Guin Saga – 07

Now this was supposed to be the episode to make or break this series; with this episode, we would know whether or not this series is able to animate large-scale fights that put armies against each other, and which will probably become the biggest focus of this series. We’ve already seen how Valkyria Chronicles screwed up when it didn’t seem to know whether its enemies were tactical geniuses or incredibly stupid, but I must say that Guin Saga gracefully avoided this flaw. This was such a great episode, and I’m even more hungry to see the next episode.

So as it turns out, Guin’s plans consisted partly out of psychological warfare, and partly out of using the local monsters near Nosferas. They attacked in small groups in order to draw out the Mongol Army, Guin also showed himself a few times, and when they became angry, they unleashed carefully timed giant blob monsters on them.

The thing is that this plan mostly worked so easily because of Amnelis’ incompetence. The way she’s dressed and the way she acts suggest that she’s never really lost a battle, or came close to it. The Mongol army really seems like an army that uses pure numbers in order to overcome its foes, and that means that they’ve never really had to use smart tactics in order to win: they’d just overwhelm their enemies and get things over with. My favourite scene this episode came when Guin actually nearly killed Amnelis when she moved too close to the front lines.

This episode was basically one very big wake-up call for Amnelis. Her numbers meant that she was overconfident, and with such a huge chunk eaten out of her army, this now means that she has to get serious and start using her head and listen to the advice of her companions, who are much more experienced than she is. Guin may have his giant slime blob, but now it’s also known that fire will repel it.

With Valkyria Chronicles, the characters in charge just felt too much like stereotypes: there was nothing that really set them apart. Amnelis, incompetent as she may be, is slightly different. We can really see what’s going on inside her head and where her weaknesses lie. She’s a flawed character, there’s no mistake about that, but she doesn’t have the personality of a paper bag.

Usually in anime when battles between huge armies are portrayed, they fail to impress because the creators are trying to rush through them too much and fail to keep track of this army. I often have no idea how large these armies are: all we see is just a bunch of people fighting here and there. And here this series comes, and simply by saying how many soldiers are involved, I feel much more able to imagine the sheer amount of soldiers that play a part of this.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
This episode had one of the best battles on a really large scale I’ve seen in a long while.