OP Sequence

OP: 「JINGO JUNGLE」 by MYTH & ROID

「神がそれを望まれる」 (Kami ga sore o nozomareru)
“Deus lo Vult”

Introductions continue apace as Youjo Senki fills in the remaining backstory gaps this week, although with a more sinister, antagonistic tone. This week is all about the forced conversions, where God makes another appearance in the name of instilling some faith in our atheistic salaryman. The emerging fight between Tanya and God is quickly becoming my favourite part of this show, buoyed—as discussed last episode—by the changes made to Tanya’s meetings with the omnipotent individual. There is no face to face meeting with Grecian god figures or ascendant Buddhists, just a freeze in time and some choice words for our little loli. It adds a degree of power and fear lacking in the source material by showing God to truly be beyond all understanding.

What particularly helps the burgeoning spat too is how personal it is becoming. God apparently never got the memo that forcing someone to pray will likely not encourage them to believe. Yeah you might get a prayer or two, but don’t expect any serious instilment of faith—unless you’re apparently a mad scientist with visions of grandeur. God’s deliberate focus on Tanya is also anime-original, as God never took a personal interest in Tanya in the source, and made the computation jewel function there mostly because of coincidence rather than deliberation. The emotional shift works here though because of that hefty bit of irony coming from God calling the computation’s device “success” a miracle. Either this guy is truly too ignorant to realize the semantic difference between miracles and curses, or we have one hilariously talented troll on our hands. Either way is equally disturbing, but both alone irritate the hell of Tanya and get her wanting explicit revenge against our faceless God. I cannot wait for the next inevitable meeting between the two.

Tanya of course remains devoted to her path of easy living, regardless of God’s new obstacles. While I had a chuckle at trying to downplay her excitement for receiving that training/R&D role, I definitely got a kick out of that chat regarding Viktoriya’s recommendation. Making Tanya appear caring and human indeed, which while fitting with the persona, is only half the explanation. Viktoriya clearly possesses a modicum of skill Tanya recognized, something which if nurtured could help grease the machine propelling Tanya to the top—it’s always good having friends in important places remember. Our salaryman is not a vindictive man after all, personal vendettas for him only sap resources away from the tasks at hand. A useful cog is something to be abused, as Viktoriya will likely discover the hard way.

Next Time: Murphy’s Law in Action

Although Tanya may be headed back to rear lines for training, don’t expect that to last for long. The Empire General Staff are in need of a rapid response unit, and some “mysterious person” just so happened to point Tanya’s file out to them. Our little loli is likely not long for the comforts of quiet nights and soft beds, the horrors of war demand their sacrifice.

Random Tidbits

Deus lo vult as seen here is grammatically incorrect Latin, it’s a Catalan lower class (i.e. non-ecclesiastical) corruption of the correct deus vult form. Edward Gibbon actually discusses this in Chapter LVIII of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

For the curious, Italian Red Devils are red-painted grenades used by the Italian army in World War 2. Their notoriety stems from the uncertainty of whether the one you’re holding will spontaneously blow up in your hand without warning.

Tanya’s nutcracker is hilarious when you remember Youjo Senki’s producers are Studio NUT.

Full-length images: 11.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「Los! Los! Los!」 by Tanya Degurechaff (Aoi Yuuki)

Preview

33 Comments

  1. Visha/Viktoriya sure has a nice body – even if the studio butchered her face.

    I can imagine the real-life techs at Intel/AMD praying to god for their quad-core products to work. Haha. XD

    Okabe_Rintarou
    1. Yeah, the talk about this device having quad-core magic processing had me thinking about the CPU makers running overclocking stress test, and by some miracle (and a bit of praying), they got a working unit that’s probably in a computer that’s controlling Skynet or something.

      Nork22
  2. Loved this show so much.

    I noticed the one top General taking Tanya’s training assault as yes action that needed to be taken.

    Poor Tanya not realizing at first that test pilot, especially in wartime, is not necessarily safer than the front.

    Tanya would have benefited from watching Star Trek the New Generation where Picard deals with Q, a god like being. One must stay calm and rational and while not accepting any divinity not provoking the being either.

    The way X is treating Tanya is in some ways how Biblical god recruited some of his prophets, hey do my work or else. Tanya not familiar with old school Greek, Biblical old Testament, old fashioned Shinto in Japan gods worked. You prayed to them because they would hurt you real bad, sometimes in very creative ways, if you did not worship them. Old school worship is you fearing your god and throwing in lots of praise to keep the god happy wether the god deserved it or not.

    Tanya has some hostility to how the world works that is preventing Tanya from what should be her natural reaction as a he working in a big company, being X is a high level executive that needs some yes man handling no matter how stupid they are.

    RedRocket
  3. The model of God that this story uses is most indeed very Abrahamic in nature. Less so the chaos that results from many gods mucking up the physical realm than the near needy authoritarian clinginess of the Abrahamic conception of the ONE God.

    They way that it’s all so personal simply decreases the logical value found within the doctrine of God needing nothing and being completely omnipotent and self-sustaining. Most interesting.

    Nishizawa Mihashi
    1. “God needing nothing and being completely omnipotent and self-sustaining” Is a later idea. And not one put out by Shinto normally. So it is a interesting situation dealing with a earlier concept of god. The creator part is suspect a being that can not handle 7 billion humans is unlikely to created a universe that we now know probably has millions if not billions of advanced life forms in it now that we know how common planets are.

      RedRocket
    2. I did not know there were extra animated shorts until you mentioned them Devas.

      Also Red, the one aspect of the creator’s portrayal of God struggling to maintain awareness of more than 7 living homo sapiens is a rather weak argument that he constructed. What the creator should have focused on is to coherently maintain the Abrahamic model and further emphasizing the very personal nature of the Abrahamic God, integrating God’s key features throughout described in all 3 of the religions, as the current point raised against God’s omnipotence via ‘needing’ worship and faith has been made weaker and is inconsistent with the concept to begin with.

      Nishizawa Mihashi
  4. Okay, now this skips too much of the source material. They left out “Being X”‘s conversation with the professor. Basically, the computation jewel had become a relic, much like the holy grail. Relics had become rarer in the world, and this was his way of bringing back more faith into world.

    Dangerism
    1. I’ve been following the manga and it’s almost completely different show from the animated adaptation, so far only major events and the name of the show itself are the same, the rest is completely remade. I’m not sure about the novel tho, if you know, what’s closer to the adaptation novel or the manga?

      john
    2. I’m not sure God’s chat with the professor/engineer is actually needed here. We get the gist easily enough from the guy’s own mouth and actions, plus through allusions and hints dropped beforehand. The missing mention of the relics is the strange bit IMO, but there’s always the possibility of it popping up later considering its importance.

      @john
      Since the manga is based off the novel, neither are really closer to the anime given they follow the same event order. You’ll notice a lot missing and/or rearranged looking at the novel too.

    3. It’s clear that there’s a difference between the anime and LN here. From what I’ve heard, the Type-95 wasn’t made specially for Tanya in the LN. I don’t think there’s a need to include the conversation, since anime!Being X’s reasons for fiddling with the Type-95 are obvious here.

      Hanabira.Kage
      1. It still ended up that only Tanya could use the thing, in the LN, although I don’t immediately remember why that is.

        I was kinda bummed they left over that bit from the manga where Tanya and Mad Scientist-san quoted scripture together and hugged, while she was her religious mania phase. The anime version is starting to feel like a slightly different canon; it definitely felt like Tanya’s hand was just forced to survive, where in the manga it seemed like kind of a mind control thing.

        Guile
  5. I cry every time I have to face those eyes…
    But unexpectedly I’m liking this.
    And what I enjoy more is thinking how the logic that surrounds “Being X” is illogical. It just doesn’t make sense, the author really thought hard about it? Tanya also talks to it like it was the christian god, which it “obvious” isn’t.
    What I didn’t liked was seeing a “scientist/engineer” that disregards errors.
    Studio Nut is doing a good job, I think…?

    Panino Manino
    1. Depends on what brand of Christianity you follow. Me yes not a god or not a god that I would worship depending on your definition of god. But there are still many Christians who follow the old “god fearing” teachings, that really believe that if gods laws are not enforced god will punish their country.

      RedRocket
    2. Think of the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh. That is what Supreme Being X is. He demands your worship and faith and he will have it. One way or the other. So Tanya gives the outward form of worship while being pissed off inside. Like having to deal with unreasonable and arrogant superiors.

      ordnance11
      1. This piss me off a bit, can’t we just let the Old Testment die for good?
        Jokes aside, as far as I know, the christian good don’t have a “Wheel of Reincarnation”. Being X REALLY seems more like a eastern entity than a western one.
        I can see where it is going forcing Tanya to pray but also I think that it is giving her too much power. How long until she becomes the next Fuher? Tanya conquering the world does not prevent Being X of achieving its goals with her. Tanya could end like some “demon lord” crushing the world.

    3. Regarding the chief engineer, he’s not ignoring errors–the device always functioned within established parameters when discussed, and Tanya always preemptively shut it down. There’s an argument Tanya failed to follow the device directions, which in turn led to the repeated explosions. It’s hard knowing if those parameters were wrong to begin with because God interfered with the third test.

    1. i do not know if this is “not-germany”. because here
      https://randomc.net/image/Youjo%20Senki/Youjo%20Senki%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2010.jpg
      if you can read this, then you notice that this is writen in English.. the red letter are “Approved”
      and here only the Header is German
      “vaterland” 2nd line “vaterland the general staff..”
      https://randomc.net/image/Youjo%20Senki/Youjo%20Senki%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2035.jpg

      so it is a mix of German and English. If you know both language then you can perhaps enjoy more then the others watchers

      Worldwidedepp
      1. Name
        Tanya Degurchaff

        Affiliation
        Mage Troop

        Qualification
        Prevent invasion of Regadonia Entente Union encountered during exercise
        From that achievement a silver wing chapter is awarded

        Experience
        Admission to Vaterland Imperial Academy
        Teach a second student in a year after entrance

        Objective
        Backward work at–

        A fair amount of Engrish involved.

        Kim Pine
  6. I thought the way everything skipped around between past and present, the generals and the Rhine was hard to follow, although my non-LN-reading buddy said he got the gist of it.

    I did like the bit between Tanya and God; sure, he’s all WHAT IS GOD TO A NONBELIEVER *SLAP* about it, but the visuals are more like a girl abusing her toy for the lolz.

    Guile
    1. Once you get past episode one I also think the show makes sense. The writers have done well enough getting the basics across for a coherent story, even if the positioning for some events is dubious. Only thing I’m really missing is the intellectual quips Tanya originally had. We get that on occasion (i.e. the Italian Red Devils), but most of them have been cut out unfortunately.

  7. The historical context is also “Deus Vult” is the rallying cry of the 1st Crusade. In Norman French the saying was “Deus Le Vult”. There is a Supreme Irony that the ROB (to use a fanfiction phrase) decided to bring back faith in a conflict that is the natural conclusion of the scientific method applied to warfare.

    The more I see Tanya’s inner thoughts, the more I see similarities between her and Caphas Cain. Each trying to get away from combat as soon as possible and only to be place in more jeopardy.

    I’m beginning to see the anime and light novel as something a fanfiction writer would dream up and be commercially successful. It’s a cross of the Ciaphas Cain/Harry Flashman and How to Succeed Without Really Trying.

    ordnance11
    1. I think everyone knows where deus vult comes from giving its ubiquitous, memetic usage of late 😛
      I was just surprised the show chose a corruption of the phrase (particularly the Catalonian form) instead of sticking with the correct and better known version.

  8. Tanya really is special for Being X/Gods Trolling her every step of the way.. And Tanya does not help herself by mentioning him every step of the time.

    Im looking at God/Being X personally just wanna make the arrogant Soul currently known as Tanya to be a little bit humble. since most of her monologue show us that all the thing she did was for her to own benefit and not out of the kindness of her own heart..i think

    FVA
  9. I have finally found the one show that intrigues me and am looking forward to watching each week this season. I have been struggling to find something. This Winter season is starting off very poorly for the most part. Youja and ACCA are the only shows I can bring myself to watching.

    Kurik

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