But yeah, finally, Soranowoto’s living up to it’s “war anime” billing. Good thing I stuck through it. Now I hope to at least see some people dying before Rio inevitably stops the war with her
trumpetsefforts.
Rio stopping this war seems inevitable in one sense, but stupid in the other. We’ll have to wait and see~
Filicia was supposed to be the combat experienced leader that would keep the girls as safe as possible even in a war situation, and make no mistake, once the girls found a Roman soldier inside Helvetia territory Filicia should have known they were back at war. Once Kanata, Kureha, and Filicia searched A’ishah’s pack even a fool could tell by the light nature of her load that she was an advance scout and the main force would be close by. It might have been a different story if they found the scout lugging an 80 pound pact with a few weeks of food in it but that wasn’t the case. Filicia didn’t call HQ and report the incident. Hell, the least she could have done was put the fortress and town on higher alert, she could have sent the girls out on a rotating basis checking for the enemy. What was she going to do, just sit around like normal and wait till the enemy captured the town and fortress and end up having the girls captured, raped, killed, or maybe all three.
Very fair point. Part of me believes that Felicia has some extra information we don’t know about that caused her to take this decision, but it would have to be a fucking good reason not to do so. I expected nothing else from the bright-eyed Kanata and Noel clearly wasn’t in her right state of mind over the course of the episode, but Felicia really should have kept her rational head. I’m with Kureha on this one, they should have contacted command when they found the scout. It’s easy to forget with so little happening in Seize but they are at war. It’s not much use to your young female soldiers saying you will take full responsibility when enemy soldiers have taken the town and are killing and raping and stuff.
Right now my own constructed timeline is that 200 some years ago the Angel of the Apocalypse (Rodan) gave civilization and the ecology of the Earth a good thrashing before it was finally killed, possibly by fire maidens with a Type 0 tank, from the ashes rise competing states one of which becomes Rome and another becomes Helvetia. Religion takes over as science and technology decline, the religious question of the “purpose” of Rodan causes a schism that prompts conflict (though wars are not necessarily religious in nature they provide an additional dimension to the political struggle of Helvetia for continued independence and Roman Imperial ambitions).
Relatively similar to what I had in mind. Although the last episode might prove otherwise, these Angels (or single Angel? I find it hard to believe that one Angel caused all that destruction, although I’m hardly an expert on the destructive capabilities on Angels. Depends on the strength of their AT Field) probably no longer exist in this world and the ending probably won’t have a supernatural twist, although it would be interesting if it did to see how they worked it in. In that sense, this world (which at this stage is almost certainly earth) has gone through its terrible apocalypse and is now on the road to recovery rather than the slow death I originally thought it was on. I’m tempted to say that without this current war the world would be in better shape but when you remember the amount of technological advances made in WWII and tie that in with the main reason people are working on the lost technology is to build war weapons de-values that theory.
And I must say, Japanized German sounds surprisingly good. The European languages all sound very different when the Japanese try to speak them. Their Dutch is fairly good, mainly because a lot of our vowels sound similar (for an example of that I direct you to a certain episode of Samurai Champloo). German also survives fairly well, as this episode showed. English is a bit different, as it often gets raped by voice actors who have no idea about their pronunciation. By far the worst I’ve heard, however, is French. Seriously, whenever the Japanese try to say it, it’s not French anymore. Its just become gibberish.
Curse my total lack of multilingual abilities! I’ve always wondered what different languages sound Japanized. Of course I dare say there’s several levels of skill in each language depending on the VA you hire because the levels of Engrish you hear vary hugely. I wonder how well the Count in Gankutsuou pulled off his french opening lines? I got the interesting experience of hearing the Irish language in Durarara recently but with a grand total of 4 words spoken, one of them simply being a repeat, it was hard to get a guage on the Japaneses ability in pronouncing Irish, not that the Irish themselves are able to pronounce the bloody thing. The choice to sub the German was an unusual choice because the Japanese would’ve been sitting there listening to jibberish. At first I thought it was a bad choice by the subber until I realised how much she blabs away in German in the episode, some of it never translated into Japanese, so all things considered it’s probably better it was subbed.
I’ve been looking forward all season to the girls using Takemikazuchi in battle, and the online preview hints that it’ll finally happen in next week’s finale.
Fuck yeah mecha action!
11 Comments
Wow Scamp. You call that a hiatus? You said three days and yet here you are back a day early and still even did a Paddy’s day post! Not posting for one day does not constiture a hiatus
Yeah I know, compared to other anime bloggers, I really suck at being on hiatus
We were given the impression that this is a strategically insignificant town far behind any front lines (otherwise the entire army are full of idiots), so it would be reasonable for Felicia to assume it could be long-range scout whose simply testing the waters or possibly even gotten lost deep behind enemy lines. I mean any RTS gamer knows that you deploy scouts even if not attacking just to find out where the enemy concentrations/actions are, and it’s especially the case since they lack modern tech (we don’t even know if they have long-range ground radar). Furthermore, pre-assault advance scouts are usually sent in squad/teams so they can actually survive a brief encounter and still get back to report the news or press onward with their mission. Furthermore, nations in poor relations (near, but not at open hostilities) will often cross each others’ borders with scouts/patrols. Lastly, I don’t even need to add that peacekeeping soldiers sometimes have a sense of denial that war is upon them. Either way, while I agree with Felicia should have heightened alert levels somewhat, it’s easy to dismiss the threat from their perspective. After all, Pearl Harbor (which unlike our town is a strategically VITAL location) discovered the presence of Japanese midget submarines HOURS before the actual attack happened, and the chain of command simply shrugged it off.
Also, those are the worst Armored Combat Vehicle designs I’ve ever seen—
Am I the only one here who knew it was German in a matter of seconds?
*Spoilers Ahead*
OMG Baccano! is in the Durarara!! universe! XD
Thing is – it looks Filicia planned to drop POW to higher instances… just not to our “favorite” Colonel who already got one, tortured to death and got NO INFO from that, but a lot of fun. She is right – another tortured to death POW with again no info is not in Helvetia interests at all.
It’s not her duty to supply sick fuck and sadist with new toys, just he is biggest toad in local pond and Filicia is in need to quick-interrogate prisoner herself then somehow to transport her to higher authorities without colonel involvement.
I fell so hard for our Roman friend. I keep hoping that the shot didn’t kill her.
I don’t know how exactly I feel about Noel being the ‘Invisible Reaper’. I don’t like it, but it’s hard to put my fingers on why. It just feels like it came out of left field…
Interesting that the subs I watched didn’t sub the German, and that’s the way I think it should’ve been watched. It added tension since you really had to watch the girl’s body language and facial expressions to try to get what she was saying/thinking. To do it all episode long is slightly taxing, but a confident studio can pull it off.
That certainly would be an episode to notch in the plus column, but I wished they started this stuff an episode or two earlier. We all have so many questions left that I don’t think one final episode can answer properly. Surely we could’ve done without the peeing ep.
@Aorii
All those are more excuses than reasons. Remember Murphy’s law: Anything that can happen will happen and to the worst possible degree. Prepare for the worst and don’t assume anything. Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean you should take the risk with your soldiers lives
@al103
It took her a while before she knew when whathisface came and before that she dilly dallied for ages. Then when she heard the sadist was coming she panicked. Giving it up to him wasn’t a great option but when the alternative is to not notify command when there’s a possibitly the Roman Army is on its way…
@Janette
It was a bit left of centre to have a scientific genious loli appear. Again, this series is riding on its ending
@kadian1364
Well since I was helping the anime industry by watching this on Crunchyroll before anyone else out there could watch it (sorry, I’ll get off my high horse now) those subs had the German so it’s not like I could block the subs with my hand or anything. It’s hard to tell which would be better although I can see both sides of the argument for subs and no subs
>but when the alternative is to not notify command when there’s a possibitly the Roman Army is on its way…
1. They way colonel acted it is most likely that he is in her direct chain of command — he didn’t show any papers so if it wasn’t so Filicia could tell him to fuck off and he could do nothing about it.
2. He is incompetent. His reputation aside by HIS OWN WORDS he tortured valuable prisoner to death and GOT NOTHING from it. And judging by how he said it — he likes every moment of it. So most likely outcome of any interrogation is dead prisoner and no to very small amount of info.
Judging by this to facts interrogation by herself while finding a way to send prisoner to higher authority that is more competent than Colonel Sadist is a best way in the situation. Also with fact that they got another near Vingt — and not stupid girl that sneaked without orders but most likely real spy and that colonel taken all forces with him from Vingt to Seize shows him even more criminal incompetent.
@Scamp:
Excuses maybe, but it’s a lot easier for the third-party viewer to claim all this and that on what they should have done. Things are never that simple when you’re the one in the hotseat, especially if it might start a panick when there is none. Also, keeping Murphy’s Law in mind is one thing, acting out according to Murphy’s Law is a surefired way of destroying trust and morale.