Saga of Tanya the Evil – 04 [Campus Life]

What happened in this episode was essentially a joke with the majority of the time dedicated to   the setup and final few scenes being the punchline. It doesn’t necessarily mean that this was a bad episode as this show is still burning strong. However, in terms of plot progression, this was a rather slow paced episode but all things considered, it is nice to take a break from the battlefield and have Tanya playing mind games to enhance her position. That makes the beautifully cathartic moment all the more satisfying when these mind games ends up working against her. She manages to make use of her knowledge of World War I to predict how the war would develop and due to her efforts to impress her superior, she accidently suggests the formation of a mage battalion whom could turn the tide of the war. Essentially, she unknowingly recommended herself to be at the forefront of the entire world war and handle the most dangerous missions. The brilliant thing about this is that God may have set things up a little by having Zeller see her resume but, in the end, it was Tanya herself, that ultimately dug her own grave. I actually think that if Tanya appealed to take the safer positions offered to her, then Zeller would allow her to refuse as he does seem hesitant to send her out. Unfortunately, Tanya’s mind works against her and ultimately assumes that she has no choice in the matter.

It’s great that the war college isn’t used as an excuse to pad out the story or introduce a classroom full of wacky new characters. Instead it resemble more like an actual college, which I certainly appreciate.  There aren’t any silly sports festivals here and instead, we have Tanya convincing a man to abandon his position in the military in order to be there for his newly born daughter. That was quite a good scene as it really did seem like Tanya was being genuinely heartfelt, only to have that psycho smile flare up as it was just a ploy to convince the man to give up his post so she would steal it for herself. Giving someone a good heart to contrast evil actions can lead to nice moral dichotomy but in the case of our salaryman here, I think she’s at her best at being a bastard. Yet, despite the audience knowing her real thoughts, she may be giving the impression of being a good person to those around her. The only one cautious of her true nature is the Vice Director of Strategy and Operation although he doesn’t know her full backstory. Otherwise, he would know that all he needs to do to keep her from taking over is to give her a safe cushy job in the rear.

Now that I think of it, I haven’t commented on the opening and ending credits of this show yet. The opening is something I appreciate for being different, but I find the song to be too robotic with its vocals. The visuals are far too obscured and the majority of the opening just throws too many scenes, which makes it too cluttered. I do like the part with Tanya shooting the Nutcracker as a way of showing her conflict with god. Actually, that Nutcracker is a rather amusing choice for the representative of God. After all, God is the one that threw him into this grim reality and generally comes in to give him a kick in the nuts now and again. One has to wonder if it’s an intentional joke. While the opening doesn’t catch me, I found myself loving the ending. The song has a certain militaristic theme which I have a certain fondness for and the chorus just sounds great to me. In terms of visuals, I can’t decide if it was resourceful or lazy to make it a slideshow of the art featured in the light novels. The amount of effort required to make this ending is minimal, and if any other light novel adaption tried to do this then it would make for a weak ending for each episode.

However, the artwork of the novels is quite frankly, outstanding. It has a level of detail and beauty that will likely make people lament the downgrade that Tanya got in character design in the anime. If there is a negative to this ending, it is that ignorance is bliss so that by pointing out how good Tanya looks in the novel, people might be resenting her animated character design. I don’t quite dislike her design as when it comes to animation and character art as I prefer my characters feeling alive over being highly decorative cardboard stills. Her design may be a downgrade but it does allow for the animation to give her a wider berth of emotional  response. It’s sort of like how the anime version of Pokemon Sun and Moon handled their character redesign, which made a lot of people angry. Ultimately, it was done for better animation and in all honestly, it is a reasonable tradeoff. That said, Tanya’s female subordinate still looks bad, and if she’s going to be in this show a lot more then they need to do something with that off putting design.

 

Saga of Tanya the Evil – 03[Deus Vult]

This series really has started to shine since episode two and I admit that Tanya is carrying the show all by herself. The first episode shows what this series would be like without her character background and while that was serviceable, it’s on a much better footing now. Tanya’s quest to land a safe job out of the frontlines and God screwing her over at every point makes for a far more entertaining story than your standard magical girl anime. The cushy job testing a new magical device turns out to be even more dangerous than the front lines due to a crazed inventor. Thanks to divine intervention, Tanya ends up with a magical device far more powerful than anything else but as a tradeoff, she is forced to praise God every time she uses it. In the source material, the praising of God was involuntary and often came out of Tanya’s mouth no matter what she did. While the animated series depicts Tanya begrudgingly praying on her own accord, which certainly makes it all the more cathartic. After all, this device is likely to push her on to more and more battlefields where her life is in danger. In order to survive she will need to make use of the device and pray, which in turn forces her into even more battles. God has literally forced her on a path where the only way she can survive is praising him, which amounts to cheating when it comes to developing Tanya’s faith.

As I said before, God in the anime is treated differently from the source material. Originally, there were dozens of gods and Tanya’s Type 95 device was something that landed in her hands by coincidence. Originally it was intended to help inspire faith in the gods. I find the anime version to be more poignant and interesting as I’m not certain if God is working in his mysterious ways or if he is genuinely unreasonable. After all, God is being a bit of an jackass if you take the time to read the Bible. Honestly, I only managed to make it ten pages into the bible before it started putting me to sleep but within those ten pages, he seemed rather trollish. It is a question of whether this game he has with Tanya is a matter of God punishing an arrogant man or if he is using her to promote faith in others. Tanya’s actions do seem to encourage piety within the army and Tanya herself seems more or less oblivious to this fact because she’s too focused on proving being X wrong. The idea of Tanya doing god’s work while under the impression that she is rebelling against god is the kind of irony I find most amusing.

I was worried that the dreaded school setting was coming into the story, which is an aspect I detest when it comes to anime shows. But from the way things are looking, God is sure to have plans that will ensure that Tanya doesn’t get too comfortable. It also helps that this is a war college rather than a typical high school but still I get worried when any show tries to cram in a school in a story that doesn’t need one. However, if there is one thing that Tanya needs right now, it is strong side characters. So far, Tanya only has her girl subordinate acting as a foil but she could really uses a character to bounce off and interact with. She doing an admirably good job in carrying the show but a great lead needs others to work off. All the signs point towards the series is heading towards World War One with Tanya being at the very center of it all. I appreciate the level of quality that has gone into these past few episodes but numerous war scenes have a tendency to drain budgets and animation quality. Considering this is Studio Nut first work, the last thing I want to see is the quality of the show taking a nosedive.

Saga of Tanya the Evil – 02[Prologue]

As I initially thought, this series becomes a whole lot better when you can see the disparity between the main protagonists thoughts and how those around her view them. The first episode jumped ahead in the story to where Tanya had established herself somewhat and I believe the intent was to mislead the audience with her character. This episode takes it back to the beginning and truthfully would have made for a much more engaging start to the series. We see now that Tanya was a Japanese salaryman who managed to annoy god enough for him to throw out some cruel and unusual punishment. The animation studio seem to have taken liberties with the meeting god scene as both the manga and light novel frame it in more comedic light. There god is represented by his standard look of an old man with a bread in a white gown.

God in that seems more exasperated and annoyed with the salaryman’s outright dismissal of him. Admittedly there is some value in that version but I find the version in the anime to be far more compelling and interesting. There time stops and the god that questions the salaryman feels more mysterious and authoritarian. It even doesn’t outright admit itself to being god and in some ways makes it seem like he was purposefully pushing the protagonist to give him a reason to punish him or prove his own theory on why people no longer need faith. It’s one hell of a way to start a series which makes it all the more questionable as to why they didn’t just go with this instead of the actual first episode.

Not that the last episode was bad at all. But I think this series really benefits from the dry tone of Tanya’s inner voice when contrasted with her psychotic tendencies. It goes to show that the truly evil do not think of themselves as evil. In Tanya’s case she’s just doing what she can to get a cosy desk job in order to spite god. A smile just comes to my face seeing her lying in the hospital bed putting up a front with everyone who’s impressed with her while in her mind she’s saying “Oh crap, I impressed them too much.” For Studio Nut’s first work this is a remarkably well animated show so far which could put them on the map.

Though reason for this may be due to the staff being made up of former Gainax/Madhouse employees, though that does need confirmation. At least that’s what I heard. The female character designs take some getting used too though I have grown accustomed to Tanya and her delightful crazy smiles.  Her subordinate on the other hand I don’t think I will ever get used to. The soundtrack isn’t quite to my tastes either but it is suitable for the show. If it can manage to keep things interesting this could well be another great show in what looking to be a strong season.