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Shuumatsu no Izetta (Pseudo-WW2 with a witch!)

Episode 8 is here.

[YURI GOGGLES INTENSI-]

*throws away yuri goggles* We don't need this anymore, at this point the yuri is real.

Once more the plot's speed is decent. We have two major plot threads going on, one with the Not!Gestapo kid and his mission into Eylstadt to find out the secret that lies beneath the castle, and the other one with Fine and Izetta in Britannia. In the former Not!Gestapo kid meets up with Bianca on their way to the old capital, with romantic comedy hijinks happening between the two(including, of course, Not!Gestapo Kid stumbling onto a bathing Bianca. Because fanservice amirite?). The kid pisses Bianca off with his story of the White Witch getting tortured and burned at the stake by the Inquisition(which is strange, because it was heresy to assert that witches exist or accuse another person of being a witch for a good part of the middle ages in RL under the Catholic Churches, as clearly believing that anything other than God could grant supernatural power to people was extra heretical of the highest order. Though I suppose with real witches flying around that may have been different.), which turns out to what actually happened historically with the White Witch in this alt!history, but never gets around to apologizing for it until Bianca shoots him in the heart when she catches him doing spy stuff at the old castle. The Germanians still get the required info though because man were they prepared for this with at least 3 spies working in tandem. Fine and Izetta plot thread is relatively tame in comparison, except the Not!Gestapo Major guys makes a sneak appearance at Lord Redford's birthday mask-ball party, bringing in a zombie-witch(?) of their own to get Izetta's blood, which apparently reactivates her powers or something(or I presume).

Also, USA is planning to backstab Eylstadt once they get a land invasion of Europe going. Because we can't possibly have a WW2 work made in Japan without an evil USA lol. I honestly have no idea how the hell Not!Roosevelt is planning to convince Congress and the Public to a war without a Not!Pearl Harbor, but we'll see how this goes.

In terms of characterization there wasn't much(aside from Bianca's character being fleshed out as being a soft person at heart despite all her hard exterior), but the all the big plot events made up for it. The ball has finally gotten to roll, and I feel we'll see that accelerate as we finish the season with the remaining 4 episodes.
 
So while I got the impression that Bianca is in love with Fine from this episode, it seems many others got the impression there was supposed to be a budding romance between her and Rickert. I suppose I can see where they're coming from.
 
Well, it seemed like the anime was trying to push towards shipping those two, but... Honestly I just don't feel it. The only thing he did was irritate her, really. At least from my perspective.
 
I have to be honest, I've kind of given up on this show. Too much contrived bullshit and not much characterization makes cetash a dull boy :V
 
Cetashwayo said:
I have to be honest, I've kind of given up on this show. Too much contrived bullshit and not much characterization makes cetash a dull boy :V
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I'd honestly just barely realized we've gone through eight episodes. And we crammed a hopeless lovers plot into one episode. That alone managed to be the subplot of a six episode Gundam OVA :mad:
 
Cetashwayo said:
I have to be honest, I've kind of given up on this show. Too much contrived bullshit and not much characterization makes cetash a dull boy :V
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I'm still kind of hoping there will turn out to be more to some of the characters than there appears to be on the surface. That was the case with a couple other shows I really like that had the same writer this one does. My hopes aren't overly high at this point though. I actually rewatched one of those older shows recently and its writing seemed tighter and more polished -though that could partly be because completely rewatching that show multiple times has given me a greater understanding of it.
 
Darthtabby said:
I'm still kind of hoping there will turn out to be more to some of the characters than there appears to be on the surface. That was the case with a couple other shows I really like that had the same writer this one does. My hopes aren't overly high at this point though. I actually rewatched one of those older shows recently and its writing seemed tighter and more polished -though that could partly be because completely rewatching that show multiple times has given me a greater understanding of it.
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What I am going to do is stop watching unless things look up, and then I'll give it a chance. I'm not going to irrationally hate the show, but I think it's going to have to earn my trust back.
 
Guderian2nd said:
Also, USA is planning to backstab Eylstadt once they get a land invasion of Europe going. Because we can't possibly have a WW2 work made in Japan without an evil USA lol.
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Perfidious Albion! *shakes fist angrily*

But on a serious note, look at how fast the United States and the Soviets went from allies of convenience to bitter enemies.

Though the Allies at least had the sense to wait until the war was over.


Also, the whole 'doomed romance' thing just annoyed me. They tried to do a Romeo and Juliet, but then skipped straight to the end without any proper buildup.

What we had, at best, was a mutual crush between two people who have literally only known each other for a day or two.
 
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And even then it seems like (to me at least) that he annoyed Bianca more than she had a crush on him... Plus, it seems kind of weird that whatsisface would send in a spy who doesn't seem to actually have the mindset for a spy, or the skillset. Is he just really shortstaffed right now?
 
I'm tempted to stick with my initial impression that Bianca is in (unrequited) love with Fine and dismiss her behaviour towards Rickert as him bringing out her cool big sis instincts, but I can't simply ignore the evidence that points towards the "supposed to be romantic" impression that others got.
 
I mean I can obviously tell that the writers were TRYING to make it a romantic thing, but I just can't see anything in Bianca's behavior that seems like she had a romantic feeling towards Rickert. It just felt like going through the motions, for her at least.
 
I think she considered him moe. :p

I also think she admired his apparent loyalty, and even his real loyalty to Germania.

I doubt the two of them were supposed to be madly in love with each other. My impression was more of a fleeting possibility.
 
I also felt it was more of a fleeting possibility than an attempt to make us feel like they were having a blooming romance. Bianca's crush on Fine is well established. What mattered here was that Bianca and Rickert were building a connection despite being on opposite sides of the conflict.
 
...the problem is that the connection seemed a) incredibly one-sided and b) very, VERY rushed writing-wise. Neither of which lends itself well to evoking sadness over a tragic doomed romance.
 
It more or less worked for me, but I see their story as more of a small tragedy than a grand tale. As I said above, I didn't get the impression they were madly in love with each other.
 
Episode 9!

No time for Yuri Goggles this episode, shit went down.

Not!Nazi Super Science apparently includes cloning tech - my god this alt-history apparently took German Technical Superiority meme seriously. They cloned the original White Witch from her remains - which apparently includes memory, for some reason - and it turns out she's psychotic! The Germans make a double feint and eventually draws Izetta out to meet Sophie, the White Witch, who at first tries to appeal to Izetta through acting all sad but once Izetta adamantly refuses, goes ape sh*t. She defeat her using this red-gem thing(which absorbs magical energy, I think?), and then proceeds to bomb the Eylstadt capital knocking out all the Capital's AA guns using magical cruise missiles. That's is immediately followed by what I presume to be a Fallschirmjäger division sneak-capturing the Eylstadt capital. The White Witch absolutely hates Eylstadt, call them "descendants of traitors".

In the earlier parts of the episode we see the Not!French Resistance and Izetta helping her out, as well as Eylstadt developing their own magic!cruise missiles, but Izetta gets knocked out by Sophie way before that happens.

Not much else to comment, this episode is all action-tense plot but not much in the way of further characterization(other than Sophie being a pseudo-yandere). I was hoping that the magical duel scene with flying lances and sh*t everywhere could've been a bit better, but this is a pretty low budget show.

I'm now curious how the hell the main cast plan to salvage something out of this. This is even worse than Blitzkrieg, the Germanians apparently conquered Eylstadt in like, 2 hours.

Oh yeah, and apparently US of Atlanta managed to pass a bill declaring war on Germania or something similar, and are sending troops to Britannia. It's a one off mention, I was hoping that something like Pearl Harbor would at least get mentioned, but nope, the bill apparently passed without a fuss.
 
Guderian2nd said:
They cloned the original White Witch from her remains - which apparently includes memory, for some reason - and it turns out she's psychotic!
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I'm not sure Sophie actually has the memories of the original White Witch. I think its likely that she got her information from Berkman. I see a certain irony in her accusing Izetta of not having any thoughts of her own and not realizing that she's being manipulated.

Guderian2nd said:
She defeat her using this red-gem thing(which absorbs magical energy, I think?), and then proceeds to bomb the Eylstadt capital knocking out all the Capital's AA guns using magical cruise missiles. That's is immediately followed by what I presume to be a Fallschirmjäger division sneak-capturing the Eylstadt capital. The White Witch absolutely hates Eylstadt, call them "descendants of traitors".
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My impression is that the stone the white witch used allows use of magic in areas with no leylines by sucking up magic in areas that do have them and storing it. Berkman got creative by using that capability to drain an area of magic. That scene with Sophie singing in a field of flowers early in the episode? That was the trap being set.
 
Kuromei said:
If playing Valkyria Chronicles has taught me anything, that rival's going to be a older supposedly better Witch. I could practically just see the flags popping up around her when she told the war cabinet to relax, that she was the last witch.
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GGWP.

I fucking called it. Also, Clone-chan is best girl in show. The old king of Edylstalt does't know what he's missing out on.

@Ford Prefect so where does Fighter Ace kun fit into the picture now? I liked him. :L
 
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