Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil Episode 2: Prologue

This was a damn good episode. And Tanya makes a lot of good faces.

This definitely should have been the first episode. It explained the setting and Tanya’s character really well, and it immediately answered some questions I had from the first episode. It properly explains what we got from the synopsis, and this episode sort of gave this show a bit of a different tone. Before it was this action-packed, crazy military show. Now it’s more of a military story about this cynical man in a little girl’s body going against Being X (God) because of his lack of faith, and really brings this philosophical religious topic into question. Those who are poor cling to God and others, and those more successful do not. Science is there to answer questions and show proof for mysteries, and if God really were real, why would he let absurd things in life happen, like his death?

Before being Tanya Degurechaff, pre-Tanya was a salaryman from 2013 Tokyo, Japan. He was ruthless and fired people when he needed to, he followed company rules, and he wanted to work his way up the company ladder. Heading home from his work at the train station, the man he fired came up behind him and pushed him into the train tracks, resulting in his death. But not before he shares said deep chat with God, aka Being X. Being X usually reincarnates people, but after hearing pre-Tanya’s quip, Being X will reincarnate pre-Tanya into a world where he’ll be in dire times, and see if pre-Tanya can survive for long, lest no second reincarnation.

And he is born as Tanya Degurechaff, a child in a poor orphanage living in a fake Germany on the brink of war. Just to make things easier, I’m just going to refer to Tanya as she. She notes how she’s been sent to an alternate world with some historical events similar to what happened in his own world. Tanya was found with such magical potential that she volunteers to join the military, and she was accepted. I still think it strange that the army would allow a young girl at the age of nine to enter the army, but apparently she’s a genius when it comes to magic, and I imagine that maybe they were desperate for troops. So desperate that they would recruit a little girl and make her train other troops. Just like the men, seeing this tiny girl standing on wooden boxes, saying “welcome to hell” and hearing her say “maggots” was the funniest thing. But of course I know how ruthless Tanya could be and wasn’t surprised that she was seriously going to kill one of the troops.

It was also funny that Tanya planned to make herself hidden, so much that she would be put into the rear lines where it’s the most safest. But after suddenly being promoted to a lieutenant and accidentally being a little too good in her fight against the ski mages (haha), she was made an ace and was given a medal. And the post-credits scene was hilarious.

Tanya’s character became much better, and the plot of the show while still a little strange, posed some questions most people try to stay away from. Religion is a sensitive topic, and personally I’m atheist, so I understand what pre-Tanya was talking about. So now it makes me wonder when I’m about to die, if God is real he’ll fuck me up too. 😛

Now we finally have a good grasp on Tanya’s character and on the plot of the show. I really think this should have been the first episode so people would have known what they were getting themselves into. I suppose they gave us the first episode in the middle of a battle because they really wanted to show us how cool the show is going to be. Plus, this is a brand new studio and I’m sure they wanted to show everyone what they’re made of. Did that work for them? Well, apparently some of the light novels sold a bit more from what I found, so I guess it did. Still, I think it would have worked better, based on plot and characters, if this episode was the first one. Still, I’m not complaining too much. I really enjoyed this episode. I just wonder at what point will Tanya change her mindset. In this episode we see her atheism, but in the first episode we saw how she kept referring to God and mumbled prayers to herself. So I wonder what events made her turn to God finally.

I know we’re going to have to see more prologue. We don’t know who that person was in the end that had the magic jewel Tanya wore in the first episode, but we’ll probably see them pretty soon since at this point she has no jewel after she broke it. And we need to formally meet Viktoriya.