Youjo Senki Discussion and Criticism

The Tanuki speaks truth. Listen to the small animal. :3

 

It is WW1. In fact in the manga, there is no mention of another war just the Great War which Tanya is in now.

 

Okay, so I just started reading the manga.

I've only seen the anime before, so seeing Manga Visha is, uh........different.

I'm used to her looking like a Deep One. It's very strange seeing her look normal.

 

I would more say adorable but each to their own.

Oh and you won't be seeing any silly flying saucer toilet horses with your traditional evil looking villain there either.

 

It was a decent read, slightly different emphasis on what twigged her to amphibious landing versus the anime, but good all the same.

So, I'm curious how many people have read much of anything on the Korean war? If I remember correctly, the Inchon landing was the second largest amphibious landing ever (I might be wrong).

Obviously, military otaku in Japan would be more likely to have done some reading on it, but I tend to find the Korean War to be the forgotten war for Americans (to say nothing of Europeans).

What struck me was that the operation as depicted in the anime was quite reminiscent of the Nazi conquest of Norway, including a thrust at Oslo. That wasn't a reference made in the manga or the anime. The number of troops and the types of equipment indicated that the Nazi invasion was the closest analog. A quick browse of wikipedia showed that the first opposed paratrooper landing happened in that campaign. (To be fair, extensive specialized naval equipment is mostly an American thing, nobody else had the budget for it.)

At any rate, I must congratulate Carlo Zen for doing his research yet again.

 

I was mentioning how people would be calling her a Nazi. An example is below.

Spoiler: Careless Depiction as Loli Nazi

 

Well, considering that she isn't really Nazi and people today are so overusing the term Nazi I can understand the slow increase of dislikes for the video, purely from the title.

 

So, recently tried to watch the show after giving up on it when it first aired. Got about as far Tanya forcing a soldier who was horrified by the war to commit genocide on the Not!French refugees and him getting cheered up by the Nuremburg Defense the next episode ("OH, I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS, MY COMMANDING OFFICER WAS TOTALLY A GREAT GUY GIRL, HA HA HA WHATEVER, SO I KILLED CIVILIANS, THEY WERE TOTALLY GONNA COME BACK ONE DAY AND SHOOT US!") before I kind of realized this show really is not for me. Even with the whole "Oh, well it's WWI, Morality is different, our Main Character is a fucking Sociopath, God hates everybody, there is no good side in this War, it's not supposed to be cheerful or anything" 'argument' ("Oh, GhostKaiju, you're not supposed to care about anything in it, it's all intentionally horrible and shit!" So remind me, why am I supposed to like this show? Besides some sense of admiration towards accuracy of Bloodshed and Carnage and Tactics that I don't really possess?), that moment is kind of the Straw that broke the Camels' back, as it were.

When a show gives a Tonal Whiplash that severe ("GENOCIDE IS BAD!" Well, no shit. "Nah, never mind, it's excusable, Tanta totally forced him to kill those people because she cares." WHAT), and I can't fucking tell if it's trying to play that argument straight or if it's trying to be a Parody/Intentionally Horrible (If the latter, then I repeat the "If everything is made to be shit then why should I care?" argument. If the former, then fuck this show on moral grounds), that's when I figure that this is just not a series I really care to watch. And honestly, the character of Tanya does not interest me enough to try and give it a second chance as it were through the Manga or the Light Novel.

The only real good thing I'll give this show, because I do not know enough on WWI Tactis to praise or condemn their tactics ome way or the other (although I repeat what I first said in this thread: German Soldiers see German Mages. They instantly bemoan the fact that Mages are here, even though against a conventiomal army—like what they are facing—that means an instant win.), I will say this: the OP for this show, Jingo Jungle, is pretty fun to listen to. It sets the Violent tone the show has going for it, and does so with an insane and reckless abandon. It works for the show, maybe even better then the show does itself (in my opinion, anyways).

 

Dang, that comment is filled with spoilers for anyone not following the anime and only reading the manga

But considering the commentary of the author, huge parts of the story is done for the funsies and he himself comments on how surprised people are liking Tanya (and the story as a whole) whom he considers one of the more unlikable character he has ever written. In fact, he does make a point on that he enjoys seeing her/him suffer and promises that there won't be a good end for the story....

Big part of this was written in the author commentary of the first LN of the story. :3

 

Thanks for giving it a try.

It is intentionally horrible. There's a reason Tanya is trying to find a safe spot in the rear.

Tanya is not meant to be fully sympathetic. I find myself consistently laughing at her even as I feel sorry for her. If she was any less competent it would be significantly more horrifying.

There's all sorts of horrible calculus that's going on. One thing that's going horribly right because of Tanya is that neither side is being bled white. The total wartime casualties are quite possibly lower because she's helped break the trench stalemate, and moved back to a war of movement.

I find the idea of bleeding a country white horrifying. That is the purest expression of industrial warfare and treating people as numbers.