Anime Thigh Thread II

[Asetotti]

That CG bugged me but I was already used to it by the end of the PV. The normal art looks pretty good, though. And Sana sounds good, too.

Oh shit, her VA was in Shirobako. Knew she sounded familiar, though tough to place.

CG stronk. I didn't really get used to it at all but I'll try to not let it bother. It does seem very different from what I thought it was going to be.

[Simplex]

ANN tends to gather them up in parts, though.
Part 1
Part 2

I see me writing it's "quite popular" doesn't quite cut it, wow.

[Deleted]

Recommend me a 12-episode show, thanks a bunch.

on it .

saikano.

Definitely Saikano. Top1 comfy.

[Deleted]

TFW you both get "Saekano" wrong You call yourselves weebs... pfft.

Isn't "Saikano", She, The Ultimate Weapon?

Just watch both, @Schirmy

I definitely did NOT misspell. It's just that your definition of comfy is plebeian.

[Suicidal Panda]

Almost done catching up from my florida trip...about 6 eps left and next season starts probably tomorrow

[Deleted]

How dare you be so accurate, sir!? I would take offence if it weren't true!

It is good we agree.

[Schirmy]

Princess Lover! has pink-haired cutie, though.

[Zatheyll]

No, I honestly don't really care about the way it ended. As I said, it was a safe ending, it was a reasonable way to go. I gave the manga an 8/10 simply because that was the rating I had it at when I first started reading it. I enjoyed Kuzu no Honkai more when it was new to me and that was the manga.

You could argue that I could give both the same rating since it was pretty much a 1:1 adaptation, but this is just kind of how I feel about it now.

Was just curious, cause I caught up on it (all but the last episode) with Luth the other day. He didn't drop it, but he says he's going to give it a 5 or 6 and hates everything about it, which kills me inside. I loved the manga (as you can see by me buying it and telling everyone to read it) and the anime was a great adaption of it, so I'm looking at a 9 or so for both the manga and the anime.

[Neichus]

Youjo Senki - 7/10

Youjo Senki is my favorite type of series, where a driving idea is comfortably nestled inside a self-sustaining story. To (ironically) appropriate a quote: theme without narrative is lame, narrative without theme is blind. On the surface the plot follows the exploits of Tanya Degurechaff, a young girl advancing up the ranks of the German military in a magically-infused alternate WW1. However, as is shortly revealed Tanya is the reincarnation of an amoral salaryman from modern Japan. God (or Being X as the series calls it) has brought him here to this time and place to teach him humility and devotion. Tanya (we never learn his former name) is a devout atheist, and sees no need for God in his world. Furthermore, he is a psychopath in the strongest sense: he can understand how others feel, but experiences no compassion or moral drive beyond his own well-being.

The engine that drives the series is this underlying struggle between God attempting to prove itself to Tanya, and Tanya firmly rejecting the divinity or necessity of such a being. The brilliance of the series is executed through the uncertain balance between these two, for while Tanya is clearly evil God does not acquit itself much better.

Tanya's evil is a special brand, one which is far more insidious than the "maniacal" evil usually demonstrated by villains. While Tanya clearly enjoys her work, she has no special hatred for the enemy or love of her country. She is not sadistic or gloating. Instead she is the epitome of banal expedience. One cannot even say that the ends justify the means, for in her mind the means need no defending if they are efficient and effective. This is also seen in the peculiar legality of her efforts: she will commit atrocities, but only once she has nominally fulfilled her duties to international law. The best example of this is her paper on the legalization of combat in cities and how to reinterpret regulations that prohibit the artillery bombardment of civilian centers. She doesn't defy the law, she just twists it beyond recognition. It exposes the disturbing corporate view of laws as nothing more than conventions, with no basis in morality.

And so, to rescue this sinner God has decided to intervene. Mocking the traditional God has become passé, but what Youjo Senki does is demonstrate the inherent perversity of what are traditionally viewed as the signs of God's power. God's use of trials and miracles is absurd. Tanya is placed under the command of a heedless experimenter, her life put in danger simply to force her to capitulate to God's will. And the miracle that "saves" her, the special insight given to the head engineer, again begs the question as to how a benevolent being could so grossly employ such tactics just to lean on a single mortal. And now, for all God's efforts, these weapons have been bequeathed to the devil. That Tanya is forced to recite a sort of prayer in God's name every time she uses her equipment is obviously a farce in light of what she uses it for. At best God is incompetent, and at worst knowingly aiding evil. This is all given special poignancy for being set in WWI: I do not know how aware the original writers are of European history, but WWI is what intellectually killed the traditional God in Western thought.

The Good:

Tanya, Tanya, and Tanya. This series runs on Tanya, and as a character she bears the weight gracefully. She is a villain that you find yourself rooting for, if just because the other guy is worse. Her evil also comes and goes in ways that make it easy to forget what she is capable of, and many of her experiences are humanly relatable. And her drive against God, rather than feeling like hubris, is eminently relatable through her disgusted anger.

That said, this series has a great sense of subdued humor. Most of it centers around using Tanya as the straight man, but small touches like the after-credits scenes of Tanya hating second-hand smoke helped keep Youjo Senki from becoming too grim, while also adding humanizing touches that make Tanya’s evil feel rooted in an actual human. They are also able to cash in on Tanya’s normally collected demeanor at several key points, such as her humorous reacquaintance with Dr. Schugel, the raw helpless rage at the letting the Republican army slip away, and her various speeches. What makes all of these scenes function so smoothly is the contrast with her well-established mannerisms.

Speaking of scenes, while Tanya’s final scene is quite good I would argue that her meeting earlier that episode with von Rerugen was one of the crowning moment for her character. In this world humans are still believed to be rational. They have not experienced the confused awakening that ours has, and through this tainted lens Tanya gazes down on their idealism and crush it casually. The moment where von Rerugen stops, aghast, his cigarette burning and falling to the floor, was in some ways the only appropriate reaction. It really was a moment with a touch of history.

In summary, the English translation of the title (“The Saga of Tanya the Evil”) is entirely appropriate. This series lives and dies on her character, and so help me I looked forward to seeing our loli psychopath in action every week.

The Bad:

The main problem with the series is that it tends to forget that Tanya is what matters. While individual scenes spent away from Tanya are not detrimental, the bottom line is that whenever the story about the war begins to eclipse Tanya’s own crusade the series suffers. Even her more mundane scenes around the office are more interesting than the character-defining moments of her enemies and allies. I truly don’t care about any of the other actors in the series, and that is okay. This setting is purely to showcase Tanya’s deistic vendetta in a bloody and godless world.

Secondary to this, my other recurrent issue was a suspension of disbelief. Using Tanya’s age and gender to sharply contrast with her inner character is an old trick, but effectively employed here. Despite this, and a reasonable explanation as to why she is this way, I couldn’t find myself taking certain situations seriously. There is simply no believable way a 12-year-old girl would rise like that in the WWI-era German military; basic chauvinism would keep that in check at the very least.

But let’s grant for a minute that the high command is forward thinking, highly logical, and more willing to employ women than their real counterparts were. There remain several scenes in which Tanya manhandles grown soldiers, entirely apart from her magical abilities. The scene when her troops take the Republican forward command irked me as she snuck up Splinter Cell style on her targets and assassinated them…while barely coming up to their stomach. It was just goofy. Even as I enjoyed the show these mismatches pecked at me, and were detrimental to the experience.

Finally, there are some miscellaneous complaints I have, such as the vagueness of the magic system and the total conflation of WWI- and WWII-era technologies on several occasions. But none of these are great enough to warrant more than a passing mention.

Ultimately, I found Youjo Senki to be a surprisingly enjoyable series with an unusual essence and competent execution. It has one of the singularly best main characters of any series and a sharp sense of humor to match the grim undertones. However, its strength was also its weakness, struggling at times to accommodate Tanya's "largeness" alongside the rest of the plot. One can only hope that God will work a miracle and give us a second season. Amen.

[Zatheyll]

At least he watched it.

I was surprised as well. I was just waiting for him to watch episode 2 and 3 and drop it so I could finish it. Now to get him through Akibas.

[Zatheyll]

I gave Youjo Senki a shot because he wanted me to and he was supposed to watch either Akiba's or Kuzu in return. I don't remember which one it was.

I think both. Kuzu to 3 and Akiba to 5.

[Schirmy]

Baccano! - 8/10. Some (very) scattered thoughts:

Overall, a show well above par. As I was viewing, I couldn't help but think, "is there some deeper meaning or theme I am not deducing from this?" I think the value of this show is eccentric and jovial personalities that contrast to the dark and grittier ones. The story itself was pretty neat and I found the conclusion to be super satisfying. The writers did a good job having me not like Szilard. He was a selfish and conspiring evil man, completely hellbent on hoarding all sacred knowledge for himself. In comparison to other anime I've watched, I can't think of one that had multiple intertwining story lines with compelling characters to help fuel it. I'm glad I watched this and would recommend for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Miria and Isaac spin-off when

Ennis 15/10.

[Suicidal Panda]

started gabriel dropout now that I caught up on all my backlog. Only did ep 1 and with this my favorite of the 4 is raphiel & vignette

[Sj]

Recommend me a 12-episode show, thanks a bunch.

Binbougami ga

[Simplex]

This is why I read Dr. Stone...

I wouldn't expect anything less from Boichi.

[Asetotti]

Tanya's evil is a special brand, one which is far more insidious than the "maniacal" evil usually demonstrated by villains. While Tanya clearly enjoys her work, she has no special hatred for the enemy or love of her country. She is not sadistic or gloating. Instead she is the epitome of banal expedience. One cannot even say that the ends justify the means, for in her mind the means need no defending if they are efficient and effective. This is also seen in the peculiar legality of her efforts: she will commit atrocities, but only once she has nominally fulfilled her duties to international law. The best example of this is her paper on the legalization of combat in cities and how to reinterpret regulations that prohibit the artillery bombardment of civilian centers. She doesn't defy the law, she just twists it beyond recognition. It exposes the disturbing corporate view of laws as nothing more than conventions, with no basis in morality.

I feel like this is what impressed me the most in the series. I went in expecting a generic maniac that just wants to see the world burn and just recklessly sends her men to the battlefield to die with no gain. The generic villanious military officer so to speak. But damn was I wrong.

Tanya, and her "evil", makes up more or less an ideal officer. She understands the value of the mission but more over understands that her men are not cannon fodder that can just be thrown away. The leader of the Battalion is ultimately responsible for the lives of the entire battalion and despite being a complete psycho, I feel like Tanya takes this to heart. When her men are wounded she sends them away, when they feel stress she motivates them to keep going. It's absolutely brilliant. Completely opposite from the psycho I was expecting, she understands the value of manpower and tries to preserve it the best she can. Indeed, how the ideal military officer would think.

On top of all that she does not fight to prolong the war but for lasting peace. Again, against what I was expecting before I started the show and this is why I wasn't really eager to pick it up. There was plently of stuff that impressed me but for me, this tops it all.

[Deleted]

Amen.

While I rate Youjo Senki a point higher - 8/10 - my impressions mostly coincide with yours. Tanya's character definitely carries the show; the fact a 12 year old girl is allowed anyauthority tests my suspense of disbelief; her furious denial not of god's existence, but of that entity's right to the title is a great engine for the series. For all of X's efforts in forcing a "godless" man to accept his divinity he facilitates tragedy, fully deserving of being called a Devil by Tanya.
I must also say I really liked the portrayal of god in this anime. While many changes made in the process of adapting the novel were detrimental - the overall story suffered somewhat due to omissions and simplifications made - what they did to god's appearance was great. Alien, weird, disturbing. Using dead bodies, dolls, bystanders, or simply hallucinations as proxies to communicate with Tanya left me with that otherworldly, creepy feeling. In contrast the novel - and manga adaptation - made use of traditional western God, and old bearded man, talking to Tanya directly. While I get what was the author going for there, to use the most standard image of "God" readers have for his Existence X, I felt it was... lacking?
Coincidentally, while in the novel and manga only mr. X communicates with Tanya just like in anime, there are more deities introduced and the lack of "faith" is implied to be some sort of a crisis for them. Unfortunately the novel is only translated up until Tanya's firework show so I can't say much more - but it creates an additional angle for the story to explore later in, something purposely removed from anime.

[Enjeh]

New Game! Anime Season 2 Reveals July Debut, Cast, Staff, Visual

[BloodyAngel12]

[Yami]

New Game! Anime Season 2 Reveals July Debut, Cast, Staff, Visual

Not posting news about a new Meme anime airing soon?

"Pop Team Epic" anime announced for October 2017:

http://hoshiiro.jp/