Valkyria Chronicles – 03: A Bridge Too Close

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She has found her decoy unit…

Certainly this didn’t play out like I remembered but I am rather amused that Largo is now a scout and that Welkin’s team picks were rather ho hum since Jane, Nina, Hannes, Vyse, and Alex were MIA on the roster. So it seems that Rosie is every bit the bigot from the game. Sadly it seems that not much went into actually differentiating the classes as all seemed to have scout armor and not one Lancer was present. Nevertheless it was good to know that the “I never made Sergeant Major” Largo and Jann (the dude with the lipstick) are spooning, while this was more like crossing Washington crossing the Delaware than Pegasus Bridge with a tank. Still poor Alicia gets to be Welkin’s Staff Sergeant since the organizational thing is all out of whack since there is a tank permanently attached. Poor Isara has to deal with a whole lot of hate from people who believe in some fictitious atrocity that is older than memory. Ah well at least the tanks were done right, and to be fair it pretty much looked like how the game had it even if tactical spacing was all fucked up (since the combat system encourages bunching up behind sandbags) and the chance to go higher on the unit cap was scrapped.

In terms of tactics a whole lot could have gone wrong with that night attack since this was before night vision goggles and the use of noisy motor boats was pretty damn dumb for a sneak attack. Still at least Welkin used the thick fog and struck where he was not expected I am a tad disappointed in how Edelweiss is a bit OP but I guess having and engineer run behind it all the time would have been rather unexciting. While a tank ought to have nothing to fear from some troops in the back with rifles and SMGs at least it is faithful to the game in that sense that any tank that had it’s rear exposed like that is pretty much dead with exception to Imperial Medium tanks that have an MG turret in the back. I killed off two heavy tanks with Shocktroopers that fired point blank at their exposed engine blocks. I do like the land fortress thing they got going even if the idea sucked in practice, at least it looks impressive. To be honest freshly minted butter bars (2LT) like Gunther get no respect from senior enlisted anyways so the vocal misgivings of a bunch of weekend warriors like Squad 7 was to be expected since they probably don’t follow a strict set of rules and regs.

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At least you are his Staff Sergeant.

I thought it was funny how Susie was nowhere to be seen though in truth she only lasted one mission before I booted her out for lack of combat power, only Walker lasted shorter after he got janked by Selvaria after he failed to hit a damn thing in mission 6. It also looks like for now they didn’t use any of the loli-soldaten yet and at least they seemed to have limited the Darscen haters to only Largo and Rosie. Personally I hope shoutaro scarface gets kicked too, worst sniper ever. Next time it’s a filler though it seems Selvaria got’s a bounce to her this time. Sadly Welkin ain’t no Patton and his speech to 7th Squad was nowhere near as great as Patton’s to his Third Army, if only there was a YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE WITHOUT PERMISSION sort of line.

Calawain’s Commentary

Alicia’s facial expressions cracked me up throughout the episode, I love her “for fuck’s sake…” face. And once again I’ll point out what an awesome job Marina Inoue has been doing voicing her, giving her a hint of tsundere to go with the tough and assertive side. Mmmm, I think I’m in love. And next week she’s going to be blushing, oh yeah.

I don’t get how these clowns can hate on Isara, she’s so moe. A girl whose not afraid to get down and dirty, and can fix war materiel. She can clean my tank barrel any day of the week. Plus she’s voiced by Hōko Kuwashima. The Germans would never have lost if they stocked their army full of bishoujos and thigh-highs. Rawr.

The tank scene reminded me of one of my favorite James Bond movies of all time, The Spy Who Loved Me. In it, Bond takes one of his tricked out cars (in this case, a Lotus with a submarine mode) underwater to fight some baddies and then comes up onto a beach full of people. Instead of tank shells, Bond had deployable mines and a cloud of oil. I love Bond movies, so any anime that can remind me of them gets a thumbs up in my book.

Screen Caps

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Pffft you can’t hide, you lack a Canada.

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As if putting Susie on the team wasn’t bad enough he picked these guys…

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The person in the back is simply lethal as a sniper, sadly she’s playing scout…

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Now scarface over there can’t hit a guy in the head to save his life.

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Alicia wants to kill Imps, kill Imps, and kill more Imps.

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Where are the recovery teams?

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Dude where are the 105mm howitzers to make a mess of that tank lot?

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All because Isara’s tank is so much better than Rosie’s

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Certainly not about how he can be the fastest and go the farthest…

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African or European?

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Have you not met Mr. Hobart and his funnies, BMP,  or the new EFV?

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Edy is alright.

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I’d ber sad too if I was you should have made it permenantly amphibious.

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Alicia Crosses the Vasel

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Edelweiss apparently has better IR optics than I thought possible.

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I see that Welkin ambushed the Ersatz-Hessians…

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I am Surprised Susie has lasted this long…

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Well they do look bigger…

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Oh great Fun with Faldio next week…

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Oh shit General Fatass is a lecher too?

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17 Comments

  1. Posted April 21, 2009 at 10:11 pm | Permalink

    They could’ve just used a Duck Boat

  2. mareo
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 12:13 am | Permalink

    Welkin introduction to the 7th team, rememberme of Yang Wenli’s speech to the 13th Fleet. I dont want to spoil, but Welkin and Yang characters share a lot of minor details. What I dont get, is why Welkin dont coordinate the attack with other units, is the Gallian chain of command so relaxed that any litenant can plan an attack with out a permision from the superios? The sub-tank idea was veeery, interesting, The realtionship in the team was interesting to, but the combat was kind of shoort, To be honest I was surprised that they dont keeped most the fight for the next episode.

  3. Ryouichi
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 12:18 am | Permalink

    You can see in that impossible shirt pic that’s 3rd to last that they tried to and did a bad job of imitating the shading of the game :P . I mean, it’s so faint, how can you tell?

  4. Posted April 22, 2009 at 12:34 am | Permalink

    “Alicia wants to kill Imps, kill Imps, and kill more Imps.”

    No, no, that title goes to Jane, whose absence by the way makes me ;_;

    Also, if you’re going to kill of Oscar, feel free to only after getting him all his P Potentials . That’ll unlock another sniper for your squad.

  5. d3v
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 3:51 am | Permalink

    So I see that they’ve made Alicia a bit more tsundere compared to the game (where it’s pretty obvious early on that she wants Welkin to be drawing her naked) I guess their gonna milk her twintails for all it’s worth.

    Also, I say boo at making Marina a scout. She’s arguably the best sniper in game, easily able to win battles for you.

    Finally, if there’s one thing they’re keeping true to the game, it’s that Selvaria still has rocking tits!

  6. grss1982
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 6:18 am | Permalink

    “Dude where are the 105mm howitzers to make a mess of that tank lot?”

    Artillery ain’t that accurate, right? Unless your using some sort of guided munition ala M712 Copperhead. Personally, I’d prefer 155mm with shells with deployable AT mines. :D

  7. Brin
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 7:36 am | Permalink

    “Pffft you can’t hide, you lack a Canada.”

    He could always join the Gallia Air National Guard =P

  8. Posted April 22, 2009 at 8:47 am | Permalink

    I want to see Isara get a shag steering wheel cover for the Edelweiss. And some fuzzy dice.

    I still can’t figure out the difference in the classes in this anime. All I could see is that Rosie shows midriff while the others don’t. Is that what it means to be a shocktrooper?

  9. Posted April 22, 2009 at 10:47 am | Permalink

    Well, notice that she’s carrying an SMG instead of a Rifle.

  10. Narrator 1
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 1:08 pm | Permalink

    When I heard her say they were going to be the center of attention, I couldn’t help but remember how, as the One Year War in the original Gundam series ticked on, Zeon became increasingly obsessed with the White Base and its crew. The Earth Federation actually took this into account of their strategies. Win.

  11. Posted April 22, 2009 at 2:20 pm | Permalink

    Susie has stealth skills lol. It ain’t that easy to disappear in the middle of the battle with that conspicuous uniform and without anyone noticing.

  12. Posted April 22, 2009 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

    @BakaRaptor
    But those lack treads…

    @mareo
    It’s only a game, moreover Varrot assigns the mission, Welkin executes the actual attack.

    @Ryouichi
    I wish the animation for the characters was a bit better since that tanks are spot on.

    @grss1982
    Depends on your fire control system a good artillery crew can land things fairly accurately with a good forward observer. It’s why the Americans wee able to survive against stiff German attacks since artillery seemed to be always going off, at least to the Germans. Inaccurate artilklery is largely a myth and perpetuated by games for balance issues, it is still the reigning king of battle since aircraft and helicopters can’t provide continuous fire support like 155mm howitzers in all weather, day and night.

    @Brin
    Sadly they lack the aircraft.

    @Kabitzin
    Having submachine guns makes the principle difference in the anime, otherwise armor would have been a bit different.

    Isara will pimp out her tank later I hope.

    @Narrator 1
    Maybe that’s why Selvaria is going to be bugging them for most of the series…

    @TJ
    Susie was hiding in a hole and was glad to leave my formation, good riddance I say…

    @Turambar
    Eh too late though I do lament the loss of Jane, best combat florist EVAR.

    @d3v
    Yeah it’s sad how Marina is a scout when she ought to be the sniper.

    I kind of hate Selvaria she’s OP damn it when you first meet her.

  13. mareo
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 7:54 pm | Permalink

    I find amusing the “I have more experience than you” attitude of the veterans. We see the advancing column of foot infantry squads, with individuals tanks permanently attached to them and not even a single one of the veterans say something like “Why the heck we have to walk? When we can mount in OUR tank that can take all of us on their big back at faster speed and well rested for battle?”. These was a used a big scale in the Red Army in the IIWW and even in a SF like Battletech there is infantry in powerarmor riding on Mechas. Avoid dont step on a landmine is just a plus for foot infantry. I hope that someone in the animation team get the idea from “Those Who Hunt Elves”.

  14. mareo
    Posted April 22, 2009 at 8:08 pm | Permalink

    @Crusader
    I know, I know, I am just ranting a about a few holes, I guess that if I played the game I can be more forgiving, my bad.

  15. d3v
    Posted April 23, 2009 at 6:26 am | Permalink

    @mareo
    In the world of Vakyria Chronicles where the biggest threat to armor is either rockets or other armor, riding on the tank is a pretty dangerous endeavour. Better have the tank supporting dismounted infantry (wherein the infantry can actually take care of threats to the tank) and not have it act as a glorified APC with little or no infantry protection.

  16. Ominae
    Posted April 23, 2009 at 8:37 pm | Permalink

    Awesome. Nice seiyu work done by Junk as Rosie.

    Shame that the operation to take Vasel was short.

  17. Excalibaa1!
    Posted April 30, 2009 at 3:45 am | Permalink

    damn it sucks that they didnt explain the whole grass thing and making the river shallow enough for the tank to cross underwater. . . :(

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