actually she did, they refused it)
-executing them on the spot (that officer sabre is used for this fairly regularly for a good reason). It was her second choice, but she didn't do it due to the fact that this may cause her remaining troop to get dissident instead, or at the very least to get a bad influence for promotions.
-expelling them from her sight and her platoon, in a place where they cannot cause problem by insubordination. As just sending them to another platoon around her doesn't solve the problem. If an allied platoon dies from those two's stupidity, that put other platoon including Tanya's platoon in danger just as much.

Also, she didn't had them killed. It's not like pileboxes are 100% to be destroyed or anything. That's quite a dangerous place to be, but that a place where some soldiers HAVE TO be. And rather than obedient and valuable soldiers, may as well put there soldiers that cannot be trusted for more important missions.

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.

[bakato]

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.

Their refusal to realize the error of their ways would've made any punishment useless and if they need every man they can get who has the leisure time to dish out these punishments.

[Flower]

To be fair ... I don't think the way you are guessing is the logic behind her actions is entirely just. Not defending her, mind you, and the way you describe it could be one possible source of her actions.

But there could be more reasons or a big mix of things, or completely different than what you are guessing. We have seen very little of her thus far (only 1 episode) and are not aware of the full extent of her circumstances.

There are several volumes of this (6 volumes last I checked) and the narrative style of them is extremely "inside the heads" of the speakers. The manga reflects this same aspect of things to a limited degree. In other words, the source medium goes into great and painstaking details to give examples of how she thinks about and goes about doing what she does. (Which, incidentally, is why some were surprised when they first heard this was going to be adapted into the anime medium, wondering how it would/could be "translated".)

Mind you, I am not trying to persuade you to continue the series or to drop it. What it boils down to ultimately is that you enjoy it or you do not, of course, and nothing wrong with either. But there should also be made some allowances that things may not seem to be how they are at first glance, I think.

Just a personal opinion - no need to agree, of course. ^^

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by bakato

Their refusal to realize the error of their ways would've made any punishment useless and if they need every man they can get who has the leisure time to dish out these punishments.

Tanya made no effort to explain the nature of their error (I described how she might do that in my last post) because she'd inflexibly written them off, as you just did. Not every soldier and military policeman would be on the front line in any situation; not every soldier constantly in combat.

Mind you, I am not trying to persuade you to continue the series or to drop it. What it boils down to ultimately is that you enjoy it or you do not, of course, and nothing wrong with either. But there should also be made some allowances that things may not seem to be how they are at first glance, I think.

We can only judge the anime on what it show us or successfully implies; I can only tell it as I see it.

[Harry Dresden]

Episode 1

Hoo boy...where to start.

The Good

• The fight scenes. Holy cow the fight scenes. Very nice even if I still find it hard to suspend my disbelief on flying loli soldiers. Is this a prequel to Izetta? Or Strike Witches? Either way in spite of that the action is damn niiiice.
• The war is relatively realistic barring the weird fantasy elements. The real world elements are nice even if this show does have Izetta's "NotGermany in NotWW2" kind of feel to it where they just rename the setting and add random fantasy elements.

The Bad

• The art style is downright bad. Now don't get me wrong, the PARTS of art style are good - the soldiers look nice, the landscape looks good, etc. And then you see the main characters. who literally feel as if they were photoshopped into the frame by how much the art clashes. Remember the comedic shops of placing various anime characters into other completely different shows? That's how the MC's design feels. Could you REALLY tell the difference between THIS, which is real and THIS, which is a shop? And not only the art STYLE clashes, but the quality does too. The "realistic" people look okay, but the loli faces are the designs the horrors and nightmares are made of.
• 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.

Might stick for more but the show is REALLY making me uncomfortable and the art style is REALLY hard to get past.

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

...We can only judge the anime on what it show us or successfully implies; I can only tell it as I see it.

No disagreements. And again, not trying to persuade, per se.

Just encouraging viewers that sometimes (definitely not all the time by any means) first impressions can be mistaken or made when exposed to limited information.

But if you do not like it you do not like it ... simple as that. Sometimes I find I can like a series even with plenty of problems and sometimes there are series that have one teensy problem that I just can't "not see", if you get my meaning.

For whatever reason this the first episode "clicked" with me (although admittedly I have read the manga adaptation before watching it and was kind of intrigued by it), whatever aspects of it I liked and did not like. (For example, I like the art style for some reason - go figure.)

Heh. Sorry for going on like this and musing aloud, as it were. ^^

[Wandering Soul]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

So going by show description Tanya is reincarnated salaryman, huh. I don't mind they skipped that part. Actually it sound like something that should be adapted out altogether.

Doubt they will do that though. We will probably get a flashback in a few episodes.

[Xical]

Originally Posted by Flower

No disagreements. And again, not trying to persuade, per se.

Just encouraging viewers that sometimes (definitely not all the time by any means) first impressions can be mistaken or made when exposed to limited information.

But if you do not like it you do not like it ... simple as that. Sometimes I find I can like a series even with plenty of problems and sometimes there are series that have one teensy problem that I just can't "not see", if you get my meaning.

For whatever reason this the first episode "clicked" with me (although admittedly I have read the manga adaptation before watching it and was kind of intrigued by it), whatever aspects of it I liked and did not like. (For example, I like the art style for some reason - go figure.)

Heh. Sorry for going on like this and musing aloud, as it were. ^^

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-