Saga of Tanya the Evil

Episode 9

Saga of Tanya the Evil is by no means a comedy, but every once in a while, it gets off a good joke. The obvious ones in this episode involved Tanya's reactions to mad Dr. Shugel's reappearance and his hair-brained method for getting Tanya and her crew where they need to be (as shown in the screenshot). However, the best gag involved a lot of set-up. In one mid-episode scene after a major battle, we see the medical tent where Viktoriya is getting bandaged up in the background, while doctors struggle with a patient in the foreground. At the end of the scene, Viktoriya and the soldier bandaging her (the one who was reluctant to fire on civilians last episode) laugh over something while the patient is clearly in agony in the foreground, which comes off as incongruous and morbidly inappropriate. It turns out that this was actually foreshadowing, because the soldier in question wasn't going on about his stomach because of a wound; the last line of the epilogue reveals that he's getting sent home to recuperate because he messed himself up from eating a bad potato, and Tanya is stuck having to explain it away as something less ignominious. What makes the joke even better is that the the incident doesn't feel like an exaggeration at all. Deaths from disease and poor food were hardly uncommon in warfare; some estimates place the total World War I casualties due to disease as high as one-third of the overall total.

That aside, this episode is mostly about setting up for the big make-or-break Empire effort to neutralize enough of the Republic's military to force them into a peace agreement, as one of the top brass correctly surmises that not losing is even more important than actually winning a world war. Some of the details of this plan somewhat resemble World War I's Spring Offensive, a campaign that Germany undertook early in 1918 to try to beat France before the Americans could make it to Europe. In this episode, the 203rd Battalion essentially takes the role of the standard-setting German stormtroopers who infiltrated enemy lines in surprise attacks to take out command posts, only this time, they're getting behind the lines in a much more inventive way. It's an appearance almost two decades early by V-1 rockets, each one carrying a 203rd Battalion member. It's an insanely audacious plan, which only works because the mages can absorb the adverse effects of flying past Mach 1 with their magical barriers, and I'd bet money that Being X was giving the good doctor a bit of further inspiration there. Anachronism aside, it's all executed exceptionally well, ending just as the mages are parachuting into enemy territory to leave considerable anticipation for what comes next week.

The earlier battle scene, where the 203rd is playing rear guard to disguise a strategic retreat, is also a thing of beauty in its portrayal of gritty warfare. Concerns I may have had about Tanya being overpowered are assuaged some here, as the chaotic battlefield pushes her battalion's abilities to their limits; she may dominate when fighting only in the skies, but she has to watch out for crossfire and anti-aircraft just like anyone else when closer to the ground. The animation and detail work is superb throughout, showing that the minor flaws in episode 7 were only a fluke, and some occasional nice little personal touches round out the episode.

Overall, this episode steps back from the recent trend toward war commentary to focus more on story and plot execution, and it does so quite well, avoiding the pitfalls of most war-oriented stories with quality execution.

Rating: A-

Saga of Tanya the Evil is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.