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「武人」 (Bujin)
“Warrior”
No one comes out of this episode looking good, except Kurou.
Military Tactics From Writers Who Don’t Understand Military Tactics
Look at this screenshot of Yamato’s base. This one image is indicative of much of what’s wrong with Itsuwari no Kamen.
Leaving trees around the walls of your fortress is a terrible idea. It cuts down on your line of sight, and allows enemies to use the trees as cover to sneak up on you. While it certainly looks neat, it’s the opposite of what should be done—you cut down the trees around your fortress (possibly for use in constructing your fortress) so your archers can cut down anyone who approaches. While a minor mistake on its own, it illustrates a fatal flaw in Itsuwari no Kamen: while its writers are familiar with the tropes of the original series, they don’t understand the underlying principles that made Utawarerumono successful.
Reasonable military tactics were a huge part of that; the original descended (albeit marginally) in quality the more magicky it got, and was strongest early on when it was a nearly pure medieval sword & horses fantasy. Here we not only have the fortress mistake, but Munechika’s forces successfully stalling Benawi’s forces, even though Benawi’s forces consisted primarily of cavalry. The unaware might not understand how critical a difference this is, but it’s huge. This is the medieval equivalent of fighting armored tanks with infantry wielding only assault rifles. It’s not like the grunts aren’t dangerous to the Abrams or Panzer or whatever the Soviets used, but if the tanks want to get away, the infantry can’t catch them without help. Add to this how Munechika’s forces weren’t using shields, lances, or any tactics that would help them counteract cavalry, and her troops not only shouldn’t have been able to catch up to Benawi’s cavalry, they should have been at a huge tactical disadvantage. Someone didn’t do their research.
These might sound like quibbles, but they’re not. It’s a layman’s understanding of military conflict, thinking if you toss equal numbers of soldiers at each other they’ll more or less be evenly matched. That’s not how it works. Cavalry is qualitatively different than infantry, and that has tactical ramifications beyond “1 cavalry = 3 infantry” troop math. And not paying attention to the simple, basic principles that underwrote the original Utawarerumono story undermines the tale Itsuwari no Kamen is trying to tell. Whatever that is.
Welcome Back, Kurou
About the only person who comes out of this episode looking any good is Kurou (Koyama Tsuyoshi). Not that he’s without his character-derailing failings—he let Haku operate for too long and failed to stop him from blowing up the provisions storehouse, even though he should have easily been able to stop them. (And I still don’t understand why Haku, Atui, and Yakutowaruto didn’t die when they were attacked—hidden armor? Last second dodging? Or just plot armor?) But him going all terminator, in addition to his trademark mix of battle lust and good cheer was fun to see. Partially from nostalgia, granted, though it was also nice to see Kurou, who’s always playing second fiddle to Benawi, shine in his own right for once. I’d also say that it’s nice to see Haku’s team finally challenged, but I’m not sure their plan was any good. I kind of feel like they didn’t deserve the win.
Haku’s, Kuon’s, and Yamato’s Tactical Idiocy
No one else comes out looking any good, though it’s mostly on Yamato’s side. About the only time Tusukuru ends up looking dumb, Kurou’s plot-propelling mistake (in allowing Haku to blow the provisions) aside, is when they let the people who have taken their princess captive approach the provision storehouse with only one guard. Though maybe that was just so Kurou could jump them, in which case it makes sense. But Haku’s plan being stopped when Tusukuru (prudently) warded against magic just shows what an amateur Haku is, and how much better Tusukuru is (especially with all the Onkamiyamukai on their side, thank you Urutorii). Shutting down the masks is a choice development. At least Tusukuru is doing what it can to make these battles more interesting.
As for Kuon, her trickery was, what, act like they were being defeated by Kurou so Haku could throw the bomb he should have thrown immediately? And what was their plan for getting out of the Tusukuru fortress, if they hadn’t been lucky and the bomb knocked out the barrier? (Though if it was obvious that would happen, then that makes sense, but if so they need to tell us that.) Like I said, no one much comes out of this looking good, aside from whoever is in charge of writing all the jokes, who has been killing it all series. I just wish that wasn’t the show’s greatest strength, yadda yadda, we’ve all said thi before.
Looking Ahead – The Emperor’s Death
You know, at the end I was actually rooting for Benawi to kill Munechika. I like Munechika, but Itsuwari no Kamen hasn’t done a good job of moving viewers of the original series from Team Tusukuru to Team Yamato (or at least Team Conflicted), and I was hoping Benawi would do the smart thing and take out a dangerous enemy. But more than that, I just wanted something to happen. Something to change the calculus, so maybe this series could start going somewhere.
At least that happened. With the emperor dead, I guess that would make Anju the new empress. But wouldn’t it be interesting if the old man made Haku the next emperor? Then Itsuwari no Kamen would catch up to where the original series was at episode seven. Which nicely illustrates the other fatal flaw in this sequel: too much time, not enough story. We’ll see what happens next week.
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Kuurou goes all terminator on Haku’s team, but still fails to thwart their amateur plan #utaware s2e20
Random thoughts:
- At least Haku had the good sense to try to hit Tusukuru in their provisions, even if he stole the idea from Tusukuru. And I’m disappointed they didn’t defend against their own favored tactic all that well.
- Just as I was thinking about how the tail whip hasn’t happened in a while, Haku calls it out.
- It’s also a bad ideally, tactically speaking, to leap into the air. Keeping your feet on the ground is combat basics; a jumping kick (for instance) can be powerful, but it’s high risk since it’s hard to land. But that’s one of those bits of illogic I’m usually happy enough to let pass, ’cause it looks cool.
- Kuon and Kurou’s discussion about her betrayal was strange. True, she hasn’t gone all-in against Tusukuru, but the whole damn thing was half-assed. The handling of Kuon’s emotional conflict has been bad and not gettin better.
- That moment you realize your friends weren’t holding back against your old teacher. Ruh roh, Kuon.
- Stilts’ fiction update: In anticipation of my next novel coming out soon™, my first book, Wage Slave Rebellion, is on sale now. It’s only $1.99 until the end of today (Saturday), after which it’ll go back to its usual price. Which is still cheap, by the way ($3.99). If you’ve ever thought of giving my book a shot, act fast. Also, maybe tell your friends? I’ll love you either way.
My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Look to the one before, The problem with character development episodes, Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Conclusion, and What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did wrong.
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It’s feeling like, behind the scenes, they’re trying to have things both ways with fans. They don’t want to have Tusukuru just outright own Yamato when they very well could and risk turning off people to the next generation (even though they’ve sort of have been doing so anyway with how things have been handled much of the time), but they also don’t want to piss off fans of the first series by having Yamato destroying previous-generation characters who have shown to be strong, smart, etc. in the first series.
As you said, no one really comes out looking good except Kurou, but even he loses some points because of such cliche idiocy that allows Haku and co. to succeed when it’s quite obvious that he could have stopped them very easily as soon as he showed up, and it doesn’t help that he gives those statements about them being enemies despite Kuon’s relations, so there really should have been no reason for him to hold back.
I somehow doubt that the Emperor died — not because someone who has lived for hundreds of years, has tons of experience/enhanced longevity, and survived the Jellycurse itself suddenly dying seems (not so) very convincing, but moreso because his ‘death’ was handled in a very poor manner.
Aside from the usual wisdom of anime (if it happens off-screen and/or the corpse isn’t shown there is a >90% chance they are alive), I think that what the Emperor said at 00:53 [“We must think of our next move, should it be necessary”] just further undermined the whole supposedly ‘shocking’ reveal at the end. As if his minimal role and purpose in the series wasn’t enough already they show the guy after he’s had his moment (see the ‘big reveal’ and have him say that line, which is essentially just spoonfeeding the viewer with an unwritten LoA note. $50 says the man is alive and faked his own death as part some plan B to still get to the ruins in Tuskuru or (eventually) Hakuoro himself, as his own guys obviously can’t get the job done.
Now, this setup by itself is fine. What is not fine is that I as a viewer arrived at this suspicion almost instantly because anything else doesn’t really seem possible — his death lacked any sort of (emotional) impact or shock value, and thus credibility. It feels as if this ‘plot twist’ was just thrown in because it was something they needed to mention or just get out there so they can move on with the plot. Showing his death on-screen or showing Haku’s memories of his brother flashing through his mind as he let the words slowly sink in — nothing was done, and thus you can already smell the obvious ‘twist’ due in game No.3 coming from miles away.
My concern is that if you want to pull a similar twist, however cliché…I don’t know, at least try to conceal it a bit better or make it so that other scenarios remain a possibility too? The whole ordeal can be considered as just another example of poor handling (add it to the list of how tactics/war, Kuon’s emotional conflict/inner strife, pacing and character development are handled in the series among others), but the fact that it was (I imagine it to be) such an major plot twist that was introduced in such an apathetic manner here is a serious offense to any series’ credibility.
Either A: He’s still alive, shocking no one, or B: He’s dead, and that’s the worst death scene in anime history.
Either way: FAIL
I probably should have mentioned in my post that I don’t think the emperor is actually dead either. As your said ReylandAZ, it’s a bit too obvious. That is, unless Karura and Touka barged into the castle and killed the old man. That I could believe.
I think you’re misunderstanding something about named character deaths in storytelling, though. They don’t have to be emotional. In this case, there’s very little way to make it emotional with the character they’ve established, even if we cranked up the general quality of Itsuwari no Kamen by several levels. He’s a cold, emotionally dismissive (of the kemonomimi humans), distant ruler who drops a bunch of revelation bombshells and only shows up occasionally. We’re also told about his relationship with others, but never shown why it’s deserved other than “he’s the emperor.” Emotionality wasn’t an option, not should it have been.
Under other circumstances, I might argue that him faking his death was either meant to be intuited, or the script writers might not have minded if that was suspected. It doesn’t have to be a twist. It could just be another person’s plot that makes us go, “Hmmm, I wonder how this is going to shake out…”.
That is, under other circumstances I might say that. In this case, my trust in the storytellers is low enough to suspect they might just not especially know what they’re doing. One or the other.
@Stilts: Agree. This is one situation where I don’t think the character’s death (fake or not) was meant to be all that moving (i.e. “feels”). It’s more for (potential) plot advancement and what affect that said “death” may have on the main cast (which the emperor was not a part of. As you say, a big part of his role is simply exposition).
Honestly, having finally watched the original series, at this point I just want Tusukuru to win. I mean, yeah, Yamato is powerful and everything, but Tusukuru only had to take the masks out of commission and *poof* advantage be gone. I just feel bad that I just want this seemingly pointless war to end (not in the good sense), and on that notion I’m surprised it hasn’t ended all ready with a Tusukuru victory (man I seem pretty bias right now…eh whatever. I don’t know, this just doesn’t feel like a good arc. It just has more of that meandering feeling I’ve gotten with most of this series… *sigh* at least Kuon is still cute.
As a side note: it would make this slightly better if Karura and Touka could come back to provide some awesome action scenes. In my opinion of course.
NOTHING in this series would lead us to believe that Yamato can win this war. Tsukuru should have won ten times over by now, just like Kurou should have killed his opponents from this episode ten times over by its end.
Though inevitably, the awful writers will bring Vurai in, so that he can lead to an awakening of our previous MC.
It won’t make sense, but that’s what’ll happen.
He use his Death as an Moral Boost for his Generals to go all out
Like killing an King, to resolve the Military to go even furiously. Like in WW2 some Countries would sacrifice their own Kings to keep on fighting more and more
https://randomc.net/image/Utawarerumono/Utawarerumono%20Itsuwari%20no%20Kamen%20-%2020%20-%20Large%20Preview%2001.jpg
Btw, do you see it?
You see nothing out of the ordinary? then they done a very good job
Show Spoiler ▼
aka
“Soldiers, they killed our King while we are here fighting honorable face to face with them, and they gone an assassin our King dirty at our backs!. So, show them how we repay this dirty basters with our furious will to fight for blood to blood, dead to dead!. Let us repay the dead of our King with 1000’s of the Enemy’s lifes!. Go forward, go make the old King and Country proud!, we are the last line of Defense between this Barbarians and our Home Country now!”
something like that, you hear now the Coin dropping?
this base here could now work also in GATE
Also in our History, they planed to kill their own “Kaiser Willhelm” to give the German troops an boost to fight more furios. I hear also that some country where the Sun arise, had this plans too
This series is insultingly bad.
Each and every episode feels more and more like them spitting in the face of the viewers.
Everything is apparently a joke to these people. Do they realize that people are dying here. Does this not warrant ANY gravitas?
Oh yeah, and “end” the war? You’re purposely letting your friends and companions die, so that the invading country can conquer your home country sooner. I swear I’m hating Kuon more by the second, which is a shame, as she was among the few decent characters in this series.
On a final note, since He’s shown in the preview, I swear, if the emperor is shown to still be alive in the next episode, I will end up spending the entire episode flicking off my computer screen.
This series is so frustrating. I must be a glutton for punishment to keep watching this trash.
I feel for Stilts having to review it each week.
I actually enjoy blogging this series. It’s as I said with Comet Lucifer (though that’s not to say this is anywhere near as bad): as a storyteller myself, the most valuable stories to consume are not necessarily the ones that do things well, but the ones which do things badly. Stories (like people, companies, and many other things) can succeed in thousands of ways, but they usually fail for the same few reasons. Picking apart why this story isn’t succeeding is useful to me. For example:
Don’t settle for half-measures. Go all the way, even if it alienates some.
Don’t hold back. Tell all the story you have in less time than you want. Then come up with more when you run out.
Use lighter short stories as downtime between plot-driven arcs. Not in blocks, but throughout, to maintain the tone.
Make your characters earn their successes (and failures). Happy endings must be earned.
All these and more are lessons I’ve either learned or had reinforced by Itsuwari no Kamen. I just happen to have an odd way of looking at stories (since I’m looking for inspiration/lessons) that doesn’t always translate to the general audience, haha
How interesting, I hope you’ll give a comparison with the first series in the finale. Would really like to know why they seem so different from a writers point of view. I’m not sure this is written or produced by any of the same people that made the original Utawarerumono. (Need to check the credits of both games first though)
I’m sure I will. Hopefully I’ll have some free time around the end of next month so I can take my time with it, though I already gave some thoughts on it a few episodes back after I finally finished the original series myself.
For what it’s worth, I hear majority of the “strategy” and how battles went this episode were anime-original… For some reason. I’m guessing either budget issues or the writers for anime having only rough outliers of these scenes from the game (from what I remember, game was released about the same time anime started).
I’m also hearing that pretty much everything we dislike about this show is anime-original, aside from Haku being lazy. Most adaptations fail to match the original, but when people hate every change you make, I think it’s time to go back to the real story. Hopefully this’ll at least be a lesson there…
Pretty much nailed it on the head.
Whitefox has done this show a great disservice by not being true to the game. Literally everything that I dislike about this show has been anime original. No proper buildup, no proper foreshadowing, and no proper character development for anyone except Kuon (I still don’t consider Haku a developed character at this point).
Let’s be honest here – the jokes and SoL killed the series. It would have been much more prudent if the director chose to focus more on the latter half of the game rather than the first, and focus more on plot-related elements instead of filler.
I was emotionally invested into the game, and I expected to feel the same for the anime. Turns out that I was brutally, brutally wrong.
I read a comment on reddit soon before the series started airing.
Some guy said the director never did anything like utawarerumono and was more experienced in slice of life stuff.
He stated some worry back then, but now he looked like prophetic.
Actually, after a little research, it turns out the guy is:
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=creator&creatorid=1539
And this other guy is the series compositor
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=creator&creatorid=3662
Look at their curriculum and wither.
@Solaris
I don’t like judging people totally by resume. Then you get caught in the experience trap—how can they get experience if they can never get a job doing it, because they don’t have the experience? But it’s certainly something to be aware of, and it looks like this time the resume told us what we needed to know. Blast.
To be fair the SOL parts are the parts which works best in this show.
@Stilts (sorry for the delayed answer)
I get what you mean, and I usually also don’t fall in that trap too. But this time it was a peculiar example of prophetic advice which proved to be right on the money. The director is actually treating Utawarerumono as his usual s.o.l. show, and not trying experiment on new genres.
Enan84 is also right on the money: This looks more a slice of life than anything else, and frankly speaking, I AM disappointed. I bet NOBODY of us chose to watch utawarerumono because they knew or expected it to be a s.o.l. show but the sequel what they loved almost ten years ago.
Odd. They should have gotten a copy or twelve of the game ahead of time, and certainly the storyboards (or whatever games use to plot out the story). Decisions were made, and it doesn’t seem like they were the right ones.
IIRC, the anime started in October and the game only launched in September. I don’t know how far in advance games are finished but anime series (again IIRC) start pre-production six months-a year in advance. However the timelines played out this show certainly feels like the staff and the video game staff communicated as much as they should’ve.
At the very least, there should have been a beta version for the staff to play through well before the game release date. Developers generally prefer to delay a game release (SOON™, Valvetime, etc.) than send out a buggy or unfinished product, so any game should have gone through intense internal testing, with some beta testing (closed or public) a few months before the game releases. Given that the anime hasn’t really focused much on the individual tactics of the characters, they didn’t even need to worry about any further updates that focused solely on gameplay aspects (abilities, balancing, non-scripting bugs); I’d expect the VN aspects (in other words, the plot) were at least to the point where the main points were nailed down. I don’t think the pacing issues we’ve seen fall at anyone’s feet besides the anime staff.
What’s with “if kuon take this seriously she can broke the country”? super power? Authority?
what’s with the tsukuru troop..well I understand kuon become a hostage but why there is no single troop present when kurou tanking all?
the writer trying so hard to glorify haku intelligence but failed miserably,that yamato fortress screamed attack me with fire arrow wuahaha
Hope she doesn’t transform or something.
Meh. I don’t know if it’s “half-assery” or if the writers have given up completely. “Eh, only a few episodes to go. Might as well just phone it in.” Ideally anime (or any story) will have at least sound tactics if not great/innovative/surprising. If that’s not possible, then at least put some modicum of effort and thought into it. This episode was just bad regarding that on a number of levels. For example, around 16:15, Haku is carefully placing the “bamboo grenade” (for lack of a better term). That leads me to believe that it’s not all that powerful (otherwise, careful placement is unnecessary) and there’s some sort of preparation/procedure to arm it (otherwise, just quickly toss it in the supply building and be done with it). So what happens in the end? Haku just quickly tosses it in the building, and it easily blows up not only the supply building, but quite conveniently takes down the tower with the mage/priest casting the force field which allows Haku’s group an easy (did I mention convenient?) escape.
So WHY the hell didn’t Haku just do that say 10 minutes ago? Don’t enter the building and carefully place it. Just toss it in the door and run like hell. Surely Kuon and the rest can buy 10 seconds to do that (again, he did make it inside anyway). Oh, but then there would be no “climatic” battle (anything but in reality) between Kurou and the rest. Then just do that stuff before Haku gets close. Have Haku struggle (and not in the “comedy” way) to reach the building. What the hell were the rest of the garrison’s forces doing all of this anyway? If this was season one, Kurou wouldn’t be the only one “fighting”.
As others have noted, the show still struggles with tone/atmosphere. I get that this is not as serious as the first season let alone “serious anime”, but at least early on (way back in say Eps. 1-3 or so), there was some tension to the battles. Now the tone is even more skewed towards comedy. Battles are just so there now (including less actual animation – budget woes?). Just killing time as much as anything sad to say. If you’re going to go the “comedy battle” route, then you need to do that whole-heartedly, not half-ass it. Excluding yet another plot advancement epilogue, it took an entire episode to blow up one supply building with the genius tactic of “throw an grenade in it”. That needed an entire episode? Really? One bright spot was that the show at least told viewers why the masks couldn’t be used. I will give points for that.
As for the emperor’s death – fake or not, I’m not sure if I care at this point. The writers don’t seem to care about how things are presented so why should I? Again I’m not dropping the show (and sad that I have to repeat that), but right now I’m much more on the “let’s just get this over with” than any sort of real anticipation towards how it all concludes.
———————
@Stilts: It’s also a bad ideally, tactically speaking, to leap into the air. Keeping your feet on the ground is combat basics…”
Fair point, but this show by far is not the only one to have such melee attacks. It’s common in anime to the point of being a trope/cliche. :/
— “Like I said, no one much comes out of this looking good, aside from whoever is in charge of writing all the jokes, who has been killing it all series.”
Well, the script’s “comedy” writer is killing something. I agree with you on that, but as for what’s being killed, I suspect we disagree (comedy being subjective and all).
Dammit. “Typo” (It’s a curse :<). 2nd paragraph, last line should be "What the hell were the rest of the garrison’s forces doing during all of this anyway?"
Not just tension, but better tactics and some actual gravitas (the whole rememembrance of the fallen scene sticks out in my mind).
That just makes it more frustrating, really. We know the writers are capable of being better than this, that they can make a good show if they put their minds to it, but they just seem to have stopped giving a shit at some point early on. As a result, all the bad tactics, boring battles and underdeveloped characters at display here feel like a result of sheer laziness (and/or bad directing). What went wrong here? Did someone involved in this go on an egotrip or something? Sjeez.
I’m only still watching this because it’s not worth the effort of dropping it anymore; there’s only a few more episodes to go. But man, I haven’t been as frustrated with a show since Robotics;Notes!
Ah robotic;notes, i’m tried so hard not to drop it with a hope it will be a surprise like steins;gate but in the end my eyes it hurtsss
@Dvalinn: Agree, though to a lesser extent on the tactics. Ep. 03 tactics were questionable regarding protecting the VIP IMO. Definitely agree regarding the gravitas/overall tone though. Looking back, it’s almost like Ep. 02 and the tribute to the fallen soldier was part of a different show.
Have to agree – this is a frustrating show. Not just in terms of the goodwill the franchise built up with the first season, but just in general- taking it on it’s own. The “ingredients” are certainly there if only better care of the “cooking” was taken. :/ Comments suggest that this is more adaptation issue than source material, and if that’s the case, failure falls squarely on the anime staff/writers. They went for a mostly light-hearted/comedy hijinks route – too far IMO. That doesn’t mean it needed to be super serious, but this isn’t working.
You missed all the dust created by breaking things in the store house a lot of it probably grain dust. So we had a dust ignition explosion.
@RedRocket: Maybe, or perhaps it was just “normal” dust. Grain dust explosion is given a lot of benefit of the doubt here IMO. This isn’t a grain silo for one thing, and for another, more benefit of the doubt than IMO the show has earned.
Gah! My proofing just SUCKS today (OK, fine, most days. XD). Anyway, “Grain dust explosion is giving a lot…”
@daikama
On the whole grenade thing, I don’t think the writers trust themselves (or their scripts are being committee meeting’d to death). One thing I’ve found useful to help raise the tension of a given encounter is to drive my characters (both the protagonists and antagonists) as far into a corner as I can, and then wrack my brain for how to unravel the mess I’ve gotten myself into. As long as I’m willing to occasionally plot my way into a dead end (I do this at the plotting stage, not when I’m actually writing it out), the conflicts become much more tense because there’s no easy way out. Those ways are gone. So they have to get creative.
Here, they ignored the easy way until they took it after all, and everyone ends up looking dumb. Feh.
@RedRocket
I picked up on the dust explosion, though it wasn’t clear from context. More than picked up, I just assumed that’s what Haku had done. Alas, it still comes out feeling lucky more than anything.
@Stilts: “Here, they ignored the easy way until they took it after all, and everyone ends up looking dumb. Feh.”
Agree, and not only that, I think one could make a strong argument that this way is worse than simply taking the easy way out from the start. At least then there are no “why didn’t they do that in the first place” type questions. There hasn’t been much struggle for Haku and crew for a very long time anyway, and the “battles” have been reduced to speedline frames more than ever. Not over yet, but this show is doing exactly the opposite of what it needs to do – finish strong.
The original story in game version is much better.
It’s a shame Anime cannot reach that.
I think Haku didn’t die when he got hit by the sword since I think it hit his fan, there’s a brief second where you can see something gray under the rip and he wasn’t carrying it in his belt like he normally does.
If that’s not why then I have no clue.
one thing that makes Haku quite cool is using todays physics of fuel-air explosives to induce the explosion of flour cloud inadverently created by Kurou by all his bashing around the warehouse…
(last time someone was using similar tactic was Touma in his fight with Accelerator in the Indexverse, I think?)
Oh yeah, dust explosion!! Science!
A similar thing happened with the main character causing an explosion in the first series, only there it was done WELL.
I still don’t get how his past memory helped him come up with a plan.
Military errors are something I have to throw into my suspension of disbelief almost all the time in stories because I was a US Infantry Officer, like history and a wargamer (simulations of war)
I believe the foot troops had spears. But yes your right infantry can’t hold calvary, of course sending out a force of pure infantry is fairly bad although a common historical mistake. (Lee allowing his calvary general to take all the calvary and not leave a screen and scouts for his main body really hurt at Gettysburg as Lee could have either gone around the Union as planed or pick a better route to not let the Union have the high ground.)
One of the great flaws in TV media is the fact you have a set season to fill. The original Utawarerumono suffered especially at the end with to few episodes but probably did not need another full season. This show needs to be longer than 12 but probably 15 or so might have done way better. I have greatly enjoyed the slice of life but on consideration a lot of the Capital stuff would have been better in side story OVA not in the main story.
Books are great, Stilts has a great book am starting a re read next week and I bought the paper back copy from Amazon, and no I’m not a friend, associate or getting any thing from Stilts.
The Onkamiyamjkai I figured gave Tusukuru a major power but I had not figured out how they would be used I imagined angel blasts vs mask user blasts but this was way better.
Oh rats part of my book point was you can mostly write the story as long or as short as you think works best. Somewhat the same I assume with Light Novels and games. Adapting for time limited media does cause problems in stories here they wanted to include all the game unlike the first series and avoid being to short and ended up too long.
I’ll reply to both of your comments at once.
Military tactics are often sketchy, aye. To me, what most matters is that they try. Take the taking-your-feet-off-the-ground-is-unwise thing—it’s okay to take a few licenses like that because it’s cool. And if they’re not recreating a tactical situation exactly as it would be, that’s fine, as long as they get sorta kinda in the ballpark/as long as they try. Here, it didn’t feel like they tried.
Thank you for the compliment on my book. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the next one when it comes out soon™. And yes, I totally agree on length—one of the things I enjoy about publishing my own work is that I can make it exactly as long as it needs to be. A lot of authors feel beholden to make trilogies in the same way that anime need to be 10-13 or 20-25 episodes, and make no mistake, three books is often an appropriate number. But sometimes it’s not. I like being able to tell exactly as much story as I need to, no more or no less.
Unless enough people don’t read ’em enough and I can’t afford the time/effort to write more. That’s part of the joy of publishing, nishishi~
I agree they not trying hard. I just am almost always turning on the suspension of disbelief that I lose some critical nature.
To be fair to the stalling engagement and ancient warfare in general Stilts, Yamato’s foot soldiers (at least some of them) were armed correctly. They had long spears which function similar to pikes: plant them into the ground, let the horses impale themselves, and finish off the remnant with swords. Shields are going to do nothing against cavalry, once a galloping horse is upon you it’s game over. The bigger problems here were engaging the cavalry on open ground with no defined flanks to manoeuvre against (i.e. forest, river) and fighting them with equal numbers. Both these points simply lead to a slaughter, no matter how well armed one may be.
IMO the issue this episode is not the tactics as much as the missing tactics. Simply placing the battle on more constricted land, actually having Yamato’s troops using their weaponry shown to us, and giving a few more scenes of conflict would have gone a long way to correcting the deficiencies. Instead we got something half-a*sed and poorly thought out. Might have been better overall to have visually cut out the whole battle and stuck to referencing its course through character dialogue.
Good point on the shields, not sure what I was thinking mentioning those, and I missed the pikes. I guess whenever I saw them they were always using swords, which can work too and are all right if you’ve lost your pike, just not an ideal first weapon.
As you say, it’s the missing tactics that are the problem. It looked like a bunch of CGI individual skirmishes. That ain’t interesting to watch, and shows no level of effort.
they should hire some Old Nippon Samurai Ages Battles tactician, or an old Europe Roman Empire (Like GATE) Tactician that know their homework. Like what Scorpions are and such, to get a more realistic feeling for the foot soldiers
or the famous old China General tactician
Just watching for entertainment, so leaving tactic and plot holes aside… I don’t remember Kurou getting to show how badass h was in the original Utawarerumono, as he and Benawi were more disk-one bosses.
Then you realize how badly Haku’s heavy hitters Atui and Yakutowaruto faired him, and think that Karura and Touka were even more badass. You can’t help but think Yamato’s fucked.
https://randomc.net/image/Utawarerumono/Utawarerumono%20Itsuwari%20no%20Kamen%20-%2020%20-%20Large%2018.jpg
I had this face for majority of the episode…. It has been a while since I’ve seen so many bad military tactics. I think Argevolen was the last offender of such facepalming idiocity.
The calculation recorded in Liu Tao (Six Secret Teaching of Jiang Ziya) is :
1 War Chariot = 10 Cavalry = 80 Infantry.
Someone forget to read his Art of War, but aye… a long siege warfare to isolate their fortress and cut off their supply line and additional smoking will make them out with white flag raised high.
The value mix has changed a lot from time to time with the value of Infantry and Calvary changing as tactics and weapons changed.
War chariots were great and somewhat modern tank like if effect more heavy knight on horseback actually. But then Phalanx were created and the Phalanx ruled and was so deadly to chariots they fell out of use. Later infantry tactics also made infantry rule most battles until the late Roman age when the stirrup was invented (can’t figure out how the idea to anchor the feet took over a thousand years to develop) By this point in the west Roman legions were no longer elite and did not have the massive missile abilities or the knowledge of earlier periods like the spear Phalanx like formations the Roman legions used in early Republic period to deal with horse focused enemies. So then the heavy knight ruled the battle field basically the only important force in the west for around a thousand years. The light calvary tactics of the muslims and perfected by the Mongels countered that until the Phalanx came back into use in the Renaissance.
Here we have light calvary vs Infantry roughly a even fight often. You want heavy calvary if you want to run over non Phalanx infantry.
I like the war-games of Renaissance period where heavy knights still can run over the forces with guns and halberds who’s use is defeat the phalanx used which were immune to heavy knights. It a rock paper scissors game like feel. The full plate you see on classic knight in armor is actually a development to stop bullets and as recently discovered this was composite armor, armor made in layers a armor technology that was lost and only redeveloped for tanks in the 1960’s. And it shifts many times more the heavy calvary growing armor and engines 🙂
Recently found out what the enemies thought was a new type of warfare the Germans used and called it the Blitzkrieg the Germans had no new war fighting development they were just applying traditional tactics to the new weapons. The operational tempo advantage actually was developed in ancient china and was show in a recent anime Arsland.
Looks like they decide to build a finale around Kuon, he thoughts and the speak of this general are very strong hints. “i could end this war in an instant”. So she is aware that she is stronger then she looks.. this self awarded are the partypooper here, it takes the “surprise” away
what now keep the curiosity in me, is not the WHEN it happen, no it is now HOW is looks like. See what only 1 line can destroy
also, they are surly still under surveillance of this Black Wings and White Tiger one-samas. So this “surprise” attack on this base is surly lack much on this “surprise”
Looks like they finally did it. Now I really don’t know why they all look up to Haku. At first I thought he did a lot of stuff off air. Things that might have earned him a reputation. But now, there’s no way he’s actually a good strategist, tactician or warrior. Having a hard time looking for his qualities here.
Unless the Emperor programed the people of Yamato to worship his genes, I don’t really know what’s going on with everyone. That still doesn’t explain why Kuon is attracted to him though. Show Spoiler ▼
Or maybe he’s just her first real friend.
A commenter in a previous episode mentioned that the decoys are genetically programmed to look up to, respect, and listen to real humans. Of course, that’s never SAID in the anime, so it feels real friggin’ weird, and even then it’s a cop out that Hakuoro didn’t need (he may have gotten the benefit of the doubt pretty quick, but he earned it from there).
Kurou is an interesting guy… being one of the few original cast who is not directly related or involved with the original protagonist. He only followed Tuskuru simply because Benawi did it, so it makes his actions in this episode hard to tell.
Was he being serious about killing Kuon? Or his he just teaching some life life lessons with tough love? He’ pretty capable of doing both. I mean, killing Kuon would somewhat damn everything Tuskuru stood for. I personally think he wasn’t really being serious as it was pretty clear he probably could’ve killed them whenever. Not to mention if killing/stopping them was his main goal, he easily could’ve called for the whole fort to attack them.
That seems pretty involved to me. Kurou may have only joined up with Tusukuru because Benawi was allowed to live when the takeover happened, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a relationship with Hakuoro. He was Kurou’s emperor, and one he clearly respected enough to swear his soul to. He was directly involved for sure.
And I doubt he was really trying to kill Kuon. He was taking it easy just like she was, though if she took the fight too easy herself, he might have ended up doing it. He might not have been fighting full out, but he ain’t the type to pull a punch once thrown.
I don’t quite remember Kurou explicitly pledging his allegiance to Hakuoro in the original (correct me if I’m wrong though). I only say “not directly” involved mostly because he would rather follow whatever Benawi does. While most, if not all the other cast would follow what Hakuoro did. It also doesn’t help his lack of screentime in comparison to the rest of the cast in the original.
True, Kurou isn’t one to pull punches. But he probably knew that Kuon would be fine regardless. Although we can chalk it up to bad writing, but there were plenty of options Kurou could’ve taken if he wanted to win.
He didn’t have to specifically say it. The subtext was as clear for him as it was with Benawi. Besides, he was there at the end with everyone else. Sure, like Dorii and Guraa his loyalty might have originated elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. He was as much a part of the team as the others.
I have a idea, could be wrong, why Kuon is helping the enemy. Kuon would have said yes to Yamato’s request so she thinks her sides reason for fighting is wrong so she wants to force some disadvantage on her side to get them to negotiate again.
The fort had wood clearing problem only if fighting at the walls were the main plan. If fighting in the woods intended and the walls only for reducing sneak in and holding for a short while, after all the walls are only wood not going to take much of siege. Unfortunately the episode was filmed so poorly there could have been actually good tactics in original concept but they were neither shown nor told
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The infiltration is so funny.
I don’t care! Just finally got to see Kurou is all his awesome glory that hasn’t been seen in awhile! X3 I love him.
Its an interesting series in the aspect its almost the polar opposite of the first one.
Her is an interesting point in relation the curse, I think I mentioned this earlier.
The is Iceman mad the Curses,( about 5.50 minites into the last episode of the the first series)
and Huku makes me laugh sometimes.
Let’s face it: The director treated this series as his usual s.o.l. and doesn’t give any fuck to battle accuracy. This is not an action series, dammit.
Also, I’m glad they let at least Tuskuru end Yamato battle once, but, as I feared, they let it end in a tie. Sometimes a little more daring development is needed. I don’t say I wanted Munechika dead for good, but at least a little beat up was in store for the invaders.
Same for Haku and Kuon’s battle. Kurou was trying to let Kuon face the responsibility of betray, while trying not to be lethal to her friends, but that wasn’t enough, it seems.
I imagine this has already been said but the lack of the tactical RPG element from the game is hampering the battle scenes involving Haku’s group, be it not knowing Atui is very strong until the bugs on the ship or how their fort raid was ‘playing around’.
I’m just speechless to how lame and nonsense this episode was.
In the name of my Excalibur, I complain about the lack of fanservice that should be provided to us gentleman.