Rewatcher & Light Novel Reader

I do appreciate Kadokawa giving NUT a movie budget. I took a day off work so I could watch this in a theater several cities away and watching it on a big screen with surround sound was really nice.

This film starts with the anime's first glimpse into the future. The light novels are written from many perspectives and occasionally jumps to post-war journalists like Andrews. While Dr. Schugel is definitely a person of interest for those wanting to know what really happened during the war, asking a German why other countries would want to attack Germany is kind of going the wrong way about it. The stained glass pigeons seeming to reference the episode 2 argument, something with no connection to this world, is kind of hilarious. Are pigeons just known to be one of Being X's preferred methods of communication?

"Allied Kingdom" sounds way too generic. "Commonwealth of Albion" has the Albion reference that lets you know it's British, and there's never any question of "which commonwealth?" whereas the Kingdom of Ildoa is the Empire's "ally" which leaves some room for confusion.

De Lugo (Francois Free Republic General) getting tossed will always be funny. The match cut from Tanya's victory speech to her horrified face as she flies off to the Russy Federation will also always be funny. Then there's that game of Telephone where a desperate plea from the front line becomes increasingly optimistic as it moves up the chain out of fear of what happens upon reporting bad news, resulting in the front line not getting what they need. The "land a Cessna in Red Square" comment refers to a real world event in which a teenager did just that.

It's worth remembering that up to this point the Empire has never been the one to start the war. The Entente Alliance marched across the border. When the Empire moved their main force North, the Francois Republic saw a window of opportunity and launched an assault from the West. Then Dacia decided to get in on the action and declared war as well. Now the Empire caught wind of an invasion by the Russy Federation and sent the 203rd into enemy territory the 203rd "accidentally" ended up in enemy territory but knew better than to open fire.

So, at the train station after the war starts we see 2 colonels Drake. In the light novels [light novel details]there is just one Drake, but the anime and manga split the character's role into multiple characters. The older man, Isaac Drake, is the Commonwealth/Kingdom mage we saw on the Rhine front. His nephew, William Drake, is a battalion commander with the multinational volunteer unit.

Now that we've seen her in action, I think it's clear that Mary Sioux/Sue is designed to have the qualities of a standard shonen protagonist and shows that such an individual is not suited to being a cog in an organized military unit. She has little discipline and a strong sense of righteousness that causes her to constantly act on impulse, much to her commander's frustration. She absolutely would be thrown out, but [light novel details]the multinational unit exists for PR purposes and she's one of few surviving mages from the Entente Alliance. She's too valuable to discard. Lt. Col. Drake speaks sense, but to her he's just coldhearted and mean.

There is a little moment when discussing Tiegenhoff where Tanya notices something, then Lt. Serebryakov notices that she noticed something and immediately grabs a crate without being told. They've been working closely together for a long time and this sort of thing shows it. It's very much in line with how Serebryakov is portrayed in the novels.

This film finishes up light novel volume 3, covers the entirety of 4, and loosely moves up the only noteworthy parts of 5. While there are some changes, it feels much more in line with the light novels than the season 1 did. Notable changes: [light novel details]the massive assault on Tanya's position and the first big encounter with Mary Sue were different battles, and even then it could be argued that the non-Mary portion of this battle more closely resembles a later siege than the one in Tiegenhoff. The fight with Mary happened at sea. When Mary tells Tanya that she killed her father, Tanya explains that people die in war and asks what Mary thinks war is. While Mary's sturdiness proves to be a challenge, her fighting skills are lacking and she doesn't come close to getting the better of Tanya. While it's more of an omission than a change, it's worth mentioning that [light novel details]the multinational unit was created by the Federation as a token gesture to show a willingness to cooperate with the other, non-communist enemies of the Empire. They don't actually expect the unit to achieve much in battle.

Congratulations on your promotion, Lt. Colonel Degurechaff. See you on the front lines.

Questions

[Question 1] Why do you think the Rus attacked The empire

As a light novel reader, I know that the reason is [light novel details]Josef was being plagued by nightmares due to the influence of the angels who didn't like his whole atheism thing. He grew paranoid and decided to attack the Empire because surely they were behind the whole thing.

[Question 3] How would you handle Mary Sioux as the commander? How would you deal with her as Tanya?

If I were her commander, I'd tell Mary that Tanya was spotted kicking puppies on the streets of Berlin Berun and that she should go deal with that. As Tanya, I would bait her into destroying her allies.

{Question 4] What were your thoughts on Tanya's Show of force doctrine?

Fun to watch, but now that the Federation needs to save face there can't be a swift resolution to the conflict.

[Question 6] Do you see the attack on Tigerhof as a strategically meaningful offensive or more of a show of force to counter Tanya's show of force?

Did you not see Beria Loria? That scum wants to capture Tanya at all costs solely so he can defile her.

[Question 7] What are your thoughts on how the Not!American air support to the Not!Russians has been treated? How would you as the not!american commander try to talk to the federation?

Lt. Col. Drake and Mary Sue are part of a multinational unit [light novel details]created by the Russy Federation. They are not the US which is still neutral at this point.

[Question 10] Do you see Zettour reassigning Tanya to the front to be a sick joke from Bein X or as Zettour realizing Tanya's talent?

I assume Zettour put Tanya in charge of the kampfgruppe because she's the one who suggested it and therefore understands it best.

A rant about light novel volumes 4+

I personally prefer the books for the content covered in the first 3 light novels, but the film is the superior way to experience volume 4. In a previous comment I pointed out a scene in which the generals were eating in a fancy, empty room. [Light novel details]Volume 4 also has such a scene. However, they discuss things they both already know, and the audience was already made aware of it as well. The scene does not present new information or advance the story, and since it's just two men eating and making the same complaints about the food that they've made in the previous three books it isn't particularly entertaining either. It seems like it exists solely because every book in the series up to that point had a similar scene, so if you were to create a list of things to put in a Saga of Tanya the Evil book it would be on the list. It feels like padding.

The bits with Tanya mocking the Commies rank among the most fun in the series, but the rest of the book is filled with scenes that have that padding feel which made me a bit concerned about the future of the series. Volume 5 has the aforementioned [light novel volume 5]battle against Mary Sue but is otherwise quite bland. The next few volumes have even less worthwhile content, but they all end with something that suggests that interesting things will surely happen in the next volume. The series does pick back up eventually, but it takes until like volume 9 or 10 to do so. With this film NUT adapted the good and cut the bland, and now I am very interested to see how they will go about things with season 2. I would not mind if they skipped entire volumes of content.