Youjo Senki – 06
…a walking shadow, a poor player…
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As promised, I am back on WarLOLi (hot on the heels of the last post, too!) and this one sinks it’s teeth into a new thematic scale and then plumbs deep into the tone they’ve been building on quietly since the show started. So let’s take a bite ourselves… |
Disdaining Fortune, with brandished steel
shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
So, is initiating a winter campaign the beginning of madness? Those that the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In that light, is Being X visting madness on the whole world itself, just in that vain attempt to make Tanya/T bend the knee? The whole world is watching, and waiting, for Tanya’s next move it seems. But, I’m getting us to far ahead in the episode. Taking us back a bit. The Dakia campaign came and went in short order. As was discussed last time, the smaller nation was woefully outmatched on all fronts – the key being modernization, something that the Entente nations are struggling with by various degrees. So with the Republic and Allied Kingdom being at least equals in strengths and more likely to ally and bring that modernization to bear, the Empire decides to press on the weak link, using Tanya’s 203rd as force majeure on those key points.
That brings the war effort to Norden (the not-Denmark/not-Scandinavia of this world?) and that effort is exemplified modernization – Supply and Air Superiority, as one supports the other, supports the other, supports the other stuff, and so on. That sets the stage for Pixie Squadron’s real world debut, now with Dakia far behind them as a mere “live-fire drill”. This is where the metal really hits the bones, and the stakes are more than just moving the pieces around a backwater country. If they can maintain, defend, expand, and use the frontier supply post to it’s fullest, it sends the world a message that the Empire isn’t fly by night. The story even sets up that with what could be seen as old world mages against new world fighter/bombers – we command the old and the new – which is where the fun begins. So with the pot that full, and failure being unacceptable, of course Tanya tells reinforcements to stand down. This is her fortune by her hand…
Crunch all you want, we’ll make more…(sorry, no more Macbeth)
If it’s going to be Tanya herself vs. the world, she might as well take the biggest bite she can when the food comes calling. While she is just so close to the actual front she’s reminded of her true goal once again, and that’s to get away it as expediently as possible. In answer to that question, she takes the same medicine she gave her squad. Go big or go home! So it’s Aces High! Just the thing for when everyone is looking her way. Her squad can take on the other enemy mages, that will become a mundane affair sooner or later, but our WarLOLi has to prove herself as in as many ways as possible. So it’s not only taking on the bombers – solo – it’s setting a record for an air mage to climb that high, it’s taking them out with one set of simple spells. It’s shock and awe and blood and thunder. She even remembers to keep an eye on and an ear out – not to mention a spare bullet out – for the Allied Kingdom! She found the stage, and she’s tread the boards. But that’s the thing about garnering attention on a global level, everyone is watching…the watching have plans all their own….
Tanya: Fighting for Glory and Comfort vs. This Guy: Fighting for His Family
Those being: the Republic is thinking a bit more about aiding the Entente, and is starting to look more at defending it’s own borders now. This leaves the smaller nations in a grim state, and that has a way of pushing people. It looks like it will be a long winter, and that can keep some plans “on ice” so to speak. But, the Empire is pressing ahead regardless, and will use the Pixie Squad – and by extension Tanya – to gain as much ground as it can, getting Tanya closer and closer to the front lines, making her question her place in this new world, and new theme. What’s important? Everyone has something to lose, and a war on puts people and situations into very sharp focus. Best be careful who you back into a corner. A world made mad…
Note: Next week looks like it’s going to be a 6.5 recap episode. So I guess we get a break?
Invited to the proverbial Men in Smoky Room Trope…
Youjo Shenki and More…
Thanks for the image NewType!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
“You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push”
– The Joker (The Dark Knight).
Seeing how this episode went, the success on Dakia was likely part of a plan to set Tanya up for a fall. What better way to get under someone’s skin and break them than raising them high just before a hard slap to send them crashing down. If so, the question is, on what magnitude it’s going to go?
Tanya is really starting to contradict herself. At least from my point of view. Off the battlefield, she schemes to get the easy life but on it, it looks like she gets consumed by the thrill of the fights.
I’m not sure what that was at the very end. Is that a conference room or a den for smokers? The place was engulfed in a smoke cloud. Well, considering there’s a war going on, they may not live long enough for lung cancer to do them in.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Tanya is very much skirting the line in her actions and how they line up with her actual intentions. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As T would could say, “If you don’t spend money, you don’t make money” or something to that effect. But, even if she or the show itself hasn’t come out and said she has it….Being X might as much given her plot armor….
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
People now don’t understand that that’s what rooms looked like. Pretty much *all* rooms were full of a haze of smoke, unless the owner of the room forbid smoking. Offices allowed smoking, restaurants, bars, everywhere. Smokers weren’t banished outside to huddle in the meager shelter of an entrance vestibule, bearing the shame of critical glares from those entering and exiting the building. No, they filled up the room with smoke of varying quality, from the harsh bite of cheap cigarettes to the more pleasing aroma of pipe tobacco.
That’s just how it was.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
But the visual still retains the shorthand of “backroom shady deals” maybe because (and I can say this as a former smoker) the critical glares were always there, and that kinda the point of the visual metaphor to this day, perhaps even more so. We’re bad people it seems to say.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Man, that scene, I can understand how Tanya feels. I
don’t smoke and couldn’t even if I wanted too because of respiratory issues. So, I wouldn’t even have been able to go into a room like that.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
My sentiments exactly and why I could never see myself getting into smoking or drinking. I’m too conscious of how big the drawbacks are. Also, those health concerns are the reasons smokers are subjected to critical glares. It gives the non-smokers the impression (Intentional or not) the smokers don’t value their own well-being and have no regard for those that do.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Some LN readers I asked said that Being X/God’s obsession with Tanya is anime-original. In the novels Mr Salaryman is brought before Being X that one time, then X doesn’t appear much afterwards.
Also, the LNs don’t really explain WHY faith is so important to X and deities, just that it really is. (Compare Noragami, where faith = deity’s lifeline.)
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
As far as the published material goes, I’ve not read past her first getting into War College, and that’s the manga, I gave up on the LN halfway into the ponderous, slow, and more than likely poorly translated, fanlation. But what we get in the anime makes sense. If the source material is still ongoing, then they can take the time to develop what they want. But for TV, that needs a certain recognizable structure? For that you can fall back on the fairly simple protag-antag relationship,
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Makes sense.
I’m not nitpicking at the anime differing from the novel – after all, I am the LN Informant. But it is interesting to note how in other places, source readers are whining over unfaithfulness, that the novel “did it better”, etc.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh goodness, it’s always this argument. LNs as prose pieces can do lengthy sorts of narratives very well, but they can’t do cool animation spectacle can they? Now while the show can do spectacle, it can’t do the lengthy bits. So it’s a trade off. The whole “faithful/unfaithful” or “did it better” are pretty empty arguments IMO. Does the LN do what it is supposed to do as prose well? Does the anime do what a TV show is supposed to do well? Those are much better, more informed arguments.
But, as always, I do enjoy the imput of our LN Informant, so please don’t take this as a a dis against ya!
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Not at all.
PS. Even these purists get very prissy if the anime so much as changes the LN designs – I still remember the Alderamin anime got so much flak because the character designs were changed from the LNs, where the anime characters were drawn in a slightly more realistic fashion, with visible nostrils and lips.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I’m fine with changes like that. Design should evolve, that’s what art is! People have gotten pissy over how the characters changed from LN to Manga to anime in this show. But in that respect it went from really bad, to pretty bad, to better from one to the next to the next. I fully expect, and want, them to change the designs again for the visual novel, if there is one! Why buy the same art four times!?
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 46 comments
As someone who’s read the first volume of the LN, the LN did not “do it better.” If the anime were to have cloned those parts of the LN exactly, it would have been tedious, superfluous, and even a bit pretentious. No idea how it compares now that they’ve surpassed the available translation.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 46 comments
At least within the first volume of the LN, which goes up to Tanya training her quick reaction force, existence X did show up more than once to antagonize Tanya. I can’t speak for what happens after the quick reaction force is first deployed though.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Just got a chance to answer as I’ve been the busy bee lately.
I thought this was an interesting continuation episode. I like that Tanya is so confident and her men are such go getters that I’m interested in seeing what she does in a failing situation where she can’t win no matter what she tries. We’ll see, we’ve got plenty of war to look at.
I liked Being X deciding to visit again, though I have to wonder if he really is manipulating this war to be against Tanya? I feel as if this would have happened anyway, regardless. As she knows from her time, world wars can happen, and this is pretty much a similar copy from the one in our own world. Also, if you are going to expand your empire, isn’t it obvious that the other countries whose land you are taking are going to fight back, and their allies with them? I don’t think that this situation is so uncanny that it can only be because a superbeing has the outs for Tanya. It feels like it would have been the natural course of things.
Also, it looks like the Empire is facing the same thing that has destroyed many an army over the centuries–the Russian winter cold!
So, let’s watch and see where they are going to go with this.
And I also find it interesting that the Triple Entente this time doesn’t seem to include any of the real life members of the Entente (Britain, Russia, and France). Rather, all those seem like their separate nations and the Entente is referring to the Scandinavian countries to the north.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I think the most dramatic way to handle this is them sacrificing themselves to save her. That would contrast her to T quite nicely, who “sacrificed” men to save a corporation. That would play into Being X’s hands in a number of ways, I guess? Or be played by them? That would be a life lesson learned, but that’s only the start of the story. What if some of them found out the sacrifices were for nothing, or not for that brave commander they serve, but to a someone that only thinks of leaving them. And then does…
If Being X isn’t making a whole war for his benefit, they he is pulling strings to maximize his “worship” benefits.
The Scandinavian Winter? I wonder if that is bad. But regardless, it makes me want to re-learn about the lead up to the 20th century European Wars…see where the ideas for the Entente came from.