The crew layout alone suggests plenty about their technological regression.
Rather late in the week for this post but nevertheless it was still a good episode even if the dead stirred back to haunt the living. It seems that within the 1121st Felicia at least has some combat experience and was a Vingt Veteran. Even if she lost her nerve in her first fight I can’t say that I blame her since she just watched her whole unit get wiped out and she was wandering around in a night fight with no NVG and no weapon. The fickle finger of fate is fickle as one minute they make a tank kill and the next they are getting one in the flank. Given how it is unlikely that either side had the level of night fighting equipment we have today, the swings of fortune could be much more pronounced since a night fight with only search lights and faint shadows as your IR will make the controlled confusion of the the battlefield into unadulterated confusion since they don’t even have wireless comms . Their walking tank might have been inspired by the legendary Panzer V but it’s seems that armor was not nearly as thick or as well sloped. They didn ‘t even have a turret and since the walking mechanism already gave it a high profile it gained none of the benefits of being a walking self propelled gun like a tracked assault gun like the Stug III. While it is not explicitly stated it seems to me that their technology regressed in a straight line as the crew layout was derived from the Generation Zero tanks like the Takemikazuchi, but their last iteration during the Battle of Vingt showed how there was no real engineering going on and the techs were simply making crude copies of what they had seen. The armor was no longer made of dense composite materials and they would have been lucky if they even managed homogeneous steel armor, but that wouldn’t do much against HEAT rounds. It seems they lost the technology and metallurgical know how to do APFSDS or APDS anti-tank rounds and given how the standard AT round is a HEAT shell they lost the technology to create ERA as well. The layout stayed the same but it wouldn ‘t have been nearly as useful without the sophisticated electronics and the better stowage of the ammunition. In short they were in a steel coffin since an ammo cook off from a HEAT round would have almost guaranteed the death of the entire crew. Felicia was lucky that the energy of the blast threw her clear.
Even with the failings in design it seems doctrine did not improve much as it was possible for a Type 0 to fight buttoned up with it’s technology, but the same cannot be said about their vehicle. The fundamental contradiction in armored warfare has always been that if the crew was buttoned up they were in greater danger than they would be if the tank commander was in cupola with little more than a helmet and body armor. Felicia certainly struggles with a bad case of survivor’s guilt though I haven’t met any one who had to watch their whole unit get wiped out, I have seen people who lost friends cope with it rather poorly. Still Felicia still had to deal with the question of whether or not it is worth it and certainly as a draftee she probably didn ‘t have an answer before she was thrown into combat. As for the wraith of despair I have a fundamental disagreement with how the world is going to end and how the glory of the past can never be regained. I am pretty sure they felt the same way when the Roman Empire collapsed as with the collapse of any other civilization. But so long as there are people they will eventually come out of the dark ages and regain a measure of what was lost and perhaps even reach heights that were unthinkable in the “golden age” of the past. I think the world was always broken and imperfect and that there is little benefit from dwelling upon it. I am glad that despite the entreaties of the wraith that Felicia chose to live. I agree with why she decided to stay after the truce was declared. She might not be a hard ass like Rio but she still trains them despite their reputation for being lax.
Given the reaction of the priest towards the end that Rio is royalty. The fact that she has Princess Iria’s trademark item and refers to some person as “sister” indicates that Rio was closely tied to Iria. Despite the difference in appearance I doubt that Rio was a bastard child, given how she knew Princess Iria personally, even if they don’t have the same mother it is probable that the war took a terrible toll on able bodied men that the titular head of state could have had a ducal harem without much fuss. Even then since the Arch-Duke only had a daughter it was possible that he sought to have a male heir through other means. Even then it is possible that the Arch-Duke simply remarried after the death of Iria ‘s mother since every one seems to have lost some one in the war. Still for all of Rio’s outward hostility she still read her father’s letter and is still conflicted over what it means to fight for volk and fatherland. Iria seems to have been quite active during the war and in the Battle of Vingt in particular. However her relief of Vingt doesn ‘t answer what the invisible reaper was, since all that was shown was a chaotic night fight that saw Felicia and her comrades get pushed back only for the enemy to be cleared the following morning when Iria arrived. This seems to rule out a chemical or biological weapon since Felicia survived it and what ever it was did not linger long. So whatever the invisible reaper was it must have been used prior to or well after Felicia’s three plus days of continuous combat.
While if found the wraith to be over the top it was not made up for by the fact that we had a small glimpse of the Type 0′s heyday. His equipment suggests that they once had Kevlar, knee pads, and the know how to make an assault rifle. The use of Type 0s against a direct energy weapon capable of blasting through a city suggests that whoever constituted “them” had to have been much more advanced, but seeing as how the enemy that Felicia fought seems to have regressed along the same technological lines I am unsure if the wielders of the laser were even human at all, maybe in the aftermath different human factions arose from the ashes and scavenged what was left to wage war over dwindling resources. There is still the question of what that big pile of bones was that Kanata saw in the first episode. In any case they have me hooked. I think that what was real telling about how the world had regressed and how long the war had gone on might have been the hinted at by the complete absence of the AK-47 and to a lesser extent the M-16 and FN FAL . It might be because the studio has a preference for WWII era German small arms, but even so it is a fortuitous omission as it seems to indicate that the war(s) had gone on so long the world supply of AK-47s was all but spent. That alone says plenty of how shit really hit the fan as not even the situation in Africa used up all the AK-47s that were handed out during the Cold War. Seeing as how they bothered to animate a Howa Type 96 and how lovingly they animated Noel’s MG-42 I suspect that they wouldn’t have simply overlooked the ubiquitous AK-47.
The lantern boat launch was also very telling as it more or less confirms my suspicions that Kureha is an orphan. It also reaffirms that Kanata’s family was lucky that it survived relatively intact. Felicia put on her dead comrades and a rough translation of the dead corpse she found, but I think the most tragic was probably Noel. Certainly she hinted that she might have been at Vingt during Felicia’s three plus days of combat there and since she has no lantern to launch either she never knew her family or never had parents to begin with, I am not sure which would be worse but still it wasn’t as if she didn’t care about people. I hope that in the future they tell us more about the Battle of Vingt since it seems to be rather central to the stories of many of the characters. Moreover I wonder what was so important about Vingt that made holding it worth three plus days of combat over what seemed like a pile of rubble. For a downer episode I am rather glad they did not make it overly depressing and answered a few questions but raising many more. I could do with less ghosts but it certainly has me captivated. At the very least it offered a little in the way of mecha action during this winter of despair.
72 hours of combat…I think they just set the record for longest mecha battle.
If a HEAT round can do that that must mean ERA and composite armor are now lost technology…
A pale shadow of what was the Zero type, it’s not much of walking tank than a walking Self Propelled gun…
The sad thing here is that they should have stayed like this when the shooting started…
Ah the often overlooked reality of armored warfare the vehicle is the safest when one of the crew is horribly exposed…
A sad end even if she had lived.
Reason #2 why she hates lightning…it illuminates things you are better off not seeing.
The Wraith’s equipment even shows how much was lost for the poor infantry. No body armor, ballistic/dust goggles, or knee pads…
Playing with food? I think not…but wasting food…well depends on how anal your cook can be.
Oh a fiesta will there be catering?
Well that’s one way to inflate the population.
Seems there are different religions in existence.
Her style was inspired by the Simpsons…
Without context this looks rather creepy.
Never carve wood with fogged up glasses…
So that’s what happened to their infantry support.
Seems the enemy had a better handle on combined arms.
Seems their enemy still had the know how to build turrets even if the main gun is hull mounted.
I guess they really don’t have good IR.
I’d take that as a sign of suicidal behavior…
Seems Vingt was a significant battle or a real meat grinder.
Almost looks like a Jagdpanther on stilts.
The back portion is definitely similar to the Panzer V.
I suspect that life will go on even after man is gone…
The answer I cam up is to win, after all there is no prize for second place…
We probably should have known something went horribly wrong when they stopped making assault rifles and the AK-47 was no longer ubiquitous…
I know she needed a place to hide but I would have gone for something other than a tomb…
This is some hallucination, though to be honest I think my office is haunted.
This is why you you never go around unarmed…
I guess he only invested in dust goggles…
I wonder who this nebulous them is, certainly if they had a ground based laser then they must have had a more advanced tech base…also were they even the same enemy?
At least there was some mecha action in this winter of despair.
As advanced as a type zero walking tank is if the enemy is using direct energy weapons against their APFSDS or similar kinetic weapon…makes you wonder if they weren’t fighting aliens or something.
That’s one way to make your own Grand Canyon…
I bet they said the same thing during the waning days of the Roman Empire.
Bah suicide is never the answer.
Not sure if the Japanese would have viewd this wraith as a friendly ghost, but that grin is far from reassuring… He comes off more like a spirit that tries to tempt the soul from the body.
If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger. Also that only happens when you think too much about morality.
I wonder if he simply starved or shot himself.
This Battle of Vingt seems like a most interesting battle…
I assume that makes Rio royalty…
Treize must have plenty of nitrate then…
Then the war ended and now Rio is left to wonder what now…
Maybe it was a simply a matter of order of importance, as in volk and fatherland.
Indeed after Vingt why would you stay?
Well that is a decent enough coping mechanism, though your uniforms run rather baggy anyways…
I want to know too.
This reminds me of the 13th Warrior.
Either Noel doesn’t remember or she never had a famliy…not sure which is worse.
I surmise the last one refers to the Wraith, if so I wonder how they fit it on to a name tape…
The only family she has left…
Rio still has her dad even if they aren’t on good terms.
Glad Kanata found her mother after running into Iria-hime.
Proof that Kureha is an orphan.
At least she still has a professor, would be cool if it was Mordin Solus.
I guess that might well make her the ducal heir…
Lead them well, kid. Lead them well.
22 Comments
This was pretty awesome episode. I thought it was pretty cool how the combat situation that Felicia went through closely paralleled the training exercise the 1121st completed.
To answer your question about what the Type 0 tanks were fighting, pause the video during the flashback scene when there’s a closeup of the side of a building (about 14:16 on the release I have). You’ll see what looks to be a reflection of a giant winged creature. Sound familiar? To further connect it to the legend, it was said that the winged demon rained fire and shook the earth, and it looks like the giant bird in the flashback was the thing shooting the lasers.
I can’t wait to see where they go with this.
It’s hard to make out precisely what it was but if it was Rodan…
took a couple times but I definitely see the wing now..
loving this anime and I can’t wait for 8
I really don’t want the antagonists of this series to be aliens…
I’d rather the spidertanks have their origin from an now ancient resource war.
It’s possible that they initially fought a Rodan and in the aftermath started warring for resources since the first enemy wasn’t human and their latest were.
You have an interesting perspective, and, as usual I got some insights by reading your post that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
Regarding Noel: I have a feeling something bad happened between her and her family (possibly at the Battle of Vingt). Remember her line that machines won’t betray you? Also look at her in that picture above, where everyone else is holding lanterns; note that you can’t see her eyes — this is usually done to indicate a very dark mood. I wonder if this means she is still “haunted” by the spirits of the family she cannot forgive.
Or possibly the spirits of the family who can’t forgive her. There is the possibility that Noel could’ve been the turncoat or a traitor of some kind and that she still lives with the guilt of betraying those she loved. She was abnormally feared and/or hated by that boy in the episode that she and Kanata go to town.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/soranowoto/images/b/b7/Full_episode_7_ver_3.jpg
Noel’s story has yet to be explained in detail but treachery of some sort will ply into it I am sure.
Looks like Felicia may have a case of PTSD, and probably not the only one suffering from it as well, her den mother behavior might be her own way to deal with it.
The regression in tech seriously reminds me of the First and Second Succession Wars in Battletech/Mechwarrior, which also has the longest mecha battle AFAIK (3 weeks?). Note that the weapons mentioned such as the Type 89 (the -96 is an AGL), the M16 use polymers, so they probably lost the ability to make injection molded plastics and fiberglass while losing the ability to mass produce optics. An AK-47 type weapon just needs a carpenter and a simple machine shop in comparison (I shudder at the thought of a British Sten Mk. 2).
Also the loader is generally a rookie position in the tank, so Felicia was probably the same age as Kanata and Kureha back then. Manual traverse and elevation of the gun shows that they might not even have hydraulics at all. The tank crew may have been in their first actual operation (they were still training in the ruined city), which could explain why they made a mistake of not clearing all sectors before signalling, resulting in their getting flanked. NVGs and IR lasers are a huge advantage, but even then night fighting’s always a bitch, whether if it’s with those gadgets, or with starshells, tripflares and illum rounds of ye olde days…
Private Major is afraid of ghosts??? Hmm, will put that in a list of potential ways to prank the 1121st…
Props to Aya Endo btw, she’s voiced a walking Wikipedia, a Galactic Nymph and was shot by Prince Ali. Now she’s managed to mix abject terror, maternal behavior and some nihilism in the space of a single episode.
My mistake I just knew it was a Howa. Still if the most common AR in our time is conspicuously absent despite the ease of manufacture then something must have gone horribly wrong.
At the very least Felicia seems to have taken a lesson in terror from Prince Ali himeslf, though my Liege Lord maintains that i was nothing personal.
Hmm, do you think that Felicia should stay in command even if she doesn’t outwardly show signs of PTSD? I mean, the 1121st are not exactly in bandit country, but if anything happens which requires them to go on ops, the worst thing that could happen is for the boss to suffer from anxiety attacks (we already know that Rio is fairly jumpy herself).
Maybe the setting is an alternate world where Soviet Russia never existed to begin with and long guns went down the Stg 44 -> AR-18 -> Type-89 route…
As long as it doesn’t interfere with her ability to command I’d say no, so far it hasn’t been a problem. If we retired every officer with PTSD we’d have lost Patton along with plenty of other officers after the Battle of the Bulge. I doubt you can be a combat veteran without having to undergo it. Rio is a hardass but she isn’t tactically stupid.
If there was no USSR then there would be no JSDF to begin with…afterall they were founded primarily in response to the Korean War.
I must say this is the type of episode where people get hooked.
It gives more details on the past of the world of Sora no Woto. There are two known wars. One is during the so called Old Era where humanity lost or had a pyrrhic victory. Ocean life is destroyed, a civilization in decline, posible human extinction. The other is a war or one of several between the states that rose from the ashes.
The enemy during the old Era reminds me of Macross Zero’s Bird Human. A biological weapon of doom the fires laser beams.
The Bugler turns out to be princess with personal acquaintance with three of the five current Fortress Maidens. Rio could be a hidden princess. Iria rescued Kanata and Felicia with Amazing Grace. Which brings to question what is Iria’s roll in the lives of Noel and Kureha. As they being gathered could not be a coincidence.
For that matter what is a supposed war hero like Klaus is hanging around the girls every so often.
I am leaning toward the a great catastrophe and then human warring with themselves over the ashes and ruins of what was left.
If Iria did play a role in Kureha’s life we shall see but it seems that Noel was also at Vingt when Iria relieved the defenders. Maybe Klaus is there to make sure Rio stays alive, that or he had the pick of any billet he wanted as he was a war hero.
They should have more scenes of them doing stuff together, like playing cards or something. No matter the period or place in history, people are always playing something similar to playing cards or dice.
Perhaps but I think bootlegging might take up most of their time.
Advanced weaponry. Primitive communication systems. This should be interesting. [For example, why don't the tanks have radios? And how can anyone hear a trumpet in the middle of a gunfight?]
Radio is pretty high tech they made tanks before wireless radios were standard. As for musical instruments it certainly beats yelling and is more coherent. Certainly it worked fine during the musket era where you had guys lining up to volley fire and muzzle loaded cannon. It’s not like that wasn’t as loud.
We haven’t seen them use a telegraph or semaphore tower yet either…
First, let me say that I enjoy your posts as you view the show from a viewpoint of one with military experience. I wonder if the creators consulted anyone from the JSDF during production, or just talked to a bunch of military otaku.
Speaking of “this winter of despair,” have you seen Gundam Unicorn? It is Universal Century, augmented by modern production standards, into something awesome.
Re. all the speculation on how Helvetia fits into Earth’s future history, the similarities between the Helvetian military and the Wehrmacht indicates to me that this story takes place, as did many anime before, in an invented world. Some have argued that perhaps they found a cache of WW II-era German arms and copied them. I don’t find that believable. Either that, or we discover that humanity is in a cage à la Scrapped Princess or Dark City. But that would be no fun.
I must say that Sora no Woto has found a place in my heart. I eagerly await Kobayashi Yuu voicing Princess Rio in a Saint Crispin’s Day-type speech as she emboldens her dear Helvetian troops into battle.
I think they consulted JSDF, seeing how they also managed to get the JSDF to help them out with some promo for both parts, where they got Kanatas voice actor to play soldier for a day. http://www.sorawoto.com/tv/index.html
Wow!!! That’s interesting… I didn’t know about that, but I did hear that the JMSDF(?) hosted Mamiko Noto (for Rescue Wings) and Ueda Kana and Nakahara Mai (for Tactical Roar).
I take it that she didn’t have to eat the field rations???