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The year of surprises. Recently, both western media and anime have been surprising me, usually in a good way. From Kong to Dragon Maids, I've found shockingly enjoyable entertainment in places where I really wouldn't expect it to be. Maybe i'm becoming softer, as the escapist entertainment slowly drags me through the depths of "why don't you just have fun!" and "just turn your brain off, dude!" and whatever other insipid statements tend to spring from the bad taste crowd. I'm not above making fun of someone for the kind of shit they watch, so when i'm conscious of the kind of shit i'm watching, well, it creates a whole new self-aware dynamic within my mind.
I think that's my own idiosyncrasy though. I try to be as tepid as possible whenever introduced with an outlandish concept, like a salary man-turned loli in an alt-world war 1 with magic. Maybe that's why I've been getting surprised more and more. Gauging how excited you are can possibly salvage an iffy premise. Youjo Senki, or Saga of Tanya the Evil is one of those premises that becomes synonymous with stereotypes in anime.
I'm prone to indulging in those stereotypes too. Whether it be laughing at blunt storytelling, bad character chemistry, or more vague things like farcical story concepts, like meeting a dragon while drunk and having it turn into a cute girl who is also a maid. Concepts that are generally reserved to this kind of escapist entertainment also known as anime. Senki is no different. But surprisingly, it does have some pretty awesome and memorable qualities about it. I feel like this is what some action fans may be looking for.
As someone who has come to the conclusion that action anime isn't all up my alley simply due to the way the way it is very often constructed. Senki surprised me. It's strange because I am definitely a huge action fan in the live action medium, as well as a huge horror fan (anime doesn't really have much horror, though), yet the kinds of shows I've seen within this animated medium haven't done all that much to impress me with the action itself.
Maybe i'm being overly cynical since I really dug Kill La Kill, and thought Mob Psycho 100 was pretty solid recently, as well, and while Mob definitely excelled in its action, Kill La Kill was more interesting to me with its characters. I guess what i'm saying is that my experience with the actual action in action anime has been rough.
Here is where Youjo Senki comes in. While not something that is revolutionary or particularly awe-inspiring, there are elements here that any action fan can really get behind, not another dragged out twenty episode Shounen.
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[The War]
As I briefly explained, a salary man gets murdered by a co-worker he just fired and gets reincarnated into a German loli who tests positive for "magical capabilities" and becomes a powerful, yet very young battle mage in what can only be described as World War 1 Alt-Germany. With all the other parallels to other countries landing square in the "tasteful" zone. This salary man-turned-loli is incredibly cynical. Of humanity, faith, and just about anything in between.
He gets greeted by a "god", which he aptly refers to as Being X who gives him the opportunity for reincarnation but only if he takes up the name of the lord, pretty much. Of course this cynical guy doesn't want to do that, hence getting transported into wartime. The interest here stems from his relation with this pho-God and how this "God" is portrayed. Greedy, unfair, and somewhat petty, similar to some of our gods, but not all-knowing.
So a battle begins. Being X fights for this salary man's faith, and the salary man, who is now Tanya Degurachaff, fights with all her will to never bow to a being like this. A fight of faith versus humanity, with the humanity being cynical of humanity. Interesting, but may straddle the line of pettiness. Thankfully, Senki never journeys deep into that rabbit hole, and apart from a very well-placed monologue towards the end of the show, this show stays preach-free, which is a big thumbs up. Again, that stereotype of "moralistic anime preachiness" is, maybe not subverted, but surprisingly not all there.
Tanya rises in the ranks, trying to establish a comfy space in the back-lines, but gets constantly thrown face-first into the brunt of the action. She ends up commanding a battalion of semi-forgettable characters that follow her headlong into battle. Her stature (and age) are questioned, but only lightly, creating a very strange verisimilitude within this world. On one hand this is absurd, on the other hand this introduction of magic can actually excuse their recruitment of such a young officer. She's prone to incredibly powerful magic, but not powerful enough to be some overpowered main character, which prevents this show's Shounen-action roots from showing at all.
Senki feels more of a globe-trotting adventure with a lot of very colorful pit-stops. Very similar to something like a Call of Duty campaign. Not necessarily a bad thing, especially since this show puts a lot of effort into creating political conflict which ends up being back-ended by the action. Not every episode ends with action, and not every episode really needs to. Tanya, and her VA, Aoi Yuuki, do an outstanding job in conveying this persons feelings as the show progresses, even if sometimes I could do without the constant introspection.
It always feels as though the war is bigger than Tanya herself, even if she is responsible for a very powerful battalion of mages. Which is great. This is a massive war with a lot of political ideologies colliding and it really wouldn't make sense to put this character at the forefront of it all, even if her eventual influence on a lot of the leaders who we see constantly sitting around important tables talking politics and smoking cigars feels a little too easy.
The technology of this war is confusing, but I suppose it ought to be. Being X is constantly interfering with other people, giving them advice and occasionally even empowering them with more powerful magic. The progression of technology is sudden and important, as years pass in the blink of an eye. I think Senki is at fault with not showing character growth as these years pass, which is unfortunately up to the artists to do, by aging Tanya accordingly. While she definitely matures in the sense that she becomes more seasoned to the war, no character feels different after the multiple-year conflict, visually. No scars, nothing.
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[Presentation]
The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag, however, there is definitely more positives to be said. The best thing I can say about Senki is how breathtaking its sound design is for a low budget TV anime. The gunshots, explosions, and everything in between sound crisp and powerful. Some moments truly stand out due to the sound, here. The OP and ED aren't too bad, inhabiting a grunge-rock base with some more pop-oriented elements thrown in during their chorus. I think they are good enough to be memorable. The OP itself is somewhat disappointing, with boring imagery and overall not too much creativity injected in it.
The sequences where new-comer studio NUT put visible effort into turned out awe-inspiring. Especially a prolonged ten-minute battle sequence near the end of the season was truly one of the better sequences in recent memory. However, there is some really blatant and unfortunately bad use of CG throughout the shows less-than-exceptional battles. One glaring moment was with a battleship cruising on what I believe was 'water' but the rendering was so hideous that it looked like a PS1 game. There is some frame rate issues with soldiers marching. All these things plague so many TV anime.
The sound, and surprisingly, the editing does a lot of the heavy lifting. While this show was often dark and brooding, the editing and direction in many cases actually gave it a lot of life. Yutaka Uemura, whom I have not seen any work from, does some very solid work on Senki. Certain scenes and cuts really stick out as creative, fun, and even exhilarating. Even some more dialogue-driven scenes are cut well, which brings a new air to the way you listen to two people discuss war politics, which isn't always the most interesting topic.
Character design is generally not too memorable, as it focuses mostly on realistic designs that contrast hard with our main characters design. It isn't a bad thing, since I actually enjoy more realistic approaches to design. Many of them just don't stand out as much.
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[Characters in an Alt-History]
So Tanya is an attempt at an anti-hero. She's called "evil", but words like cruel, greedy, conniving, self-righteous, and powerful come to mind more often than evil does. There was one scene where "evil" can be attributed to her name, but everything else more lays towards the "Chaotic Lawful" side of things. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I never really got the idea that she was some evil psychopath. If anything, she was just self-absorbed and only caring about herself, which is a fine character trait.
As a protagonist she's the most engaging character in the series. I also really want to thank the show for not relying on poorly-placed comedy to make light of certain scenes. While there is comedy, it is often more understated apart from a few glaring places, which is acceptable. With Tanya harboring more of an anti-hero roll, you end up siding more with some of the people she kills, rather than herself. One scene particularly worked well, with imminent civilian casualties being swept under the rug due to a law-interpretation she wrote the paper on. She values logical solutions over emotional ones, which may make her, as I said, cruel and ruthless, but she doesn't really indulge in a lot of what she does. She simply is uncaring towards it.
Viktoriya is the most prominent secondary in the show. Her design is perhaps the most questionable, as her eyes are a bit too big for her face. It looks odd. What is the most questionable is her role within the show. She really just plays a cute girl that slowly becomes encapsulated in Tanya's world. Viktoriya doesn't have much of a character arc. I wouldn't call her all that pertinent to the show and her eventual role is mostly just another girl, however, it just ends up pointing out the complete lack of females within the show overall. Weird.
While I do say she's supposed to be a "cute" character, I wouldn't say the show overly relies on the "cute" aspect of her or Tanya for that matter. I'm really happy about that. This could've easily just been a show where a cute character murders people, and that would've lost my interest within the first episode. Thankfully it springs for a more in-depth approach to a character, even if it is definitely a result of marketing a character like this.
One of the biggest issues that Senki develops is its lack of actual consequences. The show itself has some moral ambiguity to it, which really surprised me since I virtually can't think of any action or drama anime that has moral ambiguity. With that said, though, the ambiguity is all it really has. In the end, you are still supposed to like the side you see the most on screen. Especially some of the comrades that fight alongside Tanya in her battalion. They get hurt, but there are hardly any deaths. There aren't many characters that you see for more than an episode that die, and the show often does a fake-out for their deaths, which robs it of any impact whatsoever. This is such a disappointment because Senki does have an interested aura of moral grey to it, which is sorely missing in anime.
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[Conclusion]
The Saga of Tanya the Evil is a surprisingly solid series. Even if it is plagued by a rough start, with the first few episodes being either incomprehensible or kind of boring, it makes a quick transformation towards the middle and end of the series. The story isn't anything to write home about, but Tanya's battle against faith is interesting and the refreshing morality of Senki elevate it to being pretty damn memorable.
Even the opening and end credit themes are stuck in my head hours after watching the series. This is the kind of series I may want to see more of within this medium. Although it doesn't have the brutal emotional impact I feel it could have, there are some really positive elements here. Unfortunately, it doesn't have all too much violence or consequence, but the character interaction and eventual evolution of Tanya is worth the watch on its own, with the crisp, explosive sound design being the icing on the cake.
If it weren't for the sub-par animation at a few time-saving moments during the series, this would be one of the more visually fresh and arresting shows recently. I think there is a lot to say about Studio NUT as well, who definitely have a lot of passion behind their first project, and rightfully so. There are issues with the product overall, but the end result is a positive one. Maybe the cynicism of Tanya makes me want to contrast myself here, but Youjo Senki was a surprisingly entertaining series, and I look forward to seeing more, if there is more to come. It sure has a hell of a set up.
