Already Sergeant Major Rio is showing superior intelligence. Good call is good.
So far I am pretty surprised at how this has turned out so far. While granted there are those who blast it as a joke on military life, I think they have first off never seen an Air Force Composite Unit and second even the members of the 1121st know that they are the black sheep unit of the whole army. Also since this is an all volunteer force for the sake of recruitment once in the field decorum gets much more relaxed unless it is for a formal ceremony or inspection. Not even those uptight Marines are above goofing around during work. For me at least they seem to come off less as Army and more like Air Force given how they pack all their snivel gear for a short patrol of an abandoned school. Also since the Air Force seems to have a disproportionate number of good looking people compared to the other branches, I think the analogy is pretty good. I also started read the summary of mishaps that goes through the message system since I got a better grasp of how to do my job. Suffice to say military life can be fun, and it can be funny.
I probably would be more harsh had I not had to train with other branches and met some interesting units in various states of cohesion. Seeing as I have seen some strange units in action, I don’t have the inclination to be hostile since they know that they are dumping ground and don’t operate under complete ignorance of this fact. While there is a degree of moe-fication at work here they act like how I sometimes wish the actual military operated. Case in point when Noel could not get up before first call I actually applauded Kureha for dragging her out of her rack. Were they in a fuss and feathers unit Noel would have just been left there and she would have been written up in a heart beat or they would have just fucked with her while she dozed off and you can bet that prank would be posted in youtube and the pictures put up on facebook. In my experience people not getting up is a common enough occurrence and most active garrisons will tolerate it to a degree unless the person makes a nasty habit of it or doesn’t bother to call the lead NCO. Even then it appears that this army is already in sharp decline from a war footing as they make clear that most of the population died and having large schools are practically unheard of. It seems that education for certain subjects is not taught publicly and that music is only taught on a military level. Under normal circumstances having child soldiers would be controversial but it seems that with most of the population dead and in light of how Kureha and Kanata are orphaned the Army seems to be willing to take in kids with no where to go and ship them off to crap billets.
Even if the cast appear to be K-On whether they intended to or not they got some of the archetypes you might see at a typical unit right. To be sure Felicia comes off as more of an OCS officer than an academy grad as she isn’t flashing her rank every chance she gets. It’s not so much that officers always clean but it’s nice when they clean their own weapon or clean their own berthing areas instead of grabbing a bunch of enlisted to do it for them. Again it’s more the exception than the rule but its a nice fantasy nonetheless. Kureha reminds me of plenty of Private Majors (E-3s who get egotistical when put in charge of E-2s) who can wreak interesting havoc if left to their own devices, the funniest thing is Private Majors have a habit of exaggerating what a unit typically does (all of a sudden specialized units become Special Forces…) and Kureha created quite a story regarding the elite 1121st. I have to say they did pull off a Kawamori class troll with the mecha, though I guess I should have seen it coming since it was Kureha talking about it. I have to give them credit though for being honest that they are the yard bird unit where other units dump off old equipment in lieu of driving all the way to a DRMO (basically a military junk yard though I hear some of the stuff gets sold to less well equipped armies and military surplus stores) and filling out a 1348. In every service there seems to be one type of unit that becomes the dumping ground for the local units usually the reserve unit that is a little more gung-ho than the rest.
While I could give Kureha crap for being a bad shot I actually witnessed cops with holographic sights take hours to zero their weapons, and I also ate a lot of humble pie when during a night fire where only 11/30 of my rounds hit a man sized target at 50 meters (you only need 7/30 to qualify). I got Sharpshooter for the combat course but when it got dark I could not see worth a damn through those iron sights, I guess it was to hammer home how lucky we are to have NVGs in quantity even if they hurt your eyes after awhile. Also I’ll cut Kureha some slack for using a full sized rifle that is bigger than she is after seeing one of those tiny little Air Force gals try to shoot her M-16, she made it in the end though. As for the rats…I have yet to see any one panic from rats, but spiders seem to freak servicemen out, supposedly it’s why the Army makes special mention of camel spiders (it’s chasing you to get in your shadow, not because it wants to eat you…or at least that is what they tell us) and scorpions so that people don’t freak out when one is chasing them or crawling on them. Oddly enough Kanata reminds me of those kids who sign up who have never been outside of their home state and as such are amazed at some of the things I consider mundane, I suppose it’s pretty much the same with first time deployments since most of those places aren’t highly attractive tourist destinations.
While we did get some background, they did hint much more about the setting which is pretty interesting without being too depressing. As mentioned before it seems that in this post war period both sides seem to have fought until their strength was all but spent. War seems to be the last thing on their minds as the draft is gone but they are still taking in kids as a sort of uniformed welfare to cut costs. I wonder if 1121st is actually made up of all orphans since I don’t see parents being too willing to let their kids go off to some far away post. Certainly it would lend more credibility to the setting with the state being nearly bankrupt with a deteriorating army that barely keeps its units supplied. The lack of education suggests that they did scrape the bottom of the man-power barrel as education took a nose dive with elective course like music gone the way of the dodo. The advent of lost technology is probably most indicative of all as they have gone from shiny MBTs to bolt action rifles. All in all i don’t mind the vacillation between moe anime tropes and the interesting setting they seem to be competently building up. I did like how Rio took the smart approach to teaching Kanata and was delighted at how she got Kureha all pumped up and ready to go, only to throw her under the bus on ghostbuster patrol. Reminds me of the time we had to do OPFOR for an exercise when one of the E-4s had an ego trip and was being pretty vocal about it. The Chief egged him on only to later make him the driver for all the vehicles entering the ECP for the exercise. Suffice to say the E-4 found out how effective those positions work and how thorough a search can be…
All in all it ever so gently reminds me of past experiences whether directly or indirectly, so it’s a nice series to relax to at the end of my military day.
Last note on how like everyone else the military has it’s share of people with NICE IDEAs here for your reading pleasure is one of the mishaps that occurred during December, it’s unclassified and verbatim, though I’ll spare you the ALL CAPS format.
In this week’s “Confession is Good for the Soul” Department, we hear from an Air Force E-4 who had whipped up a batch of rice krispies treats for himself. He gobbled a few. “I followed the directions,” he notes, “and nowhere did it say to grease the pan or to not leave the treats in the fridge overnight.” This disclaimer, you perceive, is in preparation for the events of the following day, when our hero was again struck with a hankering for more of goodies after work. He initially opted for the tool of choice, a plastic spatula, which promptly broke, due to the rice krispy treat having been transformed into something more like rice krispy pavers. The airman’s next implement was a butcher knife, and soon he was treating himself to a major gash in his wrist. Two hours late her left the emergency room with five stitches. He missed two days of work and was on light duty for the next three weeks. Yum.
Ah yes the time honored tradition of yelling insults across the parade ground.
This should happen more often, but reality is that the military is rife with pranksters and they like to post on youtube.
Alright a TANK!
Good Morning Private Major…
I do that too when the Bull Ensign is showing the new Ensign around…
The worst thing you can do to an E-2 is let an E-3 run them around…
Wow Treize has his own town.
I guess Mugi did the Captain-sh thing and elected to only have one weapon to clean…
I guess this is analogous to a post on the Canadian Border…
I bet it’s not even a secure line…
Yeah Square IT.
Pfffftttt…
We need to save water, oh and you only get five minutes…
It’s real bad when the ghosts out number the living…
FUCK YEAH MBT!
It’s MECHA!
AND IT’S A BIG ONE!
Wow you guys must be really something to get entrusted with that…
FUCK…still that troll was worthy of Kawamori.
Glad they are being honest about it, if they weren’t I was going to tear them a new asshole…figuratively of course.
Oh ho the E-3 wanted to less grunt work I see…
Onee-sama…
The HORROR THE HORROR.
Way to get her all pumped up…
…
Way to throw them under the bus…
It’s always the E-2s and E-3s that are the excitable ones…
I guess there are people who appreciate having school.
It’d be pretty funny if they found Shoujo Manga instead…
I guess vampires got rolled up into the ghost myths.
This kind of close contact happens more than you would think…
I wonder what made that trench.
Dang if the Capital City doesn’t even sport a bigger school education must have really gone down the tubes.
Oh crap the E-2 has a NICE IDEA…
Having only hit with 11/30 rounds during a night fire I guess I can’t pound her for failing to kill the bird.
If Owl is now on the menu then I hate to imagine how much beef costs.
Hey they are pretty PR savvy.
29 Comments
Nice insight into how it relates in real life. I made it through the ranks in JROTC and saw how the rankings effected attitudes of people and decided it was not the life for me. I loved the atmosphere in this episode. This is one beautifully drawn and detailed series, every background is eye candy. By far the top anime of the season for me!
Well you know part of it could have just been the High School mentality but I agree the rank structure is not for everyone. The backgrounds sure are some of the nicest parts of the episode, certainly it gives the aura of beauty destroyed.
This was another great episode and I can’t wait for the next one. I love the setting they’ve been building up and the subtle hints are really great. It really makes me wonder just how long and for how many generations the war had lasted to have such a large effect on the population.
What I’m really wondering though is whether or not the ghost will have a continued role in the story since it has been shown to exist. Pause the video during all the lightning flashes during the exploration scene if you missed it.
So far they seem to be hinting at the loss of at least one generation if not more. I suspect it to be more than one by virtue of how they lost the ability to read Japanese and refer to them as ideograms. Whatever the number of dead it seems that the entered a decline that may have been similar to the decline of the Western Roman Empire.
Thanks for catching the ghost. I didn’t notice it until you mentioned. It makes me much more impressed that they took it that far. At least it is an indicator that the studio has a grasp of subtlety. Once again the background is something to worth paying attention to.
Now to see where this show goes.
Either they expand upon the potentially rich background story, or they take the slippery path of moe blob hell.
So far they haven’t erred badly as they could of which gives me some hope. I hope it stays that way.
I’ve really enjoyed reading your blogs for this series so far.
Great to see your informed perspective on the matter. As a really short girl with short arms who wasn’t too bad a shot with the M-16 I’ve gotta say that those rifles definitely look like they would be more difficult. >_< Looking forward to the next episode and your commentary. 
Did you enlist too?
Even if the M-16 you shot with was almost as big as you were it wasn’t as long as the old battle rifles and certainly the recoil wounld have been much worse for Kureha since a M-16 has relatively less recoil due to the spring inside the butt stock and it fires a smaller cartridge, 5.56mm instead of 7.62mm or higher for a full sized rifle round.
So iron sights or EOTech?
Nice review here , great screen comments. I really liked this one finally seeing how each character acts with each other, interesting background research too lots of great info there.
@voodoomage- Yeah i really love the artwork on this show great details on the scenery.
@ nutcase23 True i agree there either they go story or the other lol
Whether they intended to or not they got a lot of things right, but some stuff lies more on they wouldn’t it be nice side. Still as a military fairy tale it’s holding up rather well so far.
@Crusader: So you have problems shooting in the dark? Guess not everyone gets AN/PEQ-2s where you are. We have tritium front sights on our M16A1s, not that it’s that much better.
MEIN GOTT!!! You could put out an eye with those rice crispies, who knows what other culinary disasters could have happened if that Airman was more creative…
The Takemikazuchi (whut? Persona 4???) looks like a LCT-1V Locust (or Crusher Joe’s Ostall, depending on your mecha knowledge) with the legs shot off, I’d wonder what if they do with a CN9-A Centurion or an AS7-D Atlas instead…
“It’d be pretty funny if they found Shoujo Manga instead…” – It’ll be even funnier if they found yaoi doujinshi…
Yeah shooting in the dark with iron sights was pretty humbling I’d honestly though I would have done better but I could not see out of that sight aperture since it was pretty late on a December night on an Army range with very little in the way of surrounding light.
Every service has it’s share of mishaps, it’s inevitable a the setting sun, though thankfully the guy lived to tell about it. Obviously the Airman was not training to be a cook or at least I hope not.
Take-Mikazuchi is a figure from Japanese mythology (and all personas in general, are taken from mythology internationally).
Enjoyed how you related your own military experiences to the episode – good post!
Thanks, I am just waiting to see if they get inventive with barracks pranks.
@bloo – saw both lightining flashes, very interesting. Something is there, I hope they delve deeper into this and don’t just brush it aside.
While the episode itself felt solid, it’s also nice to know that the behaviors correlate well with the views of someone with real life military experience. It gives a degree of fidelity to the subject matter that better grounds it as showing real people instead of arbitrary archetypes tossed together for whatever hot new show someone wants to create.
Kureha, for example, is commonly referred to as just another tsundere archetype on various forums, often in a derogatory manner. While there is a certain degree of that, it makes more sense viewing her as your described archetype — a Private Major — plus secondary factors; a general desire to be seen as Important (both herself and her squad), upset that the forms aren’t always observed (things are a bit lax), but not spiteful or a prankster (quite willing to take care of Noel). She doesn’t blind herself to the truth (which is a common problem with the tsundere archetype), even if there is a degree of wishful thinking in her views.
Overall, that brings with it a better sense of the type of behaviors that describe her, and how she’ll act and react in the show. It’s easier to see how true they’re being to the character when you’re not trying to pigeonhole the character into one of the common anime tropes.
To be sure Kureha was meandering into tsundere territory, but her general behavior that did not involve blushing was in line with an over zealous Private Major what liked to exaggerate their importance. I did like how she recognized how they were the black sheep unit, and was honest about it. If Kureha had not been the Private I would have been much less forgiving since much more is expected of NCOs. I just hope that they expand Noel’s character since her behavior is much more moefied than the rest. For the most part they behave consistently with some IRL people with similar rank. I’d have less of a problem with Noel right now if she was just a Specialist and not a Corporal given how she isn’t leading or being trained to lead.
So far it has not been done simply for the sake of having Felicia be the officer and Rio being her lead senior NCO, it corresponds to general setting where the country has been severely depopulated.
It’s a common enough occurrence for E-3s getting over excited at the prospect of out ranking someone, the results are rather embarrassing (and oddly funny if you happen to be listening) but it is a reality. At least it is usually a habit they grow out of.
I must say I’m looking forward to the next episode. Of all the shows this season Sora no Woto seemed to been the most promising given my taste, and I’m happy to say that so far it has delivered. I was afraid it would be some moe blob show with little plot, but I am pretty sure that is not the case here. In fact I would say that so far there is some pretty heavy foreshadowing going on about the legend of the 5 girls. Given the prominence of the legend in episode 1 + the skeleton in the water and the fact that the opening theme is also inspired by the legend pretty much spells it out that the girls will have a role to play in saving the city (from a yet unknown threath).
I must also say how much I love the opening. The music and the art makes a perfect combination and I must admitt I have played it several times. Its just that good..
If the opening has something to do with the plot of the series, I think it even has some dark hidden forshadowing in it (literaly) in about 1:09 Or maybe I am reading too much into it…
Time will tell but for now it hasn’t plunged into embracing moe. Certainly for now at tleast they are putting effort into hinting at something bigger going on. Certainly that myth might end up being very real since that ghost was no simple illusion. That or the animators just wanted to screw with people.
Just had another look at the opening and noticed a hard to spot cultural reference that is next to impossible for non-japanese to find. In the still shots of the girls in beautiful dresses, I noticed that they wore their dresses opening closed right over left. Normally japanese clothes are worn left over right, so I looked it up and found a web page with more informasjon:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art27885.asp The Japanese Kimono – Styles for Various Occasions
Interesting part that most westerners dont know: Funeral kimono are called Mofuku (this is for the living mourners to wear). For the deceased, the kimono is worn right over left, instead of left over right. Death is the only time kimono is worn right over left.
If indeed the dresses the girls wear in the opening follow the normal conventions of kimono wear they are basically dressed for their own funerals…
Ofcourse it remains to be seen if the show turns dark, but give that it has the same director as Elfen Lied I wouldnt rule out anything. Somehow I find it refreshing to not know if things will turn out well for our 5 young girls. The uncertainty makes me look forward to the climax of the series.
I’m just glad that the pretty female child soldiers haven’t been raped yet. Put children from a failing, war-torn society into the military and nine times out of ten the result would be AFRICA.
The thing is though the government isn’t failing there is a semblance of order they aren’t well off and they certainly seem poor. Just because you think that it would be 9/10 chance of AFRICA doesn’t mean that there isn’t a 1/10 chance that they emerge out of it as war torn Great Britain and France after WWI. WWI says hello and I’d like to point out that Wiemar Germany survived the turmoil of the post war years and wasn’t laid low in a military coup or overthrown in an open revolt it fell primarily through political means. Given that the only major issues are depopulation and the need for economic growth they aren’t a failed state that has to deal with internal discontent and armed groups that are outside of the military.
Again there is still a government out there capable of maintaining a stripped down army with enough intact infrastructure to supply units and transport people on rail and by vehicle. This is not the case in say Somalia where there is no real government and you get anarchy. It seems that the armistice indicated that the war reached a stalemate rather than they got invaded and the occupiers left after a protracted insurgency. Conditions are such that people are allowed to be decent people and many have elected to be decent. So far things haven’t degenerated into anarchy with every man out for himself.
Being a former military person who was once assigned to evaluate and help train national guard and army reserve units I can say that I’ve also seen and visited many strange units that “functioned” differently.
But, what I find interesting about the world of Sora no Woto is that it’s almost steam-punk in nature. While military units have high tech walking tanks/mecha they still use bolt action rifles, rotary dial telephones, and WWII motorcycles. Also, I wonder if the world of Sora no Woto feels worn out because it’s coming out of a prolonged conflict or if the conflict is just a symptom a world that’s winding down ala YKK, Nausicaa, or Now and Then, Here and There. If the book that Kanata found offers us any hint of the past, it’ll take more than a war to explain the massive loss of population and culture, but on the other hand that book was in pretty good condition so the pictures in it couldn’t have occurred too long ago.
It’s pretty interesting that you mentioned child soldiers because I recieved many new 18 year old male recruits that were about as mature as 14 or 15 year old girls. So, sometimes I think that I would have better of with a few Kurehas or Kanatas, at least they would have more pleasing on the eyes and ears than looking at guys all day long.
Every unit has it’s own quirks some just seem stranger than others though I tend to think that the Air Forces seems to have it better off than the rest of us when it comes to materiel for deployments.
There is a significant technological gap at work here but in terms of the tech they still got working it feels more like 1920s-1930s for military tech thought he rotary phone seems in a little out of place if memory serves me correctly. Given how there is more natural beauty to be seen and the town looks more like a quaint old ton that a burnt out pile of rubble I am leaning more towards end of prolonged conflict than an Now and Then, Here and There scenario which my friend tells me is an allegory of Uganda.
Depending on the tactics used during the war I think it’s still with in the realm of reasonableness to assume that war might have been the cause. The American Civil and WWII had numerous casualties despite spanning less than a decade in length if they did use trenches or lined up in neat ranks three ranks deep to volley fire with bolt action rifles you’s have a horrendous body count. Still given the huge pile of bones there might have been something else that contributed to the huge loss of culture.
Maybe we just joined the wrong service and should have signed up for the Air Force?
18 year olds fresh out of high school tend to be a little intoxicated with youth and being considered adults for the first time, the problem is amplified when many of them haven’t handled firearms or have never had military grade firearms. The media they consume leaves them with certain notions of military life that aren’t necessarily true. Black Hawk Down was a decent enough movie but it spawned a malaise of privates emulating that “this is my safety” routine much to the annoyance of the NCOs responsible for them.
I thought your joke was funny, and you may very well already know this, but the name Treize, along with every city name on the map (Seize, Dix, Quatre, etc.) are all French numbers.
So somewhere along the line of Helvetica’s history, they turned to naming all of their cities after simple integers, probably starting from 1 (Seize would be the 16th city, while Treize is 13).
I really enjoy how artfully the setting and history has been presented. I find it far more effective and engaging compared with the usual method of just direct presentation and having an idiot ask stupid questions.
I don’t know French so this is pretty interesting that they went with numbers, so far presentation has exceeded expectation and the studio seems to be aiming high and hitting without too many inaccuracies.
For clarity on that, every single named location on the map is a French number, from Zero to Vingt (20), with only Deux (2) and Quatorz (14) missing (probably hidden by Kanata standing in front). The numbers progress roughly in a spiral pattern outwards from Zero.
pretty interesting to read the view of someone who have been (stil is?) in the service, which also kinda make me curious just how much research A-1 putted into how the army works, supposely the writer spent several years in his own time working on the story prior to it going into production.
Which I think also shows, from the setting that have been created (which ironicly is the only new show this season with mecha in it), to the characters who all seem to have personality going slightly deeper then the initial impression (besides, any show where the characters are seen as a combination of characters from 4 different shows can’t really be said to be deriviated, with people citing it-s k-on + strike witches + haibane renmei + aria)
All which comes together to create a very nice bittersweet atmosphere for the show, and I will cry bitter tears if they drop the ball on this one.
by the way..for some mind blowing info that I stumbled over: http://kumon.ac.jp/klas/english/
offcourse, it could also be a coincident.