This episode was certainly stronger than the first as Itami’s otaku tendencies were cut down and the focus was more on the conflict. The fight itself was brilliantly portrayed as we saw it mainly from the side of the other world. In the beginning when they were marching towards the army they were assured of their victory seeing as they had the bigger numbers. Just seeing the generals fight over who would take the front line so they could claim glory without knowing just what they were up against was amusing indeed. Only the main general found something off about the campaign. Then to see all that self confidence disappear and despair set it. You could really see when they realized the fight was unwinnable when their goal changed from beating the enemy to just hitting them with one arrow.It’s seeing it from their side is what made the episode interesting as to the army this wasn’t anything special but to the other world’s forces it was something akin to hell. The best moment was the general using a bow to fire one arrow in futility while his forces were getting slaughtered by the hundreds, then just reaching out his arms and laughing madly. I actually started to pity them there.
It’s nice that the episode didn’t take sides either as the other world’s moves make sense from a medieval standpoint and it looks to be using the war to solidify his position. Where as the army is simply responding in kind and even on there side there are those seeking to monopolise the new world’s resources. This isn’t an James Cameron’s Avatar situation where one side is clearly good and the other clearly evil. The armies were just doing their jobs and it’s nice to see the army not particularly care that they killed a huge amount of people. In any other show there would be some hamfisted moral of respecting human life shoved down the viewers throats. In a Gundam anime the main character would brood on and on about how war is terrible and killing people is bad. It is true that the protagonist Itami was rather disgusted by the aftermath it seemed more to do with how technological inferior the enemy was rather than some righteous morality. We all know that war is terrible and shouldn’t happen and we should join our hands in peace and harmony and etc, etc, so on and so forth. But sometimes war is just inevitable so its nice to see it just portrayed as it is. Not a giant fireworks festival or a overly sentimental don’t kill message set to the world’s smallest violin. The army was attacked so they responded in kind, they gave the warnings and the enemy marched regardless. That’s just how war works.
Thus after a bloody battle the army sets out to gather intelligence. Though I question how they managed to communicate with the locals and even managed to get a book translating their language to Japanese in a relatively short amount of time. Itami’s otaku-isms are still pulled in as a joke but at least now it’s rarer and at times funny. There’s just something endearing about a army rolling out after a dark battle with the squad leader and another soldier talking about meeting catgirls and waifus. But the story at least knows when to get serious s the group find a village destroyed by a dragon. Some might find it hypocritical that these people lament the deaths of the villagers when they killed far more in the battle but there’s a difference between killing defenseless civilians and armed soldiers. Next time, there be elf girls and dragons.