Anime Rewatch 2021: Schwarzesmarken 11-12

Original Post

It’s the end of Schwarzesmarken, which means it’s time for a massive beat-down brawl with the Stasi. This seventh, final novel gets two episodes to play with, and most of it is devoted to TSF-on-TSF action. One thing that strikes me, watching these episodes again, is how little the BETA figure into them. We get occasional shots of them, alongside stern warnings that they really are dangerous, but ultimately they’re cleaned up offscreen by the international forces. No, this is a show about domestic politics, and by this point we’re far more invested in the fight against the Stasi than the BETA.

The major non-action sequence in this block of episodes is, of course, Katia’s broadcast. I’m always impressed by the speech she delivers here. She’s no longer the naive child we met at the beginning of the story, who assumed that things would always turn out okay. She’s seen the true cruelty of the world by this point, but rather than turning jaded and cynical, she’s only become even more devoted to her high-minded ideals. It’s a naivety that is now backed by hard-won wisdom and strength. I find her a fascinating character for that.

The other major sequence is Gretel facing off against Axemann for the Stasi Files. Unlike other interesting characters like Katia and Lise who were always intended to be the main leads, Gretel always struck me as a supporting character whose role expanded as the author became more infatuated with her. In some ways she’s almost like the “good” version of Lise – someone who despised the system yet saw no option but to be a part of it, only to be successfully convinced by Theodor and Irisdina that it could be possible to rebel against the system and win. Maybe that’s why she emerged from the sidelines to become one of the story’s best characters.

The image boards we’ve seen of Muv-Luv Integrate suggest that Gretel will be a part of that story, so it seems likely we’ll get to see more of her one day. But what about Theodor? As I keep harping on, I’m sure people want to see exactly what happens to bring Theodor from the end of Schwarzesmarken to the way he is in the present-day of Alternative. I’m sure Age hasn’t forgotten about him, so hopefully we’ll see his story play out in one of the many projects they’re currently planning.

And that’s the end! I have now managed to cover every episode of an Age anime series in this rewatch. So check back tomorrow, where we’ll talk about a brand new episode of a brand new series!

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Anime Rewatch 2021: Schwarzesmarken 8-10

Original Post

This is what we’ve been waiting for – the anime has rushed through the last few novels so that it will have enough episodes to devote to this last section of the story. This sixth novel gets 3 full episodes dedicated to it, more than any other novel in the series, and it shows. These episodes actually have time to breathe, to allow its major emotional moments to land with the strength that they deserve.

Episode 8 is Katia’s story. The entire episode is a build-up to her big reveal to Heim at the end that she is Alfred Strachwitz’s daughter, and that she volunteers to unveil herself to the public to push the revolution forward. Although the story doesn’t say so explicitly, the truth is that we’ve basically seen the last of Irisdina from this point until the final moments of the series, so Irisdina is no longer a major player in the series. Instead, these last few episodes focus on the seeds that Irisdina has sown throughout the story, and the way Katia steps forward to be the face of the revolution, exposing herself to immense danger, is the largest of those seeds bearing fruit.

We also get a small flashback of Gretel in Berlin, which I talked about a little last time. Interestingly, in the anime Susi berates her for her “Katia” disguise, claiming there’s no way such a flimsy ruse would fool the Stasi – in the fifth novel, Gretel actually does manage to dodge some soldiers by pretending to be like Katia and pissing herself. I can’t help but feel like the anime is passing judgment on the novels, by insisting that there’s no way that scene would actually have played out that way. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but it is true that the anime plays things with a much more serious tone than the novels do, cutting out many of the lighter moments and comic relief.

The other two episodes in this block are largely dedicated to Lise, whose story comes to an end here. There’s a lot to say about Lise, but looking over my original post on these episodes, I already wrote a lot about her motivations there. I’ll just reiterate here that, despite going full Stasi in these episodes, she was never a true believer in the system. Her Requiem short story, which she refers to briefly to Theodor, explains exactly what she went through after the Stasi captured her, and it’s a tragic story. She sides with them here because, after being so thoroughly broken by them, she just can’t bring herself to believe that the revolution can defeat them. She asks Theodor multiple times to drop everything and run for the border with her rather than fight a battle they can’t win, and it’s in those moments when we see her true feelings. It’s her greatest wish to leave all of this behind, and it’s her greatest tragedy that Theodor can no longer do that with her.

I mentioned in my original post that the ending to episode 10 was changed slightly for the anime. In the novels, Lise was taken prisoner and brought back to base, where Susi forced Theodor to carry out a formal execution. The anime changes it so that Theodor puts her out of her misery in her TSF’s cockpit. The anime Blu-rays come with liner notes written by the original author, Hiroki Uchida, and for this episode he explains that he had actually considered writing Lise’s death scene this way for the novels as well, but that in the end he felt that the formal execution scene fit the novel structure better. But he was still fond of his unused death scene, and he was happy when the director, Tetsuya Watanabe, proposed a similar idea for the anime.

Anime Rewatch 2021: Schwarzesmarken 6-7

Original Post

With only 12 episodes to cover 7 novels, cuts have to be made somewhere, and the biggest cuts are made here. Episode 6 covers the entirety of the fourth novel, while episode 7 covers the entirety of the fifth. That’s a lot of story to get through in a very short amount of time.

The fourth novel that episode 6 covers is a very talky one, so the anime blows through it without having to cut too many dramatic moments, focusing more on cutting down the dialogue to its essentials. You can really feel how quickly the episode needs to go by how fast characters are moved from place to place. Irisdina is taken away for interrogation – this was apparently a big enough deal that the first of the Schwarzesmarken game adaptations actually ends on this note – but she returns only 2 minutes later. Theodor accompanies Gretel to Berlin for a lengthy mission, but he also makes it back to base before the episode ends.

For all that, though, the episode still manages to hit hard with its Lise material. With Axemann now explicitly accusing Lise of being a Stasi spy, the suspicions that have been boiling beneath the surface now explode into the open. Lise is now able to confront the others about their misgivings candidly, and manipulate their sympathies in her favor. It of course all leads to the final moments of the episode, where Lise makes her move on Theodor. All of Lise’s scenes just work, so it’s a credit to the anime staff that the episode flows as well as it does, despite having to get through so much material. They had to sacrifice the ending credits to have enough time to cover everything, but it’s well worth it.

Episode 7, which covers the fifth novel, doesn’t work quite as well. The entire episode is one long protracted battle with the BETA, so there isn’t nearly as much material that can be cut down. The anime staff doesn’t really have a choice but to keep their heads down and plow through it as fast as possible. The battle in this episode doesn’t have any particularly larger significance, and the most important plot points concern the Stasi coup, which mostly takes in the background, so I do think it’s pretty clear why the anime staff designated this episode to take the biggest hit in terms of pacing. The episode moves at a breakneck pace, and at the end, it abruptly cuts to the ED, not even having enough time to close out the episode properly.

The worst part of the episode is the fact that the Stasi attack on the Scharzesmarken and Lise’s betrayal should be one of the biggest moments of the series, but it’s relegated to the post-credits of this episode and it isn’t given nearly the amount of time to play out that it should. We also lose out on some comedic Gretel material in Berlin, which is superfluous to the plot and absolutely should be cut in this situation, but it was funny stuff that I really liked, and I’m sad we don’t get to see it.

All of this cutting and rushing isn’t for nothing, though – by getting through these novels as quickly as possible, the anime makes room for the upcoming story arc, which is where things really heat up . . .

Anime Rewatch 2021: Schwarzesmarken 4-5

Original Post

These two episodes cover the events of the third novel, introducing Lise into the squadron and then sending them to participate in Operation Neptune, a massive international battle. As I mentioned before, Lise has been heavily present in the anime so far (not to mention in the opening and ending sequences), so her joining the Schwarzesmarken squadron is no surprise to anime viewers. It was played like a much bigger event in the novels.

The events of Operation Neptune suffer a bit from having to rush through the entire story in only 12 episodes. If this show had gotten 24 episodes, this storyline would essentially have become the finale to the first cour, a massive operation that dwarfs everything up to this point. But because we enter into it starting with episode 4, we don’t really get that sense of raising the stakes. The actual events of this story arc are presented fairly faithfully, without many changes. It’s the intended scale of the operation that gets a little lost in the show’s frenetic pacing.

This is the story arc in Scharzesmarken that comes closest to exploring the international relations that I loved in Muv-Luv and Total Eclipse. The West German characters add an interesting dynamic to the series, somewhat similar to Leon and Sharon’s introduction in Total Eclipse, and while they come back later, it’s a shame that we don’t get to see even more of them. I would have also liked to have gotten to know the American characters better. But ultimately, Schwarzesmarken is more concerned with the domestic situation in East Germany, so this is really the only story arc where it makes time for its international cast. Couple that with the fact that this is the beginning of Gretel’s transformation into one of the show’s most compelling characters, and it should be clear why I have a lot of love for this section of the story.

Anime Rewatch 2021: Schwarzesmarken 1-3

Original Post

The running theme for these Schwarzesmarken posts is likely going to be the speed at which this anime has to move. It was given only 12 episodes rather than 24 like Total Eclipse was, despite the fact that both novel series are roughly the same length. This anime works hard to make sure all of the main plot points are presented in a strong and satisfying way – it’s the slower character moments that receive the brunt of the cutting.

As I mentioned in my old post, what’s most remarkable about this opening set of episodes is that it combines the first two novels into a single adventure, rather than two separate stories. It actually works a lot better than one might think. In the first novel, that critical scene of Theodor and Katia burning the picture of her father occurs after Katia’s first deployment, which ends in victory. In the anime, that deployment is combined with the second novel’s Fort Neuenhagen storyline, and Theodor and Katia burn the photo only after Katia is rescued from there. It raises the stakes much higher for the two of them early on, and it makes that moment of them burning the photo, signaling that Theodor has chosen to stand with Katia, much more impactful.

The downside to moving so quickly is that we lose a lot of the sense of what the early novels were like. In the anime, the truth about Irisdina’s past and the reason why she sold her brother out is revealed almost instantly. In the novels, because that revelation happens deep into the second novel, we spend a little more time seeing Theodor look at her as a Stasi rat. That way, it feels like a bigger moment when Irisdina takes Theodor into her confidence, whereas the anime moves too quickly in redeeming Irisdina for that moment to land as effectively. If the anime’s runtime had been doubled, the scene of Irisdina and Theodor in the old church would probably have taken place around episode 5 or 6, which seems more like the kind of pacing the novels had, allowing a few episodes of Irisdina being treated more like a suspicious character.

Another thing we lose out on is seeing more of the early relationship between Theodor and Katia. Theodor throws his lot in with Katia at the end of the Fort Neuenhagen storyline, meaning Lise is then transferred to the squadron immediately afterwards. In the novels, we get a little more time seeing Theodor and Katia grow closer, so Lise’s reappearance feels like a major disruption to their existing relationship, whereas the anime simply moved too fast to establish a relationship for Lise to disrupt.

Lise also feels like she gets a lot of screentime in these early episodes, despite appearing (mostly) in flashback. In the novels, I feel like her flashback appearances were spread out much more, and she didn’t seem like such a major presence early on, so it was a bit of a surprise when she transfers in. (I haven’t gone back to the novels to check, but I also get the feeling the flashbacks in the novels were more centered around the entire family, including their father and mother, whereas the anime flashbacks focus much more on Lise herself.) The anime compresses the story so much that her flashbacks take up a much larger percentage of the runtime. All of that is, of course, on top of her clear appearances in the opening and ending, as well as her obvious cameo as a Stasi at the end of the first episode.

Watching this again so soon after director Tetsuya Watanabe’s previous work on Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, I couldn’t help but notice the same tricks he used there to compress the high school storyline. There are several instances where the show jumps forward in time, then uses quick flashbacks to fill in the details, cutting down on the time needed for that exposition. One example is when the show suddenly cuts to Theodor searching for Katia’s father, then cuts to a quick flashback of Katia asking him to do so. That removes the need for an entire scene explicitly showing Katia calling Theodor out and explaining what she wants him to do. That’s an interesting trick I never would have noticed if I hadn’t watched both shows in succession.

The two shows also share the traits of not having episode titles (both only use episode numbers) and not having next episode trailers (KimiNozo filled the time with the Ayu-Mayu Theater shorts, whereas Schwarzesmarken often filled the time with post-credit scenes). Other shows directed by Watanabe have both these things, so I wonder if this was just a quirk that he assigned to the Age shows he directed.

Schwarzesmarken 08-12

In the final stretch of the show, Schwarzesmarken transforms into a completely different story.  At the end of episode 7, the Schwarzesmarken squadron as we know it – the 666th TSF Squadron of the NVA – is effectively dismantled.  In its place we now follow a new Schwarzesmarken squadron, now part of a full-scale revolution.  Muv-Luv at its best has always been about human conflict, so it’s only right that the final phase of the show focuses not on humans vs. BETA, but the Revolution vs. the Stasi.

Lise, of course, remains the most fascinating character in the show.  This is a story that very cleanly splits characters into Good Guys and Bad Guys, so Lise stands out for being the only character whose loyalties are unclear.  I think she comes closest to telling the truth in episode 7, when she asks Theodor to run away with her to West Germany.  It was for that reason alone that she cooperated with the Stasi.  In a certain sense – certainly from Lise’s perspective – the great tragedy of the story is that Lise only managed to made contact with Theodor after he had thrown in with Irisdina.  If that contact had happened just a few months earlier, when Theodor still despised Irisdina, he would very likely have taken up Lise on her suggestion to flee for the border.  When I think about it like that, I can start to understand how the sense of betrayal Lise must have felt at that moment must have been indescribable.  At that moment, she was right on the cusp of accomplishing everything she had worked for, and in a very real sense it was because of Irisdina that Theodor pulled away.  If she had a little more time, she might have been able to convince Theodor, but both Irisdina and the Stasi began to move against each other, forcing her to pick a side.

The other great tragedy of Lise is that she was never able to buy into Irisdina’s vision of a revolution.  Lise despised the Stasi and would have cheered their destruction.  If she had chosen to side with the revolution, she could have been an immense help to them.  But she had spent too much time with the Stasi to truly believe they could ever be defeated.  She participated in mass executions.  She was a major part of the network of spies that stretched across the country.  She saw how all threats to the Stasi were systematically eliminated.  In her mind, the Stasi were invincible, and taking up arms against them was a suicide pact.  That was why she hated Irisdina – because she had seduced Theodor into a cause that could never be won.  When the time came to choose a side, at the end of episode 7, she believed her only option was to continue serving the Stasi, rather than betray them.  From that moment on, she had no plan.  Everything that she had worked for had led up to that moment when she asked Theodor to flee with her, and that moment was now gone.  All she could do now was continue working for the Stasi, and look for a moment to convince Theodor, as she tried in episode 9 during their fight.

Lise’s execution scene in episode 10 is another good example of the thought put into this adaptation.  In the original novels, Lise was actually captured and brought back to base, where she was blindfolded and executed by Theodor in front of the others.  They could have done the same in the anime, but it would take up time – they would need to show where Lise was now, how much time had passed, and just generally establish a new scene from scratch.  All of this would take time away from the execution scene itself.  As one of the most important scenes in the story, it was vital to take the time to keep the emotional throughline intact, rather than break it up by transitioning to another scene.  The anime version of this scene makes good use of the time they have to give Lise the emotional farewell she deserves.

The other aspect of this scene to keep in mind is that the original version of this scene pretty clearly calls back to Irisdina’s execution of her brother.  Theodor executes Lise in exactly the same manner that Irisdina was shown to have executed Jurgen.  It places Theodor in Irisdina’s shoes, as well as drawing some uncomfortable parallels between the Stasi (who forced Irisdina to kill Jurgen) and the revolution (who forced Theodor to kill Lise).  The anime version very clearly calls back to different scene, Irisdina’s execution of Inghild in episode 1.  The scene still places Theodor in Irisdina’s shoes, but the context is quite different.  Here, rather than something forced on him, the parallel suggests that Theodor’s execution was a mercy killing, something to bring peace to Lise at last.  It’s a very interesting, separate interpretation of what is still at its heart the same action, and when an adaptation can bring a new interpretation to a work, I always find it very fascinating.

At the very end of Lise’s life, she recognizes that Theodor is not going to quit the revolution despite her wishes, and so she dedicates her final words to helping him instead.  In the novels there’s a bit of an interesting story behind her last words.  Just as we see in the anime, in the novel she whispers something to Theodor that we, the audience, don’t get to hear.  Theodor reveals to the others that Lise told him where Irisdina was being held.  However, Beatrix reveals that she fully expected Lise to betray the Stasi in her last moments, and so had given Lise false intel, with the intent of luring the revolution into an ambush.  At the battle’s critical moment, however, Theodor reveals what it is that Lise really told him – that Lise also didn’t trust Beatrix, and had used her own connections to learn Irisdina’s true location.  The revolution then planned a decoy operation to lure Beatrix into believing her ambush had worked, while their true force would head for Irisdina.  It’s the story’s one last attempt to call Lise’s legacy into question, by suggesting that even her final attempt at helping Theodor could have unwittingly harmed him even further.  However, ultimately it doesn’t actually affect the course of the story – just like in the anime, the initial attack ends in retreat, so this maneuvering from both sides wound up not coming to much.  This is probably why the anime chose not to spend time on this part of the storyline, and simply revealed from the beginning that Lise had given them Irisdina’s true location.

So, speaking of Lise’s legacy, she of course left Theodor one last present, the Cheburashka Zwei.  (Incidentally, “Zwei” is written with the Japanese word “Kai”, often translated as “Custom”.  The anime is the first time we hear “Zwei” spoken aloud.  I like it a lot more than calling it the Cheburashka Custom.)  In contrast to the relatively subtle metaphor of the Shiranui Second, the Cheburashka Zwei goes for the blunt symbolism of combining Lise’s machine with Irisdina’s head.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with the direct approach, of course.  In the novels, the Zwei was introduced at the end of the 6th novel, directly after Lise’s execution.  I actually panicked a little as episode 11 started up and there was no mention of Theodor’s new TSF.  The introduction of the main character’s custom mech is always one of the high points of any mecha anime, and while I can understand that the anime doesn’t have a lot of time to waste and needs to cut out scenes that don’t move the story along, I would have been very sad if the Zwei was brought onto the show without the usual fanfare.  But I needn’t have worried – the anime simply moved the introduction to the end of episode 11, to coincide with Theodor being appointed squadron leader (which I don’t think specifically happened in the novels either – but since Gretel was gone and Theodor had the strongest TSF, I guess he was kind of squadron leader by default in the novels as well).  And of course, it came with all the typical mecha anime flourishes, including the vocal track performed by composer Evan Call that he was keen to promote in his interview.

(By the way, the Cheburashka Zwei actually appears in the opening credits – Theodor pilots it at the very end.  When the anime first started, and people were wondering if the show would actually cover the entire story, the presence of the Zwei was another clear piece of evidence that it would.  How many of you managed to notice it?)

That was a lot about Lise.  I guess we should talk about some of the other characters.  Katia steps up in a big way in these episodes, first in episode 8 when she reveals herself to Heim, and then in episode 12 when she makes her broadcast to the entire country.  What always stands out to me in these moments is how Katia has changed since we first met her.  Over the course of the story, she’s learned a lot about how this country works, and she’s lost much of her old innocence, but she hasn’t actually changed her core philosophy.  Faced with the reality of the world, she doesn’t back down from her frankly naive stance, but rather fortifies it with the strength to push forward in the face of reality.  Seeing her onstage in the final episode, I think it’s easy to imagine how another character from a different show might have presented her speech with the same simple-minded naivete that characterized her early appearances.  When I think of that, I really appreciate how difficult it must be to bring a character like Katia to a point where she can openly acknowledge the horrible things she’s seen, while still holding to her optimistic belief that we can do better.

Gretel is another character who really steps up during this last stretch of episodes.  More than anyone else, Gretel winds up occupying a position that nobody could have predicted at the beginning of the story, taking over as leader of the Schwarzesmarken squadron in Irisdina’s absence and serving as one of the heads of the revolution.  I like the story of Gretel’s journey a lot; in some ways I think she’s my favorite character.  That said, I get the feeling the author of Schwarzesmarken, Hiroki Uchida, got a little too attached to Gretel as well.  It shows in the way he portrays the end of her scene in the Stasi Files room.  In the novels, as she lays dying while the Stasi Files burn around her, she just so happens to come across a file near her that just so happens to contain a file on her old crush.  This is in reference to her Requiem side-story, in which a boy she liked was taken away by the Stasi.  This scene stood out to me when I first read it because, up to this point, Uchida had been very careful not to make such blatant references to the Requiem stories in the main series.  The main series had made several small references before – Kurt, for example, made some vague references to his Requiem story while talking to Katia – but these were bonuses for readers who had read the side-stories as well.  Readers who only read the main series and hadn’t read the side-stories would still be able to follow the plot.  Gretel’s scene here was the first time I felt that the audience would be completely lost without having read her Requiem story – they would have no idea what the file was, or why Gretel was so emotional upon reading it.  It felt like Uchida bent the rules a little because he wanted Gretel to have this moment, even if it meant some readers might be lost.  It’s an obvious moment for the anime to cut, and seeing the anime version of the scene, I remain convinced that the scene works better without such a complete coincidence coming out of nowhere, with no buildup in the main story whatsoever.

In the serialized version of the story, Gretel never appears again after this scene, leaving the impression that she had died.  I kind of liked the idea of her having a heroic death here.  However, when the story was collected as a novel, a special epilogue was added – the same one that appears at the end of the anime.  I find the reveal that Gretel had miraculously survived a little underwhelming.  The novel version of the scene strongly implies that the same boy from the Requiem story, whose file Gretel coincidentally found, also coincidentally happened to be a member of the revolution, and had coincidentally managed to arrive on the scene and save her at the last second.  I find this even more underwhelming.  It, again, feels like the author liked Gretel too much to allow her to die, and contrived a feel-good scenario to give Gretel a happy ending.  To be honest, there was a part of me that was kind of hoping the anime wouldn’t have time to include a scene showing Gretel surviving the fire.  But I guess that’s asking a little much.

There’s not a ton to say about Irisdina.  She barely appears, after all.  (When the 6th novel came out, people were wondering why Irisdina got to be on the cover when she doesn’t appear in the story at all.)  This last section of the story is very much about the people she brought together carrying on her will without her.  Series creator Kouki Yoshimune mentioned something interesting, that it’s possible Lise isn’t completely wrong to say that Irisdina is only using Theodor as a pawn.  I think it’s worth looking back at her character in that interpretation.  She does say, several times, that she doesn’t truly have a will of her own, that she lives only to serve the will of those who have passed on, like her brother.  It’s not outrageous to think that such a person might care more about how other people can serve that will than about the people themselves.  In episode 3, Irisdina outright admits that she made Theodor take care of Katia because she knew he would see Lise in her – that’s pretty emotionally manipulative of her.  I’m not sure I buy into it completely, but it’s an interesting idea worth thinking about.

I got the first Schwarzesmarken Blu-Ray disc in a while back, and I was surprised and pleased to find that each disc will come with a booklet with notes from author Hiroki Uchida on each episode.  One interesting thing that Uchida reveals in the notes for episode 2 is that, during the script meetings for the anime, he and director Tetsuya Watanabe had a long discussion about the scene where Irisdina executes her brother Jurgen.  This was right about the time that Uchida was about to start writing Bernhard im Schatten, a Schwarzesmarken prequel story focusing on Irisdina, Beatrix, and Jurgen, and Uchida mentions that the discussion they had helped shape the story he was about to write.  In episode 12, you can clearly see how this discussion also influenced the anime, as it is packed with references to the relationship between the three characters.  Almost none of these references existed in the original novel (in fact, I don’t think Jurgen even had a name at the time – he was just “Irisdina’s brother”).  These references especially help shed light on Beatrix’s state of mind, suggesting that she believes, in her own way, that she is carrying on Jurgen’s will in helping to save the world.  These new additions, along with her much more sympathetic portrayal in Bernhard im Schatten, help to make Beatrix a much more rounded character – she’s kind of a one-note villain in the original novels.

Now that I’m reevaluating Beatrix as a character, it occurs to me that she and Axemann are set up to represent different types of evil.  Beatrix is someone who believes wholeheartedly in what she is doing – it’s just that what she is doing is evil.  Axemann, however, has no ideology.  He seeks only to gain power for himself.  He was part of the Stasi because he held power there.  When things went south, he sought an alliance with the revolution, extracting a promise that he would be part of their new government.  When it looked like they were going to lose, he threw in with Beatrix and the Moscow faction.  And when the people started to rise up against them, he hoped to seek refuge with the CIA.  He has no cause – he will serve whoever will keep him in power.  So there’s something to think about: who is the greater evil?  The one who devotes herself mind and soul to an evil cause?  Or the one who serves, but has no loyalty to, an evil cause?

And that’s it for Schwarzesmarken.  Once Bernhard im Schatten finishes, it will be time for Age to move on to their next major Muv-Luv franchise, Duty -Lost Arcadia-.  Duty got its start in Hobby Japan’s Tactical Surface Fighter in Action series, and a Chronicles story featuring its characters is included with Photonmelodies.  However, these were merely a preview of the franchise.  Sometime this year (tentatively – you never know with these guys), they’re planning to launch the main series.  They already have an author for the series lined up – Ryou Yoshigami, currently writing a series of Psycho-Pass tie-in novels.  Several people involved with the series, including creator Kouki Yoshimune and Akira Yamazaki, have noted that since Duty features a German battalion set in the present day, it features a common German lineage with Schwarzesmarken, and they have hinted that surviving characters from Schwarzesmarken could conceivably appear in Duty (aged 18 years older, of course).  Who might appear in Duty?  Could it have anything to do with Yoshimune’s warning to pay attention to Theodor’s line from the final episode?

“Even if they call me an enemy of humanity . . .”

Anime! Anime! – Tetsuya Watanabe

(The original interview can be found here.)

– How did you get involved with this project?

Tetsuya Watanabe: I directed a show called “Kimi ga Nozomu Eien”, and the company that created the original game was Age, who also made Schwarzesmarken.  I think that was how I was brought on.  I always want to make robot shows, but just as I was thinking the number of robot shows seems to be dropping, this project came to me.  I accepted since it would mean I could make a robot show.

– I’m sure you read the novels first.  What was your reaction?

Watanabe: I thought it was like a historical fiction novel dressed up as a robot story.  When I got the offer, I read through all the novels in a rush, and I was surprised.  I thought, “This is what they want to make into an anime!?” (laughs)  I thought it would be very difficult to turn this into a film format.

– Did you think turning the novel into an anime would go smoothly?

Watanabe: The novels describe a lot of things with great detail, so I can use those descriptions to help me.  But the story has a lot of volume to it, so to make it into an anime I have to work on the balance between battle scenes and character drama, and I worried a lot about what to take out and what to leave in.

– How did you resolve this?

Watanabe: The story editor Tatsuto Higuchi-san was a great help.  He would pick up a number of scenes that I had given up on.  He has a lot of experience working on tightly crammed shows, and he’s good at them.  I think he decided we could include them.

– Could you give us a more specific example?

Watanabe: What I talked with Higuchi-san about was picking up the major elements of the novels, and using them to build a story where the characters develop more linearly.  Irisdina is a character that the main character Theodor looks up to.  She’s like Maetel from Galaxy Express 999.  Theodor is somebody who winds up following in her footsteps.

– The novels have a number of heroines, so how did you depict them in the anime?

Watanabe: Irisdina is the heroine we focused on.  We pulled back on Katia and Lise so they aren’t heroines as much as in the novels.

– But in the first episode there’s a silhouette that looks like Lise.

Watanabe: That was foreshadowing for her reappearance.  Maybe I showed a little too much there.

– This story has the deadly fight against the alien BETA, but at the same time there are political elements mixed in, and it’s a very serious atmosphere.  How did you try to portray this atmosphere?

Watanabe: This is historical fiction, so for places like the Soviet Union and West and East Germany, we based them off their real-life counterparts to a certain extent.  It was a very challenging project.  There were areas where we wondered if it was OK to do this.  After getting involved in this project, I learned that the Stasi (East German secret police) that appears in the story was a real organization.  They did some truly terrible things.  There are people who really did suffer.  When I thought about that, I was very concerned about how far we should go to portray this.

– Were there any points that you were careful about as you built the novel’s worldview?

Watanabe: I felt I wanted to retain the novel’s image.  There’s a very suppressed feel to it, so for the anime I also wanted to keep things not too flashy, but not too plain.  Also, since the story is set in East Germany, the show will inevitably have an oppressive image about it.  People in my generation have that sense of what is beyond the Iron Curtain.  As much as possible, I tried to avoid making the show too heavy.

– How did you find portraying the specifics of the German country?

Watanabe: Germany has almost no mountains, so since I was raised in an area surrounded by mountains, drawing that landscape made me pretty nervous (laughs).  The scale is completely different from that of Japan.  The art director Katsufumi Hariu-san helped me out a lot.

– The TSFs performing NOE flight across the vast snowfield is an amazing sight.

Watanabe: The TSFs can’t fly very high since they’ll be shot down by the Laser-class BETA.  That’s why they fly as close to the ground as possible.  There were challenges to portraying it, but it helped that the flat snowfield was easy to draw.  During the first episode, we were still testing how flat we should make the ground, so we put in some bumps.  Then we established the Laserjagd.  As the episodes went on, we started to feel that it was OK not to have any bumps, so we wound up drawing it completely flat.

– The battle scenes are almost entirely in 3DCG.  How was working together with Sanzigen?

Watanabe: I had worked with Sanzigen before and I knew who they were, so working with them was easy.

– The BETA are CG as well.

Watanabe: I was concerned about that part.  The BETA are living creatures, but showing things like getting cut up is not easy to do in 3DCG.  You can’t open a hole in them, and even showing their heads getting blown off in battle is difficult to do.  We tested out a lot of different things in order to show it well.

– If you want the head blown off, you have to create a new CG model to show that, right?

Watanabe: That’s right.  If a TSF slices open a BETA with a sword, you have to create a new 3D model showing the torn-up texture where it was cut.  In addition, the BETA are a mysterious life-form so we don’t know what the cut area would even look like.  We don’t know if they have skeletons either.  We decided to play it like a samurai movie, where after a grunt character gets cut down, he screams and a lot of blood comes gushing out.  That made it possible to portray it.

– I’d like to talk about the Cast.  How was Kenichi Suzumura-san, who played the main character Theodor Eberbach?

Watanabe: He approached the role very seriously.  I knew he was someone I could count on.  After playing Shinn Asuka in Gundam Seed Destiny, he racked up a lot of experience in robot shows.  He pulled the cast forward this time as well.

– Evan Call-san’s music was memorable as well.  In our interview with him, he said we was glad to work on a robot show.

Watanabe: I’m happy to hear that.  After the dubbing for the first episode, our sound director Satoshi Motoyama said “This music is great!”  Music helps to convey a lot of a show’s depth.

– Thank you.  What do you think is the highlight of the show?

Watanabe: Of course I have to mention the battle scenes.  But I don’t want that to be the whole story.  As the novels progress, the memorable story of “Lise’s way of life” starts to come out, so I hoped to portray that well.  I also wanted to show Iris and Theodor’s growth.  I wanted to portray Iris, the perfect woman, and Theodor, who looks up to her and tries to catch up to her.  Coming up, there’s a scene that is kind of like a love scene between two robots.

– A robot love scene?

Watanabe: It’s a scene between Lise and Theodor, but I wanted to see if we could portray it with robots.  I hope you look forward to it.

– That sounds very interesting.  Finally, please leave us with a message.

Watanabe: I’m directing an Age show for the first time in a while.  I worked on robot shows my whole career, but when I had a hole in my schedule, Age asked me to do “Kimi ga Nozomu Eien”.  After that, I fell in love with Age’s works.  Schwarzesmarken is full of that same appeal.  I hope you continue to watch and enjoy the show.

Anime! Anime! – Evan Call

(The original interview can be found here.)

– First off, I’d like to ask how you wound up composing music in Japan. What shows led you to have an interest in Japanese anime?

Evan Call: When I was kid, a friend of mine who liked Japanese anime got me to watch shows like Pokemon and Digimon. The show that had the most impact on me was Samurai 7 (2004, GONZO). I got hooked on that show and got into Japanese anime that way.

– How did you become affiliated with Elements Garden?

Evan: That was a real coincidence. After I graduated from the Berklee College of Music, I was wondering whether I should head to Hollywood to do film scores, but the Japanese anime and games I liked had a lot of different genres, so I thought that if I could break into that industry, I’d be able to write a wider selection of music, so I came here on a tourist visa. But, if I couldn’t find a job in 3 months my visa would expire, so I thought that if I couldn’t find a music job by then, I’d become an English teacher. Around that time, a roommate at the share house I was living in invited me to a party. It was a foreigners’ “Super Otaku Party”, so I thought I’d go (laughs). There, when I told a friend of my roommate that I wanted to write music, he said he’d talk to a friend of his, and introduced me to Junpei Fujita from Elements Garden. I sent him a demo and got invited to an interview, and I ended up joining them.

– So you didn’t get in through their recruitment process, but with a demo tape and interview.

Evan: At the time, they weren’t looking for people, but I think it was rare for them to get an application from a foreigner, so they set up an interview for me.

– What did you have on your demo tape?

Evan: A lot of things. Some songs I wrote in college and some orchestral samples.

– Was Elements Garden president Noriyasu Agematsu at the interview?

Evan: A lot of people were there, including Agematsu-san. They were all watching me and I got really nervous (laughs).

– I remember Agematsu-san mentioned you on Twitter in 2014. He said you were a composer to watch out for, and mentioned at the end that you were in fact a really good singer.

Evan: I do sing (laughs). During the application process for college there was a performance test. I wasn’t confident with an instrument so I chose to sing for my test. Lately I like singing rock but I also sing opera.

– You mentioned that you liked metal until you were 18, so what artists did you like?

Evan: I liked European power metal like Blind Guardian and Rhapsody of Fire. Those bands are symphonic power metal. I also liked northern European black metal. Guys who would use death vocals. I actually sing using death vocals for the Schwarzesmarken music (laughs).

– Your music often has a memorable symphonic metal sound to it, so that makes a lot of sense. I thought I heard a track that sounded like that in the Schwarzesmarken PC game, so were you involved with the game as well?

Evan: Yes, I was in charge of both. The anime and game BGMs are linked, so while there are some tracks that are only for the game, there are also some that will be in both.

– I assume you did the vocals for the song track?

Evan: Yes. In the middle I have the main theme motif, and I put the death vocals on top of that.

– You did the death vocals too?

Evan: That’s me (laughs). I hurt my throat then, and for a while I could barely speak (laughs).

– You’ve done the arrangements for songs like Nana Mizuki-san’s “Avalon no Oukan” and Minori Chihara-san’s “Arigatou, Daisuki”, and you’ve composed many other songs, so how do you go about that?

Evan: Generally I follow the orders of the producer, but as much as possible I always try to bring something even more than what they asked for. While I’m bringing my own originality into it, it’s not good to stray too far away from what the producer wanted, so it’s best if I can get something within that range. For example, on Mizuki-san’s “Avalon no Oukan”, we all submitted our own demos. They decided on Junpei Fujita-san’s catchy pop melody, but they also asked for the arrangement to be like my demo. I put in a bunch of orchestral tones.

– How did you get involved with Schwarzesmarken?

Evan: First, the offer came to our company. I was very interested in robot anime, and I thought my melody would be a great fit for it, so I wanted to do it no matter what. I submitted a demo and my profile, with a picture of me riding a horse attached.

– . . . A horse?

Evan: Well . . . (laughs), I didn’t have a lot of pictures of myself, and I thought I might as well send them one that stood out (laughs). It sounds like they really liked it (laughs).

– So they decided it based on your demo and the picture of you on a horse. Is the reason you “wanted to do it no matter what” because it was a robot show?

Evan: Yes. I knew it was a robot show, and when I heard the story I knew it would interesting. I felt I wanted to go all-out on this. I’m very happy to have been asked to do this.

– There have been a number of Muv-Luv franchises, so how did you approach the BGM for Schwarzesmarken?

Evan: Before I started production, I listened to all the previous Muv-Luv series soundtracks. But, I was told that even though this is the kind of BGM they had up to this point, I didn’t have to worry too much about matching them.

– How did you envision the music for Schwarzesmarken?

Evan: Schwarzesmarken is a dark story, just like the other Muv-Luv series. At the very first meeting, I was told to create something very serious. Actually, one of the composers for the previous soundtrack was Taku Iwasaki-san. The truth is, he is someone who influenced me very much. I felt very honored to inherit a project that he worked on. I was very moved when I heard Iwasaki-san’s music for “Rurouni Kenshin”. He is someone who inspired me to become a composer.

– When you become the composer for this series, what kind of meetings did you have with director Watanabe and sound director Satoshi Motoyama?

Evan: Their initial order of music had a ridiculous number of battle tracks (laughs).

– How many were there?

Evan: There were about 60 tracks total. About 15 were battle tracks. The main theme is pretty much a battle track in atmosphere, so there were a lot.

– What kind of image did you have in mind when making them?

Evan: Above all else, I wanted a sense of despair. The main theme is about 3 minutes long, and at the first meeting they told me they wanted each section to have a lot of different twists to it. What they wanted was for the first section to quickly lay out the main theme motif, the middle section to paint a drop of hope in a sea of despair, and the last section to blast out the main theme. I made sure to follow those instructions when creating it.

– I see. By the way, those 60 tracks are for the anime and game combined, right?

Evan: Yes. That would be too much for a 1-cour anime.

– Did sound director Motoyama put together the music order? Did director Watanabe say anything about it?

Evan: I spoke mostly with sound director Motoyama. Also, the game was going to come out first so in the beginning I had a lot of meetings with the game director Hayato Tashiro.

– Did you struggle with any tracks?

Evan: I did with the main theme. It’s a long track, and I was very particular about the orchestration. I also worked hard on the song track, since I did the singing as well. They were all a lot of fun.

– Did they ask you to include the death vocals?

Evan: They didn’t say anything about that. I included it on my own. It was just for my own self-satisfaction (laughs).

– Did you ever hear any reactions from anyone?

Evan: Hayato Tashiro-san told me it was very interesting. I felt like with almost 60 tracks, it would be OK to have one just for my own self-satisfaction (laughs). Of course, I would still have to make it fit in with the story.

– It’s a good match when the music you like to write also fits perfectly with the story.

Evan: Yeah, I really like Schwarzesmarken as well, so making the music was a lot of fun.

– What tracks in Schwarzesmarken do you really want people to listen to?

Evan: I want people to hear the song track I wrote! I haven’t heard whether or not they were going to use it in the anime, but I hope they do.

– What kind of story do you think Schwarzesmarken is?

Evan: It’s a story of people try to grasp hope while surrounded by despair. I almost cried when I read the story. I think it’s an amazing story.

– How did you feel after you finished writing all the music?

Evan: Sometimes I listen to it while I’m on the move. I’ll think to myself, “Hey, this is pretty good!” (laughs) There were times when it was painful, but it’s a show I like very much, and I had a lot of fun.

– What kind of music do you hope to make in the future?

Evan: I like this kind of story, so it would be nice to go in this direction. Of course I like the more slice-of-life stories too, and I want to work on more cheerful shows too, but I think right now the music for a world like Schwarzesmarken fits me best.

– Thank you. Finally please leave us a message.

Evan: I did my very best working on the Schwarzesmarken music. I would be happy if you enjoy the music alongside the story. I hope you enjoy the link between music and story!

– Thank you!

Schwarzesmarken 04-07

We’re through the middle stretch of episodes, which largely center around Lise and the question of where her loyalties lie. In the novels Lise’s return was a complete surprise, in my opinion one of the largest in the series. For both the game and the anime, Lise appears quite prominently in promotional materials, including listing her as a member of the Schwarzesmarken squadron on their web sites. The anime includes her in the OP and ED as well. I’m not sure I like that, but I guess it’s simply far too late to try to keep her a secret now that all the novels are out.

Episodes 4 and 5 tell the story of the 3rd novel, centering around Operation Neptune. I think anyone who’s read my Total Eclipse stuff knows I love exploring the international relationships of the Alternative world, so obviously I love getting to see the West German and American armies here. Schwarzesmarken mostly concerns itself with the internal strife within East Germany, so this is pretty much the only time when we get to see the shape of the larger world in this much detail. The scene at the end of episode 4, where we see exactly what the West thinks of East Germany, is a powerful scene, but one that has to tread a careful line – while it’s a common trope for a newly introduced team to look down on our good guys, in this particular case I think objectively most viewers would side with the West. Certainly this is not a show looking to glorify East Germany or prove its superiority over the West.

The story ends, then, not with an explicit rebuke of the West but with an alliance. It’s a powerful display of Katia’s ideals – by convincing the West German army to come to their aid, she hopes to build a bridge between the two Germanys. And it’s also a significant step forward for Irisdina’s plan – by coming together for a common goal, she hopes to prove themselves to the West and form friendships so that they might be more willing to come to the aid of the East Germans when things go south. The story ends with the Americans explicitly calling the Schwarzesmarken squadron their buddies, and with the West Germans offering a salute to them. This essentially serves as the halfway point of the story, and it’s a hopeful note to end on.

Episode 6 covers the 4th novel, which is a very talky novel with pretty much no action scenes at all. It’s basically concerned with moving the various pieces into place in preparation for the second half of the story. It’s here that we first learn of the split between the two factions of the Stasi. Beatrix’s Moscow faction, using the information they pulled from Marei’s interrogation, have begun a purge of top NVA officials, in preparation of an all-out coup. I always found this an especially tragic end for Marei, who Hannibal entrusted with his greatest secrets, only for her to leak them to the Stasi. Meanwhile, Axemann’s Berlin faction, feeling threatened by the Moscow faction, has begun trying to recruit the Schwarzesmarken squadron to their side. At the same time, Irisdina has begun trying to strengthen her hand as well, by trying to hook up with sympathizers in the capital. As I said, it mostly leads to a lot of talking, and setting up the conflicts that will come down the road. I’m not at all surprised they devoted only one episode for this novel; I would definitely have done the same.

As with all the novels, there are number of small scene cuts that don’t affect the story much. There is, however, one major cut to the novel: after Axemann publically accuses Lise of being a Stasi spy, Lise collapses and is taken to the infirmary. That night, she receives a call from Axemann himself, confirming that she is in fact a Stasi spy, and that contrary to what Axemann had said earlier, he is well aware of this. So why did he expose her to the rest of the squadron? As Pham notes, this allows Lise to deflect suspicion by confronting it head-on. The rest of the squadron already suspects her, so Axemann’s statement changed nothing except to allow Lise to address their suspicions directly, whereas before Irisdina and the others plotted against her in secret, and she was powerless to respond. By accusing them of suspecting her, Lise can force them to deny it and play on their sympathies.

It’s an interesting scene to cut, since it’s such an important scene in the novels and game (the first game actually ends right on this scene, a pretty brutal revelation to leave players hanging on). I think the anime staff was interested in exploring how the storyline plays without the reveal that Lise does in fact work for the Stasi. Certainly the scene where Sylvia and the rest of the squadron confront Lise on the rooftop plays out very differently. Despite the increasing suspicion laid on her, viewers still feel that there is a very real possibility that Lise is innocent, and that affects how the scene comes across immensely. Other scenes, like the infamous seduction scene, also come across very differently without that solid proof. And it really builds up the end of episode 7 – now, instead of learning of Lise’s true affiliation through a telephone call, we learn it when Lise holds a gun to Irisdina’s head. It’s definitely a much more shocking way to learn the truth. What I find especially interesting is how this one cut changes the feel of so many scenes afterwards, without actually changing the story. In a sense, the anime lets us see the same scenes from the novels from Theodor’s point of view – he continues to believe in Lise long after the novels have revealed that she can’t be trusted, and the anime lets us see things from that perspective. I’ve written before about how I’m interested in seeing different tellings of the same story, and this is a great example of it.

Episode 7 covers the 5th novel, and this time there are a number of bigger cuts to the story. Some of them follow logically from the cut from the previous episode. In the scene where Lise asks Theodor to flee with her to West Germany, in the novel she basically admits to Theodor that she had indeed worked with the Stasi, but that she only did it to reunite with him, and that her time with the Stasi has given her the opportunity to memorize the border patrol movements so they should be able to make it across the border. After Theodor makes it clear to Lise that he is going to stay and assist Irisdina with her revolution, Lise eventually offers to work with them and give them her knowledge of the Stasi in order to help their plans. That in turn leads to the ending we see in the episode, where Lise betrays them when the Stasi attack. That’s quite a chunk of story to cut away, but as mentioned before, this entire plotline was cut so that the reveal that Lise is working with the Stasi would come at this point instead of earlier. I’m a little more conflicted about these cuts than the ones in the previous episode, but ultimately, as I said, I understand that they wanted to present a different point of view to Lise’s story, so any reference to Lise working with the Stasi needed to be cut.

There was one scene that I was sad to see cut. Like most of the cuts the anime has made, this was not particularly important to the story; I just liked it a lot personally, so I feel like flagging it. In the anime, we see Gretel disguise herself by pulling her hair into a ponytail and taking off her glasses. In the novels, she actually is confronted by the Stasi, but convinces them she is not a soldier by pretending to piss herself (in reality, she had soaked a handkerchief with water). Afterwards, she reveals that she based her disguise – the ponytail, and just her general demeanor – on Katia, who, presumably, was the person who looked the least like a real soldier out of everyone she knew. She also admits that she drew on the idea of pissing herself from Katia as well. I liked this scene a lot because it really was the first time I thought Gretel was an awesome character. The novels come with an illustration for this scene which really does make Gretel look just like Katia. I was also amused by the idea that even Gretel had so internalized the idea of Katia pissing herself that one just naturally leads to the other.

Oh, I suppose I should probably say something about Katia pissing herself. Irisdina mentions it at the start of episode 2, but in the novels, Theodor comes back to this idea again and again. In fact, at times it seems like he’s not even capable of having a conversation with her without teasing her about this. The worst part comes at the end of episode 5 – as the Americans and West Germans are bringing the Schwarzesmarken squadron back to base, Theodor teases Katia about this over an open mic, meaning pratically everybody involved in Operation Neptune now knows about poor Katia pissing herself. It’s such an integral part of her character that it feels a little odd to watch the anime and not see it mentioned constantly, but the anime seems to want to set a more serious tone than the novels. I kind of miss it, but I also can’t complain too much if the anime wants to strike out the more comedic elements of the novel. There are many other such cuts that I approve quite highly of – for example, I find Annet to be a really annoying character in the novels (she’s essentially Schwarzesmarken’s version of Yifei – a girl with a very stereotypical high-school crush on Theodor that is completely at odds with the rest of the story).

I assume they cut down the 5th novel into one episode as well because they wanted more space for the final two novels, and if that’s the case, I can’t say I blame them. What’s coming up next is without question the best part of the story, and the anime staff apparently want the time to do it justice. The final act of the series is very, very different from what we’ve seen so far . . .

Newtype 02/16 – Minami Tanaka

– How did you feel when you read the original novels?

I had heard that it was an intense story, but I made my way through it much more easily than I thought I would. The world it portrays is very cruel and savage, and everybody could die at any time, right? But, there are people the same age as me who are holding on. It’s because it’s such a cruel world that I was sucked into this story of people living strongly in it.

– Even though the story is set 30 years ago, in 1983 East Germany.

That’s right. It takes place before I was even born, so the situation is completely different than it is now. However, Katia’s way of thinking is very close to our generation, which never knew the Cold War, so it was easy to empathize with her.

– What did you think of Katia?

She’s almost like a little puppy, with her head filled with dreams. Even while surrounded by savagery, she’s kind of flighty. Even though normally you would think “There’s no way you can do this”, she displays her ideals in a very pure way. I think that kind of honesty is what has the power to change everybody.

– Amongst her teammates, Theodor in particular thinks of Katia as an important person to him.

In the beginning, he’s always clicking his tongue at her and being really mean to her (laughs). I always think of the protagonist as being this hot-blooded manga protagonist type, so to see a very detached type like Theodor surprised me. Even though Theodor can’t trust any of his teammates, Katia is the kind of person who trusts everybody. So when Theodor meets Katia, he begins to open his heart, and as the story progresses he starts to become more like a real protagonist.

– This is your first time appearing in a robot anime, right?

I felt like “Finally, I get to ride in a TSF and fight!” I can’t experience the feeling of becoming one with a robot and fighting in real life, after all. In the beginning, it was a big deal for me to get to watch all these veteran actors perform up close. The first barrier was whether I would be able to say “666th TSF Squadron” without messing up. After that, there’s a scene where Katia is explaining the names of the TSFs, but even though it was my first time saying it, Katia should consider this common knowledge. I had to practice a lot at home to be able to say it without sounding weird.

– Did the actual recording session go smoothly for you?

It was a big help to me that I got to record Katia for the game before the anime sessions. I understood her from the game, so I had a clear image of her in my mind. I recorded the game by myself, so I had to imagine the dialogue between Katia and Theodor. But for the anime, I had both the film and the other cast members, so it was very easy to match up with them.

– The broadcast is about to start, so tell us what to look out for.

This is a franchise with a long history, but the story is easy to understand and you get sucked into it from the very beginning. You get very concerned about how this hopeless situation will develop, and about the fate of the characters and the future of this world. The battles are amazing, and the BETA are very disgusting (laughs). I think this is a show that many types of people can enjoy, so please watch!