And despite it's interesting premise, the anime adaptation of that material "Senjou no Valkyria", crashes down in all the beforementioned highlights, which made this franchise different from the other similar ones, shoving in our face chewed up, and weirdly twisted story, altered with too much plot-holes, one dimensional characters, bearing resemblance to the original cast, but having their definitive traits hyperbolized to, in the most cases, abnormal and absurd scales. In the same way, the flow of the storyline in the source material, with it's ebbs and flows of relaxing adventures, followed by relatable and well-written personal struggles and political conflicts, from various perespectives is smashed up with the anime adaptation's almost seemingly two distinctive parts - the first episodes, giving you feel of watching teen rom-com with seemingly zero interest of the characters upon the current problems of the war (while it's assumed they're army recruits) and the second part, very hard trying to be more mature and serious, which by itself is step in the right direction, but in the current case, trying to build up tension and feeling of relateableness with the beforementioned "haapy go lucky" portrayal of the characters, which are dwarfed to the well-known archetypes (the Tsundere, the overly generic main character, the third wheel in the romance) is plain tragic to watch, and it also feels very awkward at times.
One of the important messages of the source material was, by showing us the sorrows and the horrors of the war, seen from the point of the common soldier, combined with his own personal struggles, reshapes his perception of right and wrong, but in the same time, by being in touch with his dreams and wishes, gives him will to prevail and move forward, which could also be an inspiration for us as well in our own lives.On the other hand, the major focus of the anime was mostly about the romantic relationships, and the unwavering unity of the squad, aka "Friendship Power" which sounds much more cheesy than developing actual plot and clever tactical strategies to outmaneuver and outwit their opponents, which makes any feeling of actual gritty combat non-existent in the anime. An also, the romantic aspect (which is one of the main themes here, it seems) is very poorly and unoriginally executed.
There is overall character development, but it's far from realistic and mostly relying on tropes, with the sole exclusion of Faldio, who gets far more screentime than in the source material, and he has his own developed story, which is a small breath of fresh air considering the others. The other good sides of the anime are the art and it's sound, although they're not really lifesaving for this adaptation in my opinion, since the story and character departments are handled horrible and almost parodically.
To summarize my thoughts - Senjou no Valkyria is not horrible anime by itself, although it's quite generic and average by any standards, which had great potential, if the source material was handled well, to be one of the best animes, depicting the feelings of hope and despair in wartime, which instead decided to be this light-hearted, bright-coloured goofy action which is good for killing time, but oblivious in any other serious aspect.
